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[Glass Rebel]

The target of localization should be to capture the feeling and intent of the original release while trying to maintain as close to the text as possible without compromising the quality of the writing.

If the original game is set in a fantasy world that features references to Japanese culture outside from the game's universe, an English release should attempt to replace these references as faithfully as possible. Of course, for that you'd need knowledge of both Japanese and Western culture.

If the game is set in Japan however, and a lot of its "flavour" comes from the setting and its cultural references, it's gonna be more difficult. The first Ace Attorney is an example of a game that has great writing but might not necessarily be a great localization.

From what I've seen of Fire Emblem Revelations, the bad stuff seems to be more a case of bad writing rather than localization that went too far.

 

[Nimby]

Don't alter the story, keep the writing as close as possible to the JP version. Obviously change certain jokes that aren't fit for western audiences.

 

[Nimby]

EDIT: apparently this isn't a result of localisation. Oops

And this would be the only case I approve of.

Edit: double post oops

 

[TurboButts]

This idea that publishers shouldn't remove things from their game they they think could possibly be weird or offensive is crazy to me. You can't take creative control away from the ones making the thing. There's so much cut content that the public never sees anyways, you can't hold them hostage over cut content that has been shown. There's effectively no difference.

 

[partyphone]

This is such an insane notion that I cannot believe so many people are parroting it.

It Is possible to translate something without losing anything, even if you have to get a little creative with it.

Like, are you under the assumption that nobody in the Western world can ever conceive of a relationship that does not exist in their culture, like senpai/kohai?

it's not remotely possible to lose nothing in translation. translating is necessarily a creative act. if it wasn't Google translate would be sufficient for everything.

but since games are largely commercial products creative decisions in translations have to take profits into account.

 

[Phu]

"Learn the language" is the worst response to someone who wants the closest thing possible to the original work.

Yes, learning Japanese would solve a lot of localization-caused issues for a lot of gamers, but not all games are Japanese. Books, Films, etc. "Learn the language" falls apart so quickly when considering how many languages there are.

 

[News Bot]

it's not remotely possible to lose nothing in translation.

Are you talking dialogue or standard text? The latter is very easy to translate without losing anything while still making it sound and flow well in English. The former often requires a little more creativity, especially if it's Japanese, but it's still very possible to not lose anything.

 

[The n00b Avenger]

"Learn the language" is the worst response to someone who wants the closest thing possible to the original work.

Yes, learning Japanese would solve a lot of localization-caused issues for a lot of gamers, but not all games are Japanese. Books, Films, etc. "Learn the language" falls apart so quickly when considering how many languages there are.

Well if they have too many languages to learn for what they play then I guess they better get used to the fact that they aren't getting something that's closest to the original work.

 

[Lunar15]

The Beruka/Saizo "..." conversation is pretty weird, yeah. I'd take that to task just because there's a lot of other dialogue about killing in the game. I don't demand they change it or anything, but it'd be interesting to hear the reasoning.

I actually don't think that convo would be as big a deal with people if it wasn't for the preceding "controversies". They just found a really easy thing to pick out to get people really mad at Nintendo for. That's what those people are good at, changing the subject to something else. The Saizo/Beruka convo became a banner for a much more ridiculous campaign because more people could agree with it.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

This is such an insane notion that I cannot believe so many people are parroting it.

It Is possible to translate something without losing anything, even if you have to get a little creative with it.

Like, are you under the assumption that nobody in the Western world can ever conceive of a relationship that does not exist in their culture, like senpai/kohai?

What are you talking about with that last bit? Of course it can be explained, but unless it's very important to the setting of the game, like in something that focuses on relationships in a Japanese school, then it's likely not very important when it comes to conveying the story. This is exactly what I and I assume others mean when we say it's always more important and necessary to focus on intent rather then individual words used in the source language.

There is no objective "correct" 1-to-1 translation of just about any word, so any kind of demand for direct translations is just misguided. Subjectivity is *always* involved.

 

[LegendofLex]

This is such an insane notion that I cannot believe so many people are parroting it.

It Is possible to translate something without losing anything, even if you have to get a little creative with it.

Like, are you under the assumption that nobody in the Western world can ever conceive of a relationship that does not exist in their culture, like senpai/kohai?

So...even if you have to localize it?

 

[Neoleo2143]

I think it's explained in Revelations. Supposedly.

Except this wasn't the case in the Japanese version. It's the same in all routes.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

"Learn the language" is the worst response to someone who wants the closest thing possible to the original work.

Yes, learning Japanese would solve a lot of localization-caused issues for a lot of gamers, but not all games are Japanese. Books, Films, etc. "Learn the language" falls apart so quickly when considering how many languages there are.

A robotic translation that focuses on the words over the intent is not at all close to the original work. What you would experience as a result of such a dry and literal take is completely different to what players of the original would experience.

 

[akidnamededdy]

This is such an insane notion that I cannot believe so many people are parroting it.

It Is possible to translate something without losing anything, even if you have to get a little creative with it.

Like, are you under the assumption that nobody in the Western world can ever conceive of a relationship that does not exist in their culture, like senpai/kohai?

So...even if you have to localize it?

Seriously lol.

 

[shtkn]

whenever this argument comes up, i'm always reminded of this video about fansubs vs professional translations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0

 

[Funyarinpa]

This idea that publishers shouldn't remove things from their game they they think could possibly be weird or offensive is crazy to me. You can't take creative control away from the ones making the thing. There's so much cut content that the public never sees anyways, you can't hold them hostage over cut content that has been shown. There's effectively no difference.

Wat
I can somewhat see the creative freedom angle but "there's so much cut content not shown" is nonsense. That's like saying a game's bugs shouldn't be reported or talked about because surely many many more bugs were patched during development.

As for the creative freedom angle, what anti-censorship people really want is to experience the creator's work which isn't hindered by censorship brought about due to the differing culture of (in this case) the Western society.

We defend the artist's freedom of expression, not hinder it. Is self-censorship the same thing as creative freedom? They sound quite opposites to me, in fact.

 

[Phu]

A robotic translation that focuses on the words over the intent is not at all close to the original work. What you would experience as a result of such a dry and literal take is completely different to what players of the original would experience.

That's kinda what I was sayin' though. I never said it should be some dry, direct translation. I'm just saying people shouldn't have to learn a language to get what the game is going for.

 

[Skinpop]

when it's anything other than a conservative translation.

 

[muteki]

whenever this argument comes up, i'm always reminded of this video about fansubs vs professional translations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0

I get the spirit of the video but nobody expecting "shachou" or "nakama-doushi" in anything other than joke subs. I don't think I've ever seen an argument about people missing honorifics in gaming, more of a fansub thing. We can discuss the merits of it Persona 4 for instance, but has that come up in any of the recent localization brouhaha?

 

[orthodoxy1095]

whenever this argument comes up, i'm always reminded of this video about fansubs vs professional translations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0

Video games should need to come with 4000+ word books of notes.

I get the spirit of the video but nobody expecting "shachou" or "nakama-doushi" in anything other than joke subs. I don't think I've ever seen an argument about people missing honorifics in gaming, more of a fansub thing. We can discuss the merits of it Persona 4 for instance, but has that come up in any of the recent localization brouhaha?

Yeah, that's a really specific issue in a very specific kind of subbing. You can translate shachou without losing the real meaning. That's a different change than I think what most people are thinking of.

 

[Nachos]

Then how about you just don't get the joke and move on instead of changing it so they say "haha long cat is looooooong" or something.

The problem with what you're saying though is that in a lot of cases, the moment a joke is stripped from its cultural and/or linguistic context (certainly the linguistical structure of being a joke in the first place), it stops being a joke altogether. There's nothing to go over anyone's head. Any remotely functional human being doesn't parse humor intellectually; it's visceral and emotional and relatively immediate. Looking up the context of a gag is like explaining a joke to yourself – any possibility for comedy is all but dead by the time you get to that point.

People put way too much emphasis on the "intent" of the text. The intent of the text is the text. It's "character made this joke" not "character made this joke that everyone playing the game will understand and laugh at."

Basically I think translations should be as literal as possible and any other aim is misguided. How good they can be comes down to the skill of the translator.

Regarding literal translation, bad are emphatically. Note: Japanese phrase for "literal translations" was written in katakana for further emphasis. Also, だ was used instead of です. Also, "translation" might actually be plural, I dunno lol (

Are you talking dialogue or standard text? The latter is very easy to translate without losing anything while still making it sound and flow well in English. The former often requires a little more creativity, especially if it's Japanese, but it's still very possible to not lose anything.

Hope about this, then? There's a part in Dangan Donpa 2 where you're displayed the message ゴカイシタ. Because it is written in katakana, the actual intent of the phrase is ambiguous. It can mean "You were mistaken" or it can mean "Go down five." This is because the phrases are complete homophones, and the kanji that would ordinarily be there to provide context was converted to a syllabary. How would you translate this? NISA didn't even try translating or localizing the ambiguity and just made the hidden context not only explicit, but the only one. I haven't seen a satisfactory conversion that didn't change the button mapping (which doesn't appear to be easily changeable in the commercial game).

It is literally impossible to convey everything in two languages from as widely disparate language families as Japanese and English. The best you can strive for is something that tries to be faithful as possible while still making concessions to overall writing quality. 100% conversion is a valiant but nebulously and loftily foolish ideal.

 

[tiijj]

whenever this argument comes up, i'm always reminded of this video about fansubs vs professional translations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUYlqLlbix0

I remember those VHS fansubs. People were selling those for like $10-20 (more or less, it also depends on the type that you want, there's a "master copy" and like other types of copies and I think you can get a S-VHS version as well, they even have ratings of the quality of the copy). You can get those locally or through some mail order through the fansubbers site. You can also borrow or rent them locally (where I live anyway). I had to borrow/rent it with someone who has a very very very very poor hygiene. If I wasn't desperate in watching some anime, I wouldn't go near the guy. It brings back memories LOL.

 

[Par Score]

This idea that publishers shouldn't remove things from their game they they think could possibly be weird or offensive is crazy to me. You can't take creative control away from the ones making the thing. There's so much cut content that the public never sees anyways, you can't hold them hostage over cut content that has been shown. There's effectively no difference.

Exactly. Developers should be allowed to make any changes to their work that they see fit.

The localisation process is the exact opposite of "censorship", it's the original creators modifying their own creation.

All of the people demanding a "faithful" "direct" translation are the ones trying to force a creator's hand, which sounds a lot more like "censorship" to me.

 

[foxuzamaki]

I'm not in favor of going the 100% translation route like some other people are, but certain changes can be really distracting. Things like that Zelda Triforce Heroes doge meme. It really felt forced, and would probably still be distracting to people who have never seen the meme before (if not more so).

I'm fine with the FE Fates changes, and wouldn't be surprised of the writing is better than the Japanese version (though there's no way I'll ever know if this is the case).

It's a silly line in a silly game, that is a bad example

 

[News Bot]

Hope about this, then? There's a part in Dangan Donpa 2 where you're displayed the message ゴカイシタ. Because it is written in katakana, the actual intent of the phrase is ambiguous. It can mean "You were mistaken" or it can mean "Go down five." This is because the phrases are complete homophones, and the kanji that would ordinarily be there to provide context was converted to a syllabary. How would you translate this? NISA didn't even try translating or localizing the ambiguity and just made the hidden context not only explicit, but the only one. I haven't seen a satisfactory conversion that didn't change the button mapping (which doesn't appear to be easily changeable in the commercial game).

It is literally impossible to convey everything in two languages from as widely disparate language families as Japanese and English. The best you can strive for is something that tries to be faithful as possible while still making concessions to overall writing quality. 100% conversion is a valiant but nebulously and loftily foolish ideal.

That's a good example, but it sounds more like a unique case rather than the standard. I've translated entire games, books, novels, manga and drama albums and haven't run into that issue. I'm not saying I disagree with you, though. I totally agree. The problem I have is when something is clearly not the best it could be, or faithful at all. I never expect 100% conversion in localization but at the same time... I'd prefer if it wasn't below half. Though I've personally only experienced something that bad in one particular series.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

It's a silly line in a silly game, that is a bad example

It's actually a perfect example of a translation undoing itself by overly dating itself.

People are talking about not wanting to need to look things up all the time, well there you go. Let's just put dated memes into our games that people will need to look up to understand one day!

 

[News Bot]

Exactly. Developers should be allowed to make any changes to their work that they see fit.

The localisation process is the exact opposite of "censorship", it's the original creators modifying their own creation.

All of the people demanding a "faithful" "direct" translation are the ones trying to force a creator's hand, which sounds a lot more like "censorship" to me.

But a lot of the time, the developers don't have any involvement in the localization at all. Then you have the fact that not all developers know the target language for localization. Neither of these puts the developers in any position to modify their work or alter their intention.

 

[Palculator]

The localisation process is the exact opposite of "censorship", it's the original creators modifying their own creation.

All of the people demanding a "faithful" "direct" translation are the ones trying to force a creator's hand, which sounds a lot more like "censorship" to me.

Stop this silly nonsense and realise self-censorship is a thing that does happen and that concepts like "original author" and "creator" in a product handled by possibly thousands of people is a such a fuzzy morass that determining if changes are in accordance to their desires is impossible for us on the outside and probably most people on the inside. I'm not saying all localisation changes fall under self-/censorship, but what you're saying is incredibly reductive to the point of being wrong.

 

[lupinko]

The only localization issues I have are when they change the names of things in a way that makes it really confusing to discuss those things with people from different countries.

Like in Street Fighter, the whole M. Bison/Vega/Balrog nonsense.

Or with Pokemon, how they have different names for all of them in every different language. I can't imagine how confusing it is for, say, a French Pokemon fan to try to discuss Pokemon here on GAF. Whenever someone mentions a Pokemon, they'd have to go look up which one they're talking about, and whenever they want to mention a Pokemon, they'd have to go look up the English name first.

I saw some foreign tourist ask for Alakazam at the Mega Tokyo Pokemon Center in Ikebukuro and the clerk was completely lost. Lol

 

[Chet Rippo]

"I hate English. Why do we need to learn English, couldn't we just get a translator?"

-said in perfect English.

 

[snikky]

There is no such thing as "taking it too far" in localization, only the varying lines individual consumers draw in the mental sand to line up with their own concepts and notions of what they think they want.

 

[notaskwid]

When nintendo puts they're dirty white gloves on my Project Zero.

 

[News Bot]

There is no such thing as "taking it too far" in localization, only the varying lines individual consumers draw in the mental sand to line up with their own concepts and notions of what they think they want.

Might need to get this post localized because it's basically gibberish.

 

[ZeroX03]

Short of completely destroying the story or removing huge chunks of content, I'm alright with most localization. You'd have to really gut a game to get me upset about it. At the same time I'm rarely fazed by more controversial cultural content. So either way I'm happy. Changing gameplay in negative ways is a far greater sin.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

I'd say Bravely Second removing a lot of branched scenes from subquest content was definetely taking it too far.

 

[tiijj]

There is no such thing as "taking it too far" in localization, only the varying lines individual consumers draw in the mental sand to line up with their own concepts and notions of what they think they want.

It really depends if you wanna play the same game. "Taking localization too far" is like localizing Fire Emblem into Ice Crest turning it from a fantasy game making into a space/science fiction type of settings. Then they changed the main character from Marth or whoever the main character is to one of the NPC in one of the village. Then they made the villager into a cyborg mutant ninja samurai chose one. Or whatever the popular thing where it is being localized.

I'm not saying that it will be a bad game, I'll most likely play it if it's a good game but that is "taking it too far" in localization.

 

[Bio]

I just want them to translate it.

I don't want them to change alcohol to water, I don't want them to replace references with american references, I don't want them to remove scenes, I don't want them to change graphics. Yes I realize sentences are structured different so there will always be a little bit of changing when doing a translation to make sure sentences actually sound like English sentences, that's fine, that's not the kind of changing I'm talking about.

If someone in the game makes a joke about a Japanese TV show, leave that in, don't replace it with a joke about Seinfeld or some shit.

 

[Vital Tundra]

They went to far with the new FE game.

 

[Hatty]

Nintendo goes too far all the time I mean look what they did to remix 10 in Rhythm Heaven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhKOlJ4XFeA
Or Kokiri forest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55N1ZjEmGlY

Spoiler

/s

 

[Opto]

I just want them to translate it.

I don't want them to change alcohol to water, I don't want them to replace references with american references, I don't want them to remove scenes, I don't want them to change graphics. Yes I realize sentences are structured different so there will always be a little bit of changing when doing a translation to make sure sentences actually sound like English sentences, that's fine, that's not the kind of changing I'm talking about.

If someone in the game makes a joke about a Japanese TV show, leave that in, don't replace it with a joke about Seinfeld or some shit.

Well there goes all the puns.

 

[L95]

Of course if they missed that actual reference in Revelations then your point remains.

I think they did this for one of the other games in the series (used 炎の紋章 instead of ファイアーエムブレム for the reference) but I can't remember which one.

I don't think every game does this, but I think at least Binding Blade and Awakening do this. (And a notable exception being 4, which keeps the kanji spelling because the "fire emblem" in that game is some obscure house crest and not plot relevant anyway) I want to say FE12 also does this, because I remember the fan translation team discussing how to handle that nuance in English.

 

[xevis]

Removing the waifu petting minigame (regardless of the fact that i personally hate the idea of the minigame and applaud the choice to remove it) is straight up censorship, not "localization".

Changing some piece of art to better reflect alternative cultural norms, or in response to criticism, is not censorship.

 

[Venfayth]

I think that saying "learn the language" in response to controversial localization changes is undercutting actual criticism.

It's absolutely better for someone invested in a culture to immerse themselves in that culture, but that doesn't somehow affect the quality of a localization of a specific product.

In other words, sure, learn the language, but the people who don't want to still get to say "hey I think what you localizers are doing is bad for these reasons"

 

[Bio]

Changing some piece of art to better reflect alternative cultural norms, or in response to criticism, is not censorship.

You can keep saying it but it doesn't make it true. I get sick of people implying that it's not real censorship because it's not an overbearing government law or something - censoring yourself is still censorship.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

This is such an insane notion that I cannot believe so many people are parroting it.

It Is possible to translate something without losing anything, even if you have to get a little creative with it.

Like, are you under the assumption that nobody in the Western world can ever conceive of a relationship that does not exist in their culture, like senpai/kohai?

Honestly, that last bit isn't even that far from the truth even if it is a fairly simple cultural concept.

For something like senpai/kohai f course it can be explained, but a large majority of people will not understand the nuance with some of its usage. It is something that permeates almost every single conversation and interaction, especially in a social or corporate setting.

In fact I would say that including it in for fans who just think its 'cute' or whatever and completely lack the cultural experience to understand the nuance just works to distract them from the original intent of the story. It is totally possible to get the same sort of nuance through good character dialogue and writing instead of shoehorning in an alien cultural concept that people can only have a passing understanding of.

It can have its place in localization, especially with some of the recent anime/games that focus on mundane anime tropes, but I avoid it all costs in pretty much everything I have localized.

 

[FSLink]

Related to this and looking at your avatar, one could argue that certain fundamental elements of the Ace Attorney series were changed in localization by changing the region from Japan to America.

Though I believe one of the localization leads expressed a bit of regret at what they had done and stated that they probably wouldn't have changed the region if the game were localized today, I am for what they did with Ace Attorney. It's a big part of its charm, to me. Can't imagine knowing Phoenix Wright as "Naruhodo Ryouichi" and such.

Agreed, though I do agree that memes can sometimes date a localization. The SPARDA joke in AA2 is pretty dated now. Not really a fan of them unless they can be funny without knowing the reference to it.

 

[nkarafo]

I actually liked Probotector more. Not a fan of the American macho hero type.

 

[Koppai]

I am on both sides of the equation...

Changing the story by erasing dialogue between characters is a huge no-no to me, but since I do not have the patience/time to learn Japanese, I let it slide. It really disappoints me when stuff like that happens, as the story is the big reason why I even play video games.

Editing stuff that may seem strange/perverted like a boob slider or clothing that barely covers the character (like in Bravely Default) is okay to me. I mean wtf in the first place were they thinking.

Seeing stuff like the above happening in 2016 kind of bothers me. Literal translations would be boring, but when you are changing the emotion of a character or the story, I think that is taking it too far.

 

[mugwhump]

From recent memory, it's been discussed as Nintendo is taking localization one step too far for many gamers, mostly for their RPG localizations, including Fire Emblem Fates and

Spoiler

Bravely Second.

Not Nintendo. But Nintendo has been the biggest culprit this gen. I quite like their localized scripts, but FFV, XCX, and FE:F all had highly questionable removal/alteration of non-textual content.

I would rather have it be taken too far, as in the '...' conversation, which I thought was pretty clever and a nice change of pace (there are so many support convos in the game that after a while they all start to seem the same), than have boring, stilted translations.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a hard example for "This translation goes too far" myself anyway.

It was funny, but they sacrificed a support's worth of development between the two characters for the sake of that joke. Not sure the tradeoff was worth it.
As for translations going too far, consider making trans characters cisgendered, like NoA did for Vivian in TTYD.

You can customize your character in the same way male characters can in the japanese version.
If you complain about lack of options in the USA version, than you should complain about lack of options in the male characters in the japanese version too

So what? That's got no bearing on the fact that removing an already-completed customization option was a completely ass-backwards decision.

This idea that publishers shouldn't remove things from their game they they think could possibly be weird or offensive is crazy to me. You can't take creative control away from the ones making the thing.

When Nintendo of America starts making their own games, I'll let them remove as much stuff as they want.

 

[xevis]

You can keep saying it but it doesn't make it true. I get sick of people implying that it's not real censorship because it's not an overbearing government law or something - censoring yourself is still censorship.

No, it isn't. It's reflective of the fact that artists do not create their art in a vacuum but in a society, with other people. Responding to the feelings, concerns and criticisms of others is not censorship. The artist's voice is not being forcefully taken away.

To put it another way: if you are afraid of being shouted down for saying something stupid, perhaps you shouldn't say stupid things. Nobody has a right to say whatever and be free from criticism.