Eiyuden Chronicles - WORST Translation Ever?!
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Don’t get it twisted, I’m always on the side of gamers, and I always think that we should strive for the best localization possible. But I also think that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot when we finally get a fantastic turn based retro RPG and people boycott it based upon some very nitpicky things. We’ve got to choose our battles, And 505 Games did say that they’re going to fix localization. But I’ve played the entire game and I really didn’t notice any glaring issues.
czcams.com/video/CGmESJM6BFQ/video.html the people going cuckoo about the Sweet Baby conspiracy angle really need to watch this video in particular, as it's such a thorough debunking of their nonsense angle in particular with regard to the localization (not that Sweet Baby was even involved with Eiyuden, but even the basic premise they're harping on is SO cringe and results from them being deeply credulous of conspiracy nonsnese)
Eh you’re making a dishonest argument in your video. Minor changes for flow or flavor are fine. Using the word “chud”, tho? Inserting modern day politics? Nah.
@@YouTubdotCubI was in a gamefaqs chat about it and at least some of the complaints are just plain right wing conspiracy theorist stuff. Nothing worth listening to really.
people don't know how a straight up translation is super stiff and not very interesting to read for other languages. A lot of times translation/localization takes context as well.
@@omidiartgaming4102 there’s a balance
I think most of the complaints come from the fact that the localizer company (one person in particular) has basically come out and said that they deliberately changed dialogue to accommodate a "modern audience" in the west. This kind of patronization towards Japanese developed games waters down the experience and takes creative liberties with what the creators originally intended. I think this is a trend we are seeing in the west when Japanese games are localized and that is why people are up in arms.
The “come over and toss my salad any day of the week” translation took me out. 😂😂😂
Shit, I'm playing Google detective to figure out what game that was. That was wild! 😂
@@TheIncredibleEmuit's magic knight rayearth for sega Saturn :)
I'm laughing so hard right now. It is hilarious 😂
even me when i try to play jp voice and english sub title i really know that what i hearing in japanese and the english sub is not really was the translation at all i can say this since i study a bit japanese i was younger XD
That and the "well-trimmed bush" were hilarious.
Obligatory “This guy are sick.” comment
It's bad grammar, but it's not like they totally changed the meaning of the line there. Overall FF7's translation was mostly fine with the rough spots just being accidents... which is a little different from "let's make the serious character use phrases like farthead"
I just came here, as someone who knows Japanese and English, to say that some of the proposed alternate translations you showed off are worse and much further off than the official ones, especially Francesca. She is absolutely using rude language, but Japanese doesn't even have "curse words" in the same sense as English does.
Several of the others have also added or removed words as well, despite claiming to be closer. I'm not here to say that the official English version is good or bad in a vaccuum for a game I've only played for a couple hours, just to point out that many of these people trying to claim that it is bad are not presenting faithful arguments to those of you who do not know Japanese, and in some cases are just flat out worse translations.
I'm assuming the translations people are using to compare the Japanese text are machine translations. I'm barely literate in Japanese and some of these translations they're claiming are more accurate are just straight up ignoring the context of the conversation and are the most literal translations of the sentence it's crazy that this is their argument
I only had a couple years of Japanese so I’m relieved to hear that’s the case because honestly even with my limited Japanese, that’s the impression I was getting. It reminds me of when I was very young and hadn’t fully learned idioms in either of my mother tongues (Swedish and English) and would try to translate literally between English and Swedish. One of the sillier examples was when I translated “cost the shirt off his back” word for word into Swedish and got a very confused look from one of my teachers. 🤦♂️
And in particular, there is no Japanese word that is even close to a one-to-one match for an f-bomb. So whether that word is used or not is very much up to the individual translator (and whoever's in charge of telling them what content rating to aim for; do we really want games to get rated M for swearing alone?).
Breath of Fire has some pretty bad translations from what I've heard/seen.
Breath of fire 2 i remember being especially bad. In one part, you have a yes or no option, and they switched them. You have to say no for yes and vice versa. First and only time I've ever seen that personally
They do indeed! Honestly, I'm not sure how I played them back then lol! Still enjoyed playing them though. Translations have come a long way since then.
It’s so bad that the fan translation is about 10x better
Idk about the worst, but in the GBA port of Tales of Phantasia, “Ragnarok” was somehow mistranslated as “Kangaroo”. (Apparently Microsoft spell check was the culprit.)
As a Swedish-American, I find that hilarious. 😂
I thought you were full of shit until I looked into it. Holy hell.
Spoony bard for the win
I love how spoony bard really isn't a bad translation, though. It sounds silly, but Tellah is probably old enough that spoony would be in his normal vocabulary. It's antiquated and fell out of fashion years ago. But it isn't wrong.
@@thequestingbunny right I love that it works but it very much so is an extremely famous mistranslation so famous that wheb Square fixed it in some of the versions the fans complained so much that they out it back lol
@@thequestingbunnyYep. 'Spoony' is just a really archaic word for lovesick, so it was actually a pretty good translation in context.
People complaining on Twitter? No... I don't believe it. That's new.
Bunch of people who don't speak Japanese speaking about the accuracy of the localization makes my head hurt
@@UnfairBandicootNo, people who CAN understand Japanese discovered this and brought it to everyone else's attention. Your remark is dismissive of a genuine concern of altering a work through unnecessary creative license, poor effort and ideological bent. It is insultingly reductive of a broader issue, whether people speak Japanese or not is irrelevant, it was unnecessarily altered. I've been speaking Japanese for nearly 23 years, so when I read the English and hear the Japanese voices, there are times when they sound like two different characters (Lian is the best example with her cringe millenial dialogue and inconsistent characterisation between the two languages).
@asaka616 lmao
@@asaka616
I feel bad for you as you've wasted your efforts constructing this reply.
Anyway, the only thing can be done is to keep raising awareness and hope Japanese game developers realize this.
@@sampletext9426 I feel bad you don't know what a localization is and spend all your time nitpicking and review bombing a video game. Very bad :)
I think this stems from how big anime has become, in the anime community people see it has distorting the original authors work
What I don't like is when they change the personality of some of the characters.
Tell that to everyone who complains about trans/homo phobia dialogue in Persona games. Localization can never win.
How do you know what ist different ? I played through the whole Game now and cant say o found any issues but i don't speak japanese and im Not interested into this, the (in my Case German) Text is the only i know and that was Like i would have wrote it, there wasnt a single questionable Line, Not Like with persona 5 where they forgot Like half of the words 😂
@@kewa_design the earliest Persona games(up to 4 mainly) are widely known for a whole bunch of homo/transphobic jokes, sentiments and all around plot arcs. They've been *kinda* hidden or ommitted in subsecuent re-releases.
@@greatrulo fine, but that has absolutlely zero to do with my question right ? HOW DO U KNOW this without knowing the original ? I played every persona game at least twice and loved all, except for persona 5 i never felt like they made mistakes, here they clearly made and i also know at least one example of homophobic stuff, which is also fine imo because it replicates real world pretty good xD
@@kewa_designeven without knowing the original, there were some lines that felt out of place or didn't make sense at all, like when you beat the golem the protagonist says "got him" and another character says "are you sure is a him" and then proceeds to talk about the plot like nobody said anything,it makes the whole scene feel awkward.
The thing is when you have the majority of fans saying to stop fucking with the translation and just translate it and THEY DONT LISTEN FOR DECADES. It’s mad fucking annoying. On top of that we don’t give a fuck about the translators sense of humor we want the creators sense of humor and that’s it
Completely disagree "not a big deal" is not an argument, if you are not doing your job properly then you aren't doing your job properly. At my translation job people would get in trouble if I change things. The part of "more personality" is also false. Personality can't be measured therefore it can't be said there is more of it. If I have a friend who makes jokes all the time and one who doesn't it doesn't mean one friend has more personality than the other. It means they are different people.
I’ll always support consumer rights. If you don’t want something in a product or service do not support it.
I’ve played the game and it didn’t bother me personally. However the localization is political. Fortunately it is only a handful of times. One of the lead translators Brian Gray in an interview came out and said that Japanese games are sexist and outright admits it was changed for ideological reasons.
That’s definitely something no small number of people do not want. Id lose respect for them if they didn’t boycott as that what a mindless consumer does.
Localizations are designed to make the game consumable for the audience its being distributed to, but im a jrpg fan. I love jrpgs because they're from japan and not the west. So i usually prefer translations with maybe a few altercations made to make it flow better while reading. Localizations tend to change too much and insert things for the sake of "spicing" things up and to add flair. They change the way characters are portrayed, like in here Lian comes off as a lot more annoying and rude in english than she does in japanese. I just want the original writing intact without any extra fluff the localizers deemed necessary to "localize" the game for the west. I like jrpgs because they are japanese rpgs. Just my two cents.
I understand that position and I think you’re being very fair in the way you express it. One thing that’s a little tricky, however, is that different parts of the fandom may want different things and the localization teams may be asked for something different from the people that hire them. I know from experience, for instance in conversations with my brother about having his first novel translated to other languages, that sometimes when a translator/localizer suggests changes for a new audience, that the creator praises them for the suggestion and approves it.
So many fans have different preferences. Some want localizers to translate as literally as possible from the source material. I’m fond of how much more succinct many of the Woolsey translations from the SNES era were compared to the original text. Others like the Working Designs pop-culture references approach. So it’s virtually impossible for the localization teams to please everyone.
In other words, I totally respect your preference and I think I’d be fine reading the translations that you favor in some games. I just want to point out that it’s pretty much impossible for the localization teams to please everyone at once.
@@perlichtman1562they don't need to please everyone, just the game's target audience
@@akiradkcnUnless your game’s target audience is one person, then my remark stands. A lot of people watch David’s videos that are a part of the target audience and if you read the comments, there’s a lot of variation in what they are asking for. Look through the comments on this video and you’ll find people both defending and criticizing the Working Designs localizations, illustrating that you can’t please everyone in a target audience when you localize.
as someone who has worked in translation and localization for nearly a decade,
i understand your points but the people complaining about the issues with localization make many valid points, too.
i often see people say that the changes made are required because the script needs to "punched up" et al, but they don't seem to realize this implies that the original script is boring.
similarly, there are many localizers who lean far too hard into creative freedom and, in the case of games like Unicorn Overlord, mischaracterize characters, misinterpret scenes or bring in Working Designs tier changes to the original script.
the examples you provided in the tweet are a good example; they're kind of haha funny until you realize that they are essentially a vandalization of someone else's art.
Don't know if you did it on purpose but you literally skipped over the most controversial of them all, the already infamous "you sure it's a he?" when the original simply stated " what the hell was that thing"? Or the complete change in personality in Nowa when he meets his aunt - kind and enthusiastic in Japanese, bored and uninterested in English. It's this little things that make you doubt about the whole product
This is exactly what i meant in one of my comments and you are right, it's quite sus why he didn't say anything about it.
First off, im mostly happy with the game...and I agree attacking localization and localizers in a general and insulting way is just poor behavior.
However...I think its equally poor how a localizer thinks they have any right whatsoever to change story and characters they did not create. Yes, there are things not easily translated, and yes some things dont come across in a straght translation like they should ...but the personalities of the characters, especially during the beginning is altered and this sets the tone for the game.
Think of the words you used in this video for Lian: "...to give her a bit more personality" surely, David you dont think a localizer has a right to make that judgement over the original artist?! I know you probably dont mean it that way...but it shouldn't even be a thought.
Examples of poor translations in the past are not a good excuse for it. We are in an unprecedented period of translated work all over media. I look at the superb Geofront translations for Trails...and even they are not perfect always...but respect for the artist is important.
In the end, I dont have a problen with what you are saying here, but the publisher has responded and im satisfied they understand the problem.
Different localizers are given different briefs and sometimes those briefs do include the right to change those things when they would land differently in the target culture than in the original one. Here’s how one job site describes the role.
“What is a localization specialist?
A localization specialist is a professional responsible for adapting content, products, or services to specific languages, cultures, and regions. The goal of localization is to make the content or product feel native to the target audience, taking into account linguistic, cultural, and regional nuances.”
In other words, it is very much within a localizers job description to change things that would hit differently in another culture - unless they are given a brief from the client that specifically discourages it. If players don’t like how the localizers are changing things stylistically then their complaint is really with the directions the client gave the localizers - not with the localizers that followed those directions.
@perlichtman1562 unless you have proof rabbit and bear gave them these instructions, it's not really relevant isn't it? Also, I honestly don't see how the added words or changed phrases would make any of the translations more "culturally relevant" in any way. Nothing that was altered is a Japanese turn of phrase or culturally unique reference that an English speaker would have trouble understanding.
For me here is the thing i dont think that the translation being bad calls for boycotts of the game but on the other side it is an issue and whenever people call it out they are being called toxic and whatnot as a Japanese speaker whenever i read the English translation i do physically cringe i just wish they didnt insert all these cringey jokes it gives characters a whole other tone from the Japanese character
I'm so glad I'm going for the physical version, because it'll be nearly a month. Hopefully we get those patches and the fixed localization.
Same
All you're getting is fixed typos. They can't redo an entire script with voices in a month. And if they were going to do that, they'd certainly go under. Also, unless you speak Japanese in this video you are comparing english to english, both translated from japanese by different people, both inaccurate in their own ways because the structure of japanese is so different it might as well be from a different planet.
You could also learn Chinese, it's apparently the most faithful to the JP dialogue as it wasn't just translated from the English localisation like the other foreign languages.
I understand changing jokes, idioms, etc around because they wouldn’t make sense in English. I just think that the things that can be translated 1 to 1 should be
When we were playing this last night, my husband and I were actually taking note of this. He and I are playing with the Japanese audio, because he prefers their voices. Well I'm studying Japanese, and there were a few times I was like "whoa, that's not what they said!" The one that got me the most was how Kogen calls Nowa "aniki", and that doesn't mean "cousin" that means "big brother". I get what they were going for and I'm okay with how they wrote it. And another one that made me go "what?!" was when meeting Yusuke and he calls himself a "desperado" in English. He's one of those well-meaning but harsh-appearing street thugs found in a lot of Japanese media, and I really think he is inspired by the anime Yu Yu Hakusho or Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. There really isn't a word that works in English for what he is. So... why not? Let him call himself a desperado if he wants. *shrug* I noticed the "fartface" and the other self-censorship, and I really didn't care. It's silly, but maybe they didn't want a M rating for too much swearing? maybe it's a throwback to when we couldn't really get away with swearing in English titles as this game plays like it was pulled right out of the early PSX era?
But honestly the localization doesn't bother me as a whole. As long as the text is consistent throughout, and the script matches what the story is doing, I'm okay with it. The game is so fun that the changes in the English script really don't have that big of an impact. It's like people just wanna be nit-picky just to be nit-picky.
If you play a lot of games with japanese audio and understands just a little of japanese you will see a lot of translations issues to the point of some completely changing entire characters. Tales of Hearts R is an example with Hisui. He went from an overprotective brother to someone who just wants to offend anyone all the time and have an temperament problem.
@@theLikou1 I never did play Tales of Hearts R, but I'm aware of this happening between localizations. Maybe they felt that a different personality would be liked in another region more? Or it was the localizer feeling like Hisui was on the creepy side? I couldn't tell you. There's many different reasons why that might happen. Since I don't work as one, I admittedly have zero idea as to how that would happen without others on the team pointing it out.
I think the word delinquent is more appropriate for Yusuke (he is definitely a Yuyu Hakusho reference, he looks like Kuwabara and he have Urameshi's first name)
@@fernandesh.m.5504 He is probably not an reference since his visual is just a common thing from japanese gangs from the 80s. Visuals like Kuwabara are extremely common in anime from that period.
Agreed - I also didn’t care about the differences I noticed so far either. It’s great to read the comments of someone else that’s had enough experience learning another language to separate the signal from the noise like that. :)
I’m used to that sort of thing from years of watching almost two hundred anime series at this point. Not to mention that if I had a dime for every time that a single word response in the original Japanese (like “hai” or “wakarimasu”) got a full sentence in the English subtitles, I might be able to order pizza for a week. :) I’ll hear “hai” one time and read “of course, as you wish” or hear “hai” and read “without fail” as just a couple examples.
The over the top negativety isnt surprising. Somehow the current raised-on-the-internet generation has gotten away with treating other humans inhumanely on the internet, behind their keyboard, all their lives without any repercussions.
They did this for Unicorn Overlord too. It just didn't take off quite as much thankfully
I’m sorry, I’m just sick of JRPGs having terrible translations. Prose is really important to me enjoying my experience, and I just can’t with this game.
Yup, lots of gamers sadly jump from "controversy" bandwagon to the other, from week to week, it's sad to see.
@Theologica_ If you cared that much you'd learn Japanese and it wouldn't be a problem for you. Half the "mistakes" that were shared in this video were super weird to call out as mistakes.
ったく is often translated as damn it (if you look on Jisho it's "good grief"). It's an expression of exacerbation, like yelling "Oh jeez". Sure some people might use "fuck" in this circumstance but it is far from the norm, and not anything near a "mistake"
@@Raithian1994 I do know Japanese but come on, non-Japanese speaking literary minded people deserve games too. Not is it too much to ask for well written dialogue in my native tongue. Seriously it’s not the 90s anymore.
I appreciate your content and been following you for a whole and share many of your viewpoints, but injecting modern US politics into a Japanese fantasy game seems out of place. With the game's setting and global audience in mind, it's clear that such commentary doesn't resonate with a significant portion of players considering USA only makes up less than 4.3% of the world population and only a fraction of of this 4.3% care about this USA politics . This isn't merely a translation oversight; it appears deliberate, potentially overshadowing the developer's original vision for the game. Additionally, "chud" carries derogatory connotations, which further complicates matters. While I'm glad efforts are underway to rectify the translation, the intentional insertion of unrelated political themes done purposely and maliciously remains concerning.
yeah agree there is a world outside USA these activists or terrorists like the guy who purposely did the wrong translation to put in his politics in the game need to understand this
Yes 100% agree with this . USA propaganda in a Japanese game set in a mystical world has no business been in there . Seen the docs on the USA guy who did the translations he purposely and maliciously did this and been know for this far left extremist views and threats etc . The game developers should be suing him its not only hurting the games sales but an insult to the late Yoshitaka Murayama vision of the game
Brother that is exactly what localization means…
I think you need to learn the difference between a "translation" and a "localization"
@@linkvagar2336 ohh look an American fury commenting . There is no difference Localization is a broad term which included translation . Still no excuse to inserted modern American politics into a fantasy game made by Japan . They translator has a history of doing this and the game developers should be suing him
Why are people saying "well if they're complaining about this then they haven't played/watched X". That is a terrible mentality to have, why can't you ask for better instead of settling for mediocrity. The localization could have been a lot better and acknowledging that doesn't mean you hate the game now, it just means you want a better localization for (hopefully) the sequel
Because alot of the hate are coming from anti woke peeps that are here to push there own politics, then to help get a better localization. Does that localization need some work yes 100% but its nowhere near as bad as so many people are pushing.
5:12 I think part of the confusion is, the rest of that stuff is just there for context. The only real thing being complained about there is the "rub-a-dub-dub" line, which appears to be a meme insertion (referring to the infamous itadakimasu -> "rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub" joke translation)
7:20 That line there ("chronic case of stupidity") doesn't actually make any sense in the context of the scene. Rather than a line that sounds like she is picking her rant back up after beating them up a bit (like in the Japanese), it sounds like she is just continuing the rant from before, but it doesn't even really follow from her previous line. It's a pretty common symptom of translators/editors working on text in a spreadsheet without any idea or care for what is actually happening in-game. They likely didn't have any notes explicitly telling them there's a break in the scene there, and instead of first actually viewing the scene for context so they know what they're translating/editing, or taking cues from the Japanese (which hinted at that), they just replaced the line with whatever.
8:04 The complaint here is about the insertion of the word "chud". Just like you, most people don't know what it means, since it's some insular, partisan internet slang that doesn't actually belong here. If she just said "*sigh* Another muscle-brain.", or even just "Muscle-brain.", it would be an accurate localization.
They also mistranslated a bunch of system text as is usual these days, but at least that can be patched later with minimal effort. Changing lines with voice acting attached to them is much more problematic.
Basically, if they would do mostly the same job, but without inserting memes and juvenile nonsense and changing things at random, it would likely be a great localization. They're like 90% of the way there. Like imagine you have the most delicious seven-layer cake in the world, but someone decided to spread cough syrup as one layer. "Stop adding cough syrup to cakes" is hardly an unreasonable request, but they seem determined to keep doing it because they feel it is the correct way to perform their jobs. It's still possible to enjoy the cake despite this, but should one really have to?
Actually hmm actually looking at the in-game scene, it makes even less sense... why is she like "Is your friend stupid? I TOLD him to keep his hands off", when he only (allegedly, offscreen) was handsy once, at the beginning? When did he even have a chance to put his hands on a second time? It's another issue with making changes at random without knowing the context. In Japanese she's saying "I TOLD him I'd beat his ass", which is indeed a threat she made earlier that she just now followed through on
7:20 Except that chud has been used for years to mean a “gross, physically unappealing person” without any political connotations - which is why so many slang dictionaries relegate the political usage to a secondary definition at best. On top of that, it’s entirely clear from the context that it’s one of the other definitions that’s being applied here - not a reference to right-wing politics. It goes back even farther than that to a pop-culture reference to a “cult classic” horror film from 1984 titled C.H.U.D.
What happened is that a particular group of people chose to ignore other meanings of the word in order to misinterpret it. That way could claim persecution when there was none being applied in this case.
@@perlichtman1562 Has been used for years where? Almost no one has heard of this usage, especially with this specific meaning. Wiktionary lists a bunch of examples stretching back 20+ years from... Usenet.
Did the translator/editor know of this meaning, intend this meaning, and expect the majority of the audience to understand this meaning? That's delusional at best. And that's even before we get into the point that this meaning did not exist in the Japanese line and thus doesn't belong there without a good reason. And there is none.
@@KajitaniEizan If you weren’t personally dealing with people that were using it all the time in person and didn’t frequent the Usenet groups referenced then for starters take the Wayback Machine to early 2021 and look at that Wiktionary page again.
For starters, the right-wing usage isn’t there yet and you’ll see that a major publication (Vice) is using it the way I mentioned in 2014. Here’s a quote:
“SDCC is crowded enough without a few hundred more chuds in rascal scooters cutting in line and taking up space on the public walkways because they heard the cast of The Big Bang Theory was going to be here or something.”
Also note that in 2004 it’s being used in regards to Simpsons:
“2004 January 20, "Charlie, Minneapolis, MN, US", quoted in "Simpsons keep the laughs coming", BBC News.
When Homer recounts his experience in new york city, being chased by mobsters pimps and chuds! ha ha ha.”
So that’s usage across two major publications, ten years apart - alongside the many Usenet examples you listed and my personal experience being exposed to the usage from my friend.
So the onus would be on anyone trying to prove that the translators were somehow only aware of the right-wing usage and ignorant of decades of use in other contexts - not the other way around.
@@KajitaniEizanThe translator people keep citing as having worked on this is a guy born in 1980. When the movie came out, he was around four. When the Simpsons reference I mentioned was used, he was around twenty-four. When the Vice reference was used, he was around thirty-four. The first time that the right-wing usage shows up in the Wayback Machine for that page is July, 2022 - when he would have been around fourty-two.
Now, I’m in my early 40s right now, was exposed to the non-political usage in my 30s in the early 2010s and have only had friends use it the way I mentioned. The translator is reasonably close to me in age from 1984 on through 2020 (maybe even 2021 or 2022) would have pretty much only had opportunities to hear it outside a political context. So it seems like a bit of a stretch that somehow the last two years would have overwritten at least twenty-six years of opportunities to learn the word chud with a different meaning.
Here's a bit of context as to who the localizers are and why you've got people who are irked by them (myself included)
They're 8-4 (I think they're on par with Gaijinworks/Working Design in terms of accuracy, but to each their own), who are rather infamous for taking liberties with their translation, often times adding things like character traits that aren't in the original JP script (Xenoblade X, Unicorn Overlord, etc) , gilding the lily, so to speak.
Now, a deeper look into what they've done, they were in charge of Gunvolt 1's script, while it was used for the game's initial release, the company that made the game, Inti Creates, scrapped it and resorted to having their in house translator to redo the work for the newer port releases, citing inaccuracies to the script and 8-4 was put on a tighter leash for Gunvolt 2, subsequent Gunvolt sequel translations were handled by Inti Creates in house and not by 8-4.
Game 2, Gotta Protectors, a fantasy game, which was done by 8-4's Brian Gray, he added a line that isn't in the original, a line that breaks the 4th wall and is about anime tropes (80s and anime guys looking asian and white), ergo ruining the immersion and flow of story.
Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if he's also in charge of Eiyuden's chud line and Lian's dialogue.
Game 3, Vanillaware's Unicorn Overlord. Skills with wrong effect descriptions that an avid JRPG player with middling JP knowledge could get right. Omitting details in world building e.g. the angels being arbitrators of God in a prayer, which the game later sets up by having an angel join the party. I've been told on good authority that the JP devs weren't too happy about 8-4's involvement, as it wasn't their usual inhouse Atlus translator that they would get assigned to.
Now, my point of contention, as someone who plays with original JP audio on and knows what is being spoken, while taking it as an opportunity to better my language skill on the side. It is jarring to see lines that are so far off kilter than what is being spoken. You'll think to yourself "hey, that wasn't the intended meaning of said line" or "couldn't they have translated it that way instead?" and by that, I don't mean proverbs or puns that would get lost in translation, but rather basic lines. You may argue, it's a small line, no biggie, but you'd also have to understand, that minor things while small, they pile up and ultimately changes the character as a whole. Say, a catchphrase that was added in, it's now built in as a character quirk. Essentially, a fan fiction by that point.
Now for the next part, both of Unicorn Overlord and Eiyuden's English script served as the basis for the European scripts (French, German, etc), so any alterations to characters are also present in those languages, which makes it more or less, a game of Chinese whispers. Incidentally, the Chinese scripts for both games are accurate and faithful to their JP contemporary.
Now, another gripe I have with localizers like 8-4, as someone residing in Asia, is that when they're translating games over, rather than accommodating most of the English speaking world, they limit it to the USA, as evident with the chud line.
Not sure what going on with their minds with terms like that and dated memes, but it'll just fly right off the heads of non-Americans.
Truth be told, I think it is a disservice to their audience, as it isn't the definitive experience the devs intended for the players. E.g. Square Enix toning down a villain's dialogue in Triangle Strategy to make it 'safe', whereby the guy looks down on women. So, instead of letting players punish the evildoers for that, they'd rather cut lines out to cater to Western societal norms and sensibilities.
At the end of the day, you'd have to ask someone, are you actually playing the same game? Is it truly a Japanese game when there's game alterations to tickle the Western palate?
Apologies, if this is long winded, now you get to analyze and dissect this train of thought that's been on my mind for a long while now.
As someone who speaks multiple languages, every time I've ever had to translate something I have to make difficult split second decisions about what to change. There's literally no way to directly translate everything between two languages, even languages that are very close, like English and Italian/German/etc. For Japanese, which is a completely different language family, it's monumentally harder. It doesn't matter which path you take, if you go more literal, you lose the context for cultural nuance and translated idioms become complete nonsense. If you are more liberal, cultural nuance can be tainted by the translator's own cultural experiences and lose relevance and locally equivalent idioms may not convey the same meanings as the originals. There's no way to make everyone happy in this field. It's all about balance, so I'm glad the devs realize there could be improvements here and are willing to tweak them.
This...
I wanted to say I like your videos but I feel this one is kinda one sided. Because one hand these are not that bad but one the other side with journalist and localization some of them are not helping by saying I can do whatever I want. Also the treehouse localization for fire emblem fates was pretty bad
One part of the translation i came across which I think it's bad is when the game introduces hero attack which is the same as Suikoden's Union attack.
In the Japanese dub, The MC replied "It's because I trust you" but in the english text and dub he said "It just comes to me like a snap of a finger." "it's that simple".
Another one is when you want to recruit Kowata, in the english text he wants you to hunt 3 Wild Boar hides. Which led me to hunt boars but they never drop any items the next hour. I went back to him to see what I read wrong. But no, i just need to kill 3 boars in general.
Pretty sure there are lots of misused creative liberties the localization did. Again, those are some problems coming from me personally. As for the English voice acting, I am glad they gave a Japanese option.
Everyone in defense of the localization conviniently forgets these examples
The localizers shouldn't be changing personalities to characters just because they feel like it or downplay profanity for specific characters, they should always be upheld to a higher standard. Also, other languages usually take the source from the English rather than the Japanese, I don't want to be playing a game that was sanitized because of American sensibilities.
Regarding the word "Chud", it's a highly politicized term constantly used by leftists against anyone they dislike, usually people from the right wing, and it's a severely used in ironic discussions. This term came from people who listen to Chapo Trap House, that used to be a very popular leftist podcast until one of the hosts there was accused of grooming a teenager. Playing a fantasy game and reading that will take anyone's suspension of disbelief, it's insane how anyone allowed this to happen in the first place.
The film CHUD came out in the 80s so nice try.
@@narwhalgamingvariety And still has no place in a fantasy JRPG. Nice try.
I think the real issue, and I agree on that, it's changing character personalities.
Also translators inserting random things that not only are not there on the original script but also being out of place.
And of course I'm not asking for a literal translation, word for word but there should be some ethnic to the original content, and IF the translator think they can improve by adding stuff, they should go the route of FFXII and Vagrant Story and along the team beforehand.
>a bit more personality (with regard to Lian)
So this is something I do see as a bit of a problem... as a localizer, you really shouldn't try to change a demur character into the total opposite of that.
David: "I feel like people are kind of shooting themselves in the foot."
Localization: "I feel like people are kind of shitting themselves in the wood"
😂😂😂😂
Localized version “okay okay guys and girls let’s all calm down before we get what it is that we don’t really want!”
That Lufia screenshot! 😂
I agree with your original Tweet and your sentiments, David. Some of the Lian lines, I get the frustration, but others it’s just a matter of trying to capture the energetic way she talks in Japanese.
The only problem I have with this game is the weird and severe Depth of Field blur. You can only turn it off on the PC version.
Lian is easily my favorite character in the game so far and I don't get how people hate her. She's a bit thirsty for Nowa, she's a bit cringe at times because of that, and she also loves to start some harmless drama (Some of the lines when we reach Nowa's hometown for instance). People are suggesting that she doesn't fit the tone of the game or that she's dismissive/disrespectful of Nowa who's both her commander and the player surrogate, but I mean, it's all harmless fun. As someone who enlisted directly after 9/11, thirsty women in the middle of a war are frequently funny, awkward, and cringe all rolled in one when trying to flirt.
I rather they stick to the creator's vision than try and recreate the characters.
They can make their own fucking game with those characters. I want the actual translation
Tell that to the companies making these games that hire these people to do these translations.
You realise these translations need to be signed-off on, right?
But how hard is it to translate it directly though? Some people might be using games and anime to learn Japanese. I'm ready for the AI.
Maaaan, my copy's in limbo. Here's hoping I get it soon.
The 'chud' term has more weight to it, these days (I still don't really follow what it means, lol). People are a bit more on edge due to the scripts being in the hands of localizers trying to add their own personal 'message' into the game. Nothing that has anything to do with the game, but some selfish nonsense from whomever has the power to do so.
While I understand the anger of many concerning current localization, I personally don't think it's EVERYONE, and it certainly doesn't mean that people ahould be attacking everyone the way they are. People tend to take things too far, unfortunately. I have no problems with localizations when done right- given that initial translations from Japanese-to-English script are pretty bland or 'to-the-point,' I can understand giving characters a bit of flavor or personality to their lines, like what I've see herewith the Lian lines. With that in mind, I'd rather keep whatever I'm playing free of any political mess that the situation, plot, or story of the game has nothing to do with.
Everyone has an opinion. I don't even mind the 'farthead' line, lol.
It's a politics thing. If they shout chud at people who disagree and criticize them, that's usually a bad sign that the person is way too obsessed with looking like a good person, like pro-palastine and pro-black but then does nothing about it not even donating, more or less. They feel the need to shove modern day politics into everything so you can't escape it, which is half of why the chud line is an issue.
Chud refers to someone with right-wing views because a lot of them lack smarts.
@@JeannieLove That sounds like something an ignorant person would say.
I woulda went with "prick" instead of farthead. More mature/suttle and not really a cuss word.
A friend and I discussed an anime movie that was R rated for theaters in the U.S., but for Japanese viewers, was rated for teenagers despite the gore in the anime movie (Demon Slayer: Mugen arc, for reference). I understand changing curse words is a "Your mileage may vary" by country situation, however, I still feel like this creates situations like this, where critical assumptions can be made based upon the translation. Personally? It depends on how something is conveyed, and I feel a lot of these are geared towards the language in which they are created. It has always been an incredibly convoluted topic, creating such a divide between individuals, and it baffles me.
I honestly was extremely excited for this game, and I don't mind whacky/goofy translations, errors, etc. it happens.
I literally had to put this game down after about 3 hours, in Redtooth Ridge. I cannot STAND Mellore. My fiancée was complaining too.
Goofy localization, fine. Minor translation errors, fine. "MAGICAL CUTIE SUPER JUSTICE HAMMER!" "MAGICAL CUTIE MISSILE!" "HEHEHE I'M A MAGICAL GIRL" is so, SO annoying. I just can't do it.
I definitely get the mindset of wanting more direct translations and not to mess with the source material, but the problem is that many things don’t carry over well in direct translations and sometimes lead to either awkward or just flat out boring text. Sometimes creative liberties do need to be taken here, but it’s a fine line of what’s too much and not too much, making it impossible to please everyone
Granted it’s an anime but one of my favorite examples of this is Yu Yu Hakusho. It’s one of the very rare instances where the dub is almost unanimously preferred over the sub by the community. They gave characters like Yusuke way more of a personality which a lot of people seemed to like over how he was depicted in the original Japanese version. I guess when it works and people like the changes all is good, but when they don’t like the changes this is when you see the backlash
Some of it is definitely charming like the Lunar games, And I heard that in the original final fantasy 6 Kefka was more cut and dry killer, but they changed him into more of a deranged clown, which I think really fits his character. Here though, I really don’t see any issues whatsoever. People just seem to be making a mountain out of a mole hill.
I also love the Dub of Yu Yu Hakusho. It's probably my favorite anime series ever. The issues I have on the localization issue are that yeah sometimes the direct translation is a bit weird, but some recent localizations have gone too far and changed too much.
@@davidvincoften times the localisers can make genuinely good decisions like kefka but the point of most of the backlash is that regardless of the quality of the changes, what gives them the right to twist the developers vision.
No matter which way you hold that statement, it’s wrong.
I prefer boring text to marvel dialogue lmao.
As long as there's no woke or political bullncrap, I can tolerate some missed translation.
It's great news that there are revisions to the localised script in the menu, thanks for bringing that to my attention, though where did you find that post? I want to see it for myself.
When I saw as I started the game "a jrpg for jrpg fans" and I heard it had a bad translation, I said to myself: "wow, very authentic".
Lol...
I pointed out to people all the bad translations we had in the past as well and yeah legend of dragoon was notorious for having a poor translationtranslation.
But the reasoning is different...
Western localizers are inserting a political activist agenda into stories where there are none...
Now you could argue various things here..but early on..
One character Lian, her line of: "wow so THAT was a thing"...
That's lazy..
That's very lazy millenial humor.
I'm a millenial, elder millenial, one of the less idiotic ones but I cannot stand millenial humor, at ALL.
I’m a millennial as well. 42 years old next month and this seems like gen z stuff to me. Especially the “chud” thing.
CHUD is older, came from the 80's but the term was forgotten for a while, people are calling each other CHUD's as a derogatory term for their political affiliation.
Millenial writing really is a thing though and the best example I can give is the borderlands series.
If you look up on youtube "millenial writing borderlands" I forgot who it was but he did a really good video about it.
Instead of being like "hey my dog got loose can you go bring him back?" (You could flesh that out a lot more but you get the point)
A npc would say: "sooo heeey there buckaroo, my woof woof got loose aaaand as you see here I can't just leave my heckin planterinos all on their own, if they they don't get water who knows what these alien cutie pies might do like that one time(family guy writing style) they got loose oh buddy I still don't hear the end of it so go get woof woof back and watch out for those giant crabs! Speaking of giant crabs that reminds me of that one time (family guy writing style again) (insert memberberries)(insert self reference)
(Make dialogue unnecessarily convoluted and long)
Getting upset because you think a joke about a golem's gender is inserting politics?
That special snowflake label really flew into a different coop
@@UnfairBandicootwe had multiple instances in the past of localizers openly and proudly admiting making changes for the sake of being "politically-correct", its the natural assumption at this point, specially when the joke doesn't even make sense
@akiradkcn it sounds like yall are crying just to cry. "It's not a good joke so it must be a political insert by localizers, despite it not making any political statement whatsoever" is logic of a seriously unwell person. I hope if you need help you get it. Good luck to you!
Hey David, although i'm seeing a bit of a overraction to some of these prints I saw one that they used the term "sus". I don't think that this should be in the game, it kinda breaks the immersion for me reminding about Among Us memes in a fantastical Japanese RPG.
i think what people are upset about is that the Japanese translation may sound a little bit more down to earth whereas the english is trying to shift the dynamics of the text to a more family friendly audience. probably to sell to a bigger demographic/ comply with a T rating instead of an M. persona games pull no punches and are all rated M where creative liberties were taken but not at the expense of personalities for the characters.
Man this translation make Megaman battle network 4 translation looked tamed lol
I'm still in the "early" game, like 18 hours in, and Francesca is HANDS DOWN my favorite character so far. Her vacillating between the virtuous, pure white mage with the bareknuckle brawler, foul-mouthed reactions has me literally laughing out loud. And whoever the voice actor is did a hell of a job. 😂😂🤣
I totally think some people are blowing this out of proportion. Sometimes the original dialogue can be bland and stoic, so adding some flavor to the text and injecting some personality isn't a big deal to me. As long as it doesn't affect/change the story or flip the original personality of a character on its head, it doesn't bother me. I think Eiyuden Chronicle is a fantastic game and I'd hate for it to get buried by bad reviews just based on the westernization of the dialogue, when the game has so much more to offer than that. Also it can't be easy giving distinct personalities to over 100 playable characters, so I'm sure the localization team tried the best they could. Plus as you said they're going to fix some of the more glaring examples within the dialogue, problem solved as far as I'm concerned.
Honestly the only odd thing to me is the "cursing" being replaced with silly things. I do like Lian, gives her more personality IMO. Either way amazing game I am having a blast
Also apparently chud is a derogatory term for "unpleasant right wingers" which is why people were whining
Right Wingers are up in arms over something? Wow.... This is me shocked... so... so... shocked...
Maybe if they didn't have archaic viewpoints they wouldn't get poked fun of so often. It's a case of "Waaaaaaah, you called me out on my hateful rhetoric! Waaaaaaah... So unfair! fAke nEWs!"
MAGA will always be an easy target. They do it to themselves.
I think it would have been hilarious if they had left Francesca's lines intact. Would have probably got an M rating, though.
Looks like mostly flavour and comic relief to me. No big deal. I think it's only a problem if the localisation really goes against the spirit and themes of the original. Localisation is important because you can never have a 1:1 translation that will sound right, the languages are too fundamentally different.
The taking out of swear words and replacing them is changing the character’s personality. I don’t feel it’s worth the level of outrage that it has caused as maybe it was an attempt to keep the T rating. But I’m just guessing on that. It is I feel a big change and it’s a change on how the original artist made the character. So I understand why people aren’t happy. But I feel it’s all overblown as well.
I haven't had any issues with the localization. I consider myself very lucky to be playing a spiritual successor to Suikoden in 2024. I hope it does well so that they have a bigger budget for the follow-up and it ends up becoming the next Suikoden 2.
Only six hours into the game but I completely agree. I think the localization has a ton of energy so far, too.
I think it’s easy to say that this issue isn’t a big deal because the localisation isn’t that bad or adds flavour. And that’s fine if you enjoy the game that way then enjoy the game.
The point still stands tho that the localisers changed intent meaning and characterisation throughout the game and disregarded the developers intent. I think it’s sad that in many cases we never get too know the originally intended character or scene in game and disgusting that localisers think they have the right to do that, not to mention this particular localiser has previous for openly stating he did this kind of thing.
If they do fix it though and bring it far closer to the original then I will buy it. If enough people do it could be a serious step towards better localisation in the future with respect for the source.
With how different English and Japanese are you will never get it 100% the same unless you learn Japanese and read it that way. Translating word for word just don't work and you lose out on the context of what is being said.
Of course, I know enough Japanese to know a 100% translation would sound strange and be grammatically backwards but that’s not what I’m saying.
You will inevitable have to rephrase thing and shift the order of speech but changing context and character or adding cheap humour where it wasn’t originally is not necessary. It’s often immersion breaking when they use modern slang too, like ‘chud’ in this game.
If it doesn’t bother you then by all means enjoy the game but for me it’s not something I want to support.
I’m sorry, but prose is incredibly important to me in a video game. I often seek out fan translations (Aeon Genesis for example) for games because I feel like more often than not they are better than the official ones - looking at you BoF2. I can’t stand the writing style of this game, and I’m as leftist as they come so it is not for any “anti-woke” reasons. Sadly it’s a big enough issue for me that I can’t stomach the game lol.
I don't think the translation is bad either. Some of it I even find amusing. I'm all for better translations as well but much of this is just folks being nitpicky. Cool to see the devs are fixing it regardless though.
I really love your channel so don't take this as an attack or anything of the sort, this is just me expressing my experience and feelings so far with the translation of this game.
First of all, I can understand some japanese and I always play with the japanese dub. When people say that the translation is fine I immediately assume that they play with the english dub and don't have any japanese knowledge whatsoever. JRPGs translations tend to embelish the way that characters speak and sometimes go so far as change their personality in major ways. So far the main victim in this game for me is Lian, who has been changed to be really annoying, dumb and cringy character, and if you don't believe me, use a translation software on the japanese text to see it for yourself.
Another major complaint for me is the very unprofessional feel that the dialogue have, and I say that as a non native english speaker. Some skills just have plain wrong descriptions or mislead you on what their effect is purely based on poor grammar. There are many examples of minor choices that adds up in the end, like in the tutorials menus the text refers to your items as "stuff", which makes anyone who is already discontent even more apprehensive of the quality of this translation. And I'm not even gonna delve into the horrible internet lingo like "chuds", this should not have been into a fantasy medieval rpg period, it just breaks the immersion.
My point is, don't discredit the consumer who isn't happy about the quality of a product they bought, we have the rights to voice our discontent. That said, I am very much enjoying this game and I'm really sad that we as fans have to engage in such stupid conversations such as these instead of sharing builds and thoughts about the characters, story and such. Let's just be polite, listen to each side of the argument and not dismiss the people we disagree with saying "hurr durr you are just a whiny troll" or "if you are fine with this translation you are a chill".
I’m loving this game, never really cared for the localization but I would’ve loved Francesca more if they kept her vulgarity 😂
About the "replace them all by AI" comments. Get ready for big families, where everyone has 50 brothers and sisters and some random Gender changes with your additional singular/plural problems in Japanese games. Here an AI translation result (German to English) "Well, then the dog's going crazy in the frying pan!" German speakers will understand it but that's what you get if you replace everyone by AI today.
1:08 - I forgot about the 'in front of a children' line that Mathiu says in the first Suikoden. You know how sometimes you get a line of dialogue in a game that is a mistranslation, but becomes so famous that they put it in every remake (like 'I Garland will knock you all down')? Yeah, this only happens because of mistranslations, folks.
The problem with trying to judge criticism is that a good localization cannot be a direct translation because direct translations don't often carry the same actual implications or meaning. Some of the Japanese examples may have had a different meaning in their own cultural context. Something that sounds polite in a direct English translation might not be polite in Japanese if they didn't use the correct polite 'keigo' word forms, for example. Idioms and jokes, especially puns, also frequently need to be re-written without including a paragraph about why the joke/idiom works in the original language.
So the question is which is it - is the localization actually bad, or are people just failing to understand that translation and localization are not the same, or is it some mix of both?
I will say that all of the Lian translations were fine, but the Francesca dialogue made me physically cringe, I kind of wish they had kept her Japanese dialogue, it kind of reminds me of Kaine from Nier. One question I have about these examples, are they story related, or will you only see them if they are in your party? Anyways, I backed the game so I am kind of stuck with it, I will just hold off on playing it to see if they fix some of these translations.
Lian is required for many missions, but you can take her out of your party later. The chud girl is entirely optional.
I think people are so done with translators gloating about the bad changes they have made to games that when a game comes out with a non 100% accuracy, it gets caught in the crossfire. I think Eiyuden just needs small changes, but for the most part, it's not a big deal. I do, however, dislike any personality changes a translator/localizers do to a game without the creators permission its not their script to modify or "improve."
I'm not sure 100% accuracy is even a thing. Accuracy doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to any two people. Something can be said literally the same way between two languages but if the words lose their tone they could be less accurate than finding another wording captures the spirit of what's being said. There is even examples of this in this video, to my understanding "cursing" in Japanese doesn't carry even close to the same weight as cursing in English. Its unusual for a children's show to contain cursing in the US but not nearly as strange in Japanese. So I'd say there's two broad camps, accuracy in terms of literal translation as close as possible, and accuracy in spirit, and probably every individual holds a mix of these two beliefs.
I think its more about the fact the lians character is subtly changed the character with all of the changes as a whole added together
Giving the character more personality is changing the character
After playing a few hours, the translation is the least of the issues I'm having with the game...
Technical problems (on PC), magic being completely useless, battling requiring no strategy (no point of even doing turn-based, just auto battle for 99% of encounters), etc.
I don't even know why we're talking up the turn-based battles. Sure, you CAN do that, but you'll get the same results auto battling anyway. Also have no idea why they made magic completely useless. Reading through older discussions, seems like this was a known problem in the beta but nothing was done to address it.
I'm so sick of localizers taking liberties and embellishing the original scripts.
When they do this we are not experiencing what the developers and writers intended.
It upsets me further due to Murayama's unfortunate passing and that he was never able to see its release.
Localization industry needs to change, they need to respect the work!
Lian is one of the most insufferable characters to me just because of how they handled the translation. Sure, she's childish, but she doesn't have to be a cornball. It sounds like she was written by a third grader. That's my and other people's gripe with it, whoever wrote it is just cringe and it shows.
And respectfully, you're doing a lot of coping here. Some of the translations that you showed aren't even close. I LOVE Suikoden. Love it. Favorite series of all time. That's why I'm upset about this. It's always been like this but as a kid I didn't know to care, now I do though and I don't like it. I'm still playing the game but my complaints are valid.
Mistakes in translations are fine, they can happen, sometimes they even can be funny and in ok with that. These are no mistakes though, these are intentional changes to the script made from localizers who care first and foremost about injecting their worldview into the game instead of giving people a faithful and proper translation, and this, this I'm not ok with.
Thanks for making this video. I totally agree.
I love the funny localization text in older games. I remember running into an Austin Powers reference in a dungeon in Lunar silver star story.
I remember that part, too, but I absolutely hated that line.
I think the difference between old localization from the SNES and PS1 eras and new/current localization is that in the old days, people were trying to accurately do 1 to 1 translations but not getting it 100% right inadvertently which leads to some funny mistakes but those are coming from a place that honors the original creators. These days it's localizers purposefully making changes to suit their own sense of humor/tastes and changing the original creator's intent because they feel their interpretations are superior. While I usually agree with you, David, i think this is an issue that is bigger than you think. Some of these changes may seem small but they clearly changed the character in those examples. It's not the localizers who created the game, they shouldn't get to change the personality of someone else's characters/stories/work. It may seem petty and small now, but if you let people like this off the hook it will just embolden them to make bigger and bigger changes.
While I agree that boycotting the game is harsh, I also think that consumers shouldn't put up with this kind of behavior and companies need better oversight on localizations.
Except that you are making assumptions about both what the creators wanted from the localization team and what the localization team was asked to do. I can speak from personal experience where I’ve talked to creators that asked translators and localizers to make those kinds of changes.
While there have been cases where translators or localizers make changes that the creators don’t like and speak out about, there’s no basis for assuming that, that was the case here. We have neither comments from the creator prior to their passing nor the team working with them that express their desires in this situation not do we have the brief that localizers were given when they were hired. For all we know they were asked to change things according to their personal judgment, just like Neil Gaiman was when he got hired for the Princess Mononoke localization.
In addition, there have been bad faith arguments made regarding the use of a term in the game as being politically motivated when chud has been used for years to mean other things entirely. Even a quick search of the slang dictionaries show that the politcal usage is both recent and secondary - with the context of the usage in the game obviously precluding such a secondary interpretation based on context.
Also, let’s not rewrite history. When Ted Woolsey was translating Secret of Mana, he had to edit the heck out of the text he was only given the space to write a script about half the length of the original. Doing a literal “1:1” translation wasn’t even an option and in some cases (like the prologue) the more succinct prose came off even better than a direct literal translation.
Having had to translate between other languages and having had to edit a lot of articles in English from writers with English as a second language, the idea of a “1:1” translation really doesn’t have much application in real world entertainment. Good localizations come off as if they were originally written in English. Most things beyond that are stylistic calls were the localizers try to balance the competing desires of many different groups - knowing full well that they can’t satisfy everyone at once.
I dont ever expect a perfect translation, do hate miss spelling and such however there are games with translations so bad you cant complete the story.
Arghh I hate this horrible American infantilisation of the language. The Japanese text around 7:21 is so much better than the American "Republican Christian Nanny State" translation.
I think I'll pick up the Steam version by the time I've finished Like A Dragon there will be a fan translation mod.
100% agree with you on your takes here. Honestly I am failing to even see the real problem anyone would have with most of these localization texts. Maybe I am missing something, but what is the big deal?
Thank you for this video David. While it's not perfect all over, the localization hasn't bothered me at all, I found myself laughing more often than not, especially when you get introduced to beigoma. I thought I was going crazy for not being bothered by any of this especially when I saw how peole made a mountain out of it on Twitter. I'm glad to know that I'm not going crazy here, haha. Anyways, time for me to go enjoy more of this game.
My only issue From what ive seen, a few characters come off way more rude in english than they do in jp, which can alter your perception of their personality which i don't think is a very good thing lol
Yes, it gives a a completly different impression of the character and can end up making even people dislike them unaware of the fact this is caused by a fauty localization
I don't mind the change of the translations, as long the main story is still understood. People being too picky over this are just missing out on a good game. If minor translation changes make you not want to play a game, just get it on pc and wait for a fan translation patch.
Man that isnt a big deal i dont even notice any of that difference, the game is great they did a great job to make this game look like a suikoden game almost like playing a suikoden game, i think they should make more of these
I stumbeled over two translations that felt awkward. The rest is fine and I have a lot of fun with this game.
Honestly as dumb as it sounds, I think the hate for the localization originated from the "You sure it's a he?" line early in the game. The overwhelming complaint is that the localization is woke. Thats the most woke line I've encountered so far and its sooo minor and probably wasn't even intended to be commentary on gender at all.
I do also think the hate comes from a smaller company producing a popular game. The localization seems really good to me. I think farthead fits with the humor they are going with. It's goofy. Now the bugs on release on the other hand...Thankfully they are fixed for the most part now lol.
I'm waiting after they fix the Switch version before I start the game but I gotta say, I'm kinda into it when they add some personality and take some liberties with the localization like Wokring Designs often did back in the day... Not necessarily a popular opinion, I know but I really like little things like the "Nowa" pun...
So first, you go on twitter and tell people they're "whining". What kind of responses did you expect?
It's both disingenuous and dishonest to say there aren't problems with the EC localisation. There *are* good points - Nowa and Seign both seem to be very well written. But Lian is both atrocious *and* annoying. Seeing thing like "chud" and "riddle me this" are awful. Outright awful, and there's no disputing it.
You can't brush it aside and say "well this is a game I've wanted, so a shoddy localisation is okay".
That's bad for games, and you're bad for games for defending it.
There is so much more they need to fix. The translation shouldn't even be on the radar.
For me the only one I´ve seen that I didn´t like, that people are throwing around, is the joke about assuming the rune golem´s gender, not because of the content of the joke, just the fact that they made the joke in the 1st place, in the original language, Nowa says something like "we did it" and Mio said "what was that?" to wich Hildi explains that its a rune golem and that he served as a guardian to the primal lense, in the localisation Mio makes the "how do you know it´s a he?" joke, wich makes it look like Hildi just started an exposition dump out of nowere, that´s my real problem with that specific one. I have seen others that made me roll my eyes a bit but nothing too major.
I had saw some rumblings about this, but I was waiting to find out the details until one of the level-headed people I follow put up a good video on it. And here it is! :) Thanks for the info.
I have to say, I expected a lot worse considering the commotion over the English translation. Having seen the video and examples now, the drama is a bit of a storm in a teacup. Yes, the translators arguably took a bit too much liberty here and there and deviated maybe a bit too much from the source material, but it is not as horrible as social media makes it seem. While it is good these issues are pointed out by the community, the backlash seems a bit excessive. Translations in other languages are apparently fine.
I'm reminded of when they first released Legend of Heroes: Trails in the SKy I and didn't fully localize it. Don't care still loved the game. Even better when they finished. Games like this are extremely hard to localize. Literally a million lines of dialogue in some cases. It's not an easy thing to do.
Yes, it really tends to be a thankless job.
From what I've seen the localisation of this game is fine. Maybe not perfect but not that bad. Plus the voice acting seems really good which I think balances it out.
Also as someone who has a fan translation team, it has given me a different perspective on this. The job isn't easy and they have people constantly overlooking and checking this. I wonder what changes will 505 make to the translation as these aren't that bad. If it is just fixing mistranslations and typos then I have no problems with that.
I've been looking forward to this game & I was so disappointed this got DEI detected... but I trust David so i bit the bullet and bought it. If I found it bad, I was about to return here and rant my brains out.
So I got to the "rub-a-dub-dub" segment and...I hate to admit it... but it actually fits. I didn't find it cringe or horrible at all and I'm a VERY nitpicky person. I'll get back once i get to the golem & chud part.
Anyway, thanks for the video David! You're awesome! Keep up the good work!
I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
Localization is fine as long as it's not mixed up with activism. Some room for creativity should be granted but I do hope it stays more in line with the original context. Even if it is offensive
"Dealing with sexism, homophobia, and gender stereotypes by cutting, altering, or strengthening the characters, their words, or their representations are quite normal for game localization between Japan and the United States"
This is what the head of the localization team said in some interview, you figure out the rest. It's not some minor changes here and there to add more "flavor" to the characters, it's all planned to change the narrative and that's why people are rightfully complaining. Localizers are NOT the writers of the games, hence why AI is desperately needed for a more faithfully translation.
Btw you forgot to mention a few others like the conversation between Nowa and Fio where the localizers insert that gender bs into it when there was NO need and the fact that even backers got banned on discord for complaining about it.
The funny thing is, with the exception of "chud" (Which could be construed as a political jab against conservatives if you try hard enough), most of these things probably aren't localization issues in the first place.
Here's an example: Japanese doesn't really have cuss words. They have the word "Kuso", which could mean "shit", but it could also mean like "fiddlesticks" or "poopy" or "dang". Villains in little kids shows in Japan use that word, and the severity of it is context dependent. So, for example, both translations of that Francesca dialogue are pretty accurate, and are just different interpretations. Sometimes, you'll translate "Rude speech" in Japanese the way it was in the official localization, and sometimes you'll translate "Rude speech" with a bunch of swear words.
Translations have been blowing up as a culture war thing lately, because of some recent scandals where translators of certain anime shows made outright changes to the entire show, turning it into something else completely. This is bad, but now it's turned into this witch hunt (with a side of culture war politics, somehow) where people who don't know Japanese think every translation sucks, localizers should translate word-for-word and nothing else(and think of the Francesca example above; how do you do that?), and that AI should replace translators. It's a sad overcorrection to a bad thing that happened, and we're probably gonna see the effects of this from alarmists on the internet for a while.
Ghost Stories was an actual request by the anime creator because it would have been a super dry show in English.
@@JeannieLove I was referring to a different one - that one, as you mentioned, got creator approval, so that's no big deal. The biggest controversy I remember lately is Lovely Complex, where the translator admitted to changing major aspects of the story because he thought the original was terrible.
This kind of stuff, I think is bad, paints a poor picture of translators/localizers; but, I think the reaction is way too heavy-handed, and now minor mistakes or even just differences in opinion are being pegged as people trying to change the script, or insert their own political agendas, etc. The takes are rarely nuanced.
@@JeannieLove That's completely made up.
@@JeannieLovethats a lie the dub director invented, this rumor already got debunked a few years ago
Yup, I feel so sad about this.
I don't see the big deal either. I've been so used to random goofy stuff in video games for over 30 years now, I just expect it. Like you, David, I cherish this kind of stuff, it's fun and funny, even if a lot it is cringe. Our lives are enhanced by stuff like "spoony bard" and "X-Men, welcome to die!" with laughter and joy.
As long as the localization doesn't make the plot incoherent, I really don't care.
The localization don’t bother me. But Lian annoyed me, so she was kicked out of my party first chance I got and I never looked back. 🤣
LOL I kicked her out of the party ASAP too.
I am fine with it. I want to enjoy the game, I am sure many years down the road a fan-translation patch will happen.
I feel like a lot of it is nitpicky. But if people end up shooting themselves in the foot, and later eat crow because of it, than so be it.
One of my favorite games is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and that game has an extremely bad translation. Most characters where butchered and they also decided to translate the names so, if you played with Japanese VA, you heard names that weren't displayed on the dialogue box. Some events where completely changed from the original version like Sheba that went from a "I want to have an harem" to "lets make a tea party". I do not support bad translations and, fortunately, Eiyuden Chronicles isn't one of those. I've been playing for 15~ hours and I've only noticed a few over exaggerations in some character personalities but nothing disrupting. Yes, I would have liked if the translation team followed the original vision 1:1 but the game is fine as it is.