Ask Localization Megathread

[Unelonborro]

Dating back to my first Final Fantasy game, FF II in the US, but the original FF IV, I was always under the impression that all localization was done locally. With you being so open about the process though, we've all learned otherwise. How has handling the English localization shaped your knowledge of items and such? How long have you been handling the localization? You mentioned in the above post that in many of the earlier retro games, we may remember such classes as "knight" that are now referred to as "paladin." Are there any other such examples where SE's stance has changed in order to provide a better name to a class, item, area, etc? One that I THINK I remember from the old days was Dragoon being known as "Dragon Knight" but I may be remembering that from a different game.

This is a really good question. I am not in charge of SQUARE ENIX's localization department in any capacity (just in charge here on XI), but I can certainly talk a little bit about background information.

Back when I was a young'un and Japanese video games first started making their way to the US, localization was handled by Japanese nationals who may or may not have had a strong grasp of English--not just at Squaresoft or Enix, but at pretty much every company at the time. This is how we came up with such classics as "A winner is you" and "All your base are belong to us." As the niche for Japanese games grew, so, too, did the need for competent localization, and most companies started shifting from Japanese natives to English natives (and eventually branching out into other languages as well). At various points throughout the company's history, the localization department has had to make a choice: do we stick to older ways of doing things, because players are familiar with it and that's part of the charm? Or do we update things in a way that might break with past conventions but increases the fidelity of the final product? Here's the kicker--there's no right answer, and different projects within the department have come, do come, and will continue to come to different conclusions. During the remake of FINAL FANTASY IV, for example, there was a huge debate surrounding Tellah's "You spoony bard." During FINAL FANTASY XIV, the question arose of whether to use the Cure/Cura/Curaga or Cure I/Cure II/Cure III naming conventions. It's all a matter of what the team decides best matches the needs of the game.

In the same vein, how about the names of many of the relic, mythic, and empyean weapons? Many of these take on very classic names that players are familiar with, such as Excalibur, Ragnarok, Apocalypse, Mjolnir, etc. Are these names able to accurately be named in Japanese, or do they follow a similar pattern to the knight >> paladin example above, and Excalibur is known as, in example, "the holy sword" in Japanese?

These weapons are, indeed, very classic names that most Western connoisseurs of fantasy and mythology are familiar with, and they are rendered faithfully into katakana (transliterated) in the Japanese. There are very, very few weapons and armor in the game that use kanji and are not ninja/samurai gear (and those we transliterate character-for-character.)

Concerning in game holiday events, I'd imagine many (myself included) westerners are unfamiliar with Japanese holidays, and just as well for Japanese people being unfamiliar with western holidays. How did you guys decide on which to include and omit? How important are some of these in the Japanese culture? Sometimes in dev posts, we'll see them dressed in Yakutas or other festive wear, and I'm surprised to see that. Is that akin to say, someone coming to work in a Halloween costume for one day as a celebration, or are the festivities much more ingrained than that?

I was not around during the times that these decisions were made, so I can't speak to the thought process behind them. I can say, though, that the devs are always mindful that we have players from around the world, and make decisions accordingly. For Japanese-flavored events, the doll festival is probably the most overt, and it's something of which every Japanese person is intimately aware. Other things, like the Sunbreeze Festival, are more "Japanese-inspired" than actually Japanese, kind of like most MMOs' Christmas events are "Christmas-inspired".

This might sway to the battle content end, but instead of bumping my previous Idris topic or creating a report, I was curious if you could shed any light onto why it was decided that Ergons would not received the +30% bonus damage to the Ergon WS, as the Mythic weapons do. Perhaps an oversight?

This is something I don't have any knowledge of, and my feeble attempts at answering it would only leave you wanting. Sorry.

[Malithar]

Thanks much for the answers! ^^/ Loving this thread.

Back when I was a young'un and Japanese video games first started making their way to the US, localization was handled by Japanese nationals who may or may not have had a strong grasp of English--not just at Squaresoft or Enix, but at pretty much every company at the time. This is how we came up with such classics as "A winner is you" and "All your base are belong to us."

Those are indeed classics that I remember well lol. Out of curiosity, with western game developers really booming over the past decade+, has there been any such cases that happened with shoddy localization into the Japanese market? Do you find that western games are localized well, or did they go through a period of infancy as well?

Your bit about actually targeting a western audience with the localization, rather than just a translation, is really interesting. I've never really thought much on it before, but it makes a lot of sense the way you laid it out. Looking back, I've certainly read/played my fair share of media that hadn't had such care given to it. Looking at some recent quests as examples, Saved by the Bell, To Catch a Predator, I'm on a Boat, Don't Ever Leaf Me, Hide and Go Peak, and many others, make sense through English and our culture, they're phrases that we know from life, shows, music, etc. Out of curiosity, do quests like these take on relevant names that may invoke similar "I know what that's from!" feelings for the Japanese community? Any examples to share that we might know?

Is there any chance that someday you may be able to give a bit of a description to some auto translate terms that are ambiguous, or that are misused often? I'd be interesting to know what they actually say/mean in Japanese. "Please use a weak weapon to attack" seems straight forward enough, but I've had a few Japanese players use that in party (not during something like Void Watch) and I was left confused at what they were getting at. Some terms of our's that may not be well known is "Excuse me..." "Are you alone?" "Can you hear me?" and many others. They seem straight forward enough, but whether due to the language barrier being too much of a bother to communicate through, or our knowledge of what the terms come out to be on the Japanese side, it's difficult to get a clear answer from Japanese players.

[Unelonborro]

Those are indeed classics that I remember well lol. Out of curiosity, with western game developers really booming over the past decade+, has there been any such cases that happened with shoddy localization into the Japanese market? Do you find that western games are localized well, or did they go through a period of infancy as well?

This is getting into the realm of personal opinion, but I think that the video game industry as a whole does a much better job of translating games INTO English than we do of translating games FROM English. Translations From EN to European languages tend to be higher quality than those to distant languages like Japanese and Korean, but there are many, many examples where mistranslations occur even with languages that are "closer" to English. I don't feel it's appropriate to call out any specific examples, but if you're interested in the topic, a quick google search will provide you with a plethora of mistakes and missed opportunities.

Speaking from a more general perspective, English is a relatively risk-free language to translate into. You can just go with American spellings and language conventions and people will understand it quite easily, even if they come from non-American English speaking backgrounds, due to the permeation of American culture into the global mindset. Spanish, French, and Portuguese are very risky languages, because the discrepancies between the European and North/South American dialects are high enough that players feel a huge of disconnect if they play a version intended for another region.

Sometimes I will play a Western game with a Japanese language pack just for fun, and the translations are really all over the map. Some are very professionally done, with excellent nuanced localizations; some have outright mistranslations that impede the player's ability to progress; and others are borderline incomprehensible. We've still got a ways to go.

Your bit about actually targeting a western audience with the localization, rather than just a translation, is really interesting. I've never really thought much on it before, but it makes a lot of sense the way you laid it out. Looking back, I've certainly read/played my fair share of media that hadn't had such care given to it. Looking at some recent quests as examples, Saved by the Bell, To Catch a Predator, I'm on a Boat, Don't Ever Leaf Me, Hide and Go Peak, and many others, make sense through English and our culture, they're phrases that we know from life, shows, music, etc. Out of curiosity, do quests like these take on relevant names that may invoke similar "I know what that's from!" feelings for the Japanese community? Any examples to share that we might know?

A lot of this comes down to player expectations and translator/writer preference. Even in the Japanese, some of our planners prefer light, playful names, while others like something more serious, so it's not a set rule. The Tarutaru Sauce questline for example: The planner always uses a play on words by replacing one of the kanji in the quest line with the kanji for "to laugh." The planner for the Svenja questline plays it straight. Because the Japanese is relatively freeform, we make things light hearted in the English whenever we feel we can fit in something good that fits the story.

Is there any chance that someday you may be able to give a bit of a description to some auto translate terms that are ambiguous, or that are misused often? I'd be interesting to know what they actually say/mean in Japanese. "Please use a weak weapon to attack" seems straight forward enough, but I've had a few Japanese players use that in party (not during something like Void Watch) and I was left confused at what they were getting at. Some terms of our's that may not be well known is "Excuse me..." "Are you alone?" "Can you hear me?" and many others. They seem straight forward enough, but whether due to the language barrier being too much of a bother to communicate through, or our knowledge of what the terms come out to be on the Japanese side, it's difficult to get a clear answer from Japanese players.

Ohhhhh I can give you a very good one. I was talking with the planner in charge of the auto-translate dictionary the other day about this very topic. He remembers one instance in particular where he was just chatting with his linkshell, sitting in Jeuno and someone in /shout was looking to buy some item or other:

"{Please} {Reward} 300k"

The problem is that the player selected "Reward" from the Job Abilities category, not the Trade category, so it popped up in Japanese with the beastmaster ability, which in Japanese is "Itawaru"--a verb rather than a noun. "Itawaru" means "to treat someone nicely," so the guy was basically sitting in /shout going "Please treat me nicely 300k."

Long story short: make sure you took before you translate!