Localization uses too compicated English

Good day

I have played a lot of games on English, different parts of FF to. I don't remember, that I had any problems of understanding what was written in FF7, FF8, FF9 or FF10. The problem appeared, when I began to play FF12. English is rather complicated there in dialogs, really hard to understand many things. The same problem I have in FF14.

Why localization stuff uses so complicated English, really hard to understand what is written in the dialogs. Don't you understand, that a lot of players don't have as the native language any of the languages the game has as localization?

Dead localization stuff, please, use more simple English in you texts. Thank you

I as well as many can understand your concern. the style of English used in Eorzia is an older variant so to speak, or rather they speak in a way similar to how they did, in something likes Shakespeare (not to the same level but similar). people like urianger for instance is a perfect example of this, and i doubt they would be able to change it much at the moment, without making it difficult to make sense.

I think Final Fantasy XII is a bit better than XIV when it comes to the dialect, it got better in HW but there was a moment in 3.4 a friend told me where Alphinaud said "mayhap" 3 sentences in a row, I thought that was funny.

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Originally Posted by Xyno

Good day

I have played a lot of games on English, different parts of FF to. I don't remember, that I had any problems of understanding what was written in FF7, FF8, FF9 or FF10. The problem appeared, when I began to play FF12. English is rather complicated there in dialogs, really hard to understand many things. The same problem I have in FF14.

Why localization stuff uses so complicated English, really hard to understand what is written in the dialogs. Don't you understand, that a lot of players don't have as the native language any of the languages the game has as localization?

Dead localization stuff, please, use more simple English in you texts. Thank you

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Most of the English in the game is fairly normal English, without anything really hard to understand. There are some cases where certain NPCs use a more archaic variant of English, but again nothing truely difficult to understand.
Yes, people lacking in knowledge of English may find it difficult to comprehend, but they can always view it as an opportunity to improve their lingustic skills. ;)

Personally I like the use of different registers of English depending on the speaker. It adds flavour and gives each of the speakers a little more personality. Making it all simple and easy to understand would just make it blander.

(And in case you were wondering: English is not my native language either, but I have no problem at all understanding the English used in the game.)

It's far from complicated. Provided someone passed high school English, it's simply old English and what writer's are supposed to do, express dialect and tone. And if it's not their Native language, te client had other language options last I checked.

Do you think a Mississippi drawl is complicated? Still English, but they're gonna use words not used up north of the US. It's just how people talk.

You make alot of complaint topics, maybe you should try another game?

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Originally Posted by Clethoria

It's far from complicated. Provided someone passed high school English, it's simply old English and what writer's are supposed to do, express dialect and tone. And if it's not their Native language, te client had other language options last I checked.

Do you think a Mississippi drawl is complicated? Still English, but they're gonna use words not used up north of the US. It's just how people talk.

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Wow, conceited much?
Did you perhaps miss the fact that there are only 4 languages available on the game client? There's no Spanish, or Portuguese options, or many others like there are in FFXV. There are more native Spanish speakers than there are English ones, mind you. FFXV even had subs available in traditional Spanish and Latin American Spanish. Yes, there are differences.

My first language is Spanish, and I have no trouble understanding or communicating in English whatsoever. However this is not common for most regions in my country. I've invited several friends to play, some of which work remotely for American companies (meaning they are exposed to English almost every single day), and more than one have told me they have trouble understanding the cutscenes without carefully reading the subs. And I only realized how bad it was when I was discussing the story as they progressed, and they told me they couldn't understand part of what was said due to the odd lexicon.

If you are a native English speaker, and this seems 'irrelevant' to you, let me tell you this topic is not for you. More subtitle options would be nice to have.

It's unfortunately that the game isn't available in your first language, but that doesn't mean that the English-language version ought to cater to people who are not native English speakers, as that would hurt the experience for its main audience, which is English speakers. I disagree with the direction of the localization on many, many points, but in this one instance I have to give their efforts my whole-hearted support; while the localized dialogue might leave out big chunks of the story, or make needless changes to characters and dialogue just for the lulzs, something they've gotten in trouble for multiple times at this point and yet continue to do, it sure as hell sounds great, at least in text form. The dialect used is just archaic enough to give the game some flavor without being difficult to parse for a native speaker of the language. Most importantly, they never make any of the little grammatical errors common when writers who don't know what they're doing try to write in this style.


That said, I would love to see a second English text option made available, with plainer/more modern English and a more faithful adherence to the Japanese script. I see enough people complaining about both of those things lately that it seems like it could be a serious QoL improvement at relatively little cost to implement.

I've got to agree, however only about the later patches such as the explanation of auracite in Ivalice's storyline, I had to open a dictionary to understand what the many difficult scientifical words meant into the phrases. From one word to another huge complexity which has me in cutscenes for a long period of time to decipher the definition behind the contents. I think they did over-do some of the context, I, however, had no problem with accents, tho some in the begin in Limsa lominsa had an unnecessary amount of accent added. But nothing that was hard to comprehend.

It reminds me of what I think about the french translation. It's very "pompous". In french, sometimes you can see some words or proverbs that are not used for centuries hahaha
But I suppose it's how the characters speak in the japanese original version of the dialogues.