1 Month in impressions/criticisms...

[Kosmos992k]

An excellent post. On the localization issue, I agree with you to a large extent. I very much prefer the original Japanese voice acting, it fits the characters, their expressions and actions better than the English voice acting does. So I play with Japanese audio and English sub-titles - since I am not fluent in Japanese.


While I can't claim to speak Japanese; I know just a few keywords and phrases here and there. Even with my limited understanding of spoken Japanese, it's jarring to hear the Japanese voice actors saying something or using a character name only to have the English sub-titles fail to even deliver the line, or even direct it at the character it was clearly intended for. If there are glaring issues in the spoken dialog vs subtitles for someone like me, I can only imagine how it is for a person fluent in Japanese and English.

I don't mind the more flowery Olde English form used, but I do mind when entire scenes are reworked and lose their impact and/or meaning.

There is one specific example that really draws out how I feel about this issue, and that is the encounters you have with Midgardsormr, especially with Guardian of the Lake. Specifically the thing that bugs the crap out of me is the way that the Midgardsormr dialog is mangled.

The localized English version seems to be rewritten in a deliberately opaque manner, making understanding what the hell he's saying really a guessing game. The 'defense' given for this, is that the localization team imagined how an ancient dragon would speak. Then they took the localized English version of the original dialog and further localized it into Ancient Dragon speak, which is them translated back to English for us. So in effect, whatever the hell Midgardsormr was saying in the original Japanese has been filtered and rearranged twice over.

Fortunately I had read that there was an issue with the localization before getting to this point in the story myself, and researched it before running it. I found a line for line translation of the original Japanese dialog on reddit. It's so much clearer than the English. The English version is almost misleading and conveys a very different characterization of Midgardsormr. When I mentioned this to many of my FC members who'd already had that encounter; their impression of the encounter, Midgardsormr and what was said/going on was vastly different from that which you gather from the directly translated text.

They were kinda annoyed about it themselves because they hadn't really understood the dialog, and once they read the line for line translations they felt much clearer and better about the entire thing.

This is not the only time this has happened, but I think it is quite clearly the worst example of it pre-Heavensward. People have discussed this localization issue back and forth so many times - and appear to be doing so again here. Personally, I see this as something that should never arise in a localization.

When defending the sometimes ridiculous lengths to which the English localization team go to be different, I'd really like people to take note of this; all the other languages in the game are translated from the direct Japanese to English translations, without the localization fluff. If you speak French and Japanese (for example), the French is much more faithful to the Japanese original dialog than the English localization ever will be.

Also, for any one who is saying there is no originally intended dialog, yes there is, the primary source for the game is written in Japanese. That is the originally intended dialog, that is where the story is framed that is where the original dialog is written. If that was not the case then why do all the language versions (except English) stick faithfully to the original Japanese dialog?

Localization is about interpreting cultural differences during the translation so that idioms and cultural differences are ironed out when going from one language/culture to another. Given the setting of the game, there are not that many times when idioms or cultural references from Japan require to be handled during localization. Localization is not about utterly reworking encounter dialog so as to change the meaning and tone, leaving an entire section of the audience in the dark about a major plot point and motivator in the story.

I also think they totally overused "Pray" and "Anyroad" - that was totally uncalled for and is not only not helping with the immersion, it completely destroys it for me, as no char speaks like that.

LOL, well you missed out the one I find the most glaring and annoying. "Must needs" I will remind you...

[kazeandi]

I even see people praise it over the Japanese script.

The only thing praiseworthy is the easter eggs and jokes in quest titles or fate names. That's a place where you CAN crack jokes, because the game speaks directly to the player. Not a char to another one - which would be where the localization failed spectacularly.

[kazeandi]

Midgardsormr

Midgardsormr is an interesting example. He speaks like an old man, with no doubt whatsoever he knows what he's talking about. The English text is.. I don't even know how to describe it, but I can assure you that it has NOTHING to do with what he's saying in the original.

[Tenkuu]

You can simplify it and make it "priestess", but that's not what a miko is.

I agree that it wouldn't be the best translation, but I think "shrine maiden" would be too literal and not as easily understood. Besides, my dictionary gives one of the definitions as being "a maiden consecrated to the gods", which would work well with the implication of the term "priestess". I'm also basing this off the fact that in Fushigi Yuugi, this was the term used and it worked quite well, did not detract from the understanding of what the responsibilities of that character were.

However, this would at least not take the characters, their relationships, their personal quirks that reflect in the language they use (and with whom they speak how, and in which situation they use which technique to express something they find hard to say or don't want to say for obvious reasons) and transform them to a point that you can't tell in the English version who's speaking with whom if you only got the text with no names and a blacked out screen.

I can read one line and know "that's tataru, only tataru speaks like that". In the English version? Nope. Tataru, Minfilia, Haurchefant, all the same. No soul, no personality. And worst of all, all those subtle nuances are gone that help transport the bonds they share.

Yup, I agree completely. Even a minor character like Honoroit (from the Fortemps manor) has his own little speech patterns. In my case, with the japanese audio when occasionally a known character has suddenly come into a conversation and is called "???", it's often easy to tell who it is by their often unique speech patterns. In Thancred's case, I simply love the roguish way he casually and comfortably slips into any conversation, even with someone as generally cold-sounding as Y'shtola. Then there's also the ease with which he goes from joking around and teasing to a very serious conversation.

[Kosmos992k]

Midgardsormr is an interesting example. He speaks like an old man, with no doubt whatsoever he knows what he's talking about. The English text is.. I don't even know how to describe it, but I can assure you that it has NOTHING to do with what he's saying in the original.

Oh, I know, I've read two different direct translations of his dialog and compared it to the English, I agree completely with you. That specific encounter is terribly handled for something that is a MAJOR turning point in the story of the Warrior of Light. Listening to the Japanese audio, I can hear the voice and know the kind of character they were going for, and as I was saying despite limited understanding of spoken Japanese, I can still tell that the tone and delivery of his dialog doesn't match the English subtitles at all.

[kazeandi]

Maybe, if I didn't have the Japanese audio activated, I wouldn't bother so much. But it's too late now. I like the characters for what they are in the original. Switching to the unpersonal English now is like replacing your soup with water.

[Avidria]

Oh, I know, I've read two different direct translations of his dialog and compared it to the English, I agree completely with you. That specific encounter is terribly handled for something that is a MAJOR turning point in the story of the Warrior of Light. Listening to the Japanese audio, I can hear the voice and know the kind of character they were going for, and as I was saying despite limited understanding of spoken Japanese, I can still tell that the tone and delivery of his dialog doesn't match the English subtitles at all.

Wow yeah, I just looked up a translation of the first conversation you have with him and...

Well, my initial impression of him would have been very different if we'd seen the directly translated version. Those are some pretty significant shifts in character introduction and early characterization. The tone and conveyed intent are entirely different. :/

[Kyonika]

Mmmmm... yeah... While it does give some flavour to the way NPCs are trying to sound like (e.g. how Limsa pirates word their sentences differently than Ul'dah merchants do), I agree that the localization to EN can be a bit over the top at times. I switch back and forth to JP and totally know what you mean. Also, in the Japanese localization, Papalymo sounds like someone a toddler's size should -- regardless if he's a scholarly academic type or not. In the EN version, he sounds like an old college professor I once had for an economics class. lol

Also, remember that side quest that teaches new players how to /say stuff and the auto-translation feature? Yeah...I wasn't going to /say something like 'hither good fellow. well met!' ... Too embarrassing to /say aloud. lol. How 'bout I just stick to "こんにちは" instead.

Midgardsormr is an interesting example. He speaks like an old man, with no doubt whatsoever he knows what he's talking about. The English text is.. I don't even know how to describe it, but I can assure you that it has NOTHING to do with what he's saying in the original.

Good to know. When I finally get to HW (at least, I think that's a HW character, right?), I'll be sure to switch to JP mode and turn off the subtitles. Thanks for the heads up.

[Tenkuu]

The localized English version seems to be rewritten in a deliberately opaque manner, making understanding what the hell he's saying really a guessing game. The 'defense' given for this, is that the localization team imagined how an ancient dragon would speak. Then they took the localized English version of the original dialog and further localized it into Ancient Dragon speak, which is them translated back to English for us. So in effect, whatever the hell Midgardsormr was saying in the original Japanese has been filtered and rearranged twice over.

Fortunately I had read that there was an issue with the localization before getting to this point in the story myself, and researched it before running it. I found a line for line translation of the original Japanese dialog on reddit. It's so much clearer than the English. The English version is almost misleading and conveys a very different characterization of Midgardsormr. When I mentioned this to many of my FC members who'd already had that encounter; their impression of the encounter, Midgardsormr and what was said/going on was vastly different from that which you gather from the directly translated text.

They were kinda annoyed about it themselves because they hadn't really understood the dialog, and once they read the line for line translations they felt much clearer and better about the entire thing.

Yup, the minute I heard the japanese audio, I saw the discrepancy with the subs. From his tone alone, it was pretty obvious that an ancient dragon was not going to waste his time being a smartass with a random adventurer that he viewed as little better than an ant.

This is not the only time this has happened, but I think it is quite clearly the worst example of it pre-Heavensward. People have discussed this localization issue back and forth so many times - and appear to be doing so again here. Personally, I see this as something that should never arise in a localization.

When defending the sometimes ridiculous lengths to which the English localization team go to be different, I'd really like people to take note of this; all the other languages in the game are translated from the direct Japanese to English translations, without the localization fluff. If you speak French and Japanese (for example), the French is much more faithful to the Japanese original dialog than the English localization ever will be.

Yup, my point exactly: the french and german versions do *not* allow themselves to grossly deviate from the original dialogue and then use localization as an excuse for doing so, so there is no reason why this should be an acceptable argument for the english version. And no offense to Fernehalwes, but I honestly don't buy the argument that a game originally created in Japan will have had the more important aspects of its localization, such as dialogue between characters and important narration, done in english first. This is a japanese game first and foremost, after all.

Localization is about interpreting cultural differences during the translation so that idioms and cultural differences are ironed out when going from one language/culture to another. Given the setting of the game, there are not that many times when idioms or cultural references from Japan require to be handled during localization. Localization is not about utterly reworking encounter dialog so as to change the meaning and tone, leaving an entire section of the audience in the dark about a major plot point and motivator in the story.

I think in this case localization is being used as an end-all and be-all, when it really isn't. Translation is much more important than localization if the two need to be separated.

LOL, well you missed out the one I find the most glaring and annoying. "Must needs" I will remind you...

Dear god, that one... I always mentally substitute something more appropriate in my mind when they say that.

[Noxifer]

"koori no miko" would be a ”shrine maiden of ice"

Yes, but not only would that be a mouthful to name someone (especially when you have to keep voiced cutscenes in mind as well), like others have said the 'average' western person doesn't automatically get what that means. And sure, priestess would have been a better term, if not correctly translated, but the point was that there's a lot more (or at least a lot different) subtext to miko than to priestess.

And I'll admit that in retrospect, it's relatively clear what Iceheart is intended to imply, but the first impression? "Is she called that because she's a cold-hearted b****? Or are they trying to allude to the snow queen fairy tale, in which case, is it because she's been brainwashed into a cold-hearted b****?" *shrugs*

I can read one line and know "that's tataru, only tataru speaks like that". In the English version? Nope. Tataru, Minfilia, Haurchefant, all the same. No soul, no personality. And worst of all, all those subtle nuances are gone that help transport the bonds they share.

I know D: It's made so very obvious in the voiced cutscenes how differently they all speak, but in the text boxes? No, not really ;_;

Also, for any one who is saying there is no originally intended dialog, yes there is, the primary source for the game is written in Japanese. That is the originally intended dialog, that is where the story is framed that is where the original dialog is written. If that was not the case then why do all the language versions (except English) stick faithfully to the original Japanese dialog?

Well, since some(?) of the localization team are in the lore group, and thus are responsible for making up certain parts of the lore -- as far as I've understood things -- I can buy that some bits have been either written first-hand in English or fleshed-out from the basic 'this is what should come out in this dialogue' skeleton, before being sent to the other language teams (including the JP one) for localization. But as far as I know, the majority of the story and dialogue is originally written in Japanese.

Maybe, if I didn't have the Japanese audio activated, I wouldn't bother so much. But it's too late now. I like the characters for what they are in the original. Switching to the unpersonal English now is like replacing your soup with water.

I know O.o
I've actually gone through some of the voiced cutscenes (either via the inn or in those cutscenes that end with a "complete quest?" window, where you get reset to before cutscene if you click no) in all languages. I understand barely a handful of words in French or German, but I wanted to hear the voices and the emotions (or lack thereof). It was interesting, but I quickly switched back to Japanese xD