[Spoilers, kind of] Characters who are completely different between JP/ENG

[Serilda]

Someone mentioned Cleric making sense for attacker "if you like D&D I guess". Crusade is much more of a reference to paladins in D&D than any pure healer class. So Cleric makes perfect sense for the stance of a non-paladin healer.

The problem with 'cleric' is that anyone not familiar with D&D associates clerics with priests and succour and robes and general harmlessness. Anyone familiar with D&D and fantasy of that type has a very different image in mind and the rename makes logical sense, but I cannot count the number of times I've seen a new CNJ trying using CS to heal at first because the name confused them into thinking it must improve healing too. I got tired of explaining; thank goodness they just changed the skill.

The WAR name changes irritate me as they're counterintuitive. At least use words that are more visually different than D____ and D____ if the new words aren't as clear-cut as the originals, please! The rest are a mixed bag; some of the localised terms are inspired, others are clunky. It does make things complicated in mixed-client groups when names are changed though. Ruins lots of puns and chat.

(I laughed more about the post about 'The Meat Sword' title than I would care to admit. Crummy localised titles bug me, even if some are genuinely unavoidable.)

[Nestama]

Well as I said in response to 'Defender' being changed to 'Defiance,' it makes more sense for the name change. Defender sounds like something that would boost your defence as well (as it does in FFXI), which Defiance doesn't do at all. It just boosts your HP and enmity gain. I'm unsure about Deliverance, though (unless someone on the localisation team saw the reveal trailer for Kingdom Come: Deliverance and just too it from there).

[Ametrine]

If you've ever watched an anime called "ghost stories" trust me, it's way better in english dubs than it ever was in japanese.

Yeah, but Ghost Stories is a special case. Making it into the giant, ad-libbed, comedic masterwork was just the brilliant plan for the bad anime to actually make some of it's money back. The plan worked.

On FXIV's vocal work, I have zero complaints with the current English team for Stormblood. The current team is really good, and it's pretty nice to not hear the same 30 actors used in almost everything these days in the US.

[Brannigan]

I'm unsure about Deliverance, though.

My money is on that their thought process was this:
The JP names are Defender/Destroyer. D____er/D____er.
The EN name is Defiance, so we should match with another D____ance
"Jimmy, get the dictionary."
"You got it boss."

[Tsukino]

Considering the english localizers actually help to create the lore in the first place, the japanese version is no more authentic than the NA version. Now, you can say you might prefer things that are localized for a JP audience over things that are localized for an NA audience (and yes, this may include altering character personalities to something that goes over better in a region), but neither version is the "original" version.

This is a massive overstatement, and nothing they have ever said would point to the English localization team having even remotely an equal part in crafting the story of the game. Koji posted one thing talking about how they have more involvement than most localization teams, being called on to do things like create the dragons' language and most of the player titles that get used across versions, and for some reason a bunch of people took that and ran with it. For everything they help contribute there are 10 other examples of things they've had to double back on and change because they overdid localizing them.

The Japanese version is the original, they write it first, and then the localization teams, including the English one, localize it for their audiences.

[Clawbriar]

Hypertuned Grynewaht's Japanese cutscene dialogue is significantly different to his English counterpart. The Japanese dialogue comes across as him being near-lobotomised instead of the Doom Marine-esque screamer he is in English.

[Alleo]

It may just be a few cases then, as the specific quest I recall the complaint geared towards was in regards to the Bard quest including an NPC that's quite foul. Lol.

Maybe unhinged is the wrong word. More that the German version holds nothing back.

But a handful of quests does not mean lots of swearing ^^;. Also I am happy if we get it more direct. This means no misunderstanding thanks to talking through the flower and its kinda realistic with the rest of the game since they kind of have topics like rape and other horrible stuff in there. And its also realistic since some people in real life do have some foul language too thus it makes sense that those exit ingame too. If everyone would speak "nice" all the time, then this would just feel off.

Middy is a good example for misunderstanding: In the Japanese version it was kinda direct that he was simply testing us, while the English one sounded more like he was an enemy. (I cant remember the scene in German but I never got the feeling that he was an enemy so it might have been a bit more like the Japanese one)

[Nestama]

Middy is a good example for misunderstanding: In the Japanese version it was kinda direct that he was simply testing us, while the English one sounded more like he was an enemy. (I cant remember the scene in German but I never got the feeling that he was an enemy so it might have been a bit more like the Japanese one)

No, in English he was just very vague with his motive. He did talk about the dragonsong war and about how Ishgard will burn, but he was otherwise neutral toward us (after finding out we were chosen by Hydaelyn).

[Alleo]

No, in English he was just very vague with his motive. He did talk about the dragonsong war and about how Ishgard will burn, but he was otherwise neutral toward us (after finding out we were chosen by Hydaelyn).

But it seems that thanks to being more vague with his motive, that this created some believe that he might not be nice to us.

At least thats how I remember it here in the forum, when some where surprised that he was just simply testing us.

[Kosmos992k]

Hypertuned Grynewaht's Japanese cutscene dialogue is significantly different to his English counterpart. The Japanese dialogue comes across as him being near-lobotomised instead of the Doom Marine-esque screamer he is in English.

I thought he already was the victim of a near fatal lobotomy as it was, at least he always seems to be suitably stupid and buffoonish which makes me really doubt the empire's quality control on their armed forces. Then again I play with Japanese audio and English subtitles. I frequently note significant differences in dialog between what's said an what's in the captions - and that's without being a fluent speaker of Japanese.

But it seems that thanks to being more vague with his motive, that this created some believe that he might not be nice to us.

At least thats how I remember it here in the forum, when some where surprised that he was just simply testing us.

I remember reading the direct translation from Japanese to English of those scenes and comparing it against the English transcript from the NA version. Everyone I have shown it to agrees that the direct translation is clearer and that the English version is very difficult to understand by comparison with the direct translation. Most think that the NA English version is actually misleading and makes the player think that what's going on is the opposite to what is really happening. The French and German dialog is (if I remember correctly) created from a direct Japanese to English translation and avoids the flavor text added to the NA localization, and is thus much clearer.