This frequency of English localization issues is unacceptable

[Jojoya]

He deliberately casts aside the role of a translator/localizer, which is to adapt the content of something in a foreign language as faithfully as possible, to becoming an outright revisionist (and censor), while robbing players of their right to determine for themselves what is valid and entertaining.

Translation/interpretation is intended to be as faithful as possible to the original.

Localization is not ("local" being a key part of the word), and SE has chosen to use localization teams instead of translation teams. Localization will make changes when concepts either don't exist or aren't considered appropriate in the "local" culture for the language.

Yet I also am not aware of anything done by the localization team that has been outright revisionist with respect to the story. Do you have examples of the JP versus EN/FR/DE versions where what is happening was completely changed as opposed to different phrasing being used during dialog that players assume are meant to be clues toward future story events?

We also haven't been robbed of any right to decide what is valid and entertaining. If you're not being entertained by the EN version, you're free to enable one of the other language clients. It's even an opportunity to get to learn another language. There's a member of my Marilith FC that learned English primarily by playing WoW instead of taking a language course.

[Telkira]

Translation/interpretation is intended to be as faithful as possible to the original.

Localization is not ("local" being a key part of the word), and SE has chosen to use localization teams instead of translation teams. Localization will make changes when concepts either don't exist or aren't considered appropriate in the "local" culture for the language.

That post you're quoting was responding to an article where he served primarily as the translator for FFXI, where he was discussing his role and responsibilities in comparison to 'localization'. I see no reason why the game couldn't just have existed as a faithfully translated piece, where all parties work to create, and develop, one unified script, as opposed to adapting the original script and text with all the liberties they've taken.

Yet I also am not aware of anything done by the localization team that has been outright revisionist with respect to the story.

Yes, actually. The characterization of Haurchefant in non-JP scripts was completely censored and butchered because they felt like Western audiences wouldn't find his concept to be funny or entertaining (despite there being objectively nothing wrong with his canonical characterization).

They had to acknowledge that what they did was completely unacceptable after disgruntled and concerned members of the fanbase called them out. They even admitted that they "robbed the fanbase of experiencing a character" and that the way they went about implementing these changes was not in-line with their usual internal practices, meaning that they went over some people's heads to do this (or were lying and just trying to save face).

You can read about it here:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...sions-of-FFXIV

We also haven't been robbed of any right to decide what is valid and entertaining. If you're not being entertained by the EN version, you're free to enable one of the other language clients. It's even an opportunity to get to learn another language.

Yes, we have.
By taking the original script and butchering it in such a way where it deviates from it, under the impression that Western audiences wouldn't be entertained or immersed by a simple, faithful translation, they're essentially robbing players of their right to know what the actual, true vision is, but instead are fed a parody of what that initial vision was. It would be like omitting/cutting certain dialog options because the localizers felt like the original script would be too 'boring', despite the original intention of having it be that way by the writers was to help set overarching tone and mood.
As for learning another language? That's not an argument for addressing the poor quality or decisions inherent with their approach to making the game's content accessible to non-JP audiences.

[Telkira]

I stopped reading right there. You dont. Anyone who thinks they speak for everyone is naive at best. People who say it? Usually have their head shoved so far up their own backside that they can see boogers and smell mouthwash.

If they released a faithful translation of the game, literally everyone who plays FFXIV would enjoy it all the same. No one would complain and everyone could take solace in the fact that the vision of the game they're playing is in-line with what everyone else has.
But that's not the case. Even the OP of this very thread has highlighted some very real discrepancies with how the game's textual and narrative content is presented for seemingly no reason. I can also provide some examples, where certain things are either changed or omitted that completely change certain things like character's motivations and personalities, or where unnecessary dialog fluff is added because someone thought that the original text was too boring.

Balmung
Ok, that checks out.

I say this in terms of 'speaking for everyone' because people who mindlessly overlook these issues are also the same types of people who either seemingly have no internal monologue or just mindlessly consume whatever it is they're fed.

But that would be unfair, wouldn't it?

[Lunaxia]

Look, I get being annoyed when they change the occasional piece of text in a story, but one thing you have to understand is that for English audiences, the Japanese text cut and dried more often than not would be very, very boring. Most of the nuance is found in their speaking style, and that is very difficult to convey to someone who doesn't have a deep familiarity with the language, and even then, it won't quite hit the way it would for a native speaker. Many of their favoured archetypes and preferred kinds of humour just flat out don't translate well to English, and can come across as juvenile, cliché or old-fashioned when enforced - see the majority of JRPGs - and others, like Haurchefant's original portrayal, just strike a bum note because we do not perceive certain behaviours in the same way. As Koji said, to deliver the same emotional experience to a foreign audience that the Japanese would have is just not possible without considerable change, because our cultural mindsets and values are innately different, even if we share things in common on the surface. Anime fans may be more accustomed to the Japanese style of storytelling and see no issue with this, but with all due respect, there is a reason most anime is not generally held in high-esteem in the West, and you'll find the few that are, are the ones make considerably more use of tropes popular in Western media than their contemporaries.

And honestly, for all that some people continue to complain about this, what they don't seem to realise is that some of the hallmark experiences of the game, such as the DRK quests or Emet-Selch's character (he's much more biting and sarcastic in the English version) have been significantly modified from the Japanese to better strike a chord with foreign players and are what they are because of that intervention. Without it, and without the obvious influences from the likes of GoT, the game would be in a very, very different place to what it is now, especially HW and ShB - two of the most popular expansions to date.

You're not missing anything in the Japanese version, I promise you.

[Telkira]

Look, I get being annoyed when they change the occasional piece of text in a story, but one thing you have to understand is that for English audiences, the Japanese text cut and dried more often than not would be very, very boring. Most of the nuance is found in their speaking style, and that is very difficult to convey to someone who doesn't have a deep familiarity with the language, and even then, it won't quite hit the way it would for a native speaker.

That's not for any one specific person to decide, and is also flat-out wrong. Plenty of subbed anime (and even dubbed content) is able to retain the nuance and charm of speaking in Japanese, but you're also overlooking the fact that the medium being used is a video game, so naturally, the Japanese textual content is going to work with the assets and thematic elements of the setting, style, engine, etc. to immerse the player.

Many of their favoured archetypes and preferred kinds of humour just flat out don't translate well to English, and can come across as juvenile, cliché or old-fashioned when enforced - see the majority of JRPGs - and others, like Haurchefant's original portrayal, just strike a bum note because we do not perceive certain behaviours in the same way. As Koji said, to deliver the same emotional experience to a foreign audience that the Japanese would have is just not possible without significant change, because our cultural mindsets and values are innately different, even if we share things in common on the surface.

Anime fans may be more accustomed to the Japanese style of storytelling and see no issue with this, but with all due respect, there is a reason most anime is not generally held in high-esteem in the West

With all due (dis)respect, those types of people who would have been offended or bothered by Haurchefant's portrayal in Japanese would be better off either just skipping it or just not bothering playing the game, or consuming any Japanese media for that matter.

What you're basically supporting is the cultural gentrification, correction, and displacement of Japanese media, the condensation and revision of 'problematic' elements because allowing the content to stand on its own merits in a foreign market would be seen as undesirable.
That becomes a sort of racism, wherein the content has to be 'corrected' because it would be seen as 'wrong', when objectively, there is nothing wrong with it, and the foreign market would be better off just having their insecurities ignored for the sake of retaining artistic and literary integrity, otherwise people wouldn't be so keen to identify and call out these egregious deviations and discrepancies which do have a negative effect on their ability to enjoy the game's content and story, especially when the changes are unnecessary or are less desirable than what was initially written.

[Telkira]

You're not missing anything in the Japanese version, I promise you.

That's not for you to decide, and I've already found that I was deprived of enough to complain about it and hope that the devs give us a separate option to have the game translated faithfully, not just localized. It may be slightly more workload, but it would do well enough to appease those who are displeased by the LOC team's butchering of game content.

[OgruMogru]

Those evil localization baddies are corrupting the pure Japanese vision of Haurchefant doing a filthy Sid James laugh and honking the WoLs tits. Unforgivable. Gentrifiers.

[Lunaxia]

That's not for any one specific person to decide...

That's for the dev team to decide, actually, since it is their game to market, and given that FF has for a large part of its history been intended to reach global audiences, it's a fairly natural decision to make. If, as you said in another post, you do not wish to see "Western concepts" in a Japanese game, you have a plethora of other Japanese media never intended to leave its shores that will deliver the experience you crave.

and is also flat-out wrong. Plenty of subbed anime (and even dubbed content) is able to retain the nuance and charm of speaking in Japanese.

And you know that how, exactly, when you don't even speak the language?

With all due (dis)respect

Oho, very mature of you.

those types of people who would have been offended or bothered by Haurchefant's portrayal in Japanese would be better off either just skipping it or just not bothering playing the game, or consuming any Japanese media for that matter.

But the devs don't actually want that, so we didn't get Sexual Harassment Lite and instead received a version much more in keeping with what the players they actually want to consume the game would be more comfortable with.

That becomes a sort of racism, wherein the content has to be 'corrected' because it would be seen as 'wrong'

Not wrong, it just wouldn't sell, and that's their ultimate objective, at the end of the day. It benefits them to cater to different cultural sensibilities, so that's why they have decided to employ a team of people and pay them a wage to do so.

If you don't like it, feel free to go pull up a list of Papyrus-font subbed anime with foot-long translation notes every other sentences and enjoy the stilted, hammy dialogue and awkward phrasing so you can bask in your perceived sense of textual "purity."

[Telkira]

That's for the dev team to decide, actually, since it is their game to market, and given that FF has for a large part of its history been intended to reach global audiences, it's a fairly natural decision to make.

No, it's not for the devs to decide whether or not people would be entertained by something or would find it boring. That would be for the for the audience themselves to decide. By omitting or implementing changes/deviations from the source material, they are effectively robbing the end user of their ability to determine that for themselves.
I personally think the changes made by the LOC team are unnecessary and take too many liberties, many of which actually don't fit with what's happening in the setting or situation. It's insulting, quite frankly, both as a fan of the content and as a consumer of JP media.

The game can still exist comfortably as a global export product and still remain true to its source material. It will still sell and have the same mass-market appeal it always had, with the added bonus of being a 1:1 faithful vision.

But the devs don't actually want that, so we didn't get Sexual Harassment Lite and instead received a version much more in keeping with what the players they actually want to consume the game would be more comfortable with.

If they didn't want it, then they wouldn't have included it in the JP script and the LOC team didn't have to go over their heads to implement these changes.
And 'Sexual harassment lite'?? Oh come on, it's literally just a comedy routine in a video game. If you seriously would have been bothered by that to such an overdramatic degree then you literally shouldn't be playing video games. It's one thing to find it tasteless or not funny, it's another to label it like it's some sort of violation. It's not. It's a character in a video game. People would have accepted Haurchefant and gotten over it.

People would have found it entertaining/funny and those who are uncomfortable by it would have their opinions. It's accommodating their insecurities at the expense of a valid (and arguably more entertaining and comical character) while creating a massive discrepancy which the devs apologized for doing. If Japanese audiences can be entertained by him, so can Western ones. It is a JP product, first and foremost.

[Telkira]

And you know that how, exactly, when you don't even speak the language?

I've read translation/localizer notes, and have watched enough content to familiarize myself with the intentions of the writers. It's a basic part of growing media literacy, which is why I always recommend subtitled content over dubbed content, because you learn more as you watch and it invites understanding.

Not wrong, it just wouldn't sell, and that's their ultimate objective, at the end of the day.

It would sell just like it always has. The fact that the French and German localizations are more in-line with the JP source material than the EN scripts and those are enjoyed just fine.

If you don't like it, feel free to go pull up a list of Papyrus-font subbed anime with foot-long translation notes every other sentences and enjoy the stilted, hammy dialogue and awkward phrasing so you can bask in your perceived sense of textual "purity."

You have no idea how much I enjoy that. If the game kept all the references to JP pop culture, it would be an opportunity for foreign players to learn a little bit about JP culture in addition to playing a video game. Players would ask "what did they mean by this?" and they would be told by others, either via word-of-mouth or from going a search online.