Translation quality

[Onikimaru]

snip

This is pretty much exactly how i feel. Thank you for putting this into a well thought out post(which i couldn't do). FF12 is an exception in my book, i think that game has an excellent balance of style and modern english speaking techniques. The voice actors they chose for that game also made things easier to understand as they were bloody brilliant IMO. My favorite among the bunch being "Cidolfus Demen Bunansa" voiced by john lee. One of the reasons i think they did a particularly good job is that most of the retro style english themes they were using were performed mostly by nobles, I.E ash, balthier and fran. Fran being an exception as isolation was the key to her races survival. She is also like 500 years old IIRC?, so it would make sense for her to talk that way, this is why i think XIV needs to have a good balance in the story of ARR.

Everybody has their own way of speaking yes. You have the hard workers at uldah, who speak like we do now, with some quirks here and there. But then you have the scions. Who ALL speak in riddles...when they should be the ones speaking in a more modern tongue. Lalafels speak this way because of their parents right?, so i think they're ok. Sure giving the scions a bit of a unique style is always good for story, and to get people entranced for those use to it. But it get's really annoying when the scions voice actors suck...example. When you are about to get into a massive fight, and minfillia or someone else says, "doth thee knowest no bounds?" "hath thee no sympathy for the weak?" stuff like that is..so blegh with bad voice acting.

Video of cid being awesome - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tMUysAXm8 quality is a bit on the wild side, you will notice a slight dip in the voice. This is due to an old emulator issue.

[RaijinSupreme]

it's localization and rephrasing rather than an actual translation. because of culture differences, some phrases said in Japanese may not make any much sense if it was translated directly to English, or any other language. I like it better this way, for it respects other languages and the people that speaks them, while still protecting and telling the story of the game.

[Onikimaru]

it's localization and rephrasing rather than an actual translation. because of culture differences, some phrases said in Japanese may not make any much sense if it was translated directly to English, or any other language. I like it better this way, for it respects other languages and the people that speaks them, while still protecting and telling the story of the game.

Without localization there wouldn't be translation. You could say it's because of culture differences, you could also say that they could do a better job while respecting other languages and protecting the story.

[Illya]

At least one reference has been noted from Version 1.0.
ネールはやっぱり男だった (Nael Was a Man After All)
http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest.../blog/1441865/

Nael Van Darnus (not Nael Deus Darnus) being referred to as a man in the dialogue. Apparently the Japanese description for him on the lodestone referred to him as a man as well.

Interesting if true. I wonder why they decided to change Nael from male to female, at least the Deus version. Seems like a pointless change to make and it made a mess of the English version of Nael's dialogue in a certain cutscene.

Remember a localization is not a translation..

When localization changes the meaning of the original script or leaves out details entirely, it's no longer a localization. It's a butchery. The point of localization is to modify translated scripts to match local culture and language. It's not to completely change the meaning of statements or events, or even leave things entirely out.

[Renik]

OP

The localization is not bad, but the EN team has taken too many liberties, to the point they have altered personalities, changed lines and even added or excluded some, but Ferne is well defended by an horde of raging lore fans who have been blinded by gratefulness to their lore god, son nothing will be done about it.

[Shougun]

Interesting if true. I wonder why they decided to change Nael from male to female, at least the Deus version. Seems like a pointless change to make and it made a mess of the English version of Nael's dialogue in a certain cutscene.


When localization changes the meaning of the original script or leaves out details entirely, it's no longer a localization. It's a butchery. The point of localization is to modify translated scripts to match local culture and language. It's not to completely change the meaning of statements or events, or even leave things entirely out.

I felt like it was a tip of the hat to Jenova as Nael was to Sephiroth, to finish the picture that has association to metamorphosis (high aether, primal energies), tortious science of Allagans, and of a meteor (Jenova). Edit: And what Aldora said below~ ^^

Also, Localization may change a story if it feels it matches the area better - I get you don't like the change, but it is absolutely a thing that has been done before and within the job description. Point of localization isn't to keep a product 1:1 but to bring it over in a form best for the audience, I suspect they were keeping it as lore-y/"Ic" like as they normally do and as "RPG" english as they normally do. Whether you felt like that targeted you very well or not. . different story lol, but butchery?

Besides how high Koji is on the lore team, there is also terms of "localization" with western dragons who tend to be less agreeable than eastern ones. They'd behave differently when you bother a big ol mega powerful dragon who died fighting people and whose children die fighting people, and we expect to be treated to a cup of tea? No.. even if the large part of the crimes wasn't us in particular, though we've killed some already. Even if we scrap the norm of western dragons, I still expect the dragon to be a bit ornery - and not that impressed with us. I'd personally be annoyed at how polite and verbose the Japanese Sormr was if translated and not localized (especially after his opening action is to attack). Anyway , agree to disagree lol.

[Aldora]

Interesting if true. I wonder why they decided to change Nael from male to female, at least the Deus version. Seems like a pointless change to make and it made a mess of the English version of Nael's dialogue in a certain cutscene.

Since the explanation contains spoilers, i’ve enclosed in the spoiler tags below.

After defeating The White Raven (Nael van Darnus) on the Rivenroad (back in 1.x), his essence was absorbed by Bahamut, creating a new being.

This new being took the form of Nael deus Darnus, which consisted of the essence of both Nael van Darnus as well as Bahamut. Nael van Darnus is Male, however Bahamut is portrayed as a female. Since the essence of those two merged into 1 being, Nael deus Darnus looks female, but still talks like the male version Nael van Darnus.

[Allyrion]

Some of the ability name differences are too much as well as larger plot conversations.

But What bothers me is that the scenes are actually different in Japanese vs English.

Look at the quest when you meet Haurchefant, it's called "When the Cold Sets In".
The expressions and gestures are different.
Haurchefant (and the PC, as well) is much more animated in the Japanese one.
The English version is watered down.

This seems far for localization.
I get that they put a lot of effort to re-adjust things for an english crowd, but they're changing the characters.
That's too much.
We're seeing different scenes at a certain point

[Spellbinder]

snip

I see people often make reference to this cutscene, which if I may add, is the only instance where the gestures were different. I also notice how it's always only a comparison between the Japanese and the English. Did you know that Japanese is the only language to get this special treatment for this cutscene?

Are you also aware that this characterization of the slightly crazed charismatic character talking about sweaty bodies and rippling muscles (almost as if he's coming on to you) is a character trope easily recognized by the JP audience, but not necessarily any others? I'm not trying to defend the English, French, and German localizations of the game per se, but there are reasons that these are sometimes portrayed differently to different audiences.

[Allyrion]

I see people often make reference to this cutscene, which if I may add, is the only instance where the gestures were different. I also notice how it's always only a comparison between the Japanese and the English. Did you know that Japanese is the only language to get this special treatment for this cutscene?

Are you also aware that this characterization of the slightly crazed charismatic character talking about sweaty bodies and rippling muscles (almost as if he's coming on to you) is a character trope easily recognized by the JP audience, but not necessarily any others? I'm not trying to defend the English, French, and German localizations of the game per se, but there are reasons that these are sometimes portrayed differently to different audiences.

Well, I switch between Japanese and English sometimes.
I just came across this one by chance, never heard anyone else mention it.

Afterwards, I haven't switched back to English because I was surprised at the difference.
I get that the trope is picked up by a Japanese audience more easily, but I don't think that's a good reason.
Because I think no matter what, we should be playing the same game.

There are certain liberties when it comes to localization, but I don't think it should get to a point where people don't think of characters the same way.
And the actual text takes quite a few deviations, which I've become accustomed to. But then to actually see that the scene is different between the two felt like we'd cross a line.

Don't get me wrong. For the english text they probably did the right thing, toning him down since his words didn't match.
It just shows how different the portrayal was that they had to change the character movements.

Personally, I'd rather they keep the content intact and people can just deal with some culture difference when playing a Japanese game.
The dialogue is so different. All the characters are basically different people in Japanese.
And I'm not saying the Japanese version is always better even, except like in Midgardsomr's case where some things are lost.
I'm only saying that the differences are too stark.