Inappropriate EN Localization Valentione Quest Text

[MikkoAkure]

The localization teams are tied directly to the writing teams and the English team even makes some of the lore that gets translated back into Japanese so it’s not as simple as you think.

Besides the lore, every single sign in the game and words on the maps are written in English (in the Eorzean script) not to mention nearly every single song that has lyrics, no matter which version of the game you’re playing so if you wanted to bring “original intent and information” into this, you could use that to say that the English version is the “ideal”.

I wanted to pop in to clear up some confusion about how a lot of in-game terminology is conceived. It is often (understandably) believed that localization has little to do with the game beyond translating what the development team creates for the Japanese version. While translation is a large part of our job, what is not known by many is that the EN localization team plays a large role in the creation of a lot of in-game terminology and lore which is then localized back into Japanese (with liberties often taken by the Japanese team so that the text might appear more appealing to their target Japanese audience).

He was also interviewed a few weeks ago about his work in FFXI among other things and it shows how important localization is compared to a direct translation.

Even when I thought I did well on a translation, my fellow translators would look at my work and say, “You got the meaning of the sentence right, but is it fun to read? Try reading it again.”

For the most part, non-Japanese players will never see the original story that was written in Japanese; in other words, whether or not the Japanese version of the story is interesting is irrelevant to them. Their evaluation will be based on the translated version, so there’s no point in having a translation if it isn’t entertaining. Most importantly, the scenes that left an impression in the Japanese version have to be translated to impress the players who are playing the English version instead.

When I was first hired, my translations were very faithful to the original, so if someone were to translate my English back into Japanese, they would end up with original Japanese text. But when a translation has phrases that aren’t used in English, the players won’t understand what you’re trying to convey. Translators need to consider the intentions behind the words, or the emotions won’t be conveyed to the players at all.

Western audiences have different expectations than Japanese audiences. You can’t say the game wouldn’t have a completely different feel if every single NPC spoke in the same flat direct translation with no personality just because that’s “more authentic to the Japanese version”. Limsa Lominsa would lose basically all of its character. We expect certain characters to talk a certain way, especially in a fantasy game, and that doesn’t translate well.

There have been a few questionable decisions in the localization like the Midgardsormr incident but for the most part this game’s localization is much better done than some other JRPGs and the EN team doubles as lore team as well so they’re more integrated than any other game I can think of.