Localization Criticism

[Alchemii]

I'm not a fan of localizers. I find them to be mostly useless, if not outright detrimental to any piece of work they are involved in. But in this case, they actually should have done their job and named this something else, but couldn't be bothered to do their actual job.

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/a/rw3TsRo It even has two towers. Seriously.

You pay all that money for a localization team, and they can't be bothered to do their actual job. Oh, but you better believe their gonna get their amateur friend that can't actually voice act to be in the starring role.

Edit: I tried to put a picture in HB, and it didn't work. Don't want to spoil things for anyone that cares about it.

[ZodaSoda]

The core of the problem of Localizers in the modern day is 90% of them are Localizing for themselves and for their friend groups and not for the fanbase at large, When they put in their own Humor, or their own quirks, sure that might play to you and your friends, but there's a lot of the fanbase who are not you and not your friends, we dont really care about your quirky persona. Localization should always be as close as possible to the original text and nothing that's not even mentioned in the original should be there at all, so if that doesnt hit well with the fanbase, they can actually tell the writer that what they wrote was weak, When a localization ruins good writing or even changes bad writing, that doesnt help the writer at all. Especially imagine if a Japanese writer heard there was criticism of a certain part of an anime or a manga in the west and they looked up some comments only to be super confused what people are bothered by cause the comments keep talking about stuff they didnt write.

[SongOfTheWind]

The core of the problem of Localizers in the modern day is 90% of them are Localizing for themselves and for their friend groups and not for the fanbase at large, When they put in their own Humor, or their own quirks, sure that might play to you and your friends, but there's a lot of the fanbase who are not you and not your friends, we dont really care about your quirky persona. Localization should always be as close as possible to the original text and nothing that's not even mentioned in the original should be there at all, so if that doesnt hit well with the fanbase, they can actually tell the writer that what they wrote was weak, When a localization ruins good writing or even changes bad writing, that doesnt help the writer at all. Especially imagine if a Japanese writer heard there was criticism of a certain part of an anime or a manga in the west and they looked up some comments only to be super confused what people are bothered by cause the comments keep talking about stuff they didnt write.

I know people usually remember a different npc to fight the localisation wars, but my favourite example is from ARR. People like to complain about pre-Garuda crystals quest chain being ridiculous. And it is. In English (and probably other languages which took it from there) In Japanese it is completely different, and I mean it. In Japanese that chain of quest actually makes sense, explains the elements and a smart decision Cid used to build what he built with the resources he got. We know what we are doing there, people (researchers and scholars!) know what we are looking for and help. In English? We are made fun of and look for random nonsense and then magically it all works out. No wonder players feel like it’s all a joke and not a funny one.

[Alchemii]

The core of the problem of Localizers in the modern day is 90% of them are Localizing for themselves and for their friend groups and not for the fanbase at large, When they put in their own Humor, or their own quirks, sure that might play to you and your friends, but there's a lot of the fanbase who are not you and not your friends, we dont really care about your quirky persona. Localization should always be as close as possible to the original text and nothing that's not even mentioned in the original should be there at all, so if that doesnt hit well with the fanbase, they can actually tell the writer that what they wrote was weak, When a localization ruins good writing or even changes bad writing, that doesnt help the writer at all. Especially imagine if a Japanese writer heard there was criticism of a certain part of an anime or a manga in the west and they looked up some comments only to be super confused what people are bothered by cause the comments keep talking about stuff they didnt write.

Oh I 100% agree with this. It's just in this particular case. It's not even a humor issue, it's a direct reference to a certain event, that I'm sure the original writers didn't even think about. As it would have most like not effected them at all. But the Localizers are Americans, they should be well aware of the event, and should have known better.

[Chyro]

Oh no two numbers with a line in between that specify a residential district.

Is that really such a big issue? I didn't even notice when playing through normally.

I find it a bit weird that this is something to get upset about.

[Alchemii]

Oh no two numbers with a line in between that specify a residential district.

Is that really such a big issue? I didn't even notice when playing through normally.

I find it a bit weird that this is something to get upset about.

Maybe the face that it's design and those specific number reference a serious terrorist attack, that had massive implication across the entire world. I understand you might be to young to remember the events or even experienced them first hand.

[Chyro]

Maybe the face that it's design and those specific number reference a serious terrorist attack, that had massive implication across the entire world. I understand you might be to young to remember the events or even experienced them first hand.

I know the event in question. But a random map section in a game using numbers that happen to match the date of said event with the map itself being vaguely interpretable as two towers doesn't make me think "Oh no how could the localization team have overlooked this clear reference to this historical event". Just because a historical event happened at a certain date doesn't forbid all media from using those two numbers in combination. If there was any reason to assume this was intentional, then yeah, it may be a bit questionable. I very highly doubt it though. And don't see how this is any issue at all.

[LarienTiwele]

Maybe the face that it's design and those specific number reference a serious terrorist attack, that had massive implication across the entire world. I understand you might be to young to remember the events or even experienced them first hand.

As someone old enough to remember and whom has had friends and family lost in it, I found it a small but nice tribute of sorts - They will be remembered, much as the theme of the story goes.

[PorxiesRCute]

Is this even a localization issue? When have location names ever been changed between Japanese and English?

It's a reference to FF9 and FF11 (the Alliance Raid series we'll be doing this expansion), like Residential Radius 9-14 was a reference to FF9 and FF14.

[Alchemii]

Is this even a localization issue? When have location names ever been changed between Japanese and English?

It's a reference to FF9 and FF11 (the Alliance Raid series we'll be doing this expansion), like Residential Radius 9-14 was a reference to FF9 and FF14.

And that would be fine, if it was just the numbers. But those numbers with that building design specifically become an issue.