Forsaken Lover
07-26-2013, 04:27 PM
So a guy on SomethingAwful's forums who speaks Japanese is very harshly critical o the English localization of XIII. Apparently, it's too literal. The point of translation he says, is NOT to just transfer everything said in Japanese to English because not everything said in Japanese would sound good in English. Even if XIII was well-written, it might sound really forced and unnatural once changed into our language.
This got me thinking about the exchange that went something like...
Snow *to Hope: We gotta have hope!
Hope: We don't have any!
I think a first-grader can see the problem with this dialogue and, indeed, the general problem of using foreign words as exotic naming.
Sound familiar, FF fans? Tina or Terra?
The problem is that it isn't the same world as back in the 90s. We were all too young and too ignorant of the fact the games we loved were made on the other side of the world and they were originally in another language. Hell, this even worked for anime too. Pokemon? Nobody cared then and few people care now that Ash Ketchum is actually Satoshi.
But times change. We're a more informed people. And with that informed state came a lot of people who don't take kindly to meddling with the translation beyond a certain point. Any change, big or small, can be viewed as a BETAYAL to these people.
And so I ask you these two little questions.
1. What if the mai character of FFXVI had a name like Hope? It's a name here sure but it's also a word - a word that would be brought up quite frequently in a story about saving the world and never giving up. Let's say for the sake of argument the main character's name is Life. Would you be supportive of changing that name for foreign translations?
2. Regardless of what your feelings are on the matter, do you think Square-Enix of America would have the nerve to change names nowadays? Would they let Life slide because they don't want to risk pissing off the more informed fanbase?
This got me thinking about the exchange that went something like...
Snow *to Hope: We gotta have hope!
Hope: We don't have any!
I think a first-grader can see the problem with this dialogue and, indeed, the general problem of using foreign words as exotic naming.
Sound familiar, FF fans? Tina or Terra?
The problem is that it isn't the same world as back in the 90s. We were all too young and too ignorant of the fact the games we loved were made on the other side of the world and they were originally in another language. Hell, this even worked for anime too. Pokemon? Nobody cared then and few people care now that Ash Ketchum is actually Satoshi.
But times change. We're a more informed people. And with that informed state came a lot of people who don't take kindly to meddling with the translation beyond a certain point. Any change, big or small, can be viewed as a BETAYAL to these people.
And so I ask you these two little questions.
1. What if the mai character of FFXVI had a name like Hope? It's a name here sure but it's also a word - a word that would be brought up quite frequently in a story about saving the world and never giving up. Let's say for the sake of argument the main character's name is Life. Would you be supportive of changing that name for foreign translations?
2. Regardless of what your feelings are on the matter, do you think Square-Enix of America would have the nerve to change names nowadays? Would they let Life slide because they don't want to risk pissing off the more informed fanbase?