Translation Facination

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

I'm talking about the presentation of the story, not petty, immaterial things like whether Ether got renamed Tincture. The only place I can think of where it was actually compromised was Celes's suicide attempt, which got nonsensically rewritten as a "leap of faith."

Things like translating Relm's dialogue as referring to herself in the third person are true to the letter of the Japanese version, but they either carry different, unintentional meanings or make no sense at all from a Western perspective. They've been translated without being localized.

(In the example given, in Japan, using the third person to refer to oneself is associated with small children; for us, it's how cavemen talk. The competent, official localization makes Relm use normal pronouns while finding ways to convey her childishness that still makes sense in a Western context.)

[MJN SEIFER]

I remember the "leap of faith" stuff - it was pointless translating (not even really translating, but rather over moralized cenorship).

Going on; One thing I suddenly remembered is when the translation would suddenly use a word from another translation (I assume that's what it was) there may be some on other FFs but the ones I remember where FFVII, One of the Chocobo's Greens is reffered to as "Salmon Greens" by an NPC - confusing newcomers as "Salmon Greens" don't exist, I think it is refering to Mimmit(sp?) Greens. So Salmon might be from another translation - or a simple mistake by the translaters. Another example is that at one point (I forget where) you recieve the "Last Elixer", does that mean that's the last ever Elixer you will find in the game? No it's just a Megalixer.

Note: I'm still trying to determine wether "Knowlespole" was a mistranslation or not...

[The Man]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be North Pole.

[Wolf Kanno]

Localization is incredibly important for RPGs nowadays. XII would have been a very generic game if they just chose to simply translate it. Not only did they give it a much more humanized narrative but they even brought over the multi-cultural aspect that was present in the Japanese version by utilizing different dialects to show different regions of the world. Hell, some people feel the English version is actually superior to the Japanese version in regards to localization.

In the past, a lot was lost in localization. Hell some titles still slip through the cracks (FFX, Xenosaga, etc...) I even feel part of my issues with a title like VII is that the poor localization makes several of the story elements seem less important than they really are. Luckily the Ultimania clears it up but its still annoying. I have not been able to get the emulator to work to see Skyrender's translation but from what I have seen of the dialogue, I'm more in agreement with Kishi that the fan translation is lacking due to having little localization. The GBA ports of IV-VI prove how powerful an accurate translation combined with excellent localization can create an almost different experience. Hell, even though I do miss the whole "Nanten and Hokuten" Knights spiel in FFT:WoTL, it was amusing to see them translated and see a newer facet of the Ivalice of FFT. The localization really cleared up and made the FFT world seem more interconnected than before.

Now if I can just get SE to do a new translation and port of Xenogears, we'll be in business. God knows that game lost quite a bit in its localization.

[MJN SEIFER]

Yeah I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be North Pole.

Yeah, It probably is.

I like Skyrender's translation as well, although inplaces it looks like things are in the wrong order (I only have it as a script) I can't think of any examples yet, but I have the script somewhere so I'll soon have some. I can remember being a bit confused about the EXP Egg clue in that one - it certanly isn't "The World Is Square".

Also I heard a rumor that FFVII had the most monster names poorly translated. Anyone know some examples?