this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
15 points (100.0% liked)
Games
32603 readers
1284 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
His work on Vagrant Story was phenomenal. Japanese scripts tend to be really boring and samey. Without the work of a good localizer, you'd hear the same twenty anime one-liners interspersed throughout the entire game.
Or in the case of his work on Ace Attorney, you wouldn't understand any of the puns if they were translated literally!
I used to see it all the time when I read unofficial transliterations of manga and the translator tried to make the pun work, they'd include a note explaining the joke. Personally I prefer localisation which keeps the spirit of what was meant but the text/lines flows in a much more natural way to a native English speaker.
It's a common fan translation technique, and--as far as the criticism sourced in good faith goes--I wonder if it's the genesis of a lot of the grumbling. Back when fans had to rely on independent, amateur translating to have access to more material.
Maybe some of them would just prefer the "literal with footnotes" approach.
I’m one of these people. Translations/dubs can change the entire tone of the scene if localized incorrect.
Now if there isn’t a direct English equivalent to the Japanese, changes should only be done as absolutely necessary.
Just according to keikaku*
*TL: keikaku means plan
I don't think anyone would've complained if the localization's quality was on-par with AA or Vagrant Story, but it looks to me like that isn't the case.
I still can't find what people are taking issue with here. The article doesn't really explain.
The complaints are largely, as she says, "sacrificed accuracy for flowery prose." Japanese games in this setting still often follow in the footsteps of early Dragon Quest and the Final Fantasy games set in Ivalice by not strictly using contemporary English.
I think it's an interesting conversation when it can be divorced from "removing insensitive language is censorship" crowd.