/vr/ - Retro Games

They decided to go the cheapest route and use in-house translators whose native language is Japanese. This was often the case with retro Japanese games.

>>2506447
Spanish translation was even worse.

>>2506447
When it came out, the translation was praised as being of the best ever. Times change.

>>2506469

The Spanish translated was based on the English translation, so I assume it carried over all the same inaccuracies, possibly while adding some of its own.

It's from 1997. Clearly you need to play more SNES RPGs to see what a truly awful translation is.

Square was a big company that made lots of AAA games that everybody in Japan loved. Outside of Japan, nobody gave two shits about RPGs, and they were a super niche genre that would have one small production run, and not even sell through the whole run. Square was also not super rich at this point. Because of this, Square usually did a lot of corner cutting on their localization process. FF7 was the catalyst that made everyone think "maybe we should give this genre a second chance", which in turn made RPG translators, and Square, do actually decent translations. That's why early Final Fantasies on the PSX (7 and Tactics) have pretty shitty translations, but 8 and 9 are near perfect.

>>2506532
I'm not sure what''s wrong with you if you don't think Japan is also a country where people don't think videogames are for kids and adults who play them aren't marginalized or judged as manchildren.

>>2506532
Square thought FF7 was going to be a hit in the US, the previous localized one had sold almost a million. They marketed the hell out of it, especially on tv -- there were commercials that only showed FMV cutscenes. I know more than a few dudebros who bought it based on that.

> Heal magic
> cures ailments
> Cure magic
> heals wounds

>>2506447
Aeris was a boy in the Spanish version.

>>2506582
Man, what's wrong with you Spanish people and your localizing? I just read the other day that in Pokemon, Slam was translated as the verb "to slam" as in slamming a door, and it was so stupid that Nintendo has kept it all the way to ORAS as a joke.

>>2506582
How the fuck did they justify that one?

>>2506582
Bullshit.

>>2506447
...it was translated in something like 3-4 months time

Most games of the era have the same quality translation. It's unfortunate, but it is how it is.

Most retranslations are about as bad, too, just in different ways.

>>2506582
I don't buy it, I'd like sauce.

>>2506632
Cheng and Leno are my favourite Turks!

>>2506631
By multiple translators (this is usually a bad idea) who had little contact with each other, if any at all (this is an abysmal idea). That's why some parts are worse than others.

>>2506582
Also, I need proof. This is too stupid to be true.

Spanish translation it's legendary.

>>2506645
>Aeris, eres una niño muy especial

>>2506705
What's it say? I don't speak taco.

>>2506705
Google translate says his feast awaits you at the 1st floor, which probably means Barrett opted for the deluxe room good for a family with the feast food service, only you came in late like usual and the food was already eaten.

>>2506469
>>2506705
Care to give some examples of the greatness of spanish translation to non-spanish speaking folks?

>>2506582
Harvest Moon 64's translation comes to mind if that is true. Then again in this case we are talking about people who spelt the name of their company wrong in the title screen.

>>2506790
Miss is translated as "merma" but merma means that something was reduced it doesn't make sense

>>2506786
>>2506790
Not that anon but I can tell you that the spanish translation was done over the english translation phrase by phrase with zero contextual notes. Aside from that it was rused and there are some grammar errors.
The pic that the other anon posted was a direct translation of "Mr... Cloud? Your party awaits in the second floor", but instead of using party in its group meaning, it was used in the celebration meaning.

Translations to spanish were very bad before the late nineties in almost all the fields, and some official translations were practically rewrites.

>>2506795
I was going to say this, they even spelled Natsume on the title screen wrong.

>>2506629
>>2506645
>>2506675
I can't find the screen shot where they call her a boy but i found a crap tons of others shit translations like pic related.
The deal was that the Spanish translators have little to no time to translate the game, thank fully we Latinos got the USA version, i played both versions and i can tell that the Spanish version have to be the worst of the two and by far.

>>2506879
They say that in Midgar herbs and flowers don't growth but for some reason, flowers do.

>>2506815
tu is a valid romanization of つ.

Really the only evidence people ever have to show for the supposed badness of its translations is typos, if you've played any other RPG of the time it's easy to see why it was praised as the best up until that point. It's got a clear influence from the Woolsey SNES RPG's in its charm and natural speech.

There's a clear distinction in FF fans regarding translations and I'll certainly take entertaining over accurate any day. Post-VII characters just started sounding like robots.

>>2506967
Shouldn't be impossible to have both though.

>>2506920
Here's the loading screen form the game.

>>2506973

It shouldn't be, it just always seems to be one or the other with Final Fantasy titles unfortunately, V and VI I thought had brilliant translations and they still have heaps of autist retranslation patches.

>>2506447


It's only a couple of parts.

and blame EA; they're the ones who localized it for the US market

Whats with people going apeshit over a couple of badly translated sentences?

>>2507017
pic related.

i mean, anyone normal would play the game, say "hey there's a few amusing typos" and carry on with their life. the translation has its own charm and style, and it serves its purpose well. these autismlords want to go and change it all to be cold and lacking any sort of charisma whatsoever, in the name of "muh accuracy". fuck that.

>>2507040
You and me both, bro. I got the DS version of Chrono Trigger and it was heartbreaking to see all charm from the Woolsey translation stripped away and replaced with.... just words. None of Frog's thees and thous. None of Magus's arrogance made apparent through his mannerisms. All that was left was cold, bland words.

>>2507045
Is the ps1 version like that?

>>2507045
Even with the shirts they used to promote CTDS, they didn't use the line in-game. I was incredibly disappointed.

>>2507045

Every time someone utters the name Ted Woolsey, God smites a basement-dwelling virgin.

>>2507135
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey
Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey Ted Woolsey

I love Ted Woolsey's translations they have like so many epic memes in them XD "you son of a submariner!" XDDDDDDDD who needs accuracy if you can have an epic meme like that, only autistic weeaboos :P

I don't know why I just got struck by lightning, but I have the feeling this thread is to blame.

>>2507271
wait what

>>2507149
this would've been fair criticism if the gba retranslation hadn't added their own jokes like the weapons of magitek destruction line in reference to the iraq war. they also slightly changed the woolsey reference to "son of a sandworm" so in the end neither are accurate.

>>2507286

The GBA translation was just a crock of shit overall. Ever since Square merged with Enix, they've somehow managed to fuck their localization department up even worse. Not a single SE-era game has a decent localization.

>>2507056
>MUH GRORIOUS NIPPON DIALOGUE

Final fantasy tactics is the worst translation work in any jrpg/srpg ever. Close to the first grandia on ps1.
I think the localization of the final fantasy VII was OK, keeping in mind the game has a fuckton, a gigantic ass amount of text. Most of the errors were just typos or a clearly tired burned out person work. They really rushed it to release the game in north america as fast as they could and it wasnt THAT bad compared to other games at the time.
Most of these companies in the 90s didnt had a third company to take care of localization.
Aside from working designs, no other company really did got good localizations during the pre-6th gen era and I don't even think it was much of concern in the japanese company command rooms until the ps2 era.
And really, compared to xenogears, final fantasy tactics and grandia... Final fantasy 7 has an acceptable translation.

>>2507271

I can't wait for the flamewars that ensue once the FF7 remake is released with an entirely new translation, devoid of character, charm or human emotion. "M-muh Aerith" and "M-muh Aeris" all day.

You've never played Wild Arms 2, have you?

>>2507350
>Final fantasy tactics is the worst translation work in any jrpg/srpg ever
Breath of Fire 2 kattfag pls go has it handily beat. Though I guess it's up to your preference whether a readable translation that makes a shit ton of factual mistakes or an incomprehensible one made by in-house Japanese people who don't speak English but nevertheless manages to be factually accurate.

>>2507451
>whether (...) is worse

>>2507451
To me final fantasy tactics is the worst, at least on the 5th gen. Few examples of awful engrish are breath being translated as "bracelet" and waste being translated as waist...

>>2507271
>(^^);
>>2507278
>wait what
All of a sudden, the game decides it has a narrator who wants to point out where you need to go, and it gets cute on you. I remember that because it was really jarring and doesn't ever happen again.
Its

>>2507505
OMG an emoticon 4chan told me I should react with anger for no reason when I see an emoticon.

you take this shit too seriously dude ;^)

Is there a list of all the games Ted Woolsey worked on?

>>2507517
What anger? I was answering the other anon. That is literally what happens in the game. ·̿̿Ĺ̯̿̿·̿

>>2506569
You don't heal wounds, you cure them. Healing is a natrual process. And it is often said that sickness can be healed, so that spell name works too.

>>2507501
FFT is actually pretty good. You can tell some parts they actually tried to give it attention and express the nuance of the original lines properly. I lot of shit that would be wasted otherwise is correctly implied without being clumsy or too literal.

That they managed to get it all out in a form that was essentially decipherable, is commendable, given that a lot of it was rushed and passed through too many different hands as they tried to get everything done.

That being said, the quality of translation and writing/editing is extremely variable, and some parts of it are completely butchered, most certainly due to lack of time and budget. They read like they were transliterated with no time for anything more than the barest proofread for spelling and punctuation. The Germonik scriptures in particular read like they were actually translated from some ancient language, and not intentionally I'm sure.


Even then,

It's still not even remotely close to as completely butt-fuckered as Wild Arms 2

>>2506450
One of the Square guys explained this as the reason for FF III's non-appearance outside of Japan.

"At that time, we were concentrating all our efforts on the new Super Famicom. Nowadays, you know in advance that a new game console is coming; Playstation, Playstation 2, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, and so forth. It was different back then. We had never worked on another console before and we were spending so much effort to catch up with the new technologies that we simply didn't have enough manpower to translate FF III."

I'm currently playing through Chrono Trigger with the retranslation and it might have been a mistake. I'm definitely a weeb faggot who favors accuracy over style, and localization by switching japanese references to american culture references is dumb to me, but this translation is just baffling a lot of the time. Why are the honorifics appearing everywhere? My favorite is reading THANK YOU CRONO DONO all the time.

>>2508178

>>2508178
What? Is that some fan translation or something? There's no honorifics in the official versions on SNES, PS, or DS.

>>2508197

Its this one
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Retranslation.html

>>2506447
by the standards of the time and under the circumstances it's pretty good
the only time i think it actually has a significant impact is the first boss fight

>>2508213
>Attack while it's tail is up! It's gonna counter attack with its laser!
>do x and it'll do y
Why is that so hard for you retards to comprehend?

>>2508197
He specificially said in his post that it was a retranslation. Not sure how you hard a hard time comprehending that.

>>2507140
Who?

>>2507401
If the original version was devoid of character, charm, or human emotion maybe an accurate translation will finally show people what a shit game it is with a shit story and shit characters.

>daily reminder that pic related is a hack to stab at the original which is void of grammar errors as bad as that and shill the new translation

Kill yourself op.

>>2508224
The re-"translation" by that illiterate romanian/russian dude?

no-life.jpeg

>>2507271
must be the german translation

>>2506447
Sony is notorious for pouring money into their PR and marketing and cutting corners everywhere else.

>>2508217
there's a delay between the first and second sentences, the player is set up for failure on his first playthrough (or the first one in a long time)

>>2507401
Accurate translations are usually terrible.

A good localization makes all the difference.

>>2508248

Kinda wish FF7 had an accurate translation, considering in the japanese version jenova does everything, and this is made clear, and in the localized version, they make it out like sephiroth is actually controlling a space god despite being a fucking vegetable the entire game.

Accurate translations being terrible is subjective anyway, dry? Maybe, but not terrible, what is terrible is what we got with fucking FF7.

>>2508248

the problem is that alot of translators take the literalist approach. like this is exactly what it says in japanese, to the point of keeping honorifics. the whole art of translating things is balancing accurate meaning with readable prose.

>>2508259
well you have to dig deeper for the answers

>>2506447
VIII was just as bad. They finally got their shit together with IX, but in X they regressed because they had to match the animu lip flaps.

I never played XI, but XII was really fucking awesome in that department.

>>2508276

Fucking honorifics are the worst, I understand they add a small degree of depth but what English reader fucking cares whether a character is addressed as -san, -kun-, -senpai, whatever - there's a million other ways to figure out what X character is to Y character. It's like having the story bashed into your skull at times.

That someone took the time to re-add them to goddamn Chrono Trigger of all games is the most autistic thing.

>>2508220

Ted Woolsey did translation work for Chrono Trigger, FF6, Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, Mystic Quest... basically a big round of the SNES RPGs everybody played.

He clearly had his own style and you end up with stuff like Kefka yelling SON OF A SUBMARINER

overall he did a decent job of actually translating but he definitely put in a lot of his own humor and charm and it's hit or miss

but imo a translation with character beats a robotic one. its like how a lot of manga has trouble translating things quickly because it relies on a lot of humor relevant to local cultures and long running standards of humor and in-jokes. it becomes really obvious and strained when somebody not familiar with the language tries to translate it without that intimate knowledge or timing

so I say Woolsey was a cool dude.

>>2509481
He's like the Carl Macek of video games.

>>2506447
So in other words you never played a game released before 2005 before? Because if that's not the case, then you're either a liar or you skipped 90% of the AAA games from the late 80's up until at least the mid 90's...

>>2508298
IX was the best translation of the PS1 games by far, but they fucked up in the area of most of the references, because a lot of them are mistranslated so they can fly over your head.

>>2509531
>because a lot of them are mistranslated so they can fly over your head.

Not necessarily. Rather, they are translated without taking the previous translations into consideration. Translation is all about interpretation. And, honestly, I far prefer IX's "Dragon Knight" over "Dragoon", among other things.

>>2507140
Most of his problem was actually the limitations of the cart due to cheapness. He had to condense the script so far that he had to charm it up extra.

Believe it or not VI is not his most botched work (even though Ted himself said he dropped the ball), it was Secret of Mana. Most of the text in general was chopped off, you're not even getting the whole experience playing the English version.

>and yet no one has retranslated it yet

>>2506532

people here gave two shits about ff6

>>2506532

Nobody gave two shits about RPGs which is why the SNES has dozens of top tier ones in English?

And yeah I know FF7 was the really big spark but come on

>>2506532
>Square was also not super rich at this point. Because of this, Square usually did a lot of corner cutting on their localization process.

How hard is it to check for basic grammar errors? It doesn't take a super rich company to hire a guy to check the script. Square was just sloppy.

>>2508178
You said you prefer accuracy. Perhaps the translators felt their is no English equivalent to dono. Or maybe they felt the whole honorifics thing just doesn't map well to English.

>>2509546
You're right there. You replay SoM and it's so elementary in its dialogue. It's like 9 year-old wrote it. I know the reasons why, and I know that game almost broke Woolsey. I hate what happened to his work for Chrono Trigger DS, but I wouldn't mind seeing another version of SoM.

>>2509720

Is there some reason Woolsey was inconsistent in CT with frog speaking with his thou's but the rest of the populace in the middle ages didn't?

Is it because Woolsey is a fucking hack? The only translators worse than Woolsey are the guys over at working designs, but I can almost forgive them for their offenses because of the number of niche games they brought over.

The people that defend Woolsey are the people that defend shitty translations based on nostalgia or because of the memes that have spewed forth from them.

>I'm so glad I have the son of a submariner line, its so much better than have a true translation

>>2509708
Yeah, there really is no excuse when you had games like Earthbound kicking around.

>>2509708
It's a game so they figured no one would give a shit.

>>2509727
I'm not sure you understand that these games weren't written that well to begin with

>>2506582

Wouldn't be a surprise. Spanish translations suck balls 99% of the time. Spaniards have the annoying tendency of translating names of people and places with silly results. It's a miracle they didn't name Cloud "Nube"

>>2506790

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHWEZ7Fs5I4

No need to know spanish to perceive the exquisite delivery of those lines

>>2506645

>muh accuracy

Weebs that don't speak japanese are just the worst.

Most japanese games have terrible writing, be thankful that every now and then someome tries to make it interesting.

>>2508119
You can't "cure" a wound either. You cure diseases and sickness.

>>2509708
The game used a different text format from anything in english, so they couldn't use any kind of auto spell checking which really didn't help

>I had never seen a AAA blockbuster title with such a piss-poor attempt at localization before.

So the PS1 was your first console, then?

>>2509901
>No need to know spanish to perceive the exquisite delivery of those lines

It's probably safe to assume everyone here is familiar with that sort of delivery from dubbed H-vids.

>>2509481
There's nothing at all alienating or bad about jap humor if you just put some notes on the side. You just want translators to pander to your own american sensibilities which has the same fucking effect on people not native to English-speaking countries except it's not authentic to the original game.

Conservative translations are best translations and if that makes me a weeb then I'm a fucking weeb I guess.

>>2509546
There's a rom patch that removes the font limits and expands a lot of the super condensed, dumb-sounding dialogue in SOM.

>>2506476
Bullshit, what of Shining Force's translations? Or Snatcher? FF7 doesn't even get to hold the candle to those.

>>2510165

Or earthbound, which has an amazing translation, but then again I guess people didn't actually play earthbound until it became a meme.

>>2510196
I remember when we didn't have internet memes

when things were better

>>2510234
Yeah, things were so better when we just had endless demotivational posters and bad jokes.

Being nostalgic about internet is fucking retarded.

>>2510237
There was a time before the internet existed, child

memes existed before the internet, and as soon as people started using the internet it had memes. Those bad jokes and demotivationals ARE memes.

>>2510234
So just regular memes, then? As if the media of the message makes a difference.

>>2510252
It makes a difference. The screen divides us and strips us of accountability for our ideas.

>>2509705
Dozens? At least in North America, only the FF games, CT, and SoM were well-known; maybe Mystic Quest. Those games had their enthusiasts but they certainly weren't the "cool" thing to play on those systems, whereas FF7 really changed that, for a while anyway. It wasn't until I started collecting, years after the actual time of the SNES, that I encountered any of the other SNES RPGs.

>>2510247
>memes exist before internet

Catchphrases are and will always be the lowest, most brainless, bland, cringeworthy, and childish form of humor.
Internet memes are nothing but forced visual catchphrases

>>2509491
thats a good comparison.

>>2509727
i'm glad somebody else thinks WD localizations are shit. there is a reason you guys aren't comedy writers, 90s WD staff
>DUDE LMAO WHEATIES

>>2506879

At first glance I kek'd, having read this as
>Flowers don't grow here
>However flowers do

But I guess I scrutinized it long enough to take this to mean, "They say that in Midgar flowers or plants can't grow, however somehow, they are growing."

Maybe I did some mental gymnastics for that one.

>>2510343
I suppose it's meaning should be something like "They say that flowers won't grow here, but here they are, growing." but the way it's written is terrible

>>2506995
And meanwhile I and others are still waiting for SMT If.. to translated or at least for people to try translating the SMT PS1 games.

>>2509913
sometimes one letter makes a world of difference eh?

>>2509913
Didn't the spanish translation use Fiesta for everything that used the word party?

>>2509729
Even Earthbound had it's hiccups, but polishing hacks like MaternalBound really don't change a lot of the script.

There's two broken NPCs that disappeared though.

>>2510335
>this old man is boring
>let's make him fart all over the place huehuehue

And then there were the gameplay changes. Fuck you Ireland.

The localization of the first two Darkstalkers games cut the number of winquotes per character from around ~20 to 4. And the 4 winquotes they were left with were completely cooked up from scratch and devoid of any personality. You have to buy that Graphic File artbook that came out half a decade ago to get any idea of what the original Japanese winquotes were saying. They did a better job on the third game, fortunately.

>>2509727
>the point of Frog and Cyan
I believe the point was either drawn from cartoons or a callout to the NES dragon warrior. But this is personal bullshitting.

Yes it's annoying to me and I'm glad the DS version exists, but at least Frog from him read better than Final Fantasy Tactics' PSP script.

>>2511505
>two brothers? fuck that, let's turn them gay for each other instead and use tons of slurs
>and also let's forget that one of them keeps making passes at the girls in the party and canonically dates one of them, why be consistent?
>plus we need some attitude-era wrestling references
>let's also make this serious old lady into a horny yoda
>oh and we have GOT to make a fart-themed parody of the theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1vEkWx1pw

Wakka wakka wakka all this and more in Vanguard Bandits, unquestionably the worst localization ever.

>>2511546
>War of the Lions script
Who even thought that was a good idea? On one of the games that would've been vastly improved with a good script overhaul, they pull that out of their ass.

That shit wasn't even consistent with the Advance or XII game canon when you talk about how people speak.

>>2511572

It was consistent with the matsunoverse with how tactics ogre LUCT reads like faux shakespeare as well.

The script wasn't the reason WotL was unplayable though, that would be the performance issues, I'd take the script if they didn't fuck up the port so badly to begin with.

I love the PSP version of LUCT, even with its dialogue.

>>2509727
>frog speaking with his thou's but the rest of the populace in the middle ages didn't?

It was because his frog tongue didn't allow him to speak correctly, obviously with Y's being more of a problem for him, so he used TH's. I thought this was obvious.

>>2506532
>TWIPLE A TWIPLE A TWIPLE A TWIPLE A TWIPLE A TWIPLE A

We need a word for faggots like you. AAA is a marketing term, you fucking cuck.

>>2511551
Honestly the song about taking a shit is funny and a suitable reward for what you have to go through to get it (Ruin Branch is kind of fucking hard)

The entire Ruin Branch in VB is a joke (literally), and probably the only humor from WD that I've ever tolerated (because it's actually appropriate)

>>2511985
That's not true and you know it. And Cyan in FFVI proves it.

>>2511985
If you are serious, that would only apply if Ted did that on only Frog. Cyan exists and he did the same thing to him.

>>2506768
"Your party is waiting for you on the 2nd floor"

The problem is they used the "celebration" meaning of "party" (fiesta) instead of the "group" meaning (partido)

>>2512818
Cyan's in a different game too, so you can't connect them. Cyan's reason is because he's a very old fashioned knight. I think besides Strago he's like the oldest party member, so it helps show behind the times he is by making him talk in an antiquated way.

I've translated a few Japanese novels into English. (I'm a white American.)

Here's the critical mistake of most retro-era translations: you generally want a translator to be a NATIVE speaker of the language you're translating into, but not necessarily from. I know enough Japanese that I can understand it just fine, but if I were to write a script for mass publication in Japanese it would be an abortion. Writing well is really, really hard. You just can't do it if you're not a native speaker. Simple as that.

I also fucking hate translations that insert pop-culture references, honorifics, and stupid shit like that. I keep my translations somewhat dry and accurate. If honorifics are used, then I simply choose appropriate nouns and verbs to get the point across that they're showing respect. If a pop culture reference is used that you just can't translate, I make the sentence slightly vague to gloss over it. Getting autistic over every line leads to fuckups.

>>2506447
It wasn't a "AAA blockbuster" when it came out. Final Fantasy was still struggling in the West. You could say VIII and IX were perceived as such though. Square didn't give a shit about localization until VII's success.

>>2507612
Anyone?

>>2512965

kek, the funniest part about being a translator is when people ask for you to translate something and they keep looking at your face waiting for a a 100% perfect and polished content in no time. Have you checked that "Legends of localization" website? It has some neat articles about jap to eng

>>2513076
Huh, I'll have to check it out.

I do get pretty autistic about typos and grammar, but I only even get to that on the second or third pass through a text. Most of my translations are damn-near perfect grammatically, but you need to account for an additional 30% time for that to happen.

On a first pass, the aim should be to understand the source text, understand any themes or allusions it references, and get the main point across in the simplest and cleanest way possible in English.

>>2512885
While that is true, I don't get the jump from antiquated to middle ages. Antiquated would be more like using no contractions, saying things in a more formal/verbose manner, and showing no use of the "slang" other characters are using. The man is obviously not with the times and doesn't care.

Then again, while Chrono Trigger shows the history of people FFVI doesn't quite so much. So maybe people all talked like that a generation ago and people were just then adopting new speech manners along with technology.

>>2508221

I don't understand. You want the game to be worse so other people will feel the same way about it as you?

>>2512965
I've had to translate what my grandad is saying, and I get funny looks when he says probably two paragraphs worth of words, and I translate it as "He says yes."

What they're not getting is that he's going off on tangents and telling some story about how this situation reminds of this one time back when he was a kid, etc etc etc. Basically stuff that doesn't actually need to be translated because it's not relevant.

So it's really arrogant for people who think they know the ins and outs of language want a full complete "re-translation" because they think some context is lost since the sentences aren't the exact same length.

>>2512861
>go up to second floor
>no fiesta
>just my teammates standing around looking equally puzzled and bored
>innkeeper still charged me for the fiesta I never got

>>2513826
The old "pool on the roof" routine.

The US FF7 translation is godly if you like FF7 to be a lighthearted and tough but not-so-serious game.
>MY DAMN %$@*! TEA!
>Ain't no stoppin this train...
>barret being charactered after Mr.T but with more intelligence

It's one of the best translations IMO of a game. A few hiccups don't ruin an otherwise cool and upbeat dialog.

>>2509546
I wish someone would retranslate SoM. I'd love to know what the Japanese script actually said.

>>2510154
This is true, but iirc it's not an accurate retranslation, just rewritten and expanded text to sound better.

>>2513865
>barret being charactered after Mr.T but with more intelligence

Why you gotta be dissin on Mr. T?

>>2513909
T is the bees knees, but he came off as a brute.
Still, a wizard in improvised engineering on the A-Team

And the guy IRL is really cool and down to earth.

>>2512818
But in Japanese, Cyan speaks in an antequated dialect. He's intended to be an old samurai type warrior. Woosley translated that to English as best he could so he made him talk in a formal, old fashioned way.

Cyan makes sense in context, in storyline, etc.

>>2509901
I will never complain about FFX again. My condolences, my Spaniard friends.

Guys, has anyone played through the recent FF7 re-translation mod? I want to know if its worth trying.

>inb4 shitposting

The author said it wasn't a literal translation and that they only altered text that was significantly inaccurate. Has anyone actually played through it themselves?

>>2514206
Left looks like shit. Monochrome garbage. What is this, Gears of War?

>>2508276
>>2508259
>>2508248
When it comes to translating, the meaning matters more than the words. Content should be localized so that foreigners can understand the original author's intent within the context of their own culture.

If a joke only makes sense to the Japanese, then replace it with an equivalent joke that people in the west will understand.

>>2514210
It's a game with consistent visual direction. Midgar isn't supposed to be a colourful place.

>>2514206
I'm a loser, but the last thing I'm going to do with my time is play through FF7 again with some autist "proper" translation. Let us know how it goes.

>>2514224
Try playing the game again. It isn't various shades of green like some sort of 80s LCD screen.

>>2514232
It's not the same game. Did you complain about the Spencer Mansion losing its colour back in 2002?

>>2514206

It's not even a legitimate re-translation. It's a rather questionable edit of the English script based on whatever "inaccuracies" others have commonly complained about, from someone who apparently doesn't speak a word of Japanese himself. The author arbitrarily edits things left to right, going as far as to change the dialect of the game's text to some weird combination of U.K. and U.S. spelling differences. I mean, what the fuck.

Don't even waste your time.

>>2514237
Which brings me exactly back to my original point: it looks like garbage.

>>2514252
I disagree, I think it looks good.

Then again I also thought Gears of War looked great.

>>2514268
That game runs on an engine named after Unreal. Unbelievable.

I played that game twice (once single player, once co-op), and I don't remember a distinctive environmental feature (I guess I remember that there was a gas station and a train at some point). Boring, boring, boring.

Now Unreal was a visually stunning game.

>>2514218
>If a joke only makes sense to the Japanese, then replace it with an equivalent joke that people in the west will understand.

As someone who has translated Japanese on a professional basis, I 100% disagree. That's how you end up with shitty pop culture references that make no sense in the context of the medium.

No wonder you posted some Persona animu bullshit. Only weeaboo trash would have an opinion like yours.

>>2514241
Not him, but I want to know if anyone's done the PS1 retrans yet? It's basically the mod, but a different person did the hacking so I'm wondering if it's the same shit but different platform.

>>2513032
Maybe Wikipedia?

I really don't know. I remember hearing that he worked all the way back to FFIV but wasn't very involved.

>>2514268
Not /vr/ but frankly Gears, having come out in 2006, looks infinitely better than the majority of 360 games that came out 2012+. They started trying too hard to squeeze graphics out of that system that it just fucked everything up.

>>2514335

I forgot that /vr/ hate anime for some reason.
I don't like persona either, but i also try to discuss an argument with politeness and decency, you know, like a decent adult.

>>2514241
From what I understand it used to be a legit retranslation, but lately it's been infested by George Lucas Syndrome and no one will stop modding the mod. It has all this shit thrown in with it too, though apparently that new character thing everyone was on about was thrown out a long time ago?

>read up on the project to see if it's worth using
>tfw I found out that I follow the original translation writer's Pokemon Gold hack and is a pretty okay fellow
>but the guy who actually does the heavy lifting for the mod is the idiot that visited /vr/

>>2510147
>There's nothing at all alienating or bad about jap humor if you just put some notes on the side.
>lol I have to be told why everything is funny
at least you know you're a fucking loser weeb so you saved me some time

>>2513865
This is why I like what Slattery did with FFV. The game's already lighthearted and goofy, this one just plays on that to make it even more fun.

Of course the references hurt MORPHING TIME but hey.

>>2514556
>From what I understand it used to be a legit retranslation

No. It was never a legitimate re-translation. The person over the project has zero knowledge of Japanese. It's a fan edit using the English script as source, and the author is claiming this somehow amounts to a "re-translation."

On top of this, several arbitrary things are forced into the script, like the aforementioned changes in dialect and spelling differences.

>>2506450
Are you fucking serious? The 1996 demo used in-house translation and while being done in the shortest time possible it turned out a thousand times better and more accurate than the tryhard, Woolsey-riddled translation we actually got. Barret doesn't even swear.

>>2517391
>"I'm oughta here anyways"
>"anyways"

There is no -s in anyway, anon. Consult a dictionary.

Are these so-called translators completely oblivious to their own broken dialects?

>>2517413
Guess what, real people don't tend to speak grammatically perfect.

>>2517413
outta isn't a word either.

>>2514335
While I speak Japanese, I can't read it (nor Chinese) due to Nipnong dyslexia.

I do, however, speak, read and write several European languages and work as a translator/interpreter.

I usually deal with documents, manuals and other technical translation work, but have done a little work in entertainment.
My biggest project so far was localising a TV show's script into four different, though related, EU languages. The original, a situational comedy, makes numerous references and jokes that just didn't make sense in the other languages to which I translated it. One joke made in the American original was a reference to Thundercats, something that was never released in one of the languages it was meant to be localised into, so the team had to change it altogether for that language, instead swapping the reference to a Japanese giant robo cartoon that was popular in that country around the time Thundercats was popular in the US. Sometimes, you just have to make do.

This happens quite a lot with localisation.

And you can't just translate for language, you have to localise for culture, as well. For example, I was once hanging out with a mixed group of Americans, Brits and others. Some hot chick happened by wearing an eye patch (we were near an eye hospital at the time) and one of the Brits said that he'd "give Pudsey the dick." The Americans didn't get the joke because Pudsey Bear is entirely unknown in the US. If a TV show, film or other media were to make this reference, the joke would need to be localised even in English-speaking countries. I can't say I know any eye-patched people Americans would be familiar with, so were I to localise a joke like that for an American audience, I'd likely reference One-eyed Willy from Goonies instead of Pudsey. I might suggest something like
>I'd give One-eyed Willy over there a one-eyed willie of my own!
Got to take this stuff into account.

>>2514335
>No wonder you posted some Persona animu bullshit. Only weeaboo trash would have an opinion like yours.

Only a weeaboo would want to replace the original Japanese writing with something more western-oriented?

>>2517413

>>2517413
Jesus. I always feel a little second-hand embarrassment when anons unintentionally reveal that they don't talk to actual human beings off of the internet.

>>2517423
>Guess what, real people don't tend to speak grammatically perfect.
Surely, you mean
>Guess what? Real people don't tend to speak grammatically perfectly.
or
>Guess what? Real people don't tend to speak in perfect grammar.
^_~

>>2517430
>I'd give One-eyed Willy over there a one-eyed willie of my own!

>>2517485
It's bad when you're more embarrassed for someone that they are for themselves.

>>2517391
https://youtu.be/YHnXAQxR2eE?t=421

>>2518782
Real people don't tend to speak with perfect grammar.

>>2520984
Real people don't tend to bargle nawdle zouss.

>>2517430
Great post, TY anon. I have a friend who's a translator in Japan, and he talks about this stuff too. Puns and cultural references don't translate well. That said, things can go a little too far, as was the case with various 80's Japanese cartoons brought to the states.

>>2517413
are you autistic?

anyway, let's mosey.

>>2521398
Yeah, it's constant which is why I don't like doing work for entertainment and just stick to technical translation and interpreting.

Here're are a few more examples:
I grew up watching Urusei Yatsura in my country growing up, dubbed into our language. It was (and continues to be) one of the most popular Japanese cartoons ever for us, probably second after Pollon (or maybe third after Kotetsu Jeeg/Steel Jeeg or fourth after Mazinger Z).

Besides the local languages, I grew up speaking Japanese as a kid, too, because I was raised alongside my half-Moon cousins by my Japanese aunt.

As a teenager, I was able to get my hands on Urusei Yatsura in its original language. Since I spoke Japanese, I got a lot of the puns quite easily but because I am not Japanese/wasn't raised in Japan, I didn't get many of the cultural references.
The same happens with me and both Family Guy and Robot Chicken as well as The Simpsons from time to time. While I obviously speak English, having been raised somewhere other than the US, I miss a lot of the cultural references, pop or otherwise, these shows make.

Speaking the language isn't enough because humour is more than just a series of amusing mouthfarts and deals more with culture than language.

Dont want to start a new thread on FF7

Replaying FF7 and I read about how useful Yuffie is. The problem is that I never ever used her and have no idea how to play her. I ideally want to load her with Materia and use her for support but also having potent offense like Aeris is doing right now but I don't know that Yuffie can pull it off. How do you guys play with her? What Materia are you using? Strategies?

I really want to do this because I enjoy her dialogue so far (I only ever actually completed this game twice and when I was young... I missed out on a lot of her dialogue, getting her very late) and she apparently kicks ass.

>>2521768

If you are going to load a character down with materia, yuffie is a good character for that, since she is a natural backrow character.

You may want to get rid of some of her materia late game so her strength doesn't get obliterated, for when you use the conformer to use morph, and doom of the living damage.

>>2520858
>accepting any tip from a show literally called "gettin' super nerdy"

Barret just wasn't good with words. That's it.

>>2513032
I believe he translated all of the major Square releases from the SNES era. He left the company before FFVII came out.

>>2513908
learn Japanese.

seriously, you fucking weeaboos and your literal translation bullshit disgust me.

if you want honorifics and you want to pretend every girl ever refers to herself in the third person, fucking learn Japanese.

can't bitch about inaccurate translation if you don't know the language!

>>2517413
it's a localization you fucking idiot

>>2506447
It wasn't exactly AAA at that point and there was a major market for weeb games. Sure FF had a foothold but localization teams weren't as easy to come by as they are now.

>>2507140
watch out you are going to kill everyone in /v/ /

>>2506485
shut up, you son of a sub mariner

>>2522481
right? all these fagbutts with their accuracy moaning, i mean, it doesn't get more accurate than the original language!

>>2517391
Woolsey didn't work on FF7.

>>2506447
Because it wasn't an "AAA" at the time.

>>2524564
Yes, it definitely was. It had a massive budget and advertising campaign. There were commercials showing only FMV (no chibi characters) that ran on prime time network tv. It was on the cover of every magazine. Objectively the game was huge in every way. Criticize it in any way you'd like, but it absolutely was AAA, before giant "tentpole" games like that were really a thing. In fact, I would argue that FF7 really kicked off the modern era of AAA games.

>>2524559
Then they made sure to pick an appropriate replacement, but not the kind we needed.

>>2509913
>>2509913
Aeris, you are a very special small boy.
Your blood is special.

>>2524573
>twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a twiple a
Take that shill term to /v/ where it belongs.

>>2524964
>twiple a
>shill
Words mean things, you know? They're not just cool buzzwords you get to throw around. You seem pretty buttflustered.

>>2524573
Halo 2 kicked off the AAA trend

>>2517413
We all can't all be robots without accents and dialects. Calm down before you short a diode or some shit.

The most common American accent used in media and video games are mid-west or Northerner. They usually speak clearly and only slur speech in words like "because", "going to", and "anyway".

If you want to be that much of a critical ass and correct people on how they speak, you should visit Tennessee some time. You'll have tons of fun.

>>2524978

You're missing the point. There's a certain level of professionalism involved in writing, and with that, certain conventions that you shouldn't break. There's nothing wrong with giving a character a particular dialect or vernacular when that is indeed what the setting calls for, but FF7 does not. This is simply a case of the translator or script editor not having an appropriate level of education, and as a result, injecting their own vernacular biases into the script.

>"Wahh! I'm burrhurt that someone thinks my vernacular makes me sound like an uneducated hick!"

That pretty much sums up the reaction in this thread. And yes, it does leave that exact impression when you speak that way.

>>2506447
The same reason why Square Enix did not hire me and instead hired people who are majoring or have majored in english rather than experience playing video games.

>>2524992
I've never met a person on this Earth that didn't slur or shorten at least a single word to make things convenient when talking. Making it otherwise would break the immersion when reading the text because it would come off as clunky and like they only just learned English.

For that matter, if you actually KNEW Japanese you'd know that they're still using vernacular in some parts of their sentences, just not the exact words for obvious reasons. Here's a hint: it's because their sentence structure is completely different.

>>2525024
>I've never met a person on this Earth that didn't slur or shorten at least a single word to make things convenient when talking.

What does that have to do with the script error I pointed out? I don't think we're on the same topic.

>For that matter, if you actually KNEW Japanese you'd know that they're still using vernacular in some parts of their sentences

I know they are. I imported the International version of the game. Cloud doesn't speak like a country bumpkin in the original Japanese script.

You are again missing the point. You seem to think I'm arguing against the existence of dialects and vernaculars. I'm talking about professionalism in script editing - i.e. not injecting your own vernacular into a script because your level of education prevents you from realizing that you speak with a vernacular in the first place.

Richard Honeywood (translator for Xenogears, Chrono Cross, DQ8, and others) made an appearance on 8-4's podcast where he talked about that specifically. The tl;dr version is basically a culmination of multiple factors:
1. Square didn't give the translators any time to familiarize themselves with the game's world/lore/terminology
2. Square didn't give the translators enough time to translate, period
3. Translators had to type the text out in Shift JIS, which meant they literally could not use spell check.
Which all really stemmed from them not taking localization as a serious source of making money. Then, of course, FF7 proved that notion completely wrong, and after Xenogears they started making vast improvements to the localization process.

>tfw don't speak english natively
>tfw completely fine with broken english

Didn't an official translation for Suikoden have dialog from a completely different language still in it?

I remember this happening with German or French.

>>2525067
>Chrono Cross
Speaking of which, depending on the character the "genius translation machine" either adds in that woolsey charm or makes the text next to unreadable.

>>2521010
They also don't speak with marbles in their mouth.

>>2524972
AAA doesn't actually mean anything, that's the point, it's a fucking retarded term. Hey, this game is DCB! If it's supposed to be an acronym, what does it mean? If not, why are you stringing together random letters, and why is "high budget" not good enough?

>>2526051
It's not supposed to be an acronym. It means "the highest grade possible" like AA eggs or the A's that you obviously never got on your report card if you're too dumb to have figured that out.

>>2526051
Do you also sperg out like this when people talk about B-movies?

2526060

It's not "BBB" movies, is it? At least that makes more sense.
And I didn't get letter grades in my country, but I also ain't never heard of anything being graded AA, the best grade is A+

I've yet to see ansone use this buzzword other than gaming "journalists".

>>2526075
AAA is the highest grade used for evaluating gemstones, beef, and bond credit ratings. It isn't exactly a new phenomenon.

>minor grammatical errors
>'blatantly awful translation'

Come on. It's not 'Someone set up us the bomb! All your base are belong to us! You have no chance to survive make your time.' Is it?

>>2506447
How about official translations that actually broke the game?

I know Eternal Eyes actually crashes when some options are selected in an optional dungeon.

>>2526313
Hardly ever hear that game talked about
As a kid I preferred it to FFT

>>2526317
what the fuck how have I never played this I thought I played every PSX rpg

>>2526326
To say it fell under the radar even when it came out is generous.

>>2526326
Give it a try
The design of the little guys you get always reminded me of Pokemon
It's quite comfy.

>>2514531
The one that showed up on RHDN? If you read through the page, it's literally the qhimm translation on the PS1 version of the game, so yeah, same shit different platform.

If you actually bother with it, take note that it doesn't work in Mednafen. It works on a real PS1 and 2, PSP, Xebra, and ePSXe, but mednafen shits itself over it.

>>2511493
i seriously hope so.

FF7 wasn't an AAA title. At least not outside japan.

>>2528680

Yes it was, japanese made games were the standard of console gaming back then, are you retarded?

Western devs were mostly on PC, sure the balance has shifted these days, but I guess you forgot that nearly all games on console that were worth a shit were developed by the japanese, you were probably a PCfag, though, to say some shit like that.

>>2528680
Jesus, get a load of this idiot.

I don't know Japanese or anything but I have translated things from English into my native language which has much more complex grammar and vice versa, and I feel like all these translators going on about localization are full of crap. We're not talking about poetry here, it isn't and shouldn't be a problem to preserve the original meaning of text in video games. Fans get bothered when some sentences completely change what the original was conveying, which happened a lot in these old translations. I'm sure people were constrained on time and all that, I don't blame them, but wanting a re translation should not be met with elitist posturing about how it's so hard to convey the japanese cultural landscape. It's not, again, you are not translating poetry or classic literature, video game dialogue is tv show tier.

>>2510196
stop fucking over using the word meme, not everything that became popular over the internet is a meme, stop this fucking shit.

>>2528680
saying that anything was an AAA title at all in that era is an idiotic thing to do, the whole AAA thing reflects a mentality that just didn't exist back then.

>>2529713

But earthbound is a meme, its a decent rpg that people blow out of proportion because they think it has some kind of artistic integrity, its a hardcore dragon quest clone with an interesting setting. The game is pretty dull without that setting.

Also the game was pretty hated when it was released, and it didn't get positive reviews until later on, which seems like it was mostly giving in to the cult following it had, which is likely the case since video game journalism is a joke and has zero integrity.

>>2529742

>meme=overrated

>>2529771
No, rather, Earthbound is a meme because it's popular of memetic crap pushed in the internet like "le so spoopy giygas" or le epic pop culture references, not because it's a legitimately good game

>>2529780
I honestly feel really sorry for people who didn't play Earthbound when they were a kid and felt the joy and satisfaction of playing Mother 3 when it came out.

Like I legitimately just feel the deepest sense of pity. It's like talking to someone who grew up without parents and doesn't like christmas or something.

>>2529719
It had a gigantic programming team and a massive ad campaign, how is this any different from contemporary big studio strategy? For fucks sakes, it was like the first non-Nintendo TV ad campaign in years.

>>2506447
I don't remember a lot of examples of errors in the translation. The "This guy are sick." line is just charming at this point.

>>2530069
>I don't remember a lot of examples of errors in the translation.

Off course you do!

>>2529742
I never thought much of it at the time of its release, but I owned it. Everyone else I knew who also owned it, which was a good half dozen other people, all loved it at the time, however, and still do.
I think it's okay. Not bad. Not good. I still play it from time to time today, mostly because I like using the walk-through-walls trick and messing it about that way.

>>2525067
>Which all really stemmed from them not taking localization as a serious source of making money

Some things never change

Just to clear a couple of things up.

AAA is a marketing buzzword that means literally nothing when applied to video games. When Moody's or S&P give AAA to bonds it is part of an actual scale based on numerical measurements that include AA, A, B, etc, not just AAA or nothing like in gaming journalism/marketing.

Meme is any unit of cultural information. The scientific definition is always broader than how lay people use it. Earthbound is a meme like every video game is a meme, the idea earthbound is this amazing gem of a game is a meme, the idea earthbound sucks and is overrated is a meme. Everything that can be copied from one head to another is a meme.

>>2530432
So what you're saying is that everything is a meme, including the word meme itself?

>>2530480
Meme is like a cancer.

>>2517425
It's slang for "out of", as in "Get outta town."

>>2530432
You're overthinking this shit man. In games, there's A, B, C, D and F. Its just that no one talks about or markets anything but the A games.

Here's the scale:

AAA - game made by the "A" team at whatever company. Lots and lots and lots of fucking marketing giving it a huge push in hype. An example would be Halo
AA - game made by the "A" team, but with a smaller budget and substantially less marketing. An example would be Resident Evil
A - game made by the "A" team at a company, but stands on it's own merits and relies largely on word of mouth to get hype. An example would be Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
B - a game made by the secondary team in a company. Not the biggest budget, not the best ad campaign. Just a game, basically. Example: Silent Hill
C - a game made, ported or translated on the quick by a small team of nobodies. Relies entirely on anime magazine ads and word of mouth to build hype. Examples: Disgaea, Resident Evil 3, console ports of Doom, ect
D - shovelware. Examples: Independence day for the PSX
F - something made by one person or a small team and released on the internet, basically. Either that, or a genuinely bad game, regardless of the budget and ad campaign. Fuck examples, who gives a fuck.

Get it?

>>2513908
I've seen a thread on RHDN of someone attempting to do just that.

Unfortunately they're also going to be restoring things that would've been in the game in the first place had the original game's vision been completely realized. The idea is based on proof that Chrono Trigger not only was the result of unused ideas but that both were actually the same game. It's unknown how that's going to happen because it's in the planning stages.

>>2531662
You just pulled that out of your ass.

>>2531665
Can't we just have these being separate projects?

I have no idea what the fully realized idea is here, but it would be nice to just have the retranslation. At least Project II's mechanic alterations were very small.

>>2530351
VII might actually become a reality though, there's some sayings and whatnot that are actually sounding like the pleas reached Square-Enix. These are about the same tier as rumor so far however.

>>2506815
>>2506795
Every Harvest Moon translation has some sort of error in there, even untranslated Japanese. By now I'm pretty sure some Natsume fans feel that it's part of the charm.

>>2506469

A moment of silence for Metal Gear Solid 2.

>>2532482

In Japanese, you can get away with Tu, in the same Sho can Syo. Gonna guess it was there in the Japanese version or was reinserted back in the Japanese studio.

>>2506582
Spaniards really need to learn English.
Portuguese people speak and understand English fairly well so why can't Spanish people get it?

Final Fantasy 7 really sucks in the second half.

Piggybacking this thread since you people are probably the best to ask.

What's the quintessential 2D FF? Never played and want an RPG experience with varying classes that allows for different playstyles.

Thinking 3, 4 or 5 based on gameplay videos but I figured I'd get a second opinion

>>2538930
5 is going to be your best bet. There's a ton of flexibility there.

4 is a fun game, but it's on rails and isn't going to really offer you different playstyles.

3 is also fun (until the last dungeon) but the classes are unbalanced in a way that makes some of them useless.

>>2538934
Cool, 5 it is. That's the NA release FF5 right? The US/JPN difference in titles have me lost as to which ones people are referring to

>>2538940
There's only one FF5 because it only came over here after FF got the numbers right.

GBA version is your best bet to play. It has the best translation and the most content.

>>2506582
Bullshit, played it myself dozens of times.