/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2266307]

ITT: Bad Localizations

Old games aren't known for their A+ translations and amazing localizations.

[Anonymous No.2266315]

why is that bad
it says supairo in katakana

[Anonymous No.2266318]

>>2266315
>スパイロ

[Anonymous No.2266321]

>dat gay as fuck dragonfly
Fucking moefag destroying the industry.
Two bombs weren't enough.

[Anonymous No.2266326]

>>2266315

There's a reason Spyro was unpopular in Japan; the third game didn't even come out.

I can't find a list of changes but there are a bunch of stupid signs everywhere and I think they changed the camera

www.youtube.com/watch?v=49S6-6eUtjU

[Anonymous No.2266329]

>>2266321

Gay? I know some people ship Spyro and Sparx but how is he gay looking?

[Anonymous No.2266352]

>>2266326
Come to think of it, collecathons were never very popular over there, were they?

[Anonymous No.2266357]

>>2266352

Collectathons seem like a western genre. Banjo, Gex, Spyro, Crash, Conker, Ratchet, and Jak are all European or American

Crash was super popular in Japan though.

[Anonymous No.2266717]

>>2266307

Fun fact: Due to the stylization of the text, スパイロ looks like Ripto, which is where the developers got their name for the villain of Spyro 2.

As for bad localizations, there are too many to name, especially from the 80s-early 2000s. I'd consider the original RE to be badly localized because from what I've seen of the Japanese version (I haven't gotten around to playing through the Japanese versions of any of those games yet) the English dialogue is a pretty literal translation in most places.

FF VI had a plethora of mistakes, some changes that were mandated by Nintendo's censorship standards, and some random as hell changes by Woolsey himself, but I'm not sure if I'd call it badly localized. In fact, it's pretty good in places. Given how much text they had to remove I think it ended up rather well, and Kefka's "Self-help booklet" line and some other additions are far more memorable than the Japanese lines. Still prefer the Japanese version though.

JRPGs in general had it rough in those days as far as localization goes. They either had shitty translators, or tried to localize things a bit too much, censorship, etc.

As far as English to Japanese localizations, I don't know much about them. All I can think of off the top of my head is Banjo-Kazooie's Japanese translation. I haven't played it in Japanese (and don't intend to ever do so) so I can't really say how it is, I just know that Grunty's speech patterns were changed entirely because rhyming in Japanese isn't really a thing that they do.

[Anonymous No.2266719]

>>2266717

Oh, and of course FF VII had a pretty shitty translation at times but it worked for the most part.

[Anonymous No.2266726]

>>2266717
>As far as English to Japanese localizations, I don't know much about them.
Not very much /vr/ related but Elder Scrolls EN-JP translations are notorious for being horrible.

[Anonymous No.2266737]

>>2266726

I wonder if WRPGs suffered shitty translations into Japanese like JPRGs did here? From your comment I imagine that WRPGs still don't get good translations.

[Anonymous No.2266743]

>>2266737
There are very, very few western rpgs that get localized. I don't think there's enough to draw any generalizations from.

>>2266352
>>2266357
DKC series are top 10 selling SFC games in Japan.

[Anonymous No.2266746]

>>2266743
Wizardy is huge in Japan

[Anonymous No.2266751]

>>2266746
Right, and they're almost all Japanese developed, not translated.

[Anonymous No.2266754]

>>2266307
Most translated PS1 game dubbing was something else.

PEARS INTO PEACHES, GUST OF WIND d-dance, etc.

[Anonymous No.2266759]

>>2266329
Wait.

I'm not asking for cringe or trying to derail the thread, but people actually ship that? How does that even work?

[Anonymous No.2266762]

>>2266759
Nice try fetishist.

[Anonymous No.2266765]

Most English translations of SNK's fighting games on the Neo Geo rarely ever translated anything at all, they just made up incredibly cheesy jokes which makes the games seem extremely dated.

I'd guess this was either because the "translating" was rushed or simply because SNK of America didn't have a whole lot of respect for the source material.(not that the original dialogue was all that important to begin with)

[Anonymous No.2266768]

>>2266762
I'm just genuinely curious. I'm failing to compute how thing works.

But best not to go any further with that, it would shit up the thread.

>>2266754
Metal Gear Solid was good.

[Anonymous No.2266774]

>>2266719
VII worked better than other shit localizations. The PC version actually fixed all the translation errors, but unfortunately they kept the localization script the same. But some actually like having Mr. T as a party member, so good to have it spellchecked at least.

[Anonymous No.2266779]

>>2266357
I don't know if you were intentionally implying this, but I really wouldn't call Crash a collectathon.

[Anonymous No.2266795]

>>2266774

Yeah like I said, not complete shit but it it does have fuck ups and is inconsistent. Could have been worse though.

>The PC version actually fixed all the translation errors

I haven't played the PC version but I'd be surprised if they fixed some of the smaller ones, like when Barrett says "You ain't over it yet." to Tifa when she wakes up in Junon and asks what's going on. He was supposed to say "He ain't woke up yet." or something to that effect (revived would be more accurate but I was trying to stick to Barrett's style).

But yeah, sounds like it got most if not all of the major ones which are the only ones that matter to most people.

As for spellcheck, their was a technical reason why they couldn't use it when translating the game. The details were a bit beyond me though. I read about it on some really long FF VII localization article; can't remember where it was.

[Anonymous No.2266796]

>>2266795

Or rather, "Seems he ain't woke up yet." to be a bit closer to the original line.

[Anonymous No.2266878]

>>2266307
>dat spyro
:3 awww
>dat sparks
oh jesus no

[Anonymous No.2266885]

Pic definitely related.

It cut out the entire story and removed enough content that it went from 2 discs to 1 disc.

[Anonymous No.2266895]

>>2266885

i want to experience the japanese version. Ace Combat 3 is by far my most favourite game in the series and i feel so shafted by what i was given in comparison to what i could have had.

[Anonymous No.2267052]

>>2266743
Most popular 80s and early 90s RPGs got translated to Japanese. A big exception is Ultima 7 which only got released for the SFC and Serpent Isle which was completely omitted.
Some games like Wizardry or Bard's Tale gave the option to choose between English and Japanese text.

[Anonymous No.2267343]

>>2266743

Japan likes sidescrollers but not 3D platformers like Spyro or Banjo, which are mostly western made. Crash is not exactly a 3D platformer so it's pretty popular

[Anonymous No.2267350]

>>2266307

Natsume a shit. I appreciate them for translating the games, and decently enough, but they screwed up so much with Harvest Moon. So many typos and localization glitches. I wish XSeed would retranslate 64 if they put it on VC

[Anonymous No.2267436]

>>2267350
They're pretty well known for leaving untranslated bits in too.

[Anonymous No.2267630]

>>2267350
>Natsume is probably the shittiest localization studio ever
>Translations are very spotty, lazy
>Sometimes there's completely untranslated bits left in
>Sometimes they add game breaking bugs
>Marvelous buys out XSEED to use as a better inhouse translation team
>Natsume throws a bitchfit and holds the Harvest Moon name hostage
>Releases original, inhouse, shovelware with the Harvest Moon name while Marvelous can't do anything about it legally

But where did it all go wrong?

[Anonymous No.2267640]

>>2266895
The original's been fan translated for a bit now.

[Anonymous No.2267651]

>>2266307

It's not an official translation but the FF IV fan-translation is one of the worst I've ever seen. The official PSX translation of it isn't too good either.

[Anonymous No.2267656]

>>2267651
Final Fantasy didn't start getting competent translations until FFX, the GBA Remakes, and the Enix merger.

>Princess Salsa
>Y Burn

[Anonymous No.2267664]

>>2267656

The FF VIII and IX localizations were pretty good from what I've heard, though I haven't played the Japanese versions yet so I can't say.

[Razz No.2267667]

>>2267651
Was that the one where Edge swore in every other line of dialogue?

[Anonymous No.2267669]

>>2267667

Yep. And there one where Rydia threatened to mash his balls.

[Anonymous No.2267680]

>>2267664
No, no, no, no

In the Japanese VIII, Squall was just a socially awkward guy that liked to be alone. Not the dark edge master we know him as today. That change alone forces a huge shift on how the story is handled, but there are a lot of other changes.

IX is pretty solid for the most part plot and character wise, but there's some translation issues relating to all the references in the past FF games, especially ones that hadn't been translated officially yet, which makes them harder to spot.

I appreciate what Woosley managed to do with the SNES games, considering how he was only one man that had to deal with Nintendo's censorship policy, and Square's awful mistreatment of the American branch.

I also appreciate what was done during the PSX era with the games and remakes, but again, Square was still pretty much dirt poor during that time, and it especially shows with 7 and Tactics.

[Razz No.2267683]

>>2267669
Oh jesus, yeah that was awful. Way worse than the gimped FF4 localization.

[Anonymous No.2267687]

[Anonymous No.2267691]

>>2267687
>no your stupid just watch persona will work!

[Anonymous No.2267692]

>>2267683

It was one of the final things that finally got me to start studying Japanese. It wouldn't have done it alone but combined with a bunch of other things it certainly helped. My favorite version is the SFC hard type version, and the only English translation that exists of it is th god-awful fan-translation. The PSX translation isn't that hot either. I'm not terribly fond of the GBA or PSP versions for various reasons (and while the translation is touched up the PSX translation was still used as the base for them). The DS verison is fine and has the best English translation of the game so far but like I said, I prefer the old mechanics more.

It was so nice playing it in Japanese for the first time. I'd probably enjoy it even more now that I've got much more experience with the language under my belt. Only thing I have to complain about is that it's kana only which, after starting to study kanji and play games/read books/manga with it, is kind of annoying. But hey, small complaint really.

[Anonymous No.2267696]

>>2267691
mark knows whats up

[Anonymous No.2267716]

>>2267350
I just got this in the mail yesterday and holy shit
>'Natume' right on the title screen
>go to talk to an NPC, for some reason their speech box is sticking half way off the side of the screen
>typos

[Anonymous No.2267719]

>>2267350

I praise them for accidentally calling Mary "Maria" in 64. It helps distinguish her from Mary

[Anonymous No.2267723]

>>2267630

I hope this gets fixed soon. "Story of Seasons" is a putrid name - should have called it "Farm Story" - and we don't need HM to be ruined with Natsume crap

[Anonymous No.2267728]

>>2267692
Have you played Project II yet? It's pretty much the best translation alongside the DS version, and there's another version with Japanese names.

Hacker said something about loving to do FFVII too, but there's nothing definite out of that.

[Anonymous No.2267734]

>>2267728

Nope, never even heard of it.