/vr/ - Retro Games

>>487027
>
So who the fuck was it doing localizations in the mid 90's and how the fuck do they used to think it was alright to presume to know better than the people who actually made the fucking game?

Because sometimes they did. Power Blade's NA version is about 500 times better and less generic than the one Japan got.

>>487042
>Because sometimes they did.

It's still not their call to make and it's incredibly dishonest of the distributor to do that to the game, not to mention the people who made it.

>>487027

inb4 someone hates on Working Designs without knowing their shit

>>487071
>not to mention *disrespectful towards* the people who made it.

>>487071

When the end product is better for the consumer (that'd be you and me), fuck what the developers made. I'm glad we didn't get "watered down mega man clone 7" instead of Power Blade.

>>487083
OP here, not gonna shit on Working Designs (I did love the localization of Saturn DF) although I can't say I agree with it on principle.

>>487098
>fuck what the developers made

So if Match Point was re-edited to feature miniguns and a bank heist and ended up more to your taste (as well as selling more in that region), you'd say "fuck Woody Allen"?

You know what would happen? The guy'd stop making movies and focus on something else.
Same thing will happen to people in gaming if they realise what they worked hard on gets no respect from its peers and has no intrinsic value as far as its distributor is concerned, and localizations that mess around with too much are a part of that. Less people making games can't be good, can it?

>>487183

You don't seem to understand. Power Blade wasn't made better because it was made specific to my region, it was made better because the localizers a) made it less generic and b) fixed gameplay issues it had.

The new version is better and I don't give two damns about what the original developers made, because it's an inferior version.

>>487210
What I don't understand is that you agree to this principle on the one game that was made better (assuming it is better, never played it) despite the ones that were made worse, not to mention all the other implications?

If it was your game, would you still say the same thing? Or if it your book rather than your game?

>>487295
You do realize that most of the terrible translations in the 90's weren't due to "lets see how much we can fuck with this", but rather "how can we make this as accessible as possible" as in more profitable(Like it or not, video games are a business) or in many cases it was pushed off to one or two guys to do a few weeks before it shipped.

I work in translation, interpreting and, from time to time, localisation, actually.
Often, something is localised when it makes jokes or references that would not make sense or be understood in the language/to the culture in/for which it is being localised. For example, I've never seen Me, Mysel and Irene in English. In Italian, though, it makes a tonne of references to 80s cartoons that were around when I was growing up, cartoons I know did not exist in America. My assumption is that the original, American English version made some jokes and references that would have been completely pointless to an Italian, so rather than translating directly, it was localised.

Another reason for a localisation is softening the media for local consumption. For example, in Arab-speaking countries, which are largely Islamic, there is a localisation of The Simpsons. In Arabic, 'Omar' (not Homer) drinks soft drinks at the bar and eats Egyptian beef sausages (not hot dogs). The episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" has been cut from Arabic rotation completely due to the prominent display of the pig Homer meant to serve his cook-out guests. Reason for this is that Islam forbids the consumption of both alcohol and pork.

And there you have it.

>>487396
But that's exactly the point. Any "industry" (and yes I realize that word is loaded) that makes sacrifices to its products in a way that completely alters them between regions is one where the artistic value of the product is diminute.

The "like it or not, it's a bussiness" gets thrown around a lot but I'd remind you that books, movies and music are bussinessess too and you'd rarely if ever see anyone take the same sort of liberties with those types of products that they do (or used to do) with games.

As a consumer, I'd like to think that it's in my best interest that games are viewed with the same sort of respect as comparable media and not just toys to be sold for a profit.

>>487509
>not just toys to be sold for a profit.
In the west during the 90s, that's pretty much what they were. Only in the last 10 or so years has there been a larger group seeing them as an "art form".

And you have to remember, as always, hindsight is 20/20.

>>487554
>In the west during the 90s, that's pretty much what they were

I know, hence the latent anger :)
Would like to find out if it's a continuing trend, mind. Late 90s and early 00s seemed to leave the gameplay well enough alone (in my experience, at least) but I haven't bought japanese games consistently since the PS2 era.

>localization horror stories

that can honestly apply to probably most video games, anime, etc. from japan

I didn't notice it much when I was younger obviously because I had no idea but now its just sad and disappointing to see so many great series butchered and how most westerners are gonna actually experience things that way the first time with no clue on what they're missing out

I hate censoring and pointless changes in order not to offend a minority group that isn't really there, but prefer it when localization teams have the space and understanding necessary to have a bit of a free reign.
Take the original SNES Final Fantasy III(6) translation as an example. Ted Woolsey might have been working under strict censorship guidelines, but even so he managed to often lend more character and "westernize" a narrative that's kind of drab and dreary in the more literal translations, fan and otherwise. And sometimes a localization team has to know its audience and do the opposite. The translation of Persona 4 makes no attempts to hide that this is a story set in Japan (unlike many retro examples that are painfully jarring) and even goes so far as to include more Japanese honorifics than the original Japanese script.

>>487554
Everyone complaining about localizations needs to realize this. In Japan, the video game crash never happened, and they continued on and evolved normally since the 80s. In the west, the crash was caused by a splurge of shitty games that caused people to think of consoles as overpriced shitboxes. When the NES came out, Nintendo marketed it as a regular video game console in Japan, but they needed to market it differently in the west to avoid the stigma. The 8-bit and 16-bit eras in the west were still recovering from the crash and most of the changes were done to avoid going back to the shitbox stigma. You can argue that maybe they went too far some times, but they were necessary in order to revive the western console gaming industry. It wasn't until the N64/PSX days that this wasn't needed as much.

>>487650
I'd also like to add that western localization teams > in house localization.
Many a game's script has been butchered by context and spelling errors and I'd rather have a "loose" translation that I can comprehend and get into than things done by people who have book English as their third language.
I apologize for siting a sort of recent example but Zone of the Enders: 2nd Runner comes to mind. Early preview material was done with a western localization team behind it and sounded natural, but what we got was kind of an unnatural sounding, incoherent mess, even if the voice actors did their best.

persona 1 thread?

>>487027
>One boss removed for possibly being homosexual
I would sooner call him a blatant stereotype of transvestites the same way blackface an offensive stereotype of black people.

>>487748
>Persona the movie
>Starring Jaden Smith as Mark

Because, as the word implies, localization is more than just translating text (and later on, voice). It involves changing cultural references, manners of speaking, and so on. It's very easy to tell when a translation is poorly localized, even if the translation itself is mechanically accurate, because Japanese translated to English without modification simply doesn't sound natural to native English speakers. I've seen it hundreds of times in games and it stands out like blood on the snow.

Rewriting large chunks of the script is often necessary for this very reason. A good localizer is one who can distill the essence of a piece of exposition or dialogue written in one language, and then turn it into something that sounds natural in another.

>>487650
I like it when they edit the script a bit so that it sounds more natural to our whittu piggu western ears.

I mean compare this line changed for the English script
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IimjoFyUktY&t=1m50s
To this, more faithful to the Japanese original
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKLc3ZIVxew&t=4m54s

The edited line is a lot better.

I like P4's translation for the most part, but I still hate the honorifics. They're just so jarring in English.

>>487796

>>487476
>Another reason for a localisation is softening the media for local consumption. For example, in Arab-speaking countries, which are largely Islamic, there is a localisation of The Simpsons. In Arabic, 'Omar' (not Homer) drinks soft drinks at the bar and eats Egyptian beef sausages (not hot dogs).

That sounds awesome.

They censored Big Mama in the American release of DJ Boy. I can't believe they would just blatantly disregard the developer's intentions like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8DJ0bfYIbk#t=2m13s

>>487781
Holy shit damn, that nigga gay as fuck.

>>492754
>http://www.soronline.net/sor3_sor3vsbk3.htm
Oh.
Oh.
Ooh.

>>493220

... the more the merrier.

>>487781
Such a sexy man!

Oh how the mighty have fallen.
>Lower thine guard and thou'rt allowing the enemy in.
>Don't let your guard down until the end. It's when you're drunk with victory that you allow the enemy in.
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I really hated the way they localized Glenn, by basically transforming him from a unique character with a rude disposition and a snarky attitude to a stereotypical white knight. He was basically Oersted without the twist.

>>493220
didn't that game have lots of lines like that?
i remember something about condoms

A lot of the reason why localizations were god awful in the 90s was because they only had a few weeks to a month to do them. Personally I love some of the terrible translations out there. Especially the PS1 FFV translation.

Ted Woosley, a prominent Squaresoft translator, got interviewed about his job a while ago. It's not all about translations, but he does talk about why some things have to be removed and changed when doing a translation

http://www.playeronepodcast.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=145

>>493220
>You know what they say...
They're compensating?

>>494816

So you're going to ignore how he was the ONLY one from his era w one who talked like that?

Cause that bugged the hell out of me.

Other parts of the translation were amazing. I loved magus's "You got whacked 'cuz you're weak." line....but other stuff...

Why would woolsy have felt the need to translate

"you people look different"
"it's because we're healthy!"

to

"it's because we have hope!"

Completely changing the meaning what what was said bothers me more than it should, even if it's the same general feeling.

>>496497
No.

Big sword, big sheath.