In case you didn’t know: Absolute Zero has finished translating and patching the PSX version of Tales of Phantasia.
http://zettaizero.wordpress.com/
I’m currently downloading the ISO myself so I can’t give any first-hand comments, but at the very least, he’s still called Cless.
I’m waiting for Phantasian Productions’ translation. This one is slavishly dedicated to the original Japanese (think Sky Render’s FF6 translation) and, for example, calls special skills “ogi”. I’d prefer one that actually does, you know, localization.
I agree with ya there, Cid. Translation groups leaving in random Japanese words or phrases because they’re ‘trendy’ is one of my pet peeves.
I’m fine with leaving names (either of objects or attacks) untranslated in most cases, but leaving in words like ‘Yatta’ and the like in Japanese in the subtitles, or script, just irks me. Especially so when they don’t leave a note saying what the word means, just assuming that everyone who would watch or play their work automatically has the same feverish level of fanboy fanaticism that they have and if they don’t they’re less than deserving to watch or play or whatever.
I’m fine with keeping true to the original, and I’m totally against the level of butchering localizations such as what 4kids did to shows like One Piece, but if you’re going to translate something into English, don’t half-ass it because of what obsessive fanboys think being ‘faithful to the original’ means.
Aaaand rant off. 
Silly me, I thought translations were for the people who don’t understand the original language.
Exactly. It always drives me crazy when fansubs leave in Japanese words and require us to read helpful little notes indicating what the word means. The point of a localization is to localize it - to make it palatable to the target audience so that they experience and enjoy it the same way the indigenous audience would. That includes changing jokes and puns so that they make sense in the new language. I’d go further than Spoony and say that, unless something is blatantly meant to be Japanese (like the Ninja Village in ToP) or European (Shadow of Destiny comes to mind) it should be turned into English, no matter what.
Imagine how enjoyable Phoenix Wright would have been if they’d kept the story in Japanese and forced us to keep consulting footnotes to explain the myriad cultural references that were excised. It’d be like reading an encyclopedia.
I agree with Cid and Spoony here. That kind of thing just bugs me. Don’t get me started, for instance, on Hellsing fans of “the original Japanese version” who will form a lynch mob and burn your house down if you dare to call the character “Alucard”, which is Dracula spelled backwards because that’s his real identity, instead of “Arucard”, which is neither what he’s actually called in the Japanese version nor actually precisely possible in the Japanese language okay I’m done now.
I find it beyond pleasurable to see a thread espousing these same opinions I have regarding translation. 
Any thread that makes note of or fun of fanboys obsessed with keeping the japanese words with the references because its “cool” brings warmth to my dark little heart.
You should read some of the rather heated arguments at romhacking.net. There’s actually a more-or-less 50-50 split of literalists vs. localizists, and it makes for some interesting discussion. Oddly enough, considering how absolutely awful the old Whirlpool forums were, I’ve found RHDN’s forums to be surprisingly well-spoken, with the exception of two people who, while still eloquent, have an inability to believe that anyone can possibly disagree with them.
I prefer leaving the cultural references intact, with footnotes at the bottom. Although I’m thinking more in terms of anime - where it’s easier to ignore if you don’t care - rather than a video game that involves a lot of text reading anyway. I haven’t played any games that do this, so I’m not sure how it would feel.
Part of the reason I enjoy media from Japan is because I enjoy experiencing and learning more about the culture. I don’t want it altered to appear as though it’s something out of my own culture. If I want that, I’ll enjoy an American cartoon/game/etc. True, you’re always going to view things through your own personal lens, but in general I prefer to keep the alterations to a minimum.
What would be really cool is some kind of localization continuum represented by a slider that lets you control how extreme of a localization or literalization (did I invent the word?) is used. There are some less extreme solutions too - I like how the SNES Dragon Quest I & II came in two flavors, which was a nice compromise to keep both camps happy.
Lemme guess, Cless: they’re on oppositesides of the debate from each other.
Me, I just want something I can understand, without having to grab a “Primer On Japan!!” every five minutes. If I wanted something in “the original Japanese,” I’d learn to speak and read it.
The stupidest example of “purism” I ever saw was a screencap from some fansubbed anime, which shows a girl hugging some cat or plushie or whatever, looking like she finds it just adorable. The fansubbers added the subtitle “Kawaii!” with a footnote explaining that “kawaii” means “cute”.
Keikaku means plan.
Anyway, after taking a look through the script, I’m with you guys. I could stand the honorifics in Persona 3 mainly because the setting was so obviously Japanese that it didn’t seem weird, but for a fantasy setting with major nordic influence and a character based on the western warrior archetype, the dialogue and technique names make no sense.
Part of the reason I enjoy media from Japan is because I enjoy experiencing and learning more about the culture. I don’t want it altered to appear as though it’s something out of my own culture.
And again, that makes perfect sense if the setting is in Japan. In generic fantasy settings, it simply doesn’t hold any more. And you have to admit that by doing so you’re cutting down your audience from “people who want to enjoy the media” to “people who want to learn about Japan”.
Now I’m not in favor of more literal translations in general, that’s just my preference. (And even then, I sometimes look at people like Sky Render and just scratch my head. I don’t care how literal you want to be, if you’re renaming Frog to Kaeru, you have some obsession issues.) I was sharing my reasons for my preference, so that those of you in the localization camp - which seems to be the majority in this thread - can see that we do have logical reasons for our preference, and that we aren’t all raving loonies who masturbate to maps of Japan. Though there is plenty of that as well - see the aforementioned Sky Render.
I do very much realize that literalization cuts down your audience, and it’s also unfair to people who prefer localization. Literalists always at least have the original Japanese to fall back on, and as far as I’m concerned, if you’re not willing to take the effort to learn some Japanese, you have no business trying to make everything as literal as possible but still in English. On the other hand, your average English-speaking gamer just wants to play the damn game, and the original Japanese isn’t really an option.
For a commercial translation, doing a localized translation makes the most sense. It will reach a wider audience, and will be held as the “official” translation, often giving the localized version a unique identity of its own. I know the Woolsey-translated RPGs are great examples of games whose English versions are cultural contributions in their own right.
Good localizations take a lot of work and talent, though. I can see why fan translations tend to be more on the literal side. Literal translations are easier. You don’t even need to be a very good English speaker, as long as you have some command of the language and a decent dictionary. As much as I’d like to see a good quality localization for a game, I’d much rather see an overly-literal translation than a botched localization.
That’s a very well-thought out response, and makes a lot of sense. Kudos.
Yes, localization is far more difficult than literalist translation, which is why there are professionals who do it. These people not only work closely with the original creators but also have an excellent knowledge of both the original and localized culture, so they can make good judgment calls about what goes where. Unfortunately, fan translations are almost exclusively not going to be on that caliber no matter what. The question of whether you want a bad localization or the easy road of literalistic translation is, indeed, one of preference. Frankly, I don’t think I’d enjoy viewing either of them.
I think you’re underestimating fans’ thoroughness by saying that their jobs will almost exclussively be bad. We are talking about people who would put him/herself through the tremendously boring task of translating piles upon piles of script for no conceivable profit. While there will of course be those who take far too much liberty with the script or simply have no talent, there are also many who not only put a lot of work in their translations, but also take tremendous care to remain loyal to the original work where it counts. If they are translating the damn thing to begin with, chances are they are at least that scrupulous.
Not to mention, the phenomenon of professional localizations being impressive works is extremely recent. Anything from before 2000 is almost entirely guaranteed to get a better job by a fan group today than anything “professional” translators from the last decade would ever put out. Not to mention, you overestimate Japanese involvement in the localization process. There are many who follow the work very closely, it’s true, but there aren’t few xenophobic asses who have no faith in un-Japanese works, sell off the license for money and cut themselves from the project entirely.
And for the record, while I’ll conceed to Woosley that he was well above most of his coleagues at the time, and that he did manage to make some boring lines more interesting even with the censorship restrictions (And thank God for most of the name changes), I still stand that the man occasionally took way too much liberty with the stuff he got, sometimes for no actual reason. I’m not so quick to nail him to a cross like many literalists do, but I wouldn’t consider hiring him either.
There’s a very large difference between “scrupulous” and “talented”. Often being scrupulous means not taking enough liberties with the script to make it enjoyable to the target audience. On the other hand, sometimes it means taking too many liberties just because they can and aren’t answerable to anyone.
And definitely, before 2000 there were very few excellent localizations. Then companies realized that crappy localizations were losing them both prestige and sales, and actually started paying people who were good at the job what they deserved. I can still somewhat enjoy those old games, but it’s nowhere near as enjoyable as the newer ones.
Not to mention, you overestimate Japanese involvement in the localization process. There are many who follow the work very closely, it’s true, but there aren’t few xenophobic asses who have no faith in un-Japanese works, sell off the license for money and cut themselves from the project entirely.
The fact that there are bad professional localizations doesn’t mean that the fan localizations are therefore somehow better.
I’m not saying there are absolutely no good fan localizations. Hell, I script-edited Star Ocean, remember? But Star Ocean was done with a professional attitude (Tomato, the translator, works as a localization director now). I remember a single extended joke which was debated for weeks on the DeJap forum to find out how best to translate it into something Anglophones could enjoy. Dark Force and I argued for hours about the smallest details of naming conventions. That takes dedication, as well as good knowledge of both Japanese and English; things most fan translation groups don’t have.
As for Woolsey and e.g. the Lunar games - yes, they took a lot of liberties. And you know what? Anglophone audiences are still talking about those lines, still laughing about them, and still quoting them. If they’d gone with the staid and simple, the end result would have been utterly forgettable. It’s not an approach that works with every game, but it worked.
That’s exactly what I mean by scrupulous. I’m not exactly sure what point you are trying to make, I said that there are both good and terrible groups in response to your “almost exclussively bad” comment. I never said that each and every one of them were good, and I never said a thing about literal translations. In my experience, half assed hackjobs without people willing to put this level of energy into them never even see a final release anyway, or nobody ever pays them any attention and the job turns into vapor.
The fact that there are bad professional localizations doesn’t mean that the fan localizations are therefore somehow better.
I’ve seen pre-2000 official localizations that are better than fan literal translations (Chrono Trigger). I’ve never in my life seen a pre-2000 official localization that is better than a fan localization, mostly because if someone decided to do the job, chances are it’s because the original was horrendous. CT was an isolated case of an obsessive guy who felt the need to “fix” a perfectly functional script with just a few mistakes.
As for Woolsey and e.g. the Lunar games - yes, they took a lot of liberties. And you know what? Anglophone audiences are still talking about those lines, still laughing about them, and still quoting them.
“This guy are sick” and “l i t t l e m o n e y” are as famous as those, but that doesn’t make them anything else but fuck-ups. It’s the same deal here: I said I appreciated some changes. But he still makes some severe blunders at times which not even that rememberable, just… make no sense whatsoever at the time and people just shut them off from memory, like Cyan’s nonsensical “let’s go” speech at the end of Sabin’s scenario after the split or the comment about Terra being “Loaded for bear” (?). I said I do not hate the man, but not every single change he made was necessarily acceptable or an improvement.
I like to think of Woolsey as the equivalent of Ezra Pound. What you get isn’t the original but has a value of its own. Son of a submariner!
I forgot you worked on the Star Ocean project, Cid. I remember hearing that someone was planning to do a dub patch, like what DeJap was originally going to do before the hard drive failure. Do you know anything about that project?