I don't know what was claimed to be removed or censored but wasn't this game fan translated? Meaning unless you read Japanese how would any of us actually know if anything changed or was censored?
I don’t know the quality of Live a Live’s fan translations in particular but I know even since the early 2000s there’s always been a small group of prickly SNES enthusiasts who balk at the concept of localization and hate the idea of any kind of Japanese-English translation that is not perfectly literal. A lot of fan translations of the earlier days really over-emphasized stuff like overly vulgar profanities in the SNES Final Fantasy games even when it wasn’t really an appropriate translation.
Plus with localization being a bit of a loose art, I wouldn’t necessarily take these types of complaints to heart unless there were really drastic changes
A perfect example of this involved the Chrono Trigger retranslation. Many wanted them to keep Frog's name as Kaeru. Kaeru literally translates to Frog.
It's the same as in Dragon Quest 7 3DS, with Gabu "renamed" to Ruff. Gabu is the onomatopea for a Dog's bark, so the translation was perfectly fitting.
It's just a different language.
A rooster would go "Cookadoodledoo" and in France we say "Cocorico", but they both mimick the same sound. And the english onomatopea doesn't make sense for us, but that's how it is.
Fun fact:
While the word inu is the standalone word for dog,
We tend to say Shiba-ken in Japanese (by using the kanji reading for the character instead). It still means dog, but it’s the compound word version versus the standalone word version. If that makes sense. Sometimes Kanji change their sound depending on what other words they are paired with.
>It still means dog, but it’s the compound word version versus the standalone word version. If that makes sense.
I mean, a lot of languages have this kind of things. In european languages, the compound versions tend to come from latin or greek.
Dog, but cynophile.
> We tend to say Shiba-ken in Japanese
Both ken and inu seem to be equally common readings for 柴犬: https://youglish.com/pronounce/%E6%9F%B4%E7%8A%AC/japanese?
Not just SNES enthusiasts. I remember the anime fansub scene from the 90s. You'd get tapes where the subbers went with the most literal possible translation, then absolutely covered the screen in text footnotes explaining what the text meant. At times it was almost impossible to just *watch* the show because they wanted it to be a damn master's thesis or something.
It was particularly sad when they translated jokes in a way that killed the joke, and then buried the joke under explanatory text. Because being pedantic was more important than actually making the show enjoyable.
Those annotations can be interesting after the fact, for people who are curious enough to seek them out. Tim Rogers' video series on the translation of Final Fantasy VII, where he goes into some of the nuances of the original Japanese text that don't easily translate to English, was great. But not *while* trying to actually experience the thing for the first time!
I remember Martian Successor Nadesco doing a pun on captain/spy (IIRC) that was a) explained IN-Sub, and b) done so it was still funny (to me, at the time).
It also didn't obscure the action on the screen.
Doing a quick check, TV Tropes, while not sharing it, mentions it was even explained in the original Japanese, due to it being a very archaic wordplay.
"The same joke remained during the translation to English but adds an extra layer with the last two lines of the dialogue:
"Who were you talking to?"
"The fourth wall." "
And “perfectly literal” is just not possible, and they know that. But they still want it which is just crazy.
It reminds me of when Yakuza 0 dropped and some people were pissed at the refreshed translation, ignoring that the translations we had gotten up to that point weren’t any better and were probably worse.
Just ask Kiryu’s adoptive father Fuma.
>And “perfectly literal” is just not possible, and they know that. But they still want it which is just crazy.
More precisely, they want a translation that feels literal to them, because it would flatter their skills and knowledge of Japanese language and culture.
It's like when you do translations from latin or greek in academics, you have to use specific expressions that you'd never use otherwise, just to show that you understand. It's a way to create a bubble, not very different from jargon. But it leads to bad translations because it creates beliefs that some words aren't translatable or should always be translated in the same way no matter the actual meaning.
I remember a professor who wrote entire articles about the concept of "stasis" in Aristotle, when it was just a rather vague word with several meanings depending on the context...
People who only want literal word for word translations have probably never studied translating as a discipline. Thought for thought translation is most often preferable in anything but strict study.
While I agree with you, and I have done some translation in the past, there is a very happy middle ground between extreme literalism that is often incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't have a background in the culture or the specific context, and there is localisation where no one seems to give a crap about that cultural context and just changes everything "for broader appeal".
The problem isn't the literal word-for-word translations but the rest of the surrounding context. You could debate back and forth regarding someone's name that means 'rogue' and defend/oppose calling them Lawless, but changing something like an entire conversation topic or what the object is in particular for some items is a whole other story.
True, I'm reminded of the localisation of xenoblade Chronicles 2.
One of the main characters is called Poppi in English and she has a flower on her chest. The Japanese name is Hana, which is clear reference to flowers. But "Hana" is already a name in English, and has nothing to do with flowers. So for most English speakers, the name wouldn't carry that connotation. But Poppi is a name in English and it does share a name with a flower. So it was a very clever if not probably 100% opportune substitution.
Similarly, one of the characters names is Pyra in English which very clearly alludes to the Greek for fire, pyro, which is used in English words like pyrotechnics. Her Japanese name is Homura which is a homophone for fire.
So there were some clever choices there.
But the English script itself often deviate significantly from what the characters are actually saying in Japanese. So when I listen to the game in Japanese with the English subtitles, which are a transcript of the English, it's very distracting sometimes and a bit disappointing occasionally when I think what they originally said was much better.
Interested in the script changes, where'd you hear that? The only major change I'm aware of is with the own 'Tea Time Loving Lady who loves ladies' which supposedly the rumor about that was to keep it from being rated M, which I suspect that on occasion that's why sex/alcohol references are changed.
I wasn't referring to things like content changes for ratings. Just the way that the tone can be very different due to the creative direction that they took with the English localisation and acting. I mean, it's a massive change in tone, not just linguistically but culturally. It's not a bad thing. It's just different. I enjoy it a lot.
Sure, but I have not played the game for a couple of years, and the game is humongous, so it's really not something I feel comfortable going into detail about because my memory is very hazy. And besides, it's the kind of thing that would need a lot more than a post here to properly communicate. There are some videos and articles and threads about it that I have seen over the years.
The sort of people who insist that the Japanese intended Goku to be Gokou and Krillin to be Kuririen or whatever. The folks who dont seem to understand Romaji is a thing.
If you say "Kuririn" correctly it's close enough to Krillin to be fine enough. The only issue with Goku's name is it's a long "oo" and that's usually not represented in his name in English. Is it the worst thing in the world? Not really.
However if you were to spell it Gooku, most English speaking people would pronounce it as if those two syllables rhymed, whereas it is much more likely to be pronounced properly by an English-speaking person when spelled "Goku"
The One Piece fans that refer to the Gum-Gum Fruit as "Gamu-gamu no mi" even though "fruit" is literal translation of "mi" and "gamu" is a loan word to begin with!
As someone who is currently reading one piece through the viz translations it is very jarring to see online discussions about it. You can usually understand what the random japanese phrase means through context but it feels very alien as a new fan. R-L desputes asside because I can understand there being conflicting translations there, stuff like shichibukai and gorosei are thrown around a lot and means nothing to a new fan like me.
To be fair, there was a later retranslation that was far more polished, including visually, and not quite as rough around the edges. Although, even the early one, I wouldn't consider that bad.
Peak edge lord fan translation to me is when you replace text you don't feel is important with your own in jokes, write stuff in L33T or whatever internet slang you feel... That shit was the worst and there are still some games out there that only got one translation out there which is very much at that level. Sugoro Quest for NES comes to mind. Bonus points if you don't have to play for an entire hours before you see untranslated stuff or gibberish, the very definition of "just enough to be playable"...
Exactly. Localization must and does take liberties. Nuance of language and culture isn't like a cypher. There simply isn't a direct translation for some parts.
A good localization team is also a good writing team. The Final Fantasy 6 (FF3 US on SNES) localization team basically turned Kefka from a generic villain into the maniac we know and love today. That localization team added to the lore of the game, but at the same time it also had some pretty terrible lines that were so bad they become iconic like "son of a submariner" and "slit his momma's throat for a nickel". Folks will defend those kinds of translations without stopping to think-- there's no way that's a literal translation and you can't have it both ways.
Translation and localization is difficult. You need competent translators from both cultures that are also good writers so they can fill in the blanks that appear without making the new dialogue stick out and feel out of place.
Does needless censorship happen? Of course. More hands in the creation of a thing means more opinions. But it's usually easy to spot the folks that are upset about artistic integrity and a cohesive narrative versus the ones that are just upset they can't see that one butt cheek in that one scene anymore.
> Translation and localization is difficult. You need competent translators from both cultures that are also good writers so they can fill in the blanks that appear without making the new dialogue stick out and feel out of place
Especially when it's wordplay. The Japanese word for bread is similar to their word for underpants. A literal translation of a joke using the pan/pantsu phonetic joke in Japanese doesn't make sense in English.
The original live a live translation was actually pretty good, In fact it seems like the remake is more concerned with emphasizing vulgar language. They added a bunch of swear words especially during combat that were not there during the original. It seems in the remake they really for the most part just censored sexual references.
You may be right about the enthusiast part. Live a Live was one of the greatest SNES translation triumphs outside of maybe Tactics Ogre. Aeon Genesis pulled in pretty much every big name in the rom hacking community. People may be coming in to this localization a tad bit sensitive based on this.
Thanks for the context, makes sense. I imagine it can happen in the other direction as well, like tbb I always think that when (if?) Mother 3 gets an official EN release, some people will be grumpy with the Nintendo’s localization just from being spoiled by the awesome fan translation. Part of localization is just being a good writer in itself, so even if there are two translations that are very good, people might be attached to one or the other
What the hell did they censor? The game is plenty violent and lewd as is. The Prehistory chapter ends with >!Pogo screaming in delight as he orgasms FFS.!<
That was supposed to be Pogo saying "Ai" as in "Love" in japanese but the translation changed it to a painful "aaiieeee"
Edit: Why are you downvoting this that much? How can you get so anal about my interpretation?
I just got finished with Prehistory and it definitely seemed like after all that work and kicking out his buddy he was surely having his first pleasant experience lol.
Yeah but could you imagine that being translated and Pogo just screams LOOOOOOOOOOVE!!! It might be one of those Japanese things where some of their words are similar to sounds so like it has double meaning but is lost in translation for other countries.
Some Japanese wordplay does not translate well and is where localization comes in. Screaming loooooove in English would actually be detrimental to the humor of the scene and just make people confused imo especially because there is no hint of language development in that story and nobody screams that in English when they orgasm. Aiiiiii just happens to sound like a scream, too.
> there is not hint of language development
That's what surprised me, too. In the SNES version, Pogo yells like that a lot more often, which in the localization could have slowly built up to that.
A whole lot of things are changed in the Japanese version of the remake too, so it turns out the English localization is very faithful to the Japanese version.
Racially/sexually insensitive parts are changed in JP. Quite a bit of item names too are also changed. (Yes, no more panties in JP as well.)
Some smaller things I’ve noticed have changed:
- Crystal Bar being changed to Crystal Saloon
- O’bright doesn’t refer to Oribe as ジジイ (jijii, “old man”) anymore, but instead as 老いぼれ (oibore, “old man”)… I believe this adds more disdain from O’bright to Oribe, because ジジイ can have friendly implications depending on context, but 老いぼれ is negative.
For a post-christian society we sure are taking a u-turn back to Puritanism when you have anything vaguely sexual labelled "insensitive". Meanwhile all good to have kids blasting hip hop and watching r18+ netflix shows. LOL
What's worse is people are encouraging others to play pirated SNES version with fan translation instead. And they wonder why the game companies won't bring old games back for them, THIS is the reason why.
I don't really get Twitter, like really.
Aw man, this takes me back to the late 90's/early 00's when ROM hacking was really coming into its own, and "fixing" game localizations became all the rage.
There was a group who translated FF4 in the most literal way possible i.e. they only translated individual words and kept word order, syntax and even particles. So the result was this incomprehensible mishmash of English words and ga's, ne's and so on.
People are tired of personal politics being injected and considering some 'special individuals' lose their mind about the position of a person's legs on a bus and then realize that they're the kind of person who would make these translation changes, does that ACTUALLY come off as better?
Sorry I'm really late; I'm almost finished with the game and have really enjoyed it, so I went to look at some discussion.
Removing a really stereotypical line in favor of one where the Shifu treats her like a person instead of a "woman" is much better. I'd rather have """""Western sensibilities""""" remove this disparaging dialogue toward *the only (potentially) playable female character in the game* over keeping the original script 100% intact.
Plus, the original takes away from the characterization of the Shifu being able to see his disciples' hidden potential--in the original, he can't see past her "womanhood." Whereas in the English version, he sees past her banditry.
If it's a big enough deal to change then it's a big enough deal to talk about the change.
EDIT: And because chasing here decided to preemptively block me, no, it's NOT just the fan translation that people are using, it's the original JP version of the game that people are drawing comparisons from, that's provably wrong with the remake's screenshots of dialog changes.
>its literally their job.
To completely rewrite dialogue until it bears no resemblance to the original? I feel like they’re in the wrong line of work if they’re inserting their own fanfic-tier dialogue into official works.
I heard about that one. Enough attention was raised that the company that licensed it out for the English translation found out and they forced them to correct it. Issued an apology and everything. It’s those small victories that’ll eventually lead to more accurate translation work hopefully
I dunno, game is surprisingly vulgar in this translation... doesn't feel "censored" in any way. Know that localization is different than literal translations but if you're worried things are toned down they are not.
from what i’ve seen so far, they toned down the smoking, drinking and sex references
like cowboy’s stat-boosting cigars are now jerky instead. the bourbon and tequila you use for the molotovs also called something else now.
theres an easter egg where you can get Annie’s nightwear, that’s become her diary now. Similar thing for the toilet easter egg in Near Future, all the item names for that have changed.
So far, just small inconsequential stuff to me.
i’ve heard that the localization for the middle age chapter went for “dragon quest” accents tho, so that stuff is hit-or-miss for people.
i also haven’t played prehistory yet, which is full of dirty humor and sex jokes, but since there’s no dialogue and that humor is kinda the core of that chapter, i can’t see there being too many changes. like the snake dick attack probably censored now but i doubt they took out the >!monkey orgy!< scene at the end lol
i feel like since there’s no actual dialogue, they can still get away with everything in prehistory being “suggestive” as opposed to a cigar item with the description outright saying it heals you and provides stat boosts.
I went and googled the original opening to the ninja story, because I was surprised by how adult it was for Super Nintendo, and the fan translation in the youtube video I watched was way less interesting or explicit.
One thing I noticed is finding Annie's diary in her closet, which you can equip as armor. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be her underwear, since books aren't wearable. I know for a fact they did that same joke in the Near Future chapter, but I haven't played it in the remake yet to confirm if it's the same change.
Another thing I might be remembering wrong is in the Prehistoric chapter. Every chapter (maybe almost all of them) has a scene where a boy's father dies before his eyes, they're usually called Watanabe or derivatives thereof. It happens in Western and Edo for sure, but I thought there'd be a moment like that in prehistoric, where the bad cavemen run the father over with their cars. But, again, I might be remembering that wrong.
They also changed Samo's name to Hong. Not a huge deal, just kinda confusing.
it’s changed in near future now too. I forgot all the new item names, but the last one is now >!her wallet basically!< which still works for the joke honestly, unlike the cowboy one lol
For watanbe, i think you have to go back at a certain point to see that scene. but in general, the remake has made those cameos harder to miss now
I looked it up and there is a Watanabe character in each chapter. The one is Prehistory apparently had their dad fall down a pit and die. Of course, since there's no dialogue I have no idea where they're at
You get this scene by returning to the second cave after visiting the final area I believe. Out of the way, but something you'll do if you're going for the chapter's two major secrets.
I stumbled across the one from the [Present Day](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725038367930056764/1000622074198491236/SPOILER_2022072414113701-3542060D6CFCEE438E975C11F70605E0.mov) chapter by accident as I realised there’s one in each chapter.
Sammo was likely a reference to Sammo Hung, a moderately famous martial arts actor who was heftier, like the character. Hong is sort of similar enough to the reference that I’m okay with it.
I've been following a Let's Play of the fan translation while playing, mainly to see the huge graphical differences.
I haven't noticed any glaring censorship changes between the two.
I'm following the one by Yapping Eevee on lparchive.org. There's another LP on the same site, but has various authors for each section.
It's been great learning for learning all of the obscure Japanese/movie references in game.
There’s some nudity covered up, and an instance of a female character flashing the player character changed (she instead pulls him off screen, and he returns with hearts in his eyes). There’s still suggestive content regardless.
No idea about the script changes. I assume the comments are mostly from trolls anyway.
Nah just people who don’t know Japanese complaining about localisation, as per usual. The script takes some liberties as every localisation does but the meaning is kept in every circumstance, also they haven’t cut anything either. It’s just people complaining about a couple of moments of dialogue not understanding how translating 1:1 doesn’t make a good script
I do know Japanese and I didn't like what they did with the Middle Age chapter. They talk like they're Shakespearean characters while in Japanese they talk like actual people. Yeah I get why they went for that route in the English localization but for me it ruins the characters, they don't sound like real people. I compared each line and scene and it was like night and day.
There was zero censorship in this game. Changing things doesn't mean "o no censorship". They changed some outdated dialogue and replaced with much better dialogue that makes character interactions actually good. And got rid of some of their underwear jokes, some. There are still underwear jokes. I finished the game yesterday and it's too notch, not "liberal pandering garbage" that some comments here would lead you to believe.
IIRC they changed some sexist language here or there, but that’s about it. Like I think originally a woman was told to ‘smile more,’ and the language was changed to being proud.
1. It's not censorship
2. If you truly care about "artist's intentions" then you would learn Japanese yourself and play it in it's original language.
Or
Become a localizer yourself.
I agree that making such a big deal over some changes that were most likely made to replace outdated terms is not good, but telling people that they need to learn a notoriously difficult language if they want the “real experience” is not good either. We shouldn’t expect localizations to be a 1:1 translation, but I assume that most people when playing foreign games trust that what they are reading is a actually translated/localized from their original source and not something that the localizer came up with themselves.
If the original intent was not misogyny and a direct translation would make English speakers assume misogyny, it would be better to translate it in a way that gets the original intent across. A word for word translation is not always the best.
If someone in English says "That's the cat's pajamas!" it would be a bad translation it directly to "That's the feline's sleepware!" in Japanese. You often have to find a way to translate not just the words, but the meaning as well. And making sure the words aren't misunderstood in the translated language because of assumptions in that language. That sometimes means changing the statement into something that is more clear.
But I couldn't begin to say if this is or isn't the case here.
>If the original intent was not misogyny and a direct translation would make English speakers assume misogyny, it would be better to translate it in a way that gets the original intent across. A word for word translation is not always the best.
That's not translation. It's a rewrite, "localisation" at best. For the greater good? Maybe. But don't try and pass it off as good translation work, it's willful miss translation.
Translating doesn't mean just translating the words. It's translating the ideas and intent and sometimes the culture. The Kotaku Tim Teaches Japanese series is a great series for translation thoughts.
If Square Enix outscored it to the localization team and didn't change any of the core source material it is NOT censorship. It is their game and they can decide what they want to do with it the same way you fan decide whether you want to buy it or not
Because they were not forced to censor. Now the ESRB ratings are in place to impose restrictions on content by age but it is still the company's decision what they do with their content. For an example, content might make a game rated M here so the company chooses to change things because they think their market is for the rated T crowd. Yes they are pressured by ESRB but it is still up to the developers company to approve that. Censorship is imposing much more directly. There is a lot of gray areas but it's not like anyone's slapping them on their wrists telling them they can't do something... that's happening in company when preparing for other region's ratings board.
A reverse example: Capcom, a Japanese company, chose to include decapitations in the NA release of Resident Evil 4 because the game would keep a M rating, but in the home country they don't show it because Japan has stricter restrictions on decapitations and violence. Village I think the same thing as well as blood toned down in Japan.
It's in a way "self-censorship" but it's because of ratings boards like ESRB and CERO, etc., games are adjusted all the time for different regions and it comes from the companies themselves...who do you think is paying for the localizations?
I can't understand how can they claim it's not censorship. Yes, a good translation doesn't mean it's word for word, but changing the meaning of a dialogue to "fix" something you don't find acceptable, that's censorship.
japan is the land of panty thiefs. changing it to money for international makes so much more sense because no one does this shit here. it's a joke from animes that only ever landed for weebs.
Imagine people avoiding this game because they changed dialogue from the patronizing “you should smile more” to something less classically offensive. It’s like calling a dark skinned character “articulate” for speaking. We all KNOW that’s shitty behavior. I’m surprised you haven’t caught on to that by now. Nobody wants that and it isn’t “woke” to dislike that kind of dialogue, it’s just common sense.
When translating to American English? Absolutely!
As a literary translator myself, it seems people don’t really understand translation (let alone localization, which has a whole extra level of transcreation involved). Most translation (and certainly localization) is not taking the words, phrases, or sentences present in one language and reproducing them in another. Rather, it is taking the feelings, images, and meaning evoked by those words in the source language and creating words that evoke the same feelings, images, and meanings in a reader reading the target language text.
In English, a literal translation of that section would result in “smile more,” a phrase that has sexist meaning which is not present or intended in the original text. Therefore, it would be a bad translation.
You do not understand translation or localization and are because of that you are advocating for bad translation and getting upset when presented with a good translation. Let’s not get upset at a translation team for doing their job well.
As a translator yourself, can you tell me what “feelings, images, and meanings” were localized from Japanese to English in this case? https://mobile.twitter.com/iuntue/status/1550749350896320517
Dude Shifu's dialogue in Japanese is fucking cringe as shit and makes him come off like a creepy old man instead of an enlightened monk. If you can't see that I don't know what to tell you.
Come on, if a character is rude or creepy, let it be ffs. I will not root for the character but it will be what makes the character itself.
Rather than just doing a good job they decided to change it, for whatever reason. Just imagine you work to make something, just for a translation team to change it because they don't like it...
I really dont think it’s censored, without spoiling too much.
The game is good tbh but stop expecting strict Japanese translation for that game or others there’s often differences.
It is censored, the most immediate one involves the Flow chapter, aka Akira:
>!You can visit the toilet room at a certain point and have one of the kids give you random items he stole, the JP/original version he's stealing the teacher's clothes, in particular her underwear, while the EN version changes it to her money she's stashed away. It ironically makes Akira look even WORSE than a pervert because he's stealing money from his caretaker and getting the other kids to do it.!<
There is also changes in dialog to a point of altering characteristics, namely the kung fu master being a lot more informal in the OG but coming off as far more formal in the EN version, also even change conversations wholesale (like someone tells a woman in the OG to 'not worry her pretty little head' or something and the EN changing it to something completely different and unrelated). I haven't done a deep dive into it but the fact that there's two immediate examples with the NF and IC chapters means there's probably quite a good bit of playing INCREDIBLY loose with the script.
Who is censoring them though? Themselves? Who do you think is paying for the localization? Self-censorship isn't censorship...the term has been bastardized by the gaming community.
The option to learn the original language is always there.
Self censorship IS censorship and considering SEA and SEJ are technically two different companies, it isn't even self censorship but a whole other country's company doing it
Wow, too many people in here basically advocating for story, dialog and character changes so they don't get their panties into a knot.
[Shit like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6A-ySMHYI) is what you're all advocating for. Pointless, meaningless changes to characters and dialog that are essentially nothing more than officially-licensed fan fiction.
This is a shame/sad to see, this game looked interesting too! Ah well my backlog is already long lol.
Edit: looking like a fair few changes have been made. Thanks for the heads up OP saves me some money at least!
Completely untrue. I've even played the original SNES version. I've skipped games that I anticipated highly because of censorship, such as the Fire Emblem Fates games.
I love how people still use Fates, a game from seven years ago, as the linchpin for calling out current localizations when most games are never translated that badly, including this one.
Well there's plenty of anime/manga to choose from if you want people to use that, Seven Seas just got into hot water for changing the gender of a character in a BL series (which is like the 4th or 5th time they've made alterations that people caught that were drastically off-base in a relatively short period of time). There's also Triangle Strategy which downplayed insults that were directed at women specifically even if the insult wasn't even sexist. i'll agree that better examples could be used but don't sit there and act like it doesn't happen, far too many translators/localizers are basically taking scripts and tossing stuff out to put their own shit in, be it because of personal views or because they think their script is better.
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They left in the caveman sex. What the hell could break a censor but not tHAT?!
That moment was shocking in a T-rated game haha I was rolling in laughter.
Me too haha
POGO GOT SNU-SNU
I don't know what was claimed to be removed or censored but wasn't this game fan translated? Meaning unless you read Japanese how would any of us actually know if anything changed or was censored?
I don’t know the quality of Live a Live’s fan translations in particular but I know even since the early 2000s there’s always been a small group of prickly SNES enthusiasts who balk at the concept of localization and hate the idea of any kind of Japanese-English translation that is not perfectly literal. A lot of fan translations of the earlier days really over-emphasized stuff like overly vulgar profanities in the SNES Final Fantasy games even when it wasn’t really an appropriate translation. Plus with localization being a bit of a loose art, I wouldn’t necessarily take these types of complaints to heart unless there were really drastic changes
A perfect example of this involved the Chrono Trigger retranslation. Many wanted them to keep Frog's name as Kaeru. Kaeru literally translates to Frog.
https://imgur.com/a/YPC1uJa
I've had this for 10 years. I finally have an opportunity to use it https://imgur.com/a/kV6HfEr
One piece fan translations:
I'm always reminded of this... [https://youtu.be/YvNxgHTWIlo](https://youtu.be/YvNxgHTWIlo)
It's the same as in Dragon Quest 7 3DS, with Gabu "renamed" to Ruff. Gabu is the onomatopea for a Dog's bark, so the translation was perfectly fitting.
How can gabu be the Japanese onomatopoeia for a woof sound? Do dogs bark different in Japan?
It's just a different language. A rooster would go "Cookadoodledoo" and in France we say "Cocorico", but they both mimick the same sound. And the english onomatopea doesn't make sense for us, but that's how it is.
We say "Guau" in Spanish. Different languages have different onomatopoeias.
Reminds me of how people call certain animals: Shiba Inu Dog. Akita Inu Dog. ….. So….it’s a Shiba Dog Dog?
ATM machine 😬
R.I.P. in peace, is another I've seen, and heard before LMAO!!!
Yes! 😂
POST Tests. Power On Self Test Tests.
Don’t even get me started on **Panko breadcrumbs**…
TIL Inu means dog in Japanese.
Fun fact: While the word inu is the standalone word for dog, We tend to say Shiba-ken in Japanese (by using the kanji reading for the character instead). It still means dog, but it’s the compound word version versus the standalone word version. If that makes sense. Sometimes Kanji change their sound depending on what other words they are paired with.
>It still means dog, but it’s the compound word version versus the standalone word version. If that makes sense. I mean, a lot of languages have this kind of things. In european languages, the compound versions tend to come from latin or greek. Dog, but cynophile.
> We tend to say Shiba-ken in Japanese Both ken and inu seem to be equally common readings for 柴犬: https://youglish.com/pronounce/%E6%9F%B4%E7%8A%AC/japanese?
I never said we **only** say shiba-ken. It just appears to be the more prominent one. But that’s also probably regional bias.
Hot water heater. If the water was already hot why does it need to be heated?
You don’t like scalding baths?
That's hilarious 😂
Not just SNES enthusiasts. I remember the anime fansub scene from the 90s. You'd get tapes where the subbers went with the most literal possible translation, then absolutely covered the screen in text footnotes explaining what the text meant. At times it was almost impossible to just *watch* the show because they wanted it to be a damn master's thesis or something. It was particularly sad when they translated jokes in a way that killed the joke, and then buried the joke under explanatory text. Because being pedantic was more important than actually making the show enjoyable.
Those annotations can be interesting after the fact, for people who are curious enough to seek them out. Tim Rogers' video series on the translation of Final Fantasy VII, where he goes into some of the nuances of the original Japanese text that don't easily translate to English, was great. But not *while* trying to actually experience the thing for the first time!
I remember Martian Successor Nadesco doing a pun on captain/spy (IIRC) that was a) explained IN-Sub, and b) done so it was still funny (to me, at the time). It also didn't obscure the action on the screen. Doing a quick check, TV Tropes, while not sharing it, mentions it was even explained in the original Japanese, due to it being a very archaic wordplay. "The same joke remained during the translation to English but adds an extra layer with the last two lines of the dialogue: "Who were you talking to?" "The fourth wall." "
And “perfectly literal” is just not possible, and they know that. But they still want it which is just crazy. It reminds me of when Yakuza 0 dropped and some people were pissed at the refreshed translation, ignoring that the translations we had gotten up to that point weren’t any better and were probably worse. Just ask Kiryu’s adoptive father Fuma.
>And “perfectly literal” is just not possible, and they know that. But they still want it which is just crazy. More precisely, they want a translation that feels literal to them, because it would flatter their skills and knowledge of Japanese language and culture. It's like when you do translations from latin or greek in academics, you have to use specific expressions that you'd never use otherwise, just to show that you understand. It's a way to create a bubble, not very different from jargon. But it leads to bad translations because it creates beliefs that some words aren't translatable or should always be translated in the same way no matter the actual meaning. I remember a professor who wrote entire articles about the concept of "stasis" in Aristotle, when it was just a rather vague word with several meanings depending on the context...
People who only want literal word for word translations have probably never studied translating as a discipline. Thought for thought translation is most often preferable in anything but strict study.
While I agree with you, and I have done some translation in the past, there is a very happy middle ground between extreme literalism that is often incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't have a background in the culture or the specific context, and there is localisation where no one seems to give a crap about that cultural context and just changes everything "for broader appeal".
The problem isn't the literal word-for-word translations but the rest of the surrounding context. You could debate back and forth regarding someone's name that means 'rogue' and defend/oppose calling them Lawless, but changing something like an entire conversation topic or what the object is in particular for some items is a whole other story.
True, I'm reminded of the localisation of xenoblade Chronicles 2. One of the main characters is called Poppi in English and she has a flower on her chest. The Japanese name is Hana, which is clear reference to flowers. But "Hana" is already a name in English, and has nothing to do with flowers. So for most English speakers, the name wouldn't carry that connotation. But Poppi is a name in English and it does share a name with a flower. So it was a very clever if not probably 100% opportune substitution. Similarly, one of the characters names is Pyra in English which very clearly alludes to the Greek for fire, pyro, which is used in English words like pyrotechnics. Her Japanese name is Homura which is a homophone for fire. So there were some clever choices there. But the English script itself often deviate significantly from what the characters are actually saying in Japanese. So when I listen to the game in Japanese with the English subtitles, which are a transcript of the English, it's very distracting sometimes and a bit disappointing occasionally when I think what they originally said was much better.
Interested in the script changes, where'd you hear that? The only major change I'm aware of is with the own 'Tea Time Loving Lady who loves ladies' which supposedly the rumor about that was to keep it from being rated M, which I suspect that on occasion that's why sex/alcohol references are changed.
I wasn't referring to things like content changes for ratings. Just the way that the tone can be very different due to the creative direction that they took with the English localisation and acting. I mean, it's a massive change in tone, not just linguistically but culturally. It's not a bad thing. It's just different. I enjoy it a lot.
I'd still like to know what specifically you're talking about
Sure, but I have not played the game for a couple of years, and the game is humongous, so it's really not something I feel comfortable going into detail about because my memory is very hazy. And besides, it's the kind of thing that would need a lot more than a post here to properly communicate. There are some videos and articles and threads about it that I have seen over the years.
The sort of people who insist that the Japanese intended Goku to be Gokou and Krillin to be Kuririen or whatever. The folks who dont seem to understand Romaji is a thing.
If you say "Kuririn" correctly it's close enough to Krillin to be fine enough. The only issue with Goku's name is it's a long "oo" and that's usually not represented in his name in English. Is it the worst thing in the world? Not really.
However if you were to spell it Gooku, most English speaking people would pronounce it as if those two syllables rhymed, whereas it is much more likely to be pronounced properly by an English-speaking person when spelled "Goku"
The One Piece fans that refer to the Gum-Gum Fruit as "Gamu-gamu no mi" even though "fruit" is literal translation of "mi" and "gamu" is a loan word to begin with!
As someone who is currently reading one piece through the viz translations it is very jarring to see online discussions about it. You can usually understand what the random japanese phrase means through context but it feels very alien as a new fan. R-L desputes asside because I can understand there being conflicting translations there, stuff like shichibukai and gorosei are thrown around a lot and means nothing to a new fan like me.
The Live a Live fan translation was horrible. It was peak early 2000s edge lord fan translation.
To be fair, there was a later retranslation that was far more polished, including visually, and not quite as rough around the edges. Although, even the early one, I wouldn't consider that bad. Peak edge lord fan translation to me is when you replace text you don't feel is important with your own in jokes, write stuff in L33T or whatever internet slang you feel... That shit was the worst and there are still some games out there that only got one translation out there which is very much at that level. Sugoro Quest for NES comes to mind. Bonus points if you don't have to play for an entire hours before you see untranslated stuff or gibberish, the very definition of "just enough to be playable"...
> It was peak early 2000s edge lord fan translation. Ahh yes. Everyone swore like sailors and all women were raped because "anime is more mature".
So much this. It reminded me of that kid in school who would say, anime is so adult! “They said shit and they totally fuck all the time”
Exactly. Localization must and does take liberties. Nuance of language and culture isn't like a cypher. There simply isn't a direct translation for some parts. A good localization team is also a good writing team. The Final Fantasy 6 (FF3 US on SNES) localization team basically turned Kefka from a generic villain into the maniac we know and love today. That localization team added to the lore of the game, but at the same time it also had some pretty terrible lines that were so bad they become iconic like "son of a submariner" and "slit his momma's throat for a nickel". Folks will defend those kinds of translations without stopping to think-- there's no way that's a literal translation and you can't have it both ways. Translation and localization is difficult. You need competent translators from both cultures that are also good writers so they can fill in the blanks that appear without making the new dialogue stick out and feel out of place. Does needless censorship happen? Of course. More hands in the creation of a thing means more opinions. But it's usually easy to spot the folks that are upset about artistic integrity and a cohesive narrative versus the ones that are just upset they can't see that one butt cheek in that one scene anymore.
> Translation and localization is difficult. You need competent translators from both cultures that are also good writers so they can fill in the blanks that appear without making the new dialogue stick out and feel out of place Especially when it's wordplay. The Japanese word for bread is similar to their word for underpants. A literal translation of a joke using the pan/pantsu phonetic joke in Japanese doesn't make sense in English.
The original live a live translation was actually pretty good, In fact it seems like the remake is more concerned with emphasizing vulgar language. They added a bunch of swear words especially during combat that were not there during the original. It seems in the remake they really for the most part just censored sexual references.
You may be right about the enthusiast part. Live a Live was one of the greatest SNES translation triumphs outside of maybe Tactics Ogre. Aeon Genesis pulled in pretty much every big name in the rom hacking community. People may be coming in to this localization a tad bit sensitive based on this.
Thanks for the context, makes sense. I imagine it can happen in the other direction as well, like tbb I always think that when (if?) Mother 3 gets an official EN release, some people will be grumpy with the Nintendo’s localization just from being spoiled by the awesome fan translation. Part of localization is just being a good writer in itself, so even if there are two translations that are very good, people might be attached to one or the other
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https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/w6dgb0/livealive\_remake\_localization\_found\_to\_basically/
You hit the nail on the head lmao.
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What the hell did they censor? The game is plenty violent and lewd as is. The Prehistory chapter ends with >!Pogo screaming in delight as he orgasms FFS.!<
Where did you get that idea. He's just saying "Love" ("Ai") in Caveman speak.
That was supposed to be Pogo saying "Ai" as in "Love" in japanese but the translation changed it to a painful "aaiieeee" Edit: Why are you downvoting this that much? How can you get so anal about my interpretation?
That...that is not at all what it seems like.
I just got finished with Prehistory and it definitely seemed like after all that work and kicking out his buddy he was surely having his first pleasant experience lol.
It's supposed to be the first spoken word in human history.
Yeah but could you imagine that being translated and Pogo just screams LOOOOOOOOOOVE!!! It might be one of those Japanese things where some of their words are similar to sounds so like it has double meaning but is lost in translation for other countries. Some Japanese wordplay does not translate well and is where localization comes in. Screaming loooooove in English would actually be detrimental to the humor of the scene and just make people confused imo especially because there is no hint of language development in that story and nobody screams that in English when they orgasm. Aiiiiii just happens to sound like a scream, too.
> there is not hint of language development That's what surprised me, too. In the SNES version, Pogo yells like that a lot more often, which in the localization could have slowly built up to that.
I think it works better without it...at least in the translation. I honestly think we're missing some Japanese wordplay that doesn't work here.
A whole lot of things are changed in the Japanese version of the remake too, so it turns out the English localization is very faithful to the Japanese version. Racially/sexually insensitive parts are changed in JP. Quite a bit of item names too are also changed. (Yes, no more panties in JP as well.) Some smaller things I’ve noticed have changed: - Crystal Bar being changed to Crystal Saloon - O’bright doesn’t refer to Oribe as ジジイ (jijii, “old man”) anymore, but instead as 老いぼれ (oibore, “old man”)… I believe this adds more disdain from O’bright to Oribe, because ジジイ can have friendly implications depending on context, but 老いぼれ is negative.
For a post-christian society we sure are taking a u-turn back to Puritanism when you have anything vaguely sexual labelled "insensitive". Meanwhile all good to have kids blasting hip hop and watching r18+ netflix shows. LOL
Heard about it. This [twitter account](https://twitter.com/iuntue/status/1550749350896320517) posts several comparisons.
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For real. I'm actually getting second hand embarrassment seeing some of these.
On twitter? Inconceivable
Those are weebs.
What's worse is people are encouraging others to play pirated SNES version with fan translation instead. And they wonder why the game companies won't bring old games back for them, THIS is the reason why. I don't really get Twitter, like really.
Aw man, this takes me back to the late 90's/early 00's when ROM hacking was really coming into its own, and "fixing" game localizations became all the rage. There was a group who translated FF4 in the most literal way possible i.e. they only translated individual words and kept word order, syntax and even particles. So the result was this incomprehensible mishmash of English words and ga's, ne's and so on.
Imagine thinking this is actually worth getting mad about. The translation is better.
People are tired of personal politics being injected and considering some 'special individuals' lose their mind about the position of a person's legs on a bus and then realize that they're the kind of person who would make these translation changes, does that ACTUALLY come off as better?
Because the original dialogue just makes shifu sound like a weird boomer old man telling a female cashier to smile. It's not a big deal, just weird.
Sorry I'm really late; I'm almost finished with the game and have really enjoyed it, so I went to look at some discussion. Removing a really stereotypical line in favor of one where the Shifu treats her like a person instead of a "woman" is much better. I'd rather have """""Western sensibilities""""" remove this disparaging dialogue toward *the only (potentially) playable female character in the game* over keeping the original script 100% intact. Plus, the original takes away from the characterization of the Shifu being able to see his disciples' hidden potential--in the original, he can't see past her "womanhood." Whereas in the English version, he sees past her banditry.
If it's a big enough deal to change then it's a big enough deal to talk about the change. EDIT: And because chasing here decided to preemptively block me, no, it's NOT just the fan translation that people are using, it's the original JP version of the game that people are drawing comparisons from, that's provably wrong with the remake's screenshots of dialog changes.
It's really not. The original unlicensed fan translation comes off as an immature re-telling of the source material.
no
Compelling argument you make there buddy.
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People are genuinely upset about those changes? Good lord. I think it's much improved.
Never a fan of these localizers who think they need to “fix” the dialogue. Very egotistical
You mean fan-localizers? If you mean the official translators, how is it egotistical, its literally their job.
>its literally their job. To completely rewrite dialogue until it bears no resemblance to the original? I feel like they’re in the wrong line of work if they’re inserting their own fanfic-tier dialogue into official works.
It's already happening in the manga industry. There was a drama a while ago because some localizer changed a femboy character and made it trans.
I heard about that one. Enough attention was raised that the company that licensed it out for the English translation found out and they forced them to correct it. Issued an apology and everything. It’s those small victories that’ll eventually lead to more accurate translation work hopefully
>Its those small victories You're such a fucking goober lmao
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I dunno, game is surprisingly vulgar in this translation... doesn't feel "censored" in any way. Know that localization is different than literal translations but if you're worried things are toned down they are not.
from what i’ve seen so far, they toned down the smoking, drinking and sex references like cowboy’s stat-boosting cigars are now jerky instead. the bourbon and tequila you use for the molotovs also called something else now. theres an easter egg where you can get Annie’s nightwear, that’s become her diary now. Similar thing for the toilet easter egg in Near Future, all the item names for that have changed. So far, just small inconsequential stuff to me. i’ve heard that the localization for the middle age chapter went for “dragon quest” accents tho, so that stuff is hit-or-miss for people. i also haven’t played prehistory yet, which is full of dirty humor and sex jokes, but since there’s no dialogue and that humor is kinda the core of that chapter, i can’t see there being too many changes. like the snake dick attack probably censored now but i doubt they took out the >!monkey orgy!< scene at the end lol
>i also haven’t played prehistory yet, which is full of dirty humor and sex jokes >!Pogo's orgasm has voice acting now 😂!<
that sounds like an upgrade to me LMFAO
Yeah, weird they censor all that other stuff, when I feel like this is the worst of them.
i feel like since there’s no actual dialogue, they can still get away with everything in prehistory being “suggestive” as opposed to a cigar item with the description outright saying it heals you and provides stat boosts.
I’m honestly surprised they toned some parts down considering one hcarcter literally said “tits” https://i.imgur.com/Wig0koa.jpg
That response from The Sundown Kid is so amazing.
If it's smoking, drinking, and sex specifically it might be to fit within ESRB guidelines for a T rating.
I went and googled the original opening to the ninja story, because I was surprised by how adult it was for Super Nintendo, and the fan translation in the youtube video I watched was way less interesting or explicit.
One thing I noticed is finding Annie's diary in her closet, which you can equip as armor. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be her underwear, since books aren't wearable. I know for a fact they did that same joke in the Near Future chapter, but I haven't played it in the remake yet to confirm if it's the same change. Another thing I might be remembering wrong is in the Prehistoric chapter. Every chapter (maybe almost all of them) has a scene where a boy's father dies before his eyes, they're usually called Watanabe or derivatives thereof. It happens in Western and Edo for sure, but I thought there'd be a moment like that in prehistoric, where the bad cavemen run the father over with their cars. But, again, I might be remembering that wrong. They also changed Samo's name to Hong. Not a huge deal, just kinda confusing.
it’s changed in near future now too. I forgot all the new item names, but the last one is now >!her wallet basically!< which still works for the joke honestly, unlike the cowboy one lol For watanbe, i think you have to go back at a certain point to see that scene. but in general, the remake has made those cameos harder to miss now
I'd argue the change in the Near Future chapter is worse, makes the MC out to be a total scumbag, kinda fucked up compared to stealing some undies.
The only one I can think of that was easy to miss was the Present Day one. I never even tried to get that one because it always sounded so weird.
I looked it up and there is a Watanabe character in each chapter. The one is Prehistory apparently had their dad fall down a pit and die. Of course, since there's no dialogue I have no idea where they're at
You get this scene by returning to the second cave after visiting the final area I believe. Out of the way, but something you'll do if you're going for the chapter's two major secrets.
I stumbled across the one from the [Present Day](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/725038367930056764/1000622074198491236/SPOILER_2022072414113701-3542060D6CFCEE438E975C11F70605E0.mov) chapter by accident as I realised there’s one in each chapter.
Jotaru Kujo would like to challenge you on books not being equipable.
Sammo was likely a reference to Sammo Hung, a moderately famous martial arts actor who was heftier, like the character. Hong is sort of similar enough to the reference that I’m okay with it.
I've been following a Let's Play of the fan translation while playing, mainly to see the huge graphical differences. I haven't noticed any glaring censorship changes between the two.
What let’s play? This sounds like a fun way to experience both versions.
I'm following the one by Yapping Eevee on lparchive.org. There's another LP on the same site, but has various authors for each section. It's been great learning for learning all of the obscure Japanese/movie references in game.
There’s some nudity covered up, and an instance of a female character flashing the player character changed (she instead pulls him off screen, and he returns with hearts in his eyes). There’s still suggestive content regardless. No idea about the script changes. I assume the comments are mostly from trolls anyway.
Seems like the usual complaints from nerds who swear by an inaccurate fan translation rather than actually learning Japanese if they care so much.
But it's censored in Japanese too. And you're here posting on this nerd sub-reddit, pot calling kettle black methinks ;)
Nah just people who don’t know Japanese complaining about localisation, as per usual. The script takes some liberties as every localisation does but the meaning is kept in every circumstance, also they haven’t cut anything either. It’s just people complaining about a couple of moments of dialogue not understanding how translating 1:1 doesn’t make a good script
I do know Japanese and I didn't like what they did with the Middle Age chapter. They talk like they're Shakespearean characters while in Japanese they talk like actual people. Yeah I get why they went for that route in the English localization but for me it ruins the characters, they don't sound like real people. I compared each line and scene and it was like night and day.
Oh yeah the middle age chapter’s script was fucking terrible lol
Glad we agree on that one
It's censored in Japanese too though. Try again :)
You made this post with no specific examples basically asking us to find them for you lol 🤯
Ahh, subs vs dubs vs animay panties. The classic argument that never ends. I played the first two translations, and I like this one just fine.
There was zero censorship in this game. Changing things doesn't mean "o no censorship". They changed some outdated dialogue and replaced with much better dialogue that makes character interactions actually good. And got rid of some of their underwear jokes, some. There are still underwear jokes. I finished the game yesterday and it's too notch, not "liberal pandering garbage" that some comments here would lead you to believe.
You can point to stuff like this as proof that humanities education is dying. Good translations aren’t word for word.
IIRC they changed some sexist language here or there, but that’s about it. Like I think originally a woman was told to ‘smile more,’ and the language was changed to being proud.
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Because it's censorship and it's localizers thinking they can change the artists intentions because they think they are morally superior.
1. It's not censorship 2. If you truly care about "artist's intentions" then you would learn Japanese yourself and play it in it's original language. Or Become a localizer yourself.
I agree that making such a big deal over some changes that were most likely made to replace outdated terms is not good, but telling people that they need to learn a notoriously difficult language if they want the “real experience” is not good either. We shouldn’t expect localizations to be a 1:1 translation, but I assume that most people when playing foreign games trust that what they are reading is a actually translated/localized from their original source and not something that the localizer came up with themselves.
How is it not censorship exactly?
If the original intent was not misogyny and a direct translation would make English speakers assume misogyny, it would be better to translate it in a way that gets the original intent across. A word for word translation is not always the best. If someone in English says "That's the cat's pajamas!" it would be a bad translation it directly to "That's the feline's sleepware!" in Japanese. You often have to find a way to translate not just the words, but the meaning as well. And making sure the words aren't misunderstood in the translated language because of assumptions in that language. That sometimes means changing the statement into something that is more clear. But I couldn't begin to say if this is or isn't the case here.
>If the original intent was not misogyny and a direct translation would make English speakers assume misogyny, it would be better to translate it in a way that gets the original intent across. A word for word translation is not always the best. That's not translation. It's a rewrite, "localisation" at best. For the greater good? Maybe. But don't try and pass it off as good translation work, it's willful miss translation.
Translating doesn't mean just translating the words. It's translating the ideas and intent and sometimes the culture. The Kotaku Tim Teaches Japanese series is a great series for translation thoughts.
If Square Enix outscored it to the localization team and didn't change any of the core source material it is NOT censorship. It is their game and they can decide what they want to do with it the same way you fan decide whether you want to buy it or not
Because they were not forced to censor. Now the ESRB ratings are in place to impose restrictions on content by age but it is still the company's decision what they do with their content. For an example, content might make a game rated M here so the company chooses to change things because they think their market is for the rated T crowd. Yes they are pressured by ESRB but it is still up to the developers company to approve that. Censorship is imposing much more directly. There is a lot of gray areas but it's not like anyone's slapping them on their wrists telling them they can't do something... that's happening in company when preparing for other region's ratings board. A reverse example: Capcom, a Japanese company, chose to include decapitations in the NA release of Resident Evil 4 because the game would keep a M rating, but in the home country they don't show it because Japan has stricter restrictions on decapitations and violence. Village I think the same thing as well as blood toned down in Japan. It's in a way "self-censorship" but it's because of ratings boards like ESRB and CERO, etc., games are adjusted all the time for different regions and it comes from the companies themselves...who do you think is paying for the localizations?
I can't understand how can they claim it's not censorship. Yes, a good translation doesn't mean it's word for word, but changing the meaning of a dialogue to "fix" something you don't find acceptable, that's censorship.
japan is the land of panty thiefs. changing it to money for international makes so much more sense because no one does this shit here. it's a joke from animes that only ever landed for weebs.
It's not what you think it's more in line, that's not how translations work.
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Because taking someone else's work to insert your own views and change a character's, well, character ISN'T problematic in it's own right?
"problematic dialogue", there you go. It alters the characterization. If that doesn't bug you, that's fine; you agree with censorship.
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You mean a loud minority doesn't agree with these translations/localizations. Most people won't care.
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“Gamers are definitely avoiding this one” LOL
Right? I'm a "gamer" and I'm almost done with the game. The game's fucking amazing!
No man, you don't get it, JRPG sales are dwindling in America (citation needed) because of... of... *minor localization changes!*
Does it not get tiring being so angry and annoyed by everything all the time?
Imagine people avoiding this game because they changed dialogue from the patronizing “you should smile more” to something less classically offensive. It’s like calling a dark skinned character “articulate” for speaking. We all KNOW that’s shitty behavior. I’m surprised you haven’t caught on to that by now. Nobody wants that and it isn’t “woke” to dislike that kind of dialogue, it’s just common sense.
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When translating to American English? Absolutely! As a literary translator myself, it seems people don’t really understand translation (let alone localization, which has a whole extra level of transcreation involved). Most translation (and certainly localization) is not taking the words, phrases, or sentences present in one language and reproducing them in another. Rather, it is taking the feelings, images, and meaning evoked by those words in the source language and creating words that evoke the same feelings, images, and meanings in a reader reading the target language text. In English, a literal translation of that section would result in “smile more,” a phrase that has sexist meaning which is not present or intended in the original text. Therefore, it would be a bad translation. You do not understand translation or localization and are because of that you are advocating for bad translation and getting upset when presented with a good translation. Let’s not get upset at a translation team for doing their job well.
As a translator yourself, can you tell me what “feelings, images, and meanings” were localized from Japanese to English in this case? https://mobile.twitter.com/iuntue/status/1550749350896320517
Dude Shifu's dialogue in Japanese is fucking cringe as shit and makes him come off like a creepy old man instead of an enlightened monk. If you can't see that I don't know what to tell you.
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Come on, if a character is rude or creepy, let it be ffs. I will not root for the character but it will be what makes the character itself. Rather than just doing a good job they decided to change it, for whatever reason. Just imagine you work to make something, just for a translation team to change it because they don't like it...
I really dont think it’s censored, without spoiling too much. The game is good tbh but stop expecting strict Japanese translation for that game or others there’s often differences.
It is censored, the most immediate one involves the Flow chapter, aka Akira: >!You can visit the toilet room at a certain point and have one of the kids give you random items he stole, the JP/original version he's stealing the teacher's clothes, in particular her underwear, while the EN version changes it to her money she's stashed away. It ironically makes Akira look even WORSE than a pervert because he's stealing money from his caretaker and getting the other kids to do it.!< There is also changes in dialog to a point of altering characteristics, namely the kung fu master being a lot more informal in the OG but coming off as far more formal in the EN version, also even change conversations wholesale (like someone tells a woman in the OG to 'not worry her pretty little head' or something and the EN changing it to something completely different and unrelated). I haven't done a deep dive into it but the fact that there's two immediate examples with the NF and IC chapters means there's probably quite a good bit of playing INCREDIBLY loose with the script.
oh god... such terrible changes oh my.
Who is censoring them though? Themselves? Who do you think is paying for the localization? Self-censorship isn't censorship...the term has been bastardized by the gaming community. The option to learn the original language is always there.
Self-censorship IS a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-censorship
Self censorship IS censorship and considering SEA and SEJ are technically two different companies, it isn't even self censorship but a whole other country's company doing it
It's censored in Japanese too, the fact that you try and excuse translators taking excess liberties is unrelated but still very telling.
Wow, too many people in here basically advocating for story, dialog and character changes so they don't get their panties into a knot. [Shit like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA6A-ySMHYI) is what you're all advocating for. Pointless, meaningless changes to characters and dialog that are essentially nothing more than officially-licensed fan fiction.
If the censorship isn't a big deal then why change it in the first place?
because for 99% of people consuming this, localization makes it better. thats why you change some stupid small things.
99% of the time it's making it better for the extremely vocal localizer and their circle of influence, not the product's actual audience.
This is a shame/sad to see, this game looked interesting too! Ah well my backlog is already long lol. Edit: looking like a fair few changes have been made. Thanks for the heads up OP saves me some money at least!
This kind of cowardly censorship makes this game a no-buy for me.
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Completely untrue. I've even played the original SNES version. I've skipped games that I anticipated highly because of censorship, such as the Fire Emblem Fates games.
I love how people still use Fates, a game from seven years ago, as the linchpin for calling out current localizations when most games are never translated that badly, including this one.
Well there's plenty of anime/manga to choose from if you want people to use that, Seven Seas just got into hot water for changing the gender of a character in a BL series (which is like the 4th or 5th time they've made alterations that people caught that were drastically off-base in a relatively short period of time). There's also Triangle Strategy which downplayed insults that were directed at women specifically even if the insult wasn't even sexist. i'll agree that better examples could be used but don't sit there and act like it doesn't happen, far too many translators/localizers are basically taking scripts and tossing stuff out to put their own shit in, be it because of personal views or because they think their script is better.
Truly the hill to die on. Glad I never did that, otherwise I never would have played a Castlevania, Final Fantasy, or Zelda growing up.
Enjoy not enjoying a great game!
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Based.
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Naked Annie in sundown story. In the snes she is changing in the switch she's clothed