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A 100% literal translation of ff7 sounds awful
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Nov 23, 2016 07:59
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NikkolasKing posted:Can't that be chalked up to localization? That isn't a one-off error, it's a consistent characterization all game which must mean it was something they purposefully changed. No, because localization doesn't mean "make up whatever."
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Nov 23, 2016 08:02
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ImpAtom posted:For one he isn't supposed to be a foul-mouthed guy who talks like Mr. T, which is by far the thing most people take away from him. I took away that he was a muscle-brained idiot who gave a whole lot less of a poo poo about things outside of his personal goals than he claims. Is that at least partly right? There's absolutely more to localizing a game than just making sure that you 'get it'. Consider the pre-GBA translations of Final Fantasy V, for example; Both the official PSX translation and the SNES fan-translation might be technically correct and understandable, but they absolutely bungle the tone. Alternatively you can take Chrono Trigger (the original translation was pretty solid, but there's apparently a few 'oh THAT'S what they were going for' moments in the DS retranslation) or FF Tactics (original translation was imperfect but serviceable, the PSP version onwards is more understandable but pretentious as gently caress). Then there's the other side of it, where the localization finds ways to add to the story. Apparently Kefka was no fun at all until Ted Woolsey got to him and amplified his silliness. The 'there's SAND on my boots' bit was in the original script, but that's about it.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:11
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Tae posted:I would've thought about Squall much differently if they did replace every ....Whatever with ....Sorry. I agree. I think I would have liked Squall's Japanese portrayal much more, where he's a shy, somewhat dismissive guy who hates having responsibility thrust upon him and is never really open with how he truly feels and just says what he thinks others want to hear, defaulting to being insincerely apologetic when that isn't good enough and only snaps when the pressure gets to him too much because of abandonment issues, compared to his portrayal in the translation where he comes off as arrogant, standoffish, overly aggressive and brooding rear end in a top hat. He's still a self-centered idiot in his original portrayal but he'd also be much easier to connect with and sympathize with. Part of the reason Squall's intimacy and abandonment issues fall so completely flat for me is because he's been a total cock to everyone since the beginning of the game that it's hard to muster any sympathy for him whatsoever as he squandered it. NikkolasKing posted:FFVII's translation is coherent. You can come away with a complete grasp of the plot and characters from it. I really wouldn't say so. So many people have false memories about what happened because the translation is such an incoherent trainwreck. Hell, I only realized what was really going on in the game when I replayed it as an adult and at which point I learned to read between the lines and spot what was actually being conveyed in the game. For the longest time I thought Cloud was some kind of clone made from a Sephiroth/Zack hybrid who just had the memories of the original Cloud because the game kept throwing around terms like "clones" and Cloud being a "puppet" and going into the game knowing that the word "clone" is the worst possible loving choice they could have used when "copy" would have worked better (as in, copies of the original experiment Hojo did with Sephiroth) and I believe they use that word instead in Crisis Core. Both VII and VIII desperately need a retranslation. Translations for Squaresoft games in the early to mid-PS1 years were pretty awful since they didn't use Woolsey and the pressure put upon the translator for Xenogears was so bad that it led to Squaresoft completely overhauling how their localization process works which is why Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy 9 and Vagrant Story to name a few had much stronger localizations than earlier Squaresoft PS1 titles.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:13
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FF 7 is at least going to have a remake to address the translation though I wonder if they'll change some things to keep it consistent with the old version.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:16
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I thought someone said the ps4 version has a new translation?
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Nov 23, 2016 08:18
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ImpAtom posted:No, because localization doesn't mean "make up whatever." Some people are happy enough with that, Ted Woolsey in an interview said he'd be much happier if they could just keep the graphics and then change everything else to whatever they wanted. Tae posted:I thought someone said the ps4 version has a new translation? It's the same as the recent Steam port, it gets rid of some obvious spelling errors but that's it.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:19
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Tae posted:I thought someone said the ps4 version has a new translation? It only fixes a couple of lines, like the whole "that's how you'll fool them" thing, afaik.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:20
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Cleretic posted:I took away that he was a muscle-brained idiot who gave a whole lot less of a poo poo about things outside of his personal goals than he claims. Is that at least partly right? Basically Barrett is a rough dude from a mountain town who doesn't really belong in the city and feels distinctly uncomfortable there but has nowhere else to go. Him being from a coal mining town that was destroyed by Shinra is pretty important and Barrett not feeling like he's from Midgar is supposed to be part of who he is. This is part of why the translation is a mistake giving him a slangy style of speech doesn't convey that at all because that sort of thing is more associated with city folks. Like to avoid dancing around the obvious fact: The translators did it because the dude was black and that's honestly pretty crappy as a reason to do it. Cleretic posted:Then there's the other side of it, where the localization finds ways to add to the story. Apparently Kefka was no fun at all until Ted Woolsey got to him and amplified his silliness. The 'there's SAND on my boots' bit was in the original script, but that's about it. Kinda yes kinda no. Kefka's wacky in both versions of the script but in the Japanese one he's less sadistic and more, uh, goofy. Generally though I think Woosley did a good job with him in conveying that he's supposed to be kind of silly until the moment he sets a goddamn village on fire or poisons an entire town without changing his personality a notch.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:21
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Tae posted:I thought someone said the ps4 version has a new translation? It's the PC translation I believe, which fixes a few things like "this guy are sick" but is still riddled with errors. And yeah, Kefka's personality in Japanese is more of a goofy idiot prankster. He still has a lot of that in the translation, he's just got a more sadistic and calculating edge to him. Selenephos fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 08:22
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Mr. Fortitude posted:I really wouldn't say so. So many people have false memories about what happened because the translation is such an incoherent trainwreck. Hell, I only realized what was really going on in the game when I replayed it as an adult and at which point I learned to read between the lines and spot what was actually being conveyed in the game. For the longest time I thought Cloud was some kind of clone made from a Sephiroth/Zack hybrid who just had the memories of the original Cloud because the game kept throwing around terms like "clones" and Cloud being a "puppet" and going into the game knowing that the word "clone" is the worst possible loving choice they could have used when "copy" would have worked better (as in, copies of the original experiment Hojo did with Sephiroth) and I believe they use that word instead in Crisis Core. Well unless the Japanese developers are just as stymied by the bad English translation as all of us, the "false memories" problem isn't really the fault of the translation. Cloud the sad clown is in a lot of media now and we can't blame that on the translation being bad. And I don't care what you think of the translation's quality, Aerith's coy, playful personality comes through loud and clear. The pure maiden waifu of later media, another product of these "false memories," can't be blamed on the translation either. As for Sephiroth Clones, eh. I know a lot of people were confused about that including me but I think it was just because were all dumb babies. Hojo's and Sephiroth's poo poo about Cloud being a "fake" was all proven to be false in a very clear fashion during the Lifestream bit.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:24
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Sakurazuka posted:Some people are happy enough with that, Ted Woolsey in an interview said he'd be much happier if they could just keep the graphics and then change everything else to whatever they wanted. I thought that was more "this would be a lot easier" and not "this is the best way to do it" but I may be thinking of something else. Regardless I don't think there's a problem with making localization changes if you're considering tone and style and there are plenty of places to disagree on that. FFVII's translation is so rough and poorly done though that I think any arguments about what should and shouldn't be localized would need to come after the entire script got a pass anyway. NikkolasKing posted:Cloud the sad clown is in a lot of media now and we can't blame that on the translation being bad. Yeah, actually, you can. Well, that and the two major things featuring Cloud during a certain time frame being Kingdom Hearts (where Cloud explicitly was replacing Vincent who does have that personality) and Advent Children (Where he is dying of plot cancer.) Cloud's characterization is a lot more on in the other side material. Like, seriously man, FFVII is a notoriously awful translation and it feels like you want to defend it for no reason other than because you 'understood' it (after going to multiple forums including this one and having things explained to you.) I don't get why you're so insistent on defending one of the most notoriously lovely translations except that you apparently have insanely low standards for translations. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 08:26
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Iirc the exact words he used were 'in an ideal world'.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:27
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Sakurazuka posted:Some people are happy enough with that, Ted Woolsey in an interview said he'd be much happier if they could just keep the graphics and then change everything else to whatever they wanted. Dude has a gift for ridiculous poo poo like that and I wish they'd actually let him loose on some game... just, uh, also that game has to not have been FF or SMRPG.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:29
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NikkolasKing posted:Well unless the Japanese developers are just as stymied by the bad English translation as all of us, the "false memories" problem isn't really the fault of the translation. Cloud the sad clown is in a lot of media now and we can't blame that on the translation being bad. And I don't care what you think of the translation's quality, Aerith's coy, playful personality comes through loud and clear. The pure maiden waifu of later media, another product of these "false memories," can't be blamed on the translation either. This is definitely true. The characterization of these two were fine in the translation during disk one, or at least close enough that it was easy for me to tell when I played through it last year. People misremembering the characters is on them, which they were doing before the EU. On the other hand, it would be nice to get a better translation and localization. There are a lot of scenes that play out more awkwardly than intended, like everything involving the Honeybee Inn. With some more modern-style localization where the translators are given some liberty to deliver the intent of the original script and have the talent to pull it off, I think we also would have ended up with characters with more personality. There's a ton of dialog in the game and a lot of it feels like missed opportunities for doing some great characterizations or world-building. bloodychill fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 08:29
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They should bring Ted Woolsey back to retranslate FF7.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:33
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And FF15.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:34
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, actually, you can. Well, that and the two major things featuring Cloud during a certain time frame being Kingdom Hearts (where Cloud explicitly was replacing Vincent who does have that personality) and Advent Children (Where he is dying of plot cancer.) Cloud's characterization is a lot more on in the other side material. I believe the Vincent thing is only in KH1. KH2 was definitely all about Cloud and he was at peak broodiness. Then there's also the Dissidia games. quote:Like, seriously man, FFVII is a notoriously awful translation and it feels like you want to defend it for no reason other than because you 'understood' it (after going to multiple forums including this one and having things explained to you.) I don't get why you're so insistent on defending one of the most notoriously lovely translations except that you apparently have insanely low standards for translations. True, I have posted on a lot of forums to discuss VII. I've also read the translations of the Ultimania guides. The only thing I ever recall having to be clarified on was who was in control between Jenova and Sephiroth. I'm defending VII's translation because I feel you are indulging in horrible hyperbole by saying it couldn't have been worse. I maintain it absolutely could have been worse. The game lays everything out you need to know - Mako, Lifestream, Cetra, Jenova and Jenova Project.... I don't think you need access to the Internet when the game kindly gives you a fancy visual representation of how this whole Planet Cycle thing works. Could it have been better? Absolutely. I love that I just realized on the credits it says "Executive Produce." But I feel it's a terrible exaggeration to say you won't get FFVII if you play it. You will and I did and I think so did most everyone here. The game was not translated by chimpanzees.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:39
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NikkolasKing posted:I'm defending VII's translation because I feel you are indulging in horrible hyperbole by saying it couldn't have been worse. Because that isn't hyperbole. There are worse translated games but "this game is better translated than Wild Arms 2" doesn't mean it is well translated. NikkolasKing posted:The game was not translated by chimpanzees. No. It was translated by poorly paid and poorly supported people during a time when translation quality was rock bottom and nobody got the time, editing and support they needed. Edit: Like seriously, your standard for translation appears to be "Well, if I get the broad strokes that's good enough" but that isn't a good translation and it devalues one of the strongest parts of RPGs which is the worldbuilding and characterization conveyed through the text and writing. FFVII has some pretty clever stuff for a PS1-era game and some of it is entirely lost in the translation. Knowing the broad strokes of the plot doesn't mean those elements aren't lost and if your standard for understanding a game is 'well, I can basically follow the plot" then there are tremendously few bad translations out there, including ones which descend into sheer incoherence. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Nov 23, 2016 |
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Nov 23, 2016 08:41
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It could have been machine translated like that SAO game on Vita.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:43
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DACK FAYDEN posted:The best Ted Woolsey story is that he wanted to call Punchinello from Mario RPG "James Bomb", and that's why he introduces himself with "The name's Nello. Punchinello." in the final game. Get him on the writing team for a Bravely game, the tone there seems right up his alley.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:45
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Well, Woolsey stopped doing game translation work over 15 years ago and has worked for Microsoft (or satellite companies of them) for nearly 10 years so I don't think we'll see any more RPG's with the Woolsey whimsy.
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Nov 23, 2016 08:50
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I've actually been (slowly) playing through FFVII in Japanese for the sake of practicing the language and it's been really interesting to see the differences after all these years. Most of it makes sense but sometimes the differences can be pretty jarring/hilarious. I've been looking at an excel sheet that has both versions side-by-side and it also includes a bunch of cut dialogue, for example there's a cool bit early on where Barret offers to take the AVALANCHE members for a vacation to Cosmo Canyon and reminisces about what a beautiful place it is.
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Nov 23, 2016 09:12
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Kanfy posted:I've actually been (slowly) playing through FFVII in Japanese for the sake of practicing the language and it's been really interesting to see the differences after all these years. Most of it makes sense but sometimes the differences can be pretty jarring/hilarious. I always felt bad for the Avalanche members. They get pretty unceremoniously murdered by the Turks and barely anyone remembers it and the Turks end up as wacky semi-antagonists while Biggs, Wedge and Jesse rot in the remains of the entire town Reno murdered. Sephiroth/Jenova kills ONE Aerith and nobody ever forgets it.
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Nov 23, 2016 09:15
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Well, their remains were probably pulverized and incinerated, so you don't really have to worry about them rotting per se.
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Nov 23, 2016 09:27
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ImpAtom posted:I always felt bad for the Avalanche members. They get pretty unceremoniously murdered by the Turks and barely anyone remembers it and the Turks end up as wacky semi-antagonists while Biggs, Wedge and Jesse rot in the remains of the entire town Reno murdered. Sephiroth/Jenova kills ONE Aerith and nobody ever forgets it. they never actually died. mako reactors can't melt steel beams
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Nov 23, 2016 09:30
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ImpAtom posted:I always felt bad for the Avalanche members. They get pretty unceremoniously murdered by the Turks and barely anyone remembers it and the Turks end up as wacky semi-antagonists while Biggs, Wedge and Jesse rot in the remains of the entire town Reno murdered. Sephiroth/Jenova kills ONE Aerith and nobody ever forgets it. Advent Children is full of bullshit decisions. Also I'm gonna say it: I preferred it when Tseng died, even if it was an incorrect translation. Rufus, too, even though that was nothing to do with translations.
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Nov 23, 2016 12:20
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bloodychill posted:Well, Woolsey stopped doing game translation work over 15 years ago and has worked for Microsoft (or satellite companies of them) for nearly 10 years so I don't think we'll see any more RPG's with the Woolsey whimsy.
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Nov 23, 2016 13:09
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FactsAreUseless posted:The Dragon Quest series is really good at having memorable, fun dialogue in the Woolsey style.  
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Nov 23, 2016 13:39
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Sakurazuka posted:FF 7 is at least going to have a remake to address the translation though I wonder if they'll change some things to keep it consistent with the old version. The English version was the version that was used to make all other languages of the game as far as I know, so the choice would be to be more faithful to Japan or to literally everywhere else.
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Nov 23, 2016 14:41
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bloodychill posted:It could have been machine translated like that SAO game on Vita. "Kurito-san, I know I can't come but can you please think of me during penetration?"
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Nov 23, 2016 14:51
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Oh huh the gameplay of FFVI is surprisingly good once it opens up. I love how open ended the character progression is. Maybe I'm starting to see what the fuss is about with these games.
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Nov 23, 2016 14:55
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ImpAtom posted:I always felt bad for the Avalanche members. They get pretty unceremoniously murdered by the Turks and barely anyone remembers it and the Turks end up as wacky semi-antagonists while Biggs, Wedge and Jesse rot in the remains of the entire town Reno murdered. Sephiroth/Jenova kills ONE Aerith and nobody ever forgets it. They were always kinda...lacking in the evil department shall we say. These are the guys you can find talking about what girls they like and then there's Elena who is pure comic relief. Plus you can even choose not to fight them at the end. Bringing it back to Avalanche, I think that works well for Barret's character development. He learned over the course of the game that his righteous fury for Shinra was something far more selfish and wrong. Choosing not to fight the Turks can be seen as an expression of his growth, as well as the Turks' themselves being semi-decent people.
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Nov 23, 2016 14:57
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NikkolasKing posted:as well as the Turks' themselves being semi-decent people.
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Nov 23, 2016 15:29
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Vincent Valentine's father is GRIMOIRE Valentine.
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Nov 23, 2016 15:47
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Nihilarian posted:Ah yes, the good old boys, chatting about the women they like, kidnapping the women they like, kicking mobsters off of ledges, crushing poor people to death. What a whacky bunch of relatable dudes just doing their jobs! Yeah, the Turks are amoral at best. It's only the Compilation that made them into ineffectual comic relief.
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Nov 23, 2016 15:48
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This is hilarious. Which game is this from?
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Nov 23, 2016 16:15
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Nihilarian posted:Ah yes, the good old boys, chatting about the women they like, kidnapping the women they like, kicking mobsters off of ledges, crushing poor people to death. What a whacky bunch of relatable dudes just doing their jobs! They killed Corneo and in the process saved Yuffie's and Elena's lives for no real reason other than they wanted to. I think an unprompted and unquestionably good act deserves consideration. Avalanche develops a pretty cool relationship with the Turks. There's Aerith having some manner of feelings for Tseng, how the Turks specifically leave you alone in spite of their orders at the end of the Wutai quest, and of course the fact you both can choose not to fight each other at the end. And, even if you do fight, it's presented as an honorable thing and not some bitter blood feud. They're not heroes and I never claimed they were. But they also aren't really maliciously evil monsters. They are the only part of Shinra with any noticeable conscience apart from Reeve.
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Nov 23, 2016 16:16
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Nihilarian posted:Ah yes, the good old boys, chatting about the women they like, kidnapping the women they like, kicking mobsters off of ledges, crushing poor people to death. What a whacky bunch of relatable dudes just doing their jobs! Yeah! It's like I always say, Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega were poo poo. They're contract killers! They kill people in cold blood! They break the law without a care! Can't relate to those fucks.
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Nov 23, 2016 16:21
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They're James Bonds. Sometimes James Bond is a lovely dude and treats women lovely and blows up a city block and murders a bunch of dudes or whatever that's just part of the job.
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Nov 23, 2016 16:22
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