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Adding actual mooncat and/or duskwight stuff would require confronting Gridania's attitudes towards both, and the latter will never happen because that would imply Gridania has any kind of flaws that have to be examined, and so the former will never happen. In fact, every time we do get the smallest nugget of duskwight stuff, it only cements in to me that no, I'd actually rather they not write more lore for these groups, or at least not until they figure out how to do it in a way that's not grotesquely awful.Lazy Fair posted:I was always a bit disappointed that we can go sun cat villages in the Ul'dah and Ala Mhigo maps, but never really got any moon cat settlements in the Gridania maps. There's that moon cat poacher group but that's not really the same and they're also organized like a sun cat tribe for some reason so we never really get much in-game insight into moon cat culture so far. It would be cool if off in some corners of the black shroud maps you could find some small settlement or something. We actually know why the moon cat group is organized like a sun cat tribe through one of the post moogle quests! It's...really, really horrifically bad, and S-E has very steadfastly not updated that storyline ever since. It in fact remains basically the only mooncat lore in the game. Cool cool cool.
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Nov 13, 2023 18:24
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ProfessorCirno posted:Adding actual mooncat and/or duskwight stuff would require confronting Gridania's attitudes towards both, and the latter will never happen because that would imply Gridania has any kind of flaws that have to be examined, and so the former will never happen. In fact, every time we do get the smallest nugget of duskwight stuff, it only cements in to me that no, I'd actually rather they not write more lore for these groups, or at least not until they figure out how to do it in a way that's not grotesquely awful. Gridanian Excellence
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Nov 13, 2023 21:01
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The mooncat delivery quest in Gridania was for me one of the most depressing side-stories in the game, up there with the person on the Steppe who enlists you to assist in their suicide. It's basically a more patriarchal version of the suncat dynamic, and what you see resembles a polygamy cult at the best and is so uncomfortable that I think the writers just don't want to touch upon it again. It's one of those things that sort of reflects how YouTube and Tumblr forced the game industry to grow up against it's will in the 2010s. It's one of those rare cases where the Warrior of Light fails. Polygamy is a touchy issue where you could argue that consenting adults are being punished by the government for tax purposes, but I'll just say that one moogle postman quest was absolutely not for the best. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 22:15
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ARR is also the one place where the translation was taking liberties it maybe shouldn't have. It's pretty clear the translators were very into Game of Thrones at the time, and whilst I cannot say any specific quest may have gotten an uncomfrotable narrative punch up, I can say that there was a, depending the interpretation of the reader, gross change made to the description of the Wind Up Moenbryda (which has since been removed). I think some other minions also had descriptions that the translation made unnecessarily worse that have been fixed, but Moenbryda is the one I know of. Interestingly the biggest change between the Japanese and English version of the games is actually Dark Knight's quest writing. But in that case the translation and writing team had begun working together way more directly in HW then they had in ARR.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:44
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Didn't YoshiP have the entire team watch Game of Thrones when developing FF16 Pretty sure that the fancy there went pretty high
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Nov 13, 2023 22:59
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Zomborgon posted:Didn't YoshiP have the entire team watch Game of Thrones when developing FF16 He made the team play WoW when developing ARR. I dunno if he had much interest in GoT at the time, maybe the translation team for ARR got him into it.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:06
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It was noted that during ARR/HW development, there were a lot of people who got into GoT.
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Nov 13, 2023 23:07
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Yeah the original ARR/HW writing team was and is really into GoT. It’s just that the writers who took over in FFXIV didn’t take cues from it.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:24
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The scenario writer for FF16 was the same one as Heavensward, and 16 has taken criticism for feeling overly GoT at times. As someone who has only watched like the last three episodes of the show, I don't know/don't care, but I doubt it's an entire studio-wide thing. We'll get back to this again when Sang catches up in modern day, because "this game used to be hardcore when Raubahn cut Teledji in half" is definitely a regular criticism that I often find myself nodding along with.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:18
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Craptacular! posted:The scenario writer for FF16 was the same one as Heavensward, and 16 has taken criticism for feeling overly GoT at times. As someone who has only watched like the last three episodes of the show, I don't know/don't care, but I doubt it's an entire studio-wide thing.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:20
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I'm on team "I like the non-GoT stuff better" but that's because I think Ishikawa and I have the same tastes in storytelling. e: not that I think HW is bad or anything (no comment on FFXVI, haven’t played), but I’m very into character driven high melodrama. But that’s a discussion for another day, probably a year or more in the future.
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Nov 14, 2023 01:22
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especially because the LP is still in the Oda era of things, and I feel like the transition is something more visible in retrospect than it is in the moment-to-moment, because the plot is still one cohesive whole even if the game's approach to it changes over time. i have more thoughts on tone and subject but they're definitely for the spoiler thread
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Nov 14, 2023 02:12
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I think I understand what people are trying to say when they describe parts of this game as 'GoT-like' but it's still a weird way to talk about it.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:05
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They mean stuff like the catgirl slaves locked up in the cages in Sastasha (who you just leave there when you go)
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Nov 14, 2023 05:24
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Yeah, I get it, there is a remarkable amount of sexual assault in this game considering how generally optimistic it is about people.
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Nov 14, 2023 05:44
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Lord_Magmar posted:ARR is also the one place where the translation was taking liberties it maybe shouldn't have. It's pretty clear the translators were very into Game of Thrones at the time, and whilst I cannot say any specific quest may have gotten an uncomfrotable narrative punch up, I can say that there was a, depending the interpretation of the reader, gross change made to the description of the Wind Up Moenbryda (which has since been removed). The translators who did Vagrant Story were highly praised for their work, which injected a lot of Shakespearean flair into a game which had been written in plain Japanese. The same team went on to do FFXII and actually wrote in a lot of connections to FFT and VS's worlds which were not present in the original text. They then redid FFT and while a lot of people like War of the Lions, I think it's a really egregious example of translators imposing too much new context on a work. You have things like Wiegraf quoting Shakespearean sonnets, which putting aside the oddity of the RL reference makes him come across as much more of a high-falutin' guy, when in the original text he's a pretty salt-of-the-earth soldier. The "we want translation, not localization" people are generally either anti-LGBT culture warriors or they're totally unaware of how incompatible Japanese is with English, which is a shame because they kind of detract from actual issues with liberties taken in translation. In the case of the Ivalice games, overambitious translators basically spun up a franchise out of nowhere against the wishes of the original writer. It turned out to be popular and Squenix leaned into it, but I'd be pretty mad if something like that happened to a game I wrote. Anyway ARR was translated at the beginning of the 2010s. The work was not done by the same team, but IIRC FFXIII wasn't immediately well-received in the US and I think Fox et al wanted to recapture the magic of the early PSP/PS3 era.
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Nov 14, 2023 06:12
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Hellioning posted:Yeah, I get it, there is a remarkable amount of sexual assault in this game considering how generally optimistic it is about people. and it's almost all frontloaded in ARR and early HW which is why people think of it as a particular era of the game. there's a p big difference between the sastasha ladies as a setpiece and a big story for a major antagonist like yotsuyu, even though the writer switchover hasn't happened yet. they also say "got-like" because yoshi, oda, and koji have all separately admitted that a lot of people in CBU3 were on a game of thrones kick back in 2013 on the subject of translation, you could also probably draw lines from how ff11 was translated, given that's where koji was working before 1.0 Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Nov 14, 2023 |
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Nov 14, 2023 06:29
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worm girl posted:The translators who did Vagrant Story were highly praised for their work, which injected a lot of Shakespearean flair into a game which had been written in plain Japanese. The same team went on to do FFXII and actually wrote in a lot of connections to FFT and VS's worlds which were not present in the original text. They then redid FFT and while a lot of people like War of the Lions, I think it's a really egregious example of translators imposing too much new context on a work. You have things like Wiegraf quoting Shakespearean sonnets, which putting aside the oddity of the RL reference makes him come across as much more of a high-falutin' guy, when in the original text he's a pretty salt-of-the-earth soldier. I'm a fan of localization, for the record, I'm just pointing out that an injection did happen in ARR and early HW that stopped happening as the Translation Team started working with the writers directly on things. Pretty famously, Nael's gender deal was changed because the original translation did in fact get it wrong and the Japanese writers liked it enough after they learnt about it to make it official in ARR. Although that's a 1.0 thing, not an ARR thing, it's an example of the early translators not being as in touch/communicative with the original writers as they started to be late in Heavensward and pretty much for the rest of the game since.
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Nov 14, 2023 06:37
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worm girl posted:The translator who did Vagrant Story (Alexander O. Smith) was highly praised for his work, which injected a lot of Shakespearean flair into a game which had been written in plain Japanese. In the case of the Ivalice games, overambitious translators basically spun up a franchise out of nowhere against the wishes of the original writer. It turned out to be popular and Squenix leaned into it, but I'd be pretty mad if something like that happened to a game I wrote. Smith is on record saying Squenix didn't care about how non-Japanese translation's quality were until his Vagrant Story localization earned universal praise and he literally printed out all the reviews lauding what he did to get them to care. And yet my understanding is Matsuno liked what Smith did so much he specifically requested he localize the PSP version of Tactics Ogre and approved all the name changes in it. Like, the Lover's Voice book (published by Dengeki PlayStation) literally has a question asked by a JP fan to Smith/his co-localizer about names used. I know there is a translation of this; I was the one who provided the scans for translation. Google is failing me right now for links. 
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Nov 14, 2023 07:09
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Lord_Magmar posted:I'm a fan of localization, for the record, I'm just pointing out that an injection did happen in ARR and early HW that stopped happening as the Translation Team started working with the writers directly on things. There is no such thing as translation without localization in any language, but Japanese does not intelligibly transliterate to English or vice versa, so it's always on the translators to do something, even setting aside issues like gender where the audience's assumptions and expectations are going to be very different. Melomane Mallet posted:And yet my understanding is Matsuno liked what Smith did so much he specifically requested he localize the PSP version of Tactics Ogre and approved all the name changes in it. News to me, but that's good to hear.
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Nov 14, 2023 07:18
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Smith also didn't do War of the Lions, that credit goes to Joseph Reeder and Tom Slattery. The Ivalice Alliance had already started before War of the Lions with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy XII, and there were Vagrant Story allusions present in both games in original Japanese names as well as graphical nods. Matsuno is even on record saying Tactics and Vagrant Story are in the same world in a 2004 interview. War of the Lions was published in 2007.
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Nov 14, 2023 07:19
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which is funny coming back to 14, because the reference to gaius having flown in from dalmasca in 2.0 was something that english edited out
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Nov 14, 2023 07:27
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Smith and Reeder both worked on 12 though, and went on to found a company together. Some of this stuff is detailed here: https://www.eurogamer.net/a-translators-tale-inside-the-building-of-final-fantasy-12s-ivalice
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Nov 14, 2023 07:31
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I liked the War of the Lions translation and I think it worked well for FFT. Its just that the original translation, while objectively bad, had a lot of all time quotable lines and somehow still got the gist of the story across
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Nov 14, 2023 14:56
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Animals have no God!
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Nov 14, 2023 16:56
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:Animals have no God! And the spell incantations, of course. "Life is short... Bury! Steady Sword!" still lives in my head decades later.
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Nov 14, 2023 23:11
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dyslexicfaser posted:That and "Don't blame me. Blame yourself or God" are objectively the best lines lost in the retranslation, but my favorite's probably "Don't know what's going on, but it's in the contract!" "Silence! Surrender or die in obscurity!" will never leave my brain.
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Nov 14, 2023 23:25
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worm girl posted:The "we want translation, not localization" people are generally either anti-LGBT culture warriors or they're totally unaware of how incompatible Japanese is with English Or they just want stuff written in plain conversational English instead of the language of theater. Feldegast42 posted:I liked the War of the Lions translation and I think it worked well for FFT. Its just that the original translation, while objectively bad, had a lot of all time quotable lines and somehow still got the gist of the story across A lot of bad translations can have amazing quotes. Suikoden II's original release has one of the worst translations I've ever seen in the optical disc era, but Luca Blight is not only a hatesink rear end in a top hat he also is Incel Redilled personified in a way that was extremely over the top in 2000 but is weirdly familiar today. Due to the translation's over-the-top use of punctuation everything he says reads like a 2015 alt-right social media post.    Zenos is downright decaf by comparison. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 01:47
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Ironically, excessive punctuation is actually a hallmark of a more direct translation, because that's very much a Japanese writing staple, especially in visual novels or any other text-heavy games.Craptacular! posted:Or they just want stuff written in plain conversational English instead of the language of theater. I mean, yes, that can be true, but it's also definitely true that "translation not localization" tends to be touted by assholes who think a localized work with more textual queer relationships 'woke-ified' the original text, when most of the time its just codifying stuff that was already there that would be overlooked due to how Japanese text uses more subtle language or descriptive imagery to convey those meanings instead of saying it directly. Especially when in a lot of Western literature using those tricks tends to be condemned as not being 'direct enough'. In conclusion, TL work is a land of contrasts. Monathin fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 08:00
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Monathin posted:I mean, yes, that can be true, but it's also definitely true that "translation not localization" tends to be touted by assholes who think a localized work with more textual queer relationships 'woke-ified' the original text, when most of the time its just codifying stuff that was already there that would be overlooked due to how Japanese text uses more subtle language or descriptive imagery to convey those meanings instead of saying it directly. Especially when in a lot of Western literature using those tricks tends to be condemned as not being 'direct enough'. sometimes the japanese language is as subtle as a sledgehammer and the usual suspects still get mad about the dreaded localisation. one of my favourite examples is a character in one of uchikoshi's games saying they respect LGBT people and some peeps getting mad about inserting woke agendas, then you listen to the japanese dub and you can clearly hear them say the letters LGBT without even needing to know a single word of japanese
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Nov 15, 2023 08:24
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I had anime fan friends in high school that were complete translation snobs to the point where they wouldn't even watch officially licensed subs, let alone dubs, because fansubs were "more accurate." Which, to be fair, at certain times in anime history could have some truth to it, but my point is that I'm so glad I never fell into that trap. Comparing and contrasting the two iterations of the work can be very fun and rewarding, but declaring translated works to be bastardizations or non-art like some people do is really dumb, and that's without even getting into the weird reactionary politics that's wrapped up in some corners of the conversation.
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Nov 15, 2023 10:04
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Hogama posted:Smith also didn't do War of the Lions, that credit goes to Joseph Reeder and Tom Slattery. Personally I think the difference between Alexander O. Smith's work in Vagrant Story and XII and the translation in WotL is night and day. The WotL stuff felt very clumsy and forced in comparison. I'm not saying it's BAD, and is easier to follow than the original mangled mess of a translation, but it didn't feel nearly as authentic as the dialog in Vagrant Story.
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Nov 15, 2023 17:01
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I think a big part of the FFT WOTL problem is that it often feels needlessly wordy and suffers badly from the comparison to the (technology-enforced) much punchier, if much spottier, original. "lay down your arms or die clutching them! None shall mourn your passing!" has almost literally the same meaning as "surrender or die in obscurity!" at almost three times the words and half the impact. Similar issue with "tis your birth and faith that wrong you, not I" vs "don't blame me. Blame yourself, or God". The retranslated line is obviously conveying a clearer and slightly more subtle meaning, but "blame yourself or God" has a real blunt coldness to it that the translation loses. perhaps it's more accurate, I couldn't say, but it's emotionally different, and the whole script is dogged by the comparison. also there's no spell lines and that just sucks. e: on the localization point, it's eternally slightly annoying that people will refer to the FFXIV Japanese script as original or more accurate when the dev team is consistently clear that the Japanese and English scripts are equivalent levels of "source material." especially in upcoming expansions there's some localization choices that I think reflect interesting and different creative choices about the game in English vs Japanese, but any conversation around those points tends to centralize around how the English version "omits" or "mistranslates" parts of the Japanese. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Valentin fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 17:19
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One fun thing about the Japanese vs English scripts of FFXIV is that, while there are certainly times the English staff takes liberties with things (and I believe the vast plethora of horrendous puns and jokes in quest names and whatnot is purely an English Team thing), the Japanese script is (or at least, at one point, was) significantly drier. Not only does the Japanese script not have all the jokes, it also tends to lack a whole lot of descriptions in general, or just gives very base, matter of fact descriptions at most. There was a thing years and years ago where, during a Q&A at one of the cons (I think), it was brought up that almost all the questions about lore and setting and whatnot always came from the English fanbase.Craptacular! posted:Suikoden II's original release has one of the worst translations I've ever seen in the optical disc era, but Luca Blight is not only a hatesink rear end in a top hat he also is Incel Redilled personified in a way that was extremely over the top in 2000 but is weirdly familiar today. Due to the translation's over-the-top use of punctuation everything he says reads like a 2015 alt-right social media post. I'm surprised you didn't use one of the most iconic lines!  Suikoden 2 rules.
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Nov 15, 2023 17:50
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All this talk about translation reminds me of people complaining about Final Fantasy XIV translation not being faithful enough and using this example. Alisaie (English): -talking about how Alphinaud can't swim- I swear, the boy isn't very buoyant. Alisaie (Japanese): -talking about how Alphinaud can't swim- ...That's right, Alphinaud can't swim!
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Nov 15, 2023 18:55
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I think the Japanese (and French and German, even) scripts are useful as comparison points to see things like intended references (like 2.0's specific mentions of Dalmasca) and also to see what kinds of liberties are taken by the flavor text teams - Aetherochemical Compound #123 and Aetherochemical Compound #666 in the Fishing Log of Azys Lla have specific similaries to Lalafell in English that in the Japanese script are general references to humans, and this has had a portion of the player base convinced that Lalafell are Allagan creations (which is not really the conclusion meant to be taken - the intent is conveying who and what has been used in Allagan experiments) and would be a rather stark divide in game lore between regions. So having multiple scripts is a nice tool for context, even if it doesn't mean that the Japanese script is the Sole Unabridged Authority and all translations are bunk - as noted, the Japanese has been influenced by the translated scripts, too!
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Nov 15, 2023 18:57
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:All this talk about translation reminds me of people complaining about Final Fantasy XIV translation not being faithful enough and using this example.
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Nov 15, 2023 19:18
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The biggest meaningful breach between the Japanese and English scripts I can recall was the conversation between Matoya and Y'shtola"s aethersight, with the English making it sound like it would inevitably cause her death and the Japanese just saying she's consuming aether faster than normal. I personally prefer the Japanese because it creates the mental image that any time Y'shtola isn't on screen she's absolutely chowing down in order to sustain herself.
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Nov 15, 2023 19:22
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The English version of the eyes talk for Ysh does at least make sense for her character though. Doing something incredibly dangerous for herself to further a goal with little heed paid to the consequences is her deal. She's lucky she's got 9 lives because she likes to burn through them.
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Nov 15, 2023 19:26
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dyslexicfaser posted:Infusing Alisaie with a love of silly wordplay, what could be more Japanese? I still get a sensible chuckle when I think about how she was obviously trying to call him dense but might have accidentally called herself an airhead. If FF14 were 30% more anime Lyse would have definitely made a boob joke about how she's not very buoyant either, especially since she was puffing her chest out because of how proud she was of that burn.
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Nov 15, 2023 19:32
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