The English localisation is so bad

[Sir Czexican]

My first DQ game and I enjoyed it a lot but I'm really seriously wondering if the people that did the translation have some sort of mental impediment.

The meaning and feeling of the text is often disconnected from what's going on in the scenes, the most simple phrases are butchered into dumb puns or obscure idioms, names are changed, characters (especially NPCs in villages) are turned into racist stereotypes and what they did to "Sylvia" is just depresing even starting with the name they gave him. Someone that didn't speak Japanese and tried to guess what text to write couldn't have made a worse job than whoever worked on this.

Have previous DQ had this issue?

[Tim Allahn SnAckbarr]

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

Have previous DQ had this issue?

Since the series changed from Dragon "Warrior" (7 and below) to Dragon "Quest" (8 and above) in the West. Previously Enix of America was handling it, but since the Square merger it's been overseen directly by Square Enix of Japan.

Plenty of debate could be made about translation vs localization. I'm not here to weigh in on that.

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/mods/75

^this is a mod that attempts to undo some of that, to varying to degrees of success

there's also documentation on the localization changes (names):
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/7
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/8
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/12
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/6

and a dump of the entirety of cutscene and non-cutscene dialogue, in Japanese, English (translated), and English (from localization):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sZGZkhIbp4saRpaHzsfmuDcbxrKgfS-xyUVnDFoi3uo
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l2LHi_EIES2gDTPUfGxUoxlfYcB7fafjQIlAokcjItc
(^copy and paste or just go to the mod page for these links)

I will say there's a lot of quirks in the localization you don't notice until you see how they got there with the translation. Puns in Japanese don't work the same in English (obviously) so sometimes they go a completely different direction with them. Sometimes they add new ones entirely

Here's an example: "Cobblestone" is "Ishi No Mura" in JP or "Stone Village" --> I'd say they did a reasonably good job there. Also: Several character names in the village are based on stones- Amber, Gemma, Dunstan[en.wiktionary.org], etc

[Chaos 混沌 カオス]

I don't play the game in English, but I do look up info in English first (as Japanese info usually is all over the place and not neatly collected in one place. For DQXI, I found 8 Japanese walkthrough sites lol). What I saw even for just the names of techs or skills, it was, eyerolling to say the least.

Unfortunately this is just how localizations are since the 90's. Especially with how old of a series DQ is, there's a lot of 4kids level of debauchery that are tolerated due to it being grandfather'd in and "that's always the way it's been".

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

My first DQ game and I enjoyed it a lot but I'm really seriously wondering if the people that did the translation have some sort of mental impediment.

You're closer than you might think with this statement, It's not mental impediment, it's indifference.

Think about it, if you bothered to learn more than 1 language, is your ambition really just something as small as translating video games? Probably not. What this means is that most people who worked on this job likely failed into the position.

And given that they have ambition in which their job cannot fulfill, they're going to insert their own "creative liberties" despite their job should only be to translate.

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

The meaning and feeling of the text is often disconnected from what's going on in the scenes, the most simple phrases are butchered into dumb puns or obscure idioms, names are changed, characters (especially NPCs in villages) are turned into racist stereotypes and what they did to "Sylvia" is just depresing even starting with the name they gave him. Someone that didn't speak Japanese and tried to guess what text to write couldn't have made a worse job than whoever worked on this.

Have previous DQ had this issue?

This is my first DQ game too, and I really like this game, despite what I've said about the localization. It's dealing with localizations like these for over a decade that motivated me to learn Japanese, which I'm roughly at the N4 level.

Speaking of Sylvia, he actually has a skill tree that translates to "Lady" or "Gentlewoman". It was censored to Showmanship in the English version.

[Sir Czexican]

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxisdefinitiveedition/mods/75

^this is a mod that attempts to undo some of that, to varying to degrees of success

there's also documentation on the localization changes (names):
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/7
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/8
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/12
https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonquestxi/articles/6

and a dump of the entirety of cutscene and non-cutscene dialogue, in Japanese, English (translated), and English (from localization):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sZGZkhIbp4saRpaHzsfmuDcbxrKgfS-xyUVnDFoi3uo
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l2LHi_EIES2gDTPUfGxUoxlfYcB7fafjQIlAokcjItc
(^copy and paste or just go to the mod page for these links)

Thank for all the info. I'll take a look at that since I was curious about mods and also all the name changes.

Originally posted by Tim Allahn SnAckbarr:

Plenty of debate could be made about translation vs localization. I'm not here to weigh in on that.

That's a very good point. I guess localisations shouldn't be judged as direct translations.

Originally posted by Chaos 混沌 カオス:

This is my first DQ game too, and I really like this game, despite what I've said about the localization. It's dealing with localizations like these for over a decade that motivated me to learn Japanese, which I'm roughly at the N4 level.

I was considering actually learning some japanese just for the amount of japanese media (that for some reason) I consume.

Originally posted by Chaos 混沌 カオス:

And given that they have ambition in which their job cannot fulfill, they're going to insert their own "creative liberties" despite their job should only be to translate.

In my country of origin translated films and especially the animated / Pixar style ones are infamous because the people doing the voices (often celebrities) want to be extra funny so occasionally the go off-script or just improvise silly jokes so in that aspect I guess things could be worse.

[Chaos 混沌 カオス]

Originally posted by 0wnz0r:

blue haired sjws gotta ruin every dam thing

While it's no question they've done so much damage to gaming, and all of western entertainment in general, in fairness, their invasion didn't really take off until the early 2010's. And yes, you could argue the ideological invasion started with the Soviets half a century ago, this is not the place for that conversation here.

Bad localizations have been a thing since the late 80's and 90's. Before this SJW crap.

Frankly, we're in teh age where Japan is fully capable of localizing in-house, western localization companies really need not be and is just a leftover relic. Especially how they've really sunk their own credit and trustworthiness with all this censorship and hamfisted left-wing politics in their works.

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

That's a very good point. I guess localisations shouldn't be judged as direct translations.

Take it from someone who's fluent in 2 languages and passable in the third, no one who knows what they're talking about actually wants direct translation.

This statement is usually a strawman from the pro-censorship crowd (notice how the people who are for liberal localizations are the same people that are also ok with censorship) to justify "since you can't get a perfect translation, a complete butchering is a-okay!"

Faithful localizations can definitely exist, even if it'll never be perfect.

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

I was considering actually learning some japanese just for the amount of japanese media (that for some reason) I consume.

Don't just let that thought linger, you'll actually want to get on with it. It's super easy to always have that goal in mind and never start working on it in the first place.

Originally posted by Jura Dumas:

In my country of origin translated films and especially the animated / Pixar style ones are infamous because the people doing the voices (often celebrities) want to be extra funny so occasionally the go off-script or just improvise silly jokes so in that aspect I guess things could be worse.

Sounds like 4kids and NiSA.

[Kenpari]

Old topic but I was playing in Octagonia and noticed that Rab says “princess” when Jade goes missing in the Japanese version, but never mentions the word princess in the English translation. My mind clicked instantly (it’s my first playthrough) “she’s gotta be the missing princess from the cutscene at the beginning”. Total drop of the ball on the foreshadowing there thanks to the localization.

Plus they keep calling Veronica’s staff a wand in English, lol

[Jean]

Originally posted by Kenpari:

Old topic but I was playing in Octagonia and noticed that Rab says “princess” when Jade goes missing in the Japanese version, but never mentions the word princess in the English translation. My mind clicked instantly (it’s my first playthrough) “she’s gotta be the missing princess from the cutscene at the beginning”. Total drop of the ball on the foreshadowing there thanks to the localization.

Plus they keep calling Veronica’s staff a wand in English, lol

You're wrong lol, he quite literally calls her princess in at least one dialogue box, I just got through that part.

Originally posted by Chaos 混沌 カオス:

Speaking of Sylvia, he actually has a skill tree that translates to "Lady" or "Gentlewoman". It was censored to Showmanship in the English version.

Sylvando is by no means censored. He's adapted for a western audience with as much care as he was made well-meaning by the original team. It was very important for BOTH teams to get this right. Sylvando's feminine side and manneurisms isn't "censored" in the slightest. It's just that they want to make the clear portrayal of a feminine gay man as obvious to this audience as it was to Japanese. But much like some western people do incorrectly assume that Syvlia is a canon trans woman in Japanese, some things had to be adjusted to get the right idea across. He is more of a big sis okama gay male stereotype in Japanese, which does not have an equivalent in english, and westerners will be quick to assume that a character using a typically female name, female pronouns and calling himself one of the ladies means that he is a girl. I believe they just wanted to avoid that confusion, while retaining his character and the purpose of his character, which I think they did a fantastic job of.

Comparing DQXI's localization to 4kids is honestly offensive. It doesn't censor violence or dark themes or anything LGBT or even anything sexual. It's a punched up translation, but it is not "making things up", it only makes up new puns where it has to. You can't directly translate those. No real direction is direct, anyway. Even if you don't add funny accents and dialects, you have to actually change things sometimes to get the same idea across.

[LordKaiserX0]

The localization is like this because of consistency and tradition regardless the older version that started on the NES renamed to Dragon Warrior. (Dragon Quest was a registered trademark for a pen & paper RPG that failed.)

[Jean]

Originally posted by LordKaiserX0:

The localization is like this because of consistency and tradition regardless the older version that started on the NES renamed to Dragon Warrior. (Dragon Quest was a registered trademark for a pen & paper RPG that failed.)

Recentish DQs have better localizations than the NES games did though. The "tradition" was actually more made around the time of the DS remakes. Those god-awful ye old english localizations of the NES games are probably part of what caused them to not be bigger here, rather than sticking true to the fun lightheartedness of DQ

[LordKaiserX0]

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Originally posted by LordKaiserX0:

The localization is like this because of consistency and tradition regardless the older version that started on the NES renamed to Dragon Warrior. (Dragon Quest was a registered trademark for a pen & paper RPG that failed.)

Recentish DQs have better localizations than the NES games did though. The "tradition" was actually more made around the time of the DS remakes. Those god-awful ye old english localizations of the NES games are probably part of what caused them to not be bigger here, rather than sticking true to the fun lightheartedness of DQ

Yeah on the next remakes they should tone this down but I don't see it happening as localization teams are so stubborn.

[Jean]

Originally posted by LordKaiserX0:

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Recentish DQs have better localizations than the NES games did though. The "tradition" was actually more made around the time of the DS remakes. Those god-awful ye old english localizations of the NES games are probably part of what caused them to not be bigger here, rather than sticking true to the fun lightheartedness of DQ

Yeah on the next remakes they should tone this down but I don't see it happening as localization teams are so stubborn.

If you mean remakes of I-IV, they already have after the NES days.

[Chaos 混沌 カオス]

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Sylvando is by no means censored. He's adapted for a western audience

So he's censored. The "modern western audience" gaslighting to hide what is clearly censorship is getting old.

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

You can't directly translate those. No real direction is direct, anyway. Even if you don't add funny accents and dialects, you have to actually change things sometimes to get the same idea across.

And so is the "muh direct translation" when trying to justify lolcowlizations.

[Balzack]

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Recentish DQs have better localizations than the NES games did though. The "tradition" was actually more made around the time of the DS remakes. Those god-awful ye old english localizations of the NES games are probably part of what caused them to not be bigger here, rather than sticking true to the fun lightheartedness of DQ

That's not at all true. The reason DQ didn't take off in the US is because they didn't advertise the games, and they brought them over WAY too late. Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 are masterpieces, but they were released in the US in 1992. Well into the SNES era, with their main competition being Final Fantasy 4 on the SNES. Hilariously the exact same scenario happened again with Dragon Warrior 7. They didn't advertise, and released the game well into the Playstation 2 era with its direct competitor being Final Fantasy 10 which came out 5 months prior...

Also the argument people make against the NES localisation for being "ye olde" is pretty silly when that only happened in the first game. And even then I'd take a light nod to middle English over the horrendous travesty that is the hamfisted phonetic accents that they've been dumping on us since DQ8.
DW 2, 3, 4, 7, and Monsters are all fairly direct translations. There's only a handful of name tweaks (which still end up WAY more true to the Japanese originals than super lazy 100% changes like "Angelo" or "Erik"), and they changed the spells from onomatopoeia to more D&D. But that's really pretty much it.

[solidap]

I love the accents and I especially love the slime puns

[HalfCenturyLater]

Originally posted by Chaos 混沌 カオス:

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Sylvando is by no means censored. He's adapted for a western audience

So he's censored. The "modern western audience" gaslighting to hide what is clearly censorship is getting old.

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

You can't directly translate those. No real direction is direct, anyway. Even if you don't add funny accents and dialects, you have to actually change things sometimes to get the same idea across.

And so is the "muh direct translation" when trying to justify lolcowlizations.

Its fun how youre taking a whole conversation on something pretty cool and philosophical like 'meaning" and reducing it to boring culture war politics. Youre not even attempting to dispute that what the other commenter said was correct: that gayness/male femininity as a part of western canon is different than non-western cannon, which is why localization is needed instead of translation. Im not sure what you expected out of the localization team because all youve said is vague aggrievements about the left, sjws, censorship, and the soviet union lmfao.

[Jean]

Originally posted by Chaos 混沌 カオス:

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

Sylvando is by no means censored. He's adapted for a western audience

So he's censored. The "modern western audience" gaslighting to hide what is clearly censorship is getting old.

Originally posted by gayass lizard:

You can't directly translate those. No real direction is direct, anyway. Even if you don't add funny accents and dialects, you have to actually change things sometimes to get the same idea across.

And so is the "muh direct translation" when trying to justify lolcowlizations.

No, he is not censored. It's difficult to explain the difference, but he is ADAPTED so that he COMES ACROSS THE SAME WAY in English as in Japanese, despite culture differences. Both the creators of the game in Japan and the localization team worked hard (together, even! The JP side actually agreed with how they adaptetd him lol) to make sure that their careful crafting of this character comes across right, and so that he does not come across as just a caricature, or an offensive stereotype. If they had left EVERYTHING in unaltered it's very likely that a lot more people would just look at Sylvando and think that he is just an offensive feminine gay stereotype in the west when he was NEVER meant to be as such. His feminity is important in both versions. He is not censored. You really ought to learn WHY certain things have to be adapted... the goal of translation is not to translate things 1:1. Translation inherently includes the need to get something across the same way in another language, which sometimes requires changing that thing so another language or culture will understand/the original creator's intents actually come across. This is not censorship.

You've just proved that you actually don't know a thing about how translating works. You cannot simply directly translate something, that is extremely amateur and goes against the purpose of translation, to get the same idea across as the original language. Translating directly does not accomplish this. You need only look at examples like Persona 5 (the original) to see how this affects even simple dialogue sounding unnatural in english because it retains Japanese sentence structure at times and reads like an amateur fan translation of anime, because there was not proper work done to make the english text flow naturally in english.