Accurate Localisation or tainted?

[Elron]

Im going to put this request out as a Suikoden fan who just wants faithful localisation as written by Murayama, untainted by real world western politics.

If we have any Suikoden fans who speak Japanese and English, I'd challenge these fans to play through this game in both languages, and note if we have a "western" touch to the localisation or not. Please note if the English voiced version of the game has western political themes or connotations not present in the Japanese version.

If your offended at this post, feel the need to go on the attack, insult and belittle myself or others for seeking accurate localisation please move on. Is it widely known and accepted that western localizers have been tainting Japanese entertainment with their politics for many years.

I wont go into my list of concerns with the beta, as it'll likely invoke toxic responses by toxic people.

If you acknowledge the localisation is different and want to debate the merits of changing the localisation that's a different matter / subject entirely.

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Edit. I cant verify early examples of the localisation issues I noticed, but from where I resumed my save heres one I took the time to translate. Again my view is that the characters as presented in English tend to belittle Nowa. They DONT in Japanese.

Before heading to Nowa's home town Garr says "All right, lets go embarrass Nowa in front of his people. Our destination is northwest of here - Through the mountains west of Altverden.

The Japanese spoken dialogue appears to say "Sore jā Noa no furusato kenbutsu to ikou janai ka basho wa hokusei no yamamichi no sakidatta na"

Which translates to "Well then, let's go see Noah's hometown. The place is at the end of the mountain road in the northwest."

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So I translated some dialogue in Nowa's village. There is a seen where the villagers notice his return, are excited to see Nowa with one praising him stating he must be a fine warrior by now. Nowa shows humility in response to this praise but Lian (in English) mocks him stating "D'aw look how much the Wuv you". The English voice actor portrays this in exaggerated and sarcastic baby voice.

In Japanese she states in a regular tone "Iya ̄ nandaka aisa re teru ne" which translates to "Wow, I feel loved somehow" The context is shes in a group with the hero and everyone welcomes his return. Shes feeling the love around him.

By changing her actual words, in addition to the English voice actor using a sarcastic mocking baby voice, Lian changes the original message shes meant to convey to him, from that of admiration to mockery/embarrassment.

In the next scene Noah is met by his aunty at his childhood home, there is an heart felt exchange between Nowa and his aunt. The english Lian again changes the context of this scene as a means to embarrass him (Which Gar made clear previously)

In English Lian states "Its so nice to meet you, ma'am. You might say im Nowas... oh, whats the word? Well, lets just say I occupy a special place in his life. But you can call me Lian. The aunty then runs off to tell the entire village Nowa has a girlfriend and hes embarrassed.

Lian state to the Aunty In Japanese Dōmo hajimemashite Noa-kun no sono nan teyuuka tokubetsuna sonzai tte iu ka. Nice to meet you! Noah, you are, how can I say, special. (conveying how much hes loved)

So yes the localizers have changed the context of both scenes from one of admiration and love of Noah, with Lian conveying this to him, to using Lian to mock, embarrass and belittle him.

Its probably safe to say many scenes throughout this game will fail to convey the meaning of Murayama's original work.

[Melodia]

More comedy posting I see.

[aeternox]

hi there

[Катюша]

It's unfortunately going to be an awful localisation. There are very few good localisations of Japanese RPGs.

[Harvest]

12 hours in and it's fine so far. I genuinely don't understand the concerns at all.

[Bwil]

Thanks for proving me right on everything...
And don't worry about toxic people like me, this will be my one and only message in this thread.
Except if it turns out there ARE western woke politics shoehorned in the game, in which case I'll come back here to admit your fears were entirely justified.

[Finarfin]

Originally posted by Bwil:

Thanks for proving me right on everything...
And don't worry about toxic people like me, this will be my one and only message in this thread.
Except if it turns out there ARE western woke politics shoehorned in the game, in which case I'll come back here to admit your fears were entirely justified.

I'll just leave this here.
"Sigh Another muscle-brained chud"

[Катюша]

Who is the localiser for this game? Has 505 Games revealed such information? The writing is very Americanised, and 505 Games are European, so I assumed they would hire a company in Europe, but it seems like no.

[Duradan]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1658280/discussions/0/4358997099028255789/

[shadow_otm]

I see a few people losing their ♥♥♥♥ over just a line or two but haven't fired up the game myself yet. Honestly I understand that language is complicated and sometimes requires some changes but hopefully we don't have someone that thinks someone else's work is where they should "make their mark" because they themselves is a failed creative. We're in an age that certainly doesn't need another Robotech or Ghost Stories.

I will say it's still both sad and funny that Tales of Berseria decided exploding a child with magic was more acceptable than stabbing them.

[Катюша]

Originally posted by Duradan:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1658280/discussions/0/4358997099028255789/

Thank you.

[Elnidfse]

If it's the same team that did Rising, it's likely to be equally slapdash unless they actually took their time this time.

And I'm not talking about things like not properly conveying the original Japanese script. I mean Rising has several dozen grammatical errors, typos, odd sentence structure, formatting issues, and more than a few sentences with missing pronouns (like I and you).

It reads out decently for the most part. That is to say, about as good as it's going to get in 2024. But, whoever supervising the general work and the editors themselves really phoned it in.

[Professor Higglebottom]

Originally posted by Катюша:

Who is the localiser for this game? Has 505 Games revealed such information? The writing is very Americanised, and 505 Games are European, so I assumed they would hire a company in Europe, but it seems like no.

What exactly does this mean "americanised"?

[C H A I R M A N]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

Originally posted by Катюша:

Who is the localiser for this game? Has 505 Games revealed such information? The writing is very Americanised, and 505 Games are European, so I assumed they would hire a company in Europe, but it seems like no.

What exactly does this mean "americanised"?

Born and raised by those who praise control of population.

[Lemonson123]

Originally posted by Gordon21:

Originally posted by Bwil:

Thanks for proving me right on everything...
And don't worry about toxic people like me, this will be my one and only message in this thread.
Except if it turns out there ARE western woke politics shoehorned in the game, in which case I'll come back here to admit your fears were entirely justified.

I'll just leave this here.
"Sigh Another muscle-brained chud"

Is that a good translation or a bad translation? What was the original text?

[Elron]

I'll kick this off.. I resumed from my Beta save so I missed some early examples of the other characters belittling Nowa... Heres an example of the bad faith localisation I've raised in other threads.. which reinforces my previous point that the English / western localisers are purposely denigrating or belitting Nowa..

Before heading to Nowa's home town Garr says "All right, lets go embarrass Nowa in front of his people. Our destination is northwest of here - Through the mountains west of Altverden.

The Japanese spoken dialogue appears to say "Sore jā Noa no furusato kenbutsu to ikou janai ka basho wa hokusei no yamamichi no sakidatta na"

Which translates to "Well then, let's go see Noah's hometown. The place is at the end of the mountain road in the northwest."

These subtle digs at Nowa are consistent, do I need to have them all translated before we can paint a broad picture that they bastardised Murayamas work?