Is it possible for modders to uncensor the game dialogue

[BaitMan]

I am tired of the games being censored to please the ideologies of people who dont even play these games. Who are they to decide what we should play or not. I am ready to play the game with japanese dub and uncensored english subtitles if that is possible

[Retro]

which parts are censored just want to know out of pure curiosity

[Jay]

I'm still so confused how are you going to make a thread like this and not tell us what's censored lol

[Aldain]

I still actually like the "Unmagicked Octogenarians" line in Unicorn Overlord.

Has a lot more impact than a straight translation of something like "Batch of old women".

[moshiwakeda]

Originally posted by Averagedog:

Originally posted by ヒナタちゃん:

Since i am playing UO right now and am fairly proficient in japanese (close to N2) i can confirm that the translation sometimes takes some liberties. But not in a bad, political way. It has some flowery language and the biggest criticism would be that english text is 3 paragraphs while in JP audio it was merely a sigh or a grunt. But i actually checked what these english script additions contain and In the grand scheme of the characters dialogue and personality, they do make sense. So while you have unvoiced content you can still be sure to understand what the character originally said and meant. These additions are merely flavor while retaining the original scripts vision.

The negative reaction to the translation/localization for UO was kinda overblown but totally understandable considering how the west treats japanese media and culture for over a decade now. UO has no current zeitgeist western politics injected by the localization so that is what in my opinion matters most. And if, i say IF, Metaphor is being handled like UO was then i really see no issue. Then again, i couldnt care less since i dont play japanese games in english.

What is the quickest way to learn enough japanese to understand gaming VO japanese? I am getting to the point in my life where I'd rather learn new skills specifically to circumvent the people that are destroying the things I like and value. Even the Crunchyroll subs have become markedly worse in recent years.

I made myself an automatic audio transcription and translation app, so anything I play or watch can be translated by pressing a hotkey on my mouse or controller. I'm not into AI hype, but the one thing it is very good at is translation, and Whisper API for transcription is near perfect. It works even if there is music or sound effects mixed in.

It's not capable of real-time translation yet, but one paragraph takes about 1 second, so it is pretty seamless.

Being able to easily get translations and explanations for grammar and stuff has made it easy for my adhd brain to learn. Since I'm already playing the game anyway, I might as well have some low effort method to gain knowledge as I'm playing it.

It started 1.5 years ago with Persona 5, I began to understand what they were saying differently compared to the localization. Though in general, I've gained a lot of respect for localization teams, especially with Japanese. It's really hard to translate that to English while maintaining the nuances that are going on in the dialogue.

Some things are just so tightly wound into subtleties of Japanese language, you are pretty much forced to choose between robotic accuracy or big change liberties.

Regarding the app, I am not a programmer at all, so it is probably a total mess, but it does the job that I need it to do. I sometimes think about making it available for others, when it seems like there doesn't exist an alternative. But it's too much effort to do that for just a few people, so I would have to find some place where there are more people who might be interested in that

[Sigvuld]

Originally posted by Jeffer'son Airship:

Originally posted by Hexenhammer:

and if at all try to hide lgbt as much as possible

Is that not censoring?,

You know exactly how they're gonna answer that lmfao

[Melodia]

Originally posted by moshiwakeda:

Some things are just so tightly wound into subtleties of Japanese language, you are pretty much forced to choose between robotic accuracy or big change liberties.

If only more people understood this.

[Splinter of Chaos]

Originally posted by moshiwakeda:

I made myself an automatic audio transcription and translation app, so anything I play or watch can be translated by pressing a hotkey on my mouse or controller. I'm not into AI hype, but the one thing it is very good at is translation

What AI are you using? I think the general consensus is that all the AI make a lot of mistake (maybe chat GPT 4 is a bit better these days), but the big thing I'm curious is how you deal with sentences that have subject/object/etc., omissions that can't be translated independently, because that's where a lot of the issues with AI seem to come from. But if it's basically reading the story along with you, maybe that can increase the accuracy quite a bit?

[Lightkun1988]

Originally posted by Splinter of Chaos:

Originally posted by ValentB:

No.

Cause nothing is censored.

I feel like we're missing the point a little. Well, actually I'm kind of with nagikogok on how a lot of the discourse online is pretty silly, even sometimes from the Japanese side looking at t he English localization.

I remember for example, in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, when a cop is interrogating the protagonist he suggests the protagonist is into that "weird hentai ♥♥♥♥" or something, and the line on the Japanese side was a bit more tame. Some Japanese fans complained that the game was criticizing Japan even though, with a little more media literacy, they could have realized it was commenting on anti-Japanese racism in law enforcement, which was true of the Japanese script, too. The harsher and more offensive the script, the better that message gets across.

This was actually the part which made me switch to german subtitles in Infinite Wealth.

The german version pretty much sticks to the japanese script but they changed two lines of dialogue in the english version to hammer in the fact that the cop is racist towards Japanese people.
Even though the end result is the same (showing the player how the cop is racist), the way it was done is more subtle/mild in the japanese and the german version.

Maybe its a personal thing, but I felt insulted reading that.
Almost as if the english localizer thinks that he needs to be as blunt and harsh as possible so that I as the player am able to get the message.

So why does the german version get the job done in a more accurate way but the english one has the need to be more blunt with it?

You see it in a lot of media over the last 3-4 years but the english localizers often feel like they need to add something extra to the translation which often results in inaccurate or cringe statements.

[zhligw]

Originally posted by Dutch Van Der Linde:

I am tired of the games being censored to please the ideologies of people who dont even play these games. Who are they to decide what we should play or not. I am ready to play the game with japanese dub and uncensored english subtitles if that is possible

Well it would be nice if we had an option to switch it on or off. I just don't like when dialog or writing needs to use the f word as though its a comma or explanation point and after every clause. That's just cheap and poor use for words; badly expressed. I hope this game doesn't do that-obviously I haven't played the demo yet.

[JL]

Maybe it is intentional? There are games like FF14 where the devs work with the localisation team to give the script and dialogue a more archaic and Shakespearean feel in English. Middle English makes sense in a setting inspired by Medieval Europe... but Classical Japanese? Probably not.

Also, Japanese is just a much more highly contextual language than English, where a writer can be very expressive and direct with the way they write. This will always be a problem with translating any media from Japanese to English and vice versa. While I agree that some translators take creative liberties too far (can we stop putting memes and brainrot into translations?), being too literal just leads it to being uninteresting

if you are really that concerned set your audio and text to japanese, the setting is there

[Splinter of Chaos]

Originally posted by Lightkun1988:

This was actually the part which made me switch to german subtitles in Infinite Wealth.

The german version pretty much sticks to the japanese script but they changed two lines of dialogue in the english version to hammer in the fact that the cop is racist towards Japanese people.
Even though the end result is the same (showing the player how the cop is racist), the way it was done is more subtle/mild in the japanese and the german version.

I'm not so much saying I agree with the translator's decision, just that the interpretation some people got out of it how the game itself was expressing an anti-Japanese sentiment was pretty off base and how part of the controversy around censorship concerns media literacy more than accuracy in translation.

For that matter, what "accuracy in translation" even means is itself a discussion that in all the conversations I've been in around localization rarely is clarified.

[Splinter of Chaos]

Originally posted by JL:

if you are really that concerned set your audio and text to japanese, the setting is there

You have to realize when you say this that being able to play in full Japanese is a rather privileged position, right? Not everyone has the free time or energy to learn a foreign language, much less one that is considered especially hard for English speakers. They just want to be able to enjoy Japanese media without having to worry about whether someone has changed it in bad faith.

Personally, part of what made me start to study Japanese was actually during conversations around game censorship where I came to the realization that people always complained about one or two lines that were changed when in reality, 100% of the dialogue had to be changed in translation and I wanted to understand all of the changes, not just the lines the translator thought was "too sexist" or something. So it's not that I don't mostly agree with the sentiment, but I don't think the takeaway for most people can't be to play in Japanese.

[Juez]

Originally posted by Toyosatomimi no Miko:

Originally posted by ShockedHearts:

Concord was made 8 years too late for a genre filled with FREE TO PLAY games that are higher quality and more unique, not to mention its a 40$ game WITH MTX and had almost no advertising.

if you think the game flopped because "woke" you are massively ignorant.
I can make the same argument and say Baldurs Gate III is Woke and sold amazingly, but Im not because Woke had nothing to do with it.

concord is a bad game, baldurs gate III is a great one.

thats the difference.

Nah, BG3 is crap too. RNG filled ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with too little control over the combat. I don't care how good the story is, when you're combat is a boring-ass watered down DND5E session with a DM that hates your guts and wants you dead under any circumstance, that isn't fun. What I saw in chapter 1 didn't inspire much confidence in me either, with overly-clingy characters who either want to ♥♥♥♥ you or want nothing to do with you, overuse of sexual humor, the non-sexual humor feeling more rick&Morty-esque than traditional fantasy, lack of lawful options beyond the "lawful stupid" variety, characters an overall downgrade from Divinity 2, terrible class balance with a clear hateboner for casters, etc.

[phone] to this.

[REBirthTheEdge]

So far the translation sounds pretty legit.
Would like expert opinion tho but it's breddy OK.

[moshiwakeda]

Originally posted by Splinter of Chaos:

Originally posted by moshiwakeda:

I made myself an automatic audio transcription and translation app, so anything I play or watch can be translated by pressing a hotkey on my mouse or controller. I'm not into AI hype, but the one thing it is very good at is translation

What AI are you using? I think the general consensus is that all the AI make a lot of mistake (maybe chat GPT 4 is a bit better these days), but the big thing I'm curious is how you deal with sentences that have subject/object/etc., omissions that can't be translated independently, because that's where a lot of the issues with AI seem to come from. But if it's basically reading the story along with you, maybe that can increase the accuracy quite a bit?

I've been using gpt-4

And yes, a general problem with Japanese translation is as you mentioned, it isn't indicated exactly who is speaking, or even if they are referring to themselves in 3rd person, etc

That makes AI translation for entire subtitle files or books pretty bad, and there's no solution for that currently.

However, for this purpose it isn't really a problem for me, since I am playing a game that already has subtitles, it's not going to confuse me if the AI guesses wrong who is speaking. It's actually very good at guessing. If it sucked then I wouldn't be using it anymore, but it's been over a year now.

My app also saves everything to a txt file, so if I want to brush up my knowledge on something specific I can run a search in that file and go back to some things. That is especially nice for Kanji

To deal with speaker/object identification, I do have somewhat of a solution planned. Since gpt-4 can interpret images now, I will add a function to the translator that automatically takes a screenshot, or series of screenshots at the same time that the audio is recorded.

The screenshots could be appended into a filmstrip of 3 images or so, and it would be sent to gpt-4 to get an image description. (With the system message specifically stating that this image description should be to help with object/speaker identification for Japanese translation)

At the same time, the audio file is sent to Whisper API, so ideally the transcription and image description should arrive simultaneously.

After that, it sends the Japanese transcript along with the image description to guide with the translation.

I waited for a while until the image recognition became more accurate. Kanji interpretation was phenomenally crap 6 months ago, and I primarily wanted to use it to generate an automatic UI translation overlay. Last I checked the Kanji interpretation is now great, so I feel it is worth adding this extra function.

It increases usage cost though, because of the extra API request for the image, and the additional text. And I am sure that this will not be a 100% fix. I am curious to see the results though

Anyway, in the current state, I agree that AI translation for entire subtitle files or books are quite terrible, unless a human sifts through them. But for this on-the-fly audio translation, having the app on a second monitor, it's been great.