The ♥♥♥♥♥♥ (A.I.?) translation is kinda ruining it

[bibron]

I really like the game so far, I'm done with the second city now.
But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is it hard to follow those dialogues with german subtitles.
Nothing makes sense.
Why is the MC, a teenager, refered to with "sie"?
Why do they adress the Villains with "sie"?! That's a polite form to adress someone who is either older than you or unknown, or higher up at our work place or a cashier or what ever, but for sure you wouldn't adress someone you dislike with "sie"?!
And usually you would adress people with "euch" or "ihr" in fantasy games like that.
And a lot of sentences just doesn't make any sense. You have to read them multiple times to grasp wtf they are trying to tell you.
Is the english translation equal as ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as the german one?

[bibron]

Originally posted by Terrifying Turnip:

The English translation was fine. I can't pretend to understand the nuances of Deutsche, but is it possible the translators were trying to convey the characters as having a more aristocratic bearing. i.e. someone who would default to addressing people more formally in general?

Maybe, but than you would use "ihre" and "euch" instead of the modern "sie".
If they would have gone this way, it would be a lot more bearable.

[Nibbie]

The MC is an adult for what its worth; a young adult, only 18 apparently, but he's not underage. As for the rest, the main villain is quite often addressed as "Lord Louis" in English, so from your description the use of the word could make sense, but I obviously don't know if the other words would fit better.

[Kobi Blade]

Originally posted by Terrifying Turnip:

The English translation was fine. I can't pretend to understand the nuances of Deutsche, but is it possible the translators were trying to convey the characters as having a more aristocratic bearing. i.e. someone who would default to addressing people more formally in general?

The English translation was anything but fine, but at this point I am not surprised.

All the Persona games were poorly translation as well, when you understand Japanese is hard not to notice.

Originally posted by Nibbie:

The MC is an adult for what its worth; a young adult, only 18 apparently, but he's not underage. As for the rest, the main villain is quite often addressed as "Lord Louis" in English, so from your description the use of the word could make sense, but I obviously don't know if the other words would fit better.

That is a fine example of how poorly translated this game was, he was never addressed as Lord even once in the original script.

The English script was rewritten like a cartoon, I can't blame OP for no being able to take the game seriously.

Is exhausting to have this Westernised translations, I rather have a 1:1 translation to be faithful to the source material.

[ShockedHearts]

Originally posted by bibron:

I really like the game so far, I'm done with the second city now.
But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is it hard to follow those dialogues with german subtitles.
Nothing makes sense.
Why is the MC, a teenager, refered to with "sie"?
Why do they adress the Villains with "sie"?! That's a polite form to adress someone who is either older than you or unknown, or higher up at our work place or a cashier or what ever, but for sure you wouldn't adress someone you dislike with "sie"?!
And usually you would adress people with "euch" or "ihr" in fantasy games like that.
And a lot of sentences just doesn't make any sense. You have to read them multiple times to grasp wtf they are trying to tell you.
Is the english translation equal as ♥♥♥♥♥♥ as the german one?

the main character is referred to as "captain" in English, a title given to people you look up to for advice, someone who leads or someone who has the authority over your next action.

perhaps Sie was used in reference to this sorta role? who is calling the main character sie for example? in the definition you gave this fits really well when replacing "captain" aka the title often used to refer to the main character in a respectful and leadership like role.

as for villain being referred to that way, Louis is a lord. a lord is someone of high status, someone of wealth or royalty or in a politically powerful position. perhaps this is why sie was used for him. the use of "lord" in english does not have a directly positive or negative connotation. its simply a title of someones position. thus you can refer to someone who is objectively evil and you hate as a lord, or alternatively someone you love and is good.

[ShockedHearts]

Originally posted by Kobi Blade:

Originally posted by Terrifying Turnip:

The English translation was fine. I can't pretend to understand the nuances of Deutsche, but is it possible the translators were trying to convey the characters as having a more aristocratic bearing. i.e. someone who would default to addressing people more formally in general?

The English translation was anything but fine, but at this point I am not surprised.

All the Persona games were poorly translation as well, when you understand Japanese is hard not to notice.

Originally posted by Nibbie:

The MC is an adult for what its worth; a young adult, only 18 apparently, but he's not underage. As for the rest, the main villain is quite often addressed as "Lord Louis" in English, so from your description the use of the word could make sense, but I obviously don't know if the other words would fit better.

That is a fine example of how poorly translated this game was, he was never addressed as Lord even once in the original script.

The English script was rewritten like a cartoon, I can't blame OP for no being able to take the game seriously.

Is exhausting to have this Westernised translations, I rather have a 1:1 translation to be faithful to the source material.

he was not referred to as lord but is regularly referred to as captain, which is another title of similar use, albeit different active meanings in a social situations.

a captain is directly a leader, someone to look up to
a lord is someone of high power, or political wealth who is looked up to.

both sit high or above in verbal context but in different ways.
and thus the translation makes sense.

in regards to bad "translations" the translations are actually amazing, its the localization you have a problem with, of which is also done very well for the most part.

if you were to 1 for 1 boot over Japanese into English it would sound very odd. objectively to a western or English speaking player.

this video describes the process very well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9EPiNwUR10

[lexia88]

Yeah the "Sie" translation was constantly immersion breaking for me too.

It fits well in modern setting games like
- Fallout, Call of Duty, Anno 2070 or Assasin's Creed whenever you controlled Desmond

But it would feel completely out of place in fantasy/historic games like
- Skyrim, Fire Emblem, Anno 1404 or Assassin's Creed whenever you controlled Altair/Ezio

"Sie" sounds like modern business talk, "Ihr/Euch" is how people used to talk in the past and would fit a story like Metaphor much better. I have a theory why they chose to use "Sie" instead, but that would be a Virga Island story spoiler.

If you don't care about story spoilers or are already past Virga Island, it turns out this game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, far in the future of our "current" timeline. That means the modern "Sie" is probably already a historic way to talk in Metaphor. And since almost all past events are completely forgotten in Metaphor, nobody there would even know there used to be the "Ihr/Euch" speech pattern before "Sie" It's still very immersion breaking though and I honestly disliked this translation choice. The English dub saved the story for me. The German translation is really awkward.