Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
...But even if the actors were all really good, which rarely is the case, some things just sound different in different languages, along with all those "Lost in translation" lines. Really wish they would go with japanese or japanese and english. I'd be interested in seeing how much more it actually would cost compared to just english.
Yes, exactly. Things just do get lost, or changed, when being translated, especially from just a different language and culture as Japanese. The biggest case I recently found out was Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1, where apparently entire conversations were changed. This is by the way, one example of an old(er) game getting a Japanese option patched in. Luckily.
If you are fine with translations, many are, than that's totally okay. It just sucks for those who don't like that, and/or can read and understand Japanese decently and would like to play the Game in Japanese either way.
Here's a conversation from a developer at XSEED, a company who has ported many japanese games to PC
You have to understand that most of the time (pretty much 99% of the time at this point, really), when the original Japanese voice-acting is removed from a game during localization, it's done out of necessity, NOT by choice. NO publisher is going to remove the original voice track if there exists an option to keep it -- there'd be no reason to, after all! But I speak from personal experience when I tell you that there are many, many times where publishers aren't given any choice in the matter whatsoever. Technical limitations and storage space aren't the only factors, either -- there's also that dreaded specter known as LICENSING. Sadly, everyone who's ever spoken a line of dialogue or sung a phrase of music in a video game signed a contract of some sort... and some of those contracts, ESPECIALLY in Japan, can be pretty draconian when you get down to the fine print. It's not at all uncommon for a Japanese voice-actor to record his/her voice for a game under the stipulation that it ONLY be used within the country of Japan, making it ILLEGAL to use those lines anywhere else in the world.
I'm not able to comment as to whether or not this is the reason we've removed Japanese voice tracks from some of our past titles, but I can give a relatively well-known example from the world of anime: Kodocha. When that show was brought to the U.S. by The Right Stuf, there were major licensing problems associated with the first opening theme, "19 O'Clock News" by the band Tokio. Not only was that song originally used as the opening theme for episodes 1-51 of the show, but Tokio's lead singer Mamo made a cameo appearance in episode 1 as himself, exchanging a few lines of dialogue with the series' main character Sana. And when the show was brought over to North America, absolutely NONE of that could be used due to licensing issues. Not only did Right Stuf have to substitute the second opening theme (originally used in episodes 52-102 of the anime) in place of the first, but they had to bleep out all of Mamo's lines from the Japanese language track on the DVD, and I think they even had to bleep out Mamo's NAME when Sana spoke it!
Now, that's a pretty extreme example, but it just goes to show you that Japanese contract law can be a HUGE problem, oftentimes leaving publishers with only three choices: release the game with dubbed voices, release the game with NO voices (bearing in mind that most games featuring English voice-acting also have an option to TURN OFF the voice-acting, so there's no reason dubbed voices are any worse than no voices)... or don't release the game at all.
And while I do understand your passion for playing things in their original language, I would urge you not to avoid supporting games simply because their language tracks have been dubbed. Remember, when you pay for a game, you're compensating the publisher for all the work they did to translate it, edit it, test it, master it, produce it, etc. We do a tremendous amount of work to make sure these games are playable and enjoyable in our own language, and it's extremely disheartening to hear that anyone would choose NOT to support us, even if it's a game they really want to play, simply because we were forced to dub the voice track into English. Especially since, quite honestly, I think most publishers would prefer to leave EVERY game in its original Japanese -- dubbing a game's voices is a time-consuming and costly process, and electing not to dub something invariably makes it take less time to release AND cost less money. And what publisher WOULDN'T want that?!
So yeah... bottom line, if you're going to "vote with your wallet," as it were, please make sure you know what you're voting FOR. By not supporting games that publishers had no choice but to dub, you're not sending the message that you want fewer dubs... you're sending the message that you want fewer games of that type released in English, period. And I'm pretty sure that's NOT the message you're trying to send.
-Tom
And the way things sound is important too, even with good translation, you simply have lines that for example sound great in english, but if you say them in german, russian or japanese, they sound awkward as all hell.
Oh, and my personal petty anger - when the english VA butchers and keeps butchering the very name of their character. I mean... come on...
But yeah, I'm really just ranting at this point.
---
Edit: When it comes to voting with wallet for dual audio, I'm thinking that buying japanese games on steam, often inferior ports of not exactly new games at that, for 50-60€ each is as big a vote as it gets. It's just that it seems the message gets lost somewhere along the way...
I am absolutely not blaming the devs for that, I did think it was something along that line. But to be honest, I cannot agree with the dev of the text you copied. Like, absolutely not.
If I can't stand the dub for whatever reason, how can anyone expect me to buy a Game that only has dub? I couldn't enjoy the Game (as much). Or is he expecting me to just buy the Game and not play it, just to support the devs? That's not gonna happen.
Telling us, people who are passionate about playing Games in their original language, to buy Games regardless of whether or not they offer the option to play in the original language... That's just unrealistic and not helping.
It's like someone being passionate about, say, model trains, and obviously, they only want originals, and not copies, but now some producer comes along and tells them: "Sorry, we don't import/release originals to your country anymore, just buy copies." It's a stupid thing to say.
I understand his reasoning of it being (too) hard, but I don't agree with his conclusion of us just "sucking up" and buy it even though we can't really enjoy it (as much).
Yeah, I don't like Naruto, but hearing from Naruto fans how they butchered the Names of the Characters.... horrible. Sasuke comes to mind as being the most prominent example.
And agree with the jokes. Many Japanese jokes are pun based, as in: puns playing with the Japanese language. And I want to enjoy them, not some (often) cheap English joke.
Don't get me wrong, there are many good translations, it's just that to people like me, even the best translation is not good.
I guess I can give at least that to koei Tecmo. All (at least as far as I've seen) they let loose in the west is with japanese audio and only thing changed in the game is the optional subtitles, which at that are as literall translation as it gets... At least as far as I can tell with my far from fluent japanese. And I have never heard them complain about the cost, which is why I would be really interested in seeing the actual figures, because I can't help to feel it's a case of "Ah, can't be arsed.".
Other thing I wonder about is what people want. If I had to bet, largest group of buyers doesn't really care either way, second would be people who prefer original with subs and the smallest people who actually want it redubbed. Even if I'm basing that more on anime, rather than games.
And if I can have another awkward rant: The last group that actually demands redubs, tends to be people of young age, new to the medium or just randomly passing by and getting vaguely inerested. In other words, not the target demographic, so it just seems off to cater to that... Oh well.