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Localization, Cultural Translation and Censorship Thread


Extrasolar
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43 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

Sometimes I think the localization team want to get rid everything from the original team.

That's why we have all the castle names, holy blood names changed in FE4 while they were already romanized in the original game, they want to remove all traces to Kaga.

Sometimes, before a game is official localized, there is some fan translation for the game floating around, because the fan translated names are so good that there is no way for the localization team to make a better name, hence why we have stupid names like Seliph, Ced and Munnir.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the localization teams have some sort of anti-original FE sentiment. I mean, they've gone on record saying that they get two thumbs up from the original team in their name changes, and most everything else changed in the localizations. Granted, that interview is Treehouse rather than 3-H who localized Awakening, but I imagine it wasn't much different from 3-H.

I mean, considering no one in the west has ever even gotten an officially-localized Kaga game in the first place, I definitely don't think it's any anti-Kaga sentiment. it's not like they'd have any experience with his games whatsoever.

I mean, the problem with fan translations is that they tend to be awkward and stilted in a lot of places due to the general inexperience of the translators, and the fan translation of FE4 did change a lot from the original text - one Sylvia/Lewyn love conversation being one of them.

Some names had to be changed just because they're real places like "Silesia" to "Silesse," which would be distracting to at least a European audience. I think "Seliph" works well in the context, since "Celice" is a rather feminine name. (I mean, I know the guy isn't exactly the picture of masculinity himself, but his Heroes incarnation and voice is certainly very masculine-sounding.) Many of the FE4 names were changed to be actual mythological references rather than just similar (Siglud --> Sigurd; Diadora --> Deirdre; Delmud --> Diarmuid, etc.) Munnir was one of them...and besides, I'm pretty sure you can't legally get away with "Gandalf" in a western game the way you can with an eastern game.

I'll admit that I'm not keen on some of the localized names in comparison to the original (I dislike "Iucharba" and "Iuchar" as compared to "Johalva" and "Johan," for example), but considering they're mythological references whereas the former were not, I let it slide.

And a lot of the names of FE4 were changed to other mythological names from ones that would be awkward; i.e., "Ulster" is much simpler to read and pronounce than "Scathach," for example.
 

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It's only those single cases where they seem to make changes without taking hindsight into account that I question why they thought it could be a good idea. Like, I know hindsight is 20/20, but one could at least think that when making a change, it has to be with the conscience that the original thing may be brought up again. Though sometimes I find that more hilarious than annoying. Like in Pokémon, when they decided to kill off Brock's mother, instead of keeping that both parents abandoned the family, like in the original Japanese. Seemed harmless at the time, because surely the mother wouldn't become relevant or actually appear, right? Yeah... about that... lol. I think they didn't bothered with that one, they just treated her like she had always been alive. Considering this was in the Battle Frontier Arc and the previous mention was ALLLLLLL the way back in early Kanto, I guess they thought it woulnd't be a big deal now to ignore the previous change (localization shifted to a new team around the BF arc itself, which probably also helped in that decision, but I don't know if that episode was before or after the shift).

Yeah, I won't deny that at times a quick or careless localization has created plot holes and/or problems that didn't exist in the original work that are awkward...like the whole "attacking the scorpion" fiasco in English Final Fantasy VII (only fixed in the updated re-releases).

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Another opinion I have, is that sometimes localization is done with a wrong/misguided intent. Since different places will have different standards, what may be say, considered fine for kids in place A won't be in place B. But when B decides to bring the product over, instead of catering it to who it may be suitable for in place B (let's say teens for example), they won't do that. They'll instead change it so it can be suitable to their own kids as well. And depending on things, that can really hurt the product itself. Though I know sometimes they will have more than one version of the product available, the original and the modified one, so that can mitigate it.

You bring up a very good point here, in that standards for what is "appropriate" for various age groups are wildly different between countries. I mean, in Japan, the likes of Dragon Ball is aimed at boys from roughly 8 - 12, with all of the heavy violence and fanservice intact. The first few English dubs of Dragon Ball Z were also aimed at kids, for example, but they were heavily, heavily censored to excise what the execs thought was too intense to show to children...with bizarre and hilarious results (People didn't die in the original Dragon Ball Z dub...they got sent to "another dimension" instead. How about all those people in the helicopters and planes that were blown up? Nope, they're fine. Just parachuting to safety off-screen.)

Yeahh... It was as ridiculous as it sounds. We saw the same mentality with 4Kids, which is thankfully now defunct and no longer dubbing anime.

Shonen shows in general tend to get aimed at teens in the west simply because of this dissonance.

1 hour ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

I've always found the "rude" characters (Severa, Jakob, Azama) to just be funny. Nothing they've said has really made me go "that's too far", so far.

Oh, I agree with you to an extent. But...there's just something about original Azama that rubs me the wrong way. He just comes off as genuinely rude and arrogant (to the point that he becomes almost intolerable imo), whereas in the localization he comes off as more carefree, curious and innocently insensitive. They played up his lighthearted musings on life in the localization, which I think is for the better.

Though speaking of Severa, her character is wildly popular in Japan, but is widely disliked in America, due to her archetype. The Tsundere archetype is large disliked in the west, while it's popular in Japan. The Awakening localization seemed to emphasize her more negative traits for a reason I can't fathom, as in the original, she's not quite as abrasive. This is an example of negatively changing a character via localization, as it hurt the character's overall popularity in the long run.

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2 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

Some names had to be changed just because they're real places like "Silesia" to "Silesse," which would be distracting to at least a European audience.

I'm not sure if that's really the intent, considering places like Bern and Crimea remained as-is after localization.

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5 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'm not sure if that's really the intent, considering places like Bern and Crimea remained as-is after localization.

Bern was changed to "Biran" in the European localization of Blazing Blade (and Ostia to "Ositia"), but Crimea oddly remained intact for the PAL versions of POR and RD...don't know why they made an exception for that one.

EDIT: And the PAL version of Shadow Dragon had Macedon changed to "Medon." ...Which makes Crimea slipping by even more inexplicable.

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20 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the localization teams have some sort of anti-original FE sentiment. I mean, they've gone on record saying that they get two thumbs up from the original team in their name changes, and most everything else changed in the localizations. Granted, that interview is Treehouse rather than 3-H who localized Awakening, but I imagine it wasn't much different from 3-H.

I mean, considering no one in the west has ever even gotten an officially-localized Kaga game in the first place, I definitely don't think it's any anti-Kaga sentiment. it's not like they'd have any experience with his games whatsoever.

I mean, the problem with fan translations is that they tend to be awkward and stilted in a lot of places due to the general inexperience of the translators, and the fan translation of FE4 did change a lot from the original text - one Sylvia/Lewyn love conversation being one of them.

Some names had to be changed just because they're real places like "Silesia" to "Silesse," which would be distracting to at least a European audience. I think "Seliph" works well in the context, since "Celice" is a rather feminine name. (I mean, I know the guy isn't exactly the picture of masculinity himself, but his Heroes incarnation and voice is certainly very masculine-sounding.) Many of the FE4 names were changed to be actual mythological references rather than just similar (Siglud --> Sigurd; Diadora --> Deirdre; Delmud --> Diarmuid, etc.) Munnir was one of them...and besides, I'm pretty sure you can't legally get away with "Gandalf" in a western game the way you can with an eastern game.

I'll admit that I'm not keen on some of the localized names in comparison to the original (I dislike "Iucharba" and "Iuchar" as compared to "Johalva" and "Johan," for example), but considering they're mythological references whereas the former were not, I let it slide.

And a lot of the names of FE4 were changed to other mythological names from ones that would be awkward; i.e., "Ulster" is much simpler to read and pronounce than "Scathach," for example.

It's hard to believe IS has any contact with Kaga since their law suit, their relationship is obvious not a good one.

Honesty, since Marth is our favorite character, the "actual mythological references" argument is meaningless in many ways.

Renamed Skasaha (a better corrupted version than Scathach) to Ulster to match with a castle that has no relation to him is weird. And there is still no reason why his sub is Dalvin now.

 

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6 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

It's hard to believe IS has any contact with Kaga since their law suit, their relationship is obvious not a good one.

Eh, creators have left the companies they've worked for in the past due to creative differences. Doubt they care at all, to be completely honest.
 

6 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

Honesty, since Marth is our favorite character, the "actual mythological references" argument is meaningless in many ways.

Wait, what? How is it meaningless? And what do you mean, Marth is our favorite character? He's not my favorite character, and he's not the favorite character of plenty of Fire Emblem fans, nor is he even the most popular lord in the west. I mean, there are plenty of characters in FE who don't have directly mythological names, but there are just as many that do. The localized names tend to go for mythology just as the Japanese names do.

Also, there's evidence that "Marth" is a corruption of "Mars," the Roman god of war. The dub of the failed FE1 anime called him that,
 

6 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

Renamed Skasaha (a better corrupted version than Scathach) to Ulster to match with a castle that has no relation to him is weird.

I know I have no idea how to pronounce "Skasaha," nor "Scathach" (I think that's Gaelic, right?). "Ulster," on the other hand, I can get behind.

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5 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Persona! How could I forget about that in regards to good localizations? (Other than the first two games, as I have very little experience with them.) I agree that they did a great job localizing it for a western audience, even with the honorifics intact, and it definitely makes sense to include them.

Well I'm afraid that won't do in the case of Fire Emblem. Persona, as well as most SMT games, take place in Japan while Fire Emblem does not. If characters used honorifics in, say, Shadow Dragon. Then the localization team just made a huge change to the lore in making Archanea a nation based on Japan, clashing directly with the Euro-medieval setting the designers made for the game. On that note, Hoshido is a huge missed opportunity. A perfect opportunity to inject Japanese language and samurai culture into the dialogue, and instead we have Nohrians and Hoshidans speaking the same dialect of English. The Japan-ness of Hoshidans only coming off as skin-deep aesthetic. Though for all I know, the original script had this issue before it ever hit NoA.

One direct translation did make it into Fates, and it comes with Kaze and Saizo saying Mokushujin when referring to its ninja. This must have been an oversight, as there are many ways to say a person is from a certain nation in English. "Mokushan", or "these ninja are from Mokushu".

On the broader topic of "censorship", I refuse to dwell on what I imagine the artistic intent of anonymous Japanese men to be that wrote the game. Fire Emblem is a product, one that no doubt changed immensely from its original vision just on its way to store shelves in Japan. Fire Emblem isn't a portrait produced by one man, it's a collaborative effort from a company trying to make money and promote its brand. To say that the product has more artistic integrity in its Japanese release than it's international release is pretty wishful thinking. And I'm content with playing and critiquing the game that's in front of me. When I critique the game and somebody says "well in the japanese translation, she says it like this" that's not some counter-argument. That's a random piece of trivia.

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20 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

Well I'm afraid that won't do in the case of Fire Emblem. Persona, as well as most SMT games, take place in Japan while Fire Emblem does not. If characters used honorifics in, say, Shadow Dragon. Then the localization team just made a huge change to the lore in making Archanea a nation based on Japan, clashing directly with the Euro-medieval setting the designers made for the game.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely not advocating for honorifics in European-based settings, because then, they just plain don't make sense and are jarring in the context of the world. The original versions of, say, the animes Full Metal Alchemist and D.Gray-man have always sounded a bit strange to me, with the European casts (FMA takes place in a fantasy Germany, while D.Gray-man takes place mostly in an alternate universe/fantasy Britain, and characters travel all around Europe) using Japanese honorifics for each other. It's so nebulous in Japanese writing that they'll show up everywhere, and dropping them from the English dubs was a huge step forward in my opinion (And the FMA dub in particular is widely considered superior to the original version).

Stuff like Persona is different, because that's a very Japanese setting with very Japanese characters.

20 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

A perfect opportunity to inject Japanese language and samurai culture into the dialogue, and instead we have Nohrians and Hoshidans speaking the same dialect of English. The Japan-ness of Hoshidans only coming off as skin-deep aesthetic. Though for all I know, the original script had this issue before it ever hit NoA.

Inserting Japanese words or phrases into the Hoshidan characters' dialogue would be a misstep in my opinion. As I see it, it would be hamfisted and awkward at the best and just plain confusing at the worst, unless you're using words that have no real English equivalent (like kotatsu, for example). Have you seen those pictures and memes mocking bad anime subtitles, with sentences like, "And now, I put my keikaku into action" (Translator's Note: Keikaku means "plan."). It would just be immersion-breaking and odd.

Now that you bring this up, though honestly, I wouldn't have been opposed to seeing the Hoshidan characters using honorifics for one another in Fates, simply because they're a Japanese analogue. A "Sakura-chan" or "Ryoma-sama" definitely wouldn't feel out of place for me in the context of samurai, ninja, and Japanese royalty. though I'm sure others would object, and they risk alienating non-anime or manga fans.

20 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

One direct translation did make it into Fates, and it comes with Kaze and Saizo saying Mokushujin when referring to its ninja. This must have been an oversight, as there are many ways to say a person is from a certain nation in English. "Mokushan", or "these ninja are from Mokushu".

Really? Huh, I never knew about that, or noticed it while I was playing. Yeah, I imagine that must have been an oversight, since they don't use the "-jin" ending with anyone else in the game.

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24 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

Inserting Japanese words or phrases into the Hoshidan characters' dialogue would be a misstep in my opinion. As I see it, it would be hamfisted and awkward at the best and just plain confusing at the worst, unless you're using words that have no real English equivalent (like kotatsu, for example). Have you seen those pictures and memes mocking bad anime subtitles, with sentences like, "And now, I put my keikaku into action" (Translator's Note: Keikaku means "plan."). It would just be immersion-breaking and odd.

Now that you bring this up, though honestly, I wouldn't have been opposed to seeing the Hoshidan characters using honorifics for one another in Fates, simply because they're a Japanese analogue. A "Sakura-chan" or "Ryoma-sama" definitely wouldn't feel out of place for me in the context of samurai, ninja, and Japanese royalty. though I'm sure others would object, and they risk alienating non-anime or manga fans.

 

Honorifics are where I would start. But look at vocabulary like Saizo and Kagero referring to Ryoma as "Milord". That should have been a Nohrian thing while Hoshidan retainers break out the -sama. Also in the pre-conflict scenes of chapter 5, Corrin is exploring the market with his siblings and is beckoned over by a woman selling "roasted potatoes". Definitely not a food with a recognizable Japanese background. But nitpicks aside, Corrin's unfamiliarity with Hoshido makes him a perfect audience surrogate for describing what these Japanese things are that he (and possibly the player) are experiencing for the first time. No keikaku situations here.

But I'll say it again. The cultural sameness of Nohrians and Hoshidans is probably an issue evident in the original script as well. And thinking on it, Japanese have to read lines by Medieval knights who use honorifics that betray their setting. Language really does affect one's cultural understanding of the world.

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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

Eh, creators have left the companies they've worked for in the past due to creative differences. Doubt they care at all, to be completely honest.
 

Wait, what? How is it meaningless? And what do you mean, Marth is our favorite character? He's not my favorite character, and he's not the favorite character of plenty of Fire Emblem fans, nor is he even the most popular lord in the west. I mean, there are plenty of characters in FE who don't have directly mythological names, but there are just as many that do. The localized names tend to go for mythology just as the Japanese names do.

Also, there's evidence that "Marth" is a corruption of "Mars," the Roman god of war. The dub of the failed FE1 anime called him that,
 

I know I have no idea how to pronounce "Skasaha," nor "Scathach" (I think that's Gaelic, right?). "Ulster," on the other hand, I can get behind.

1. I mean they did not get approved by the original team, in the case of Kaga's games.

2. Marth is a corrupted version of Mars, it was accepted, so since they once go into that direction, claiming whichever of Silesia/Silesse or Alster/Ulster... is more accurate actual mythology reference than the other is meaningless. A corrupted version is okay and acceptable if it's good enough. Holsety is okay, changing it to Forseti is not necessary, same for Val/Fala, and I still prefer Aless over Ares.

3. The Skasaha/Ulster thing is a kind of faithless translation, and it is praised and welcomed by so many people, it made me horrified.

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Because Skasher sounds like something I'd do after I get food poisoning.

Anyway. . .I don't mind changes so that another audience can understand things.  BUT, when it turns into Pokemon donuts, it's just dumb.

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I'm largely going to echo the popular opinion of 'changes should be made if the alternative is that only extreme afficianados would actually understand what is being said'.

As an Australian, I have another perspective here: the games passing through America/Europe on the way. Both Fire Emblem and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks have names that are altered between NTSC and PAL releases (Ositia/Ostia, Biran/Bern, Lahus/Laus, Renault/Renaud for Fire Emblem... way more than I can start listing off memory for Spirit Tracks), and that makes living in an age where I discuss these games with a predominately American audience very confusing.

And while I'm on a Xenoblade kick, an example from that game of translation changes being for the better- the Mechon Face Units being changed from colours to minerals. Call 'Metal Face' a stupid name all you like, it's a lot better than 'Black Face'. That's probably all the evidence you need to say Xenoblade was always planned to come to America.
(Though that, in itself, is also a case of a not-quite-thorough translation).

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Multi official translation versions of the same game is weird enough.

While I understand and okay if you change sushi/tempura (before it's well-known) to pizza/donuts, but changing something unrelated to the context is what I don't understand.

It's like the team are so afraid that the players think they don't do their job seriously, so they change things and be proud that they did take their job very seriously and changed Sharon to Sharena, and Harold to Arthur, William to Lloyd.

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1 hour ago, hanhnn said:

1. I mean they did not get approved by the original team, in the case of Kaga's games.

In all fairness, Kaga and his team kind of forfeit all rights to the games they created when they left IS and Nintendo. Sure, they made the games, characters and plot, but they no longer belong to them, thus, they have no say in how they are handled in localization or otherwise (and even then, a lot of the time, it's largely executives that decide on how something will be handled in localization rather than the creators themselves.)

1 hour ago, hanhnn said:

2. Marth is a corrupted version of Mars, it was accepted, so since they once go into that direction, claiming whichever of Silesia/Silesse or Alster/Ulster... is more accurate actual mythology reference than the other is meaningless. A corrupted version is okay and acceptable if it's good enough. Holsety is okay, changing it to Forseti is not necessary, same for Val/Fala, and I still prefer Aless over Ares.

Different games and different goals. FE4 is by and large a whole plot reference to Norse sagas, from the structure of the game in its two acts with the second act starring the descendants of the first, to its tragic twist in the middle of the game, and themes of sons avenging wronged fathers. Updating and changing names to match actual Norse mythological characters was a part of getting that feeling across. "Forseti" is the god's actual name; "Holsety" is merely a reference/approximation. Same for "Valflame" and "Falaflame" and "Ares" over "Aless" (the latter is admittedly Greek, but still).

"Silesse" isn't a reference to a mythology; it's eliminating a reference to a real-world country that European players might find strange or immersion-breaking.
 

1 hour ago, hanhnn said:

3. The Skasaha/Ulster thing is a kind of faithless translation, and it is praised and welcomed by so many people, it made me horrified.

It's a lot easier on western eyes. By that logic, would you rather have Yofa and Asseray running around, because their localized names are "faithless translations" despite how awkward their original names would be to an English audience?

35 minutes ago, hanhnn said:

It's like the team are so afraid that the players think they don't do their job seriously, so they change things and be proud that they did take their job very seriously and changed Sharon to Sharena, and Harold to Arthur, William to Lloyd.

Names mean different things to different people. What is a perfectly acceptable name to a Japanese audience doesn't work for an English audience; in Japanese, English is a novelty, because it's interesting and different (that's why you often see badly-translated English on shirts and signs and such, and sometimes have characters in media spouting random English phrases in the middle of their dialogue). Thus, an English name like "Harold" or "Kevin" is perfectly fine for a fantasy setting, since it's alien to them in the first place.

These are extremely common names to Westerners, and in a fantasy setting, would stick out as unusual. The solution is to fantasy-ify them up; "Arthur" is a mythological reference, and "Kieran" in general sounds more fantasy and knightly. Final Fantasy VI did the same with the main character's name - she's Tina in the Japanese version, but after test audiences thought the name was too "normal," it was changed to Terra.

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10 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Many of the FE4 names were changed to be actual mythological references rather than just similar (Siglud --> Sigurd; Diadora --> Deirdre; Delmud --> Diarmuid, etc.)

Correction from a Japanese speaker:

Those weren't changes. Those were just names people got used to.

If you pronounced ディアドラ the way Japanese katakana at the same speed and intonation as a Japanese native, it would sound like Deirdre.

Siglud/Zigludo was just simply inexperienced transliterators. The mythological Sigurd had the same katakana.

One simple example I state that Katakana isn't as easy as transliteration of common words like "hamburger" is that katakana horrendously lacks the pronunciations other languages have. Salad isn't "Sarado". It's "Sarada".

It is an approximation... and sound and meanings aren't always 1-to-1.

There are exceptions. Exceptions to exceptions.

 

This sounds kind of elitist, but...

If you're so purist that you can't handle name changes... it's pretty much nothing will ever satisfy you besides the Japanese game. So import the game and learn Japanese.

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10 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

As an Australian, I have another perspective here: the games passing through America/Europe on the way. Both Fire Emblem and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks have names that are altered between NTSC and PAL releases (Ositia/Ostia, Biran/Bern, Lahus/Laus, Renault/Renaud for Fire Emblem... way more than I can start listing off memory for Spirit Tracks), and that makes living in an age where I discuss these games with a predominately American audience very confusing.

Ah, that's an interesting problem. Yeah, I remember all the Caeda/Shiida weirdness when Shadow Dragon first came out. Another PAL thing: I think that Xander is named "Marx" in the PAL version of Fates? I find it interesting that they'd keep "Marx" from the original when the name is definitely more recognizable to a European audience than an American audience. Wonder why they made an exception for him.

On a side note, "Leon" to "Leo" has always been weird to me. It's one letter removed...

It's much of the same with the Jugdral games, with people using both the original (fan-translated names) and the I localized Awakening names everywhere. One bit of weirdness, though, is the sudden switch from "Raquesis" (used in Awakening Spotpass) to "Lachesis" in Heroes...

10 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

And while I'm on a Xenoblade kick, an example from that game of translation changes being for the better- the Mechon Face Units being changed from colours to minerals. Call 'Metal Face' a stupid name all you like, it's a lot better than 'Black Face'. That's probably all the evidence you need to say Xenoblade was always planned to come to America.

Yeah, I remember this one, and I definitely think the change was for the better. Wasn't Xenoblade Chronicles originally only going to get a PAL release, which is why all the voice actors are British?
 

3 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

Correction from a Japanese speaker:

Those weren't changes. Those were just names people got used to.

If you pronounced ディアドラ the way Japanese katakana at the same speed and intonation as a Japanese native, it would sound like Deirdre.

Siglud/Zigludo was just simply inexperienced transliterators. The mythological Sigurd had the same katakana.

One simple example I state that Katakana isn't as easy as transliteration of common words like "hamburger" is that katakana horrendously lacks the pronunciations other languages have. Salad isn't "Sarado". It's "Sarada".

It is an approximation... and sound and meanings aren't always 1-to-1.

There are exceptions. Exceptions to exceptions.

Oh, this is cool to know! Yeah... I can't imagine how difficult it gets with Norse names or even Gaelic or Celtic names, with their strange (to an English speaker) pronunciations and spellings.

One question I have for you. So is this the same deal with the whole Ray/Raigh and Lleu/Lugh weirdness? Inexperienced fan translation?

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16 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

Ah, that's an interesting problem. Yeah, I remember all the Caeda/Shiida weirdness when Shadow Dragon first came out. Another PAL thing: I think that Xander is named "Marx" in the PAL version of Fates? I find it interesting that they'd keep "Marx" from the original when the name is definitely more recognizable to a European audience than an American audience. Wonder why they made an exception for him.

On a side note, "Leon" to "Leo" has always been weird to me. It's one letter removed...

It's much of the same with the Jugdral games, with people using both the original (fan-translated names) and the I localized Awakening names everywhere. One bit of weirdness, though, is the sudden switch from "Raquesis" (used in Awakening Spotpass) to "Lachesis" in Heroes...

Yeah, I remember this one, and I definitely think the change was for the better. Wasn't Xenoblade Chronicles originally only going to get a PAL release, which is why all the voice actors are British?
 

Oh, this is cool to know! Yeah... I can't imagine how difficult it gets with Norse names or even Gaelic or Celtic names, with their strange (to an English speaker) pronunciations and spellings.

One question I have for you. So is this the same deal with the whole Ray/Raigh and Lleu/Lugh weirdness? Inexperienced fan translation?

That is pretty much the inherent flaw in katakana.

レイ is the same kana for my name. And I know more than anyone how dumb it is for pronunciation.

Lleu, from what I heard, is the same pronunciation as Ray, Rey, Rei... etc.

Raigh also is the same if you change your intonation.

They're all "technically" correct. If anything, Lleu was more correct than all of them.

 

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3 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Ah, that's an interesting problem. Yeah, I remember all the Caeda/Shiida weirdness when Shadow Dragon first came out. Another PAL thing: I think that Xander is named "Marx" in the PAL version of Fates? I find it interesting that they'd keep "Marx" from the original when the name is definitely more recognizable to a European audience than an American audience. Wonder why they made an exception for him.

On a side note, "Leon" to "Leo" has always been weird to me. It's one letter removed...

It's much of the same with the Jugdral games, with people using both the original (fan-translated names) and the I localized Awakening names everywhere. One bit of weirdness, though, is the sudden switch from "Raquesis" (used in Awakening Spotpass) to "Lachesis" in Heroes...

Yeah, I remember this one, and I definitely think the change was for the better. Wasn't Xenoblade Chronicles originally only going to get a PAL release, which is why all the voice actors are British?

I actually don't own Fates- and I haven't even seen a Fates playthrough in American. Hell if I know who's named differently.

Yeah, apparently it was supposed to be PAL only, but I don't think blackface is as prominent or as heated in either Europe or Australia. Still possibly a good reason to change, but I think they'd have had the luxury to try and fix the Black Wreckage, at least.
(Or maybe it was last-minute and they didn't have the time to fix Black Wreckage).

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20 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Xseed! The localized The Last Story. Love that game to death. Don't know anything about the original version, though, except that the main character's name was changed to be something a little more manageable to western audiences.

Xseed didn't localize The Last Story, NoE did. Xseed simply picked it up to publish it in America after NoA decided to just sit on it, but the American release uses the same European translation, British actors and all.

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7 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

Another PAL thing: I think that Xander is named "Marx" in the PAL version of Fates?

Nope, still called Xander here, and the cutscenes seal it after all. 

Then again, the English versions in Europe are just the American versions exported. That's a shame imo.

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27 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Nope, still called Xander here, and the cutscenes seal it after all. 

Then again, the English versions in Europe are just the American versions exported. That's a shame imo.

Oh, huh. I could have sworn I saw a thing online with Xander being called "Marx" in a cutscene. Weird. Oh well.

But surprised you guys didn't get a different translation - that's been the norm for the other games, iirc. Wonder why Fates was the exception.

 

3 hours ago, Jave said:

Xseed didn't localize The Last Story, NoE did. Xseed simply picked it up to publish it in America after NoA decided to just sit on it, but the American release uses the same European translation, British actors and all.

Ah, my mistake. I wonder wondering why they were using British actors... Guess it wasn't just for flavor, lol.

 

4 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

Yeah, apparently it was supposed to be PAL only, but I don't think blackface is as prominent or as heated in either Europe or Australia. Still possibly a good reason to change, but I think they'd have had the luxury to try and fix the Black Wreckage, at least.
(Or maybe it was last-minute and they didn't have the time to fix Black Wreckage).

Generally, yeah, blackface isn't a controversial thing over there. And any blackface controversy pretty much a nonexistent thing in Japan...which leads to many darker-skinned and/or black-coded characters having stereotypical-looking features like large lips. I remember that Oil Man from the remake of the first Mega Man game had to be redesigned for the west (his "skin" was originally pitch black, and he had light pink lips), and they made his body blue and lips yellow. ...And then in the Mega Man Archie comic, they kept him blue but covered his lips with his scarf, just to be extra safe I guess.

And of course everyone remembers the Jynx fiasco from way back when...which was actually the result of westerners not knowing a traditional Japanese monster (the Yama-uba, iirc on the name, which is a mountain hag with pure black skin. Jynx was based on her, but westerners saw her as an insulting blackface stereotype, and her skin was thus changed to purple in subsequent games.)

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3 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

But surprised you guys didn't get a different translation - that's been the norm for the other games, iirc. Wonder why Fates was the exception.

To be honest, they take the American script for localising here, so any differences are going to be very minor. They don't even bother fixing American grammar like the misspelling of armour. Awakening was similar, though there are some differences I can remember there ("Boingy bits" anyone?)

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5 minutes ago, Dayni said:

To be honest, they take the American script for localising here, so any differences are going to be very minor. They don't even bother fixing American grammar like the misspelling of armour. Awakening was similar, though there are some differences I can remember there ("Boingy bits" anyone?)

Yup! What was that all about? Doesn't the PAL version of Awakening have an equivalent rating to our "Teen" rating, anyway? A reference to breasts (and one using a euphemism in the first place, made by a childish character) was too edgy or something for European teens? :P:

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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

Yup! What was that all about? Doesn't the PAL version of Awakening have an equivalent rating to our "Teen" rating, anyway? A reference to breasts (and one using a euphemism in the first place, made by a childish character) was too edgy or something for European teens? :P:

Well, keep in mind that in exchange, they didn't had the curtain partly covering her in her beach CG, unlike the American version.

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1 hour ago, Extrasolar said:

Yup! What was that all about? Doesn't the PAL version of Awakening have an equivalent rating to our "Teen" rating, anyway? A reference to breasts (and one using a euphemism in the first place, made by a childish character) was too edgy or something for European teens? :P:

Even more bizzare, it undid some of the American censorship in regards to her as well (the Summer Scramble CG for Tharja was censored in NA, which was undone here... for some reason)

Edit: Ninja'd again.

Edited by Dayni
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Europe uses the PEGI rating system, which goes 3, 7, 12, 16, 18. No points to what those numbers mean. They are judged on violence, bad language, fear, sex, drugs, discrimination, gambling and online play.

Australia uses a general classification system that goes G, PG, M, MA, R, X. G is for General audiences, PG requires Parental Guidance for young children, M is for Mature audiences, MA is for Mature Audiences (restricted to 15 and over), R is for Restricted to 18 and over, and X is R rating specifically for sexual content.

Examples of M rated games in Australia: Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, Hyrule Warriors (both ports), Twilight Princess (Wii). This list is just the games I happen to have.

According to the PEGI boards for Fire Emblem, Radiant Dawn and the 3DS titles are 12, Path of Radiance, Shadow Dragon and the GBA titles are 7. The older games are listed as such due to the poorer graphics showing less detail, though the newer games list the violence as causing 'minor injury only'. All 12 games are listed as having mild bad language, and Birthright (but not Conquest) is listed as having sexual images and/or sexual innuendo.
(I couldn't access a more detailed analysis like the large blurb Awakening has on the ESRB, so until I can, I'll assume PEGI doesn't have it).

Where does localisation fit into this? I don't know, but the fact that the ESRB goes E, E10+, T might suggest that our non-restricted ratings are actually applied to material appropriate for younger kids. What's ESRB 'T' like in America? How does it compare to PEGI 12 and Australian 'M'?

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