Culture Wars General - KiA Diet Coke Edition

[Coldsteel the Hedgehog]

It also matters in the context of the IP itself. Sure, changing the dialogue in one game isn't an issue, but what happens when you change an entire character and then a sequel comes out? Now your translation department is scrambling because that one guy you retconned as being a sweet dindu nothin is revealed to be mega-hitler and you either have to rewrite the entire game's script or backtrack and retcon your own game. This isn't even touching on the nightmares of brand consistency or you accidentally rewriting the forshadowing to a big reveal and fucking up pacing.

It's also just largely disrespectful to the original writers, but I have a feeling you don't really care about that part. IMO, Woolyisms are a lot different than butchering a game. Nobody's complaining you replaced a pun about Japanese work culture to something more relevant, they're complaining about intentionally fucking with a script in a way that isn't productive or useful and dates it before it's even been released.

 

[AnOminous]

The blizzard thing sounds like a huge smear piece. So yea, someone sexually harassed someone once? Big fucking whoop.

If this shit was for real you'd find an employment lawyer and take them to the cleaners, not whine on social media about abloo abloo they wanted me to WORK and stuff cryin rn.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

If this shit was for real you'd find an employment lawyer and take them to the cleaners, not whine on social media about abloo abloo they wanted me to WORK and stuff cryin rn.

You underestimate just how retarded and social media/dopamine addicted some people are...

 

[Pig Boss]

Pulling/Putting a Porkie is a slang term for lying

Lol, no it's not.
You tell porkies. You don't put or pull them. If you're going to tell people about colloquialisms and how difficult they are to translate you should probably try not to fuck them up in your examples.

 

[Marissa Moira]

A single line can have a huge impact on a story.

Imagine if instead of "Luke, I am your father." was replaced with "Come at me bro! Epic trollololol! #BLM", it doesn't just ruin that one line or one scene, but the entire Star Wars trilogy.

But as @BananaSplit showed, this isn't just "a single line", scenes have been changed, entire character personalities have been changed.

That's not a good comparison because it's a hypothetical. You need a literal error like that that's actually happened. Something like what happened with Justice League would be a more realistic example, but that had entire scenes removed and reworked, that's what you need for a major tonal shift. It takes way more than single line to do that. You have the theatrical cut which had studio meddling and you have the more recent director's cut. That provides two versions to compare and contrast.

The thing that sticks out about the fan translations of Neo is that they're flat like Shenmue, the original Japanese language used in neo doesn't come across like that. So the corrections are not accurate either in terms of conveying the proper tone.

Lol, no it's not.
You tell porkies. You don't put or pull them. If you're going to tell people about colloquialisms and how difficult they are to translate you should probably try not to fuck them up in your examples.

Yeah well my relatives are from around Hampstead if that explains their improper use of lingo. I mean people don't consider Austin a part of Texas in much the same way.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Yeah nobody gives a shit about the Chinese, Korean, Spanish, or assorted European translations. But rest assured they usually take just as many liberties overall as English speakers do.

Do you think every region and every company for every translates from Japanese or uses the english translation? Translators from english to [language[ will be far more common in all those regions than translators from Japanese.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Do you think every region and every company for every translates from Japanese or uses the english translation? Translators from english to [language[ will be far more common in all those regions than translators from Japanese.

I mean in general yes translators from XX language to English are far more common because English is far more widely used in general. But you're also talking about games which does have people who specialize in very specific things.

Quite a few translations in Korea are done from Japanese to Korean. Certain liberties have to be taken with those as well.

But what I mostly referring to was the westerners being the ones who tend to make the biggest noise when it comes to accuracy, but not thinking that other countries tend to do the same. Theirs isn't a unique case of circumstances, it's just how translating things work globally.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Quite a few translations in Korea are done from Japanese to Korean.

Yeah but we don't live in Korea or speak Korean so I can say with 99.9999999 percent certainty that the west won't give a fuck about any kind of faithful korean translation, we live in the western world after all and buy games there.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Yeah but we don't live in Korea or speak Korean so I can say with 99.9999999 percent certainty that the west won't give a fuck about any kind of faithful korean translation, we live in the western world after all and buy games there.

I dunno I mean currently you have K-Pop which in turn has caused a many in a few western fan circles to pick up the language.

Korean RPGs have made it stateside but most of them have been MMos and very few single player ones. Kim Hyung Tae's art books have been published in English and he did a ton of work specifically related to games, although I don't think they've had reprints since Tokyopop and the likes went under. I don't even think Dark Horse has the rights to them and they picked up quite a few things from publishers who went bust.

Some stuff is just more common there, like the physical release of the Legend of Mana HD release.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I dunno I mean currently you have K-Pop which in turn has caused a many in a few western fan circles to pick up the language.

Korean RPGs have made it stateside but most of them have been MMos and very few single player ones. Kim Hyung Tae's art books have been published in English and he did a ton of work specifically related to games, although I don't think they've had reprints since Tokyopop and the likes went under. I don't even think Dark Horse has the rights to them and they picked up quite a few things from publishers who went bust.

Some stuff is just more common there, like the physical release of the Legend of Mana HD release.

Ok, but how in any way does that have anything to do with western translation?

 

[Marissa Moira]

Ok, but how in any way does that have anything to do with western translation?

I'm just saying that similar things happen regardless of language.

I mean throwing in an among us joke may be considered gauche, but they're really over reaching with just how much was lost in translation.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I'm just saying that similar things happen regardless of language.

I mean throwing in an among us joke may be considered gauche, but they're really over reaching with just how much was lost in translation.

Did the korean versions get translated to any other language?

 

[BananaSplit]

For example the ace attorney games in spanish even tho they share a lot with the english translation dont have as many quirky changes, granted those where translated by nintendo for europe but still, even games like dq11 in spanish are far more tame compered to the english one.

I remember the english translation of DQ11S to be so much a pain to read, back when I tried the demo on PC last year, that importing the japanese version was another reason why I ended up getting a Switch later (JP version on PC is region-locked on Steam).

Ok, but how in any way does that have anything to do with western translation?

I believe he's trying to gaslight you in a futile attempt to ultimately "win" the debate since he keeps spouting dumb crap repeatedly, and his overall lack of knowledge and experience in vidya is not helping him either.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Did the korean versions get translated to any other language?

For stuff like Black Desert Online, yes that went from Korean to other languages.

I believe he's trying to gaslight you in a futile attempt to ultimately "win" the debate since he keeps spouting dumb crap repeatedly, and his overall lack of knowledge and experience in vidya is not helping him either.

Boy talk about mischaracterization.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

For stuff like Black Desert Online, yes that went from Korean to other languages.

No, actually, they were korean so they did not translate from jap to kor to the west as you claim. Name five games that had a western translation based on the korean version of the japanese original.

edit: you can't say any of the Y's games.

 

[Marissa Moira]

No, actually, they were korean so they did not translate from jap to kor to the west as you claim. Name five games that had a western translation based on the korean version of the japanese original.

edit: you can't say any of the Y's games.

Oh I misunderstood. I thought you meant using the Korean language as a base in general for a game.

Princess Maker used the Korean version for the Chinese edition. But Nobody really knows of that series outside it turning up when Troons get busted by the cops.

Ys 2 may not count as a true Ys game anymore since falcom is de-canonizing it like Mask of the Sun and Dawn.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Oh I misunderstood. I thought you meant using the Korean language as a base in general for a game.

No you didn't. I will only forgive you if you give me a rating.

 

[Marissa Moira]

No you didn't. I will only forgive you if you give me a rating.

You can't just force a centrist to rate just one thing specifically.

That's beyond low.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

You can't just force a centrist to rate just one thing specifically.

That's beyond low.

Being something of a centrist myself I know we can enjoy things, like mmm this is a good crepe even if I hate them.

edit: and might have come from Korea.

 

[ZMOT]

It's also just largely disrespectful to the original writers, but I have a feeling you don't really care about that part. IMO, Woolyisms are a lot different than butchering a game. Nobody's complaining you replaced a pun about Japanese work culture to something more relevant,

it's a discussion that will never be solved, but when I play or watch a japanese creation that features japanese work culture (which is pretty unique all things considered) - or any other foreign material for that matter - I wanna know why the author chose that pun, and I can still appreciate it even if I didn't go "I understood that reference" captain america immediately. not to mention most replacements fall short of the original anyway (if they're so good a writer that they can localize puns they most likely don't work as videogame translators for shit pay to begin with). honestly I take some mangled machine translated engrish over all the "lol so quirky I'm so clever" translations. if you wanna jerk yourself off write a fucking book.

honestly that annoys me more than the examples @BananaSplit posted, dialect still keeps the original intact, just changes it's form. a translation note how this should be kansai or whatever wouldn't really suffice either since that requires a lot more background than something grammatical.