The only correction you made that actually cuts down on the original is a misunderstanding of the line. "Make your purpose plain" is an "explain yourself" rather than a "stop speaking in riddles". That one could be due to a lack of context, though.
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FFT War of the Lions translation sacrifices readability for pretentious prose
- Thread starter fvng
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The only correction you made that actually cuts down on the original is a misunderstanding of the line. "Make your purpose plain" is an "explain yourself" rather than a "stop speaking in riddles". That one could be due to a lack of context, though.
GearDraxon
Member
Don't worry guys, Treehouse will do the next one, and you'll get your easy-to-parse, doge-filled script.
Yabberwocky
Member
I definitely missed 8-4's Awakening localization after Treehouse's work on Fates. Blergh.
LousyTactician
Neo Member
Dang, I never realized this. Funny that a thread criticizing WoTL's translation just made me appreciate it even more.
deadscreensky
Member
The point of the thread was that this Final Fantasy Tactics translation sacrifices readability. The thread has done an extremely poor job of arguing that fact, with, from what I can see, zero examples that have managed to convince even a small minority of posters. (Yes, the thread's title tries to go further, but it doesn't even reach that elaboration's opening gate.)
I don't want to actively silence the OP, or this thread in general. (There are some interesting points being made, mostly peripheral to any purpose behind the thread's creation. And being about fundamentally pretty language there's a lot of fun stuff to read.) It's not a thread backfire in the sense that everybody should shut up and leave. (Which would be more of a "thread over", perhaps.) But most of the discussion is revolving around how absurd the whole premise is here. Outside of the fact you've hitched yourself to the OP's train, how could that possibly not be a backfire? Just because you make a thread about something ridiculous and a bunch of people jump in to talk about how ridiculous it is doesn't make that a successful thread! Getting people talking isn't the only criteria here.
Lee Chaolan
Member
What news have you is understandable, but I am come is ridiculous. lol
I like the stylized translation. I don't think the simplest way to convey information is always the best and I very much enjoyed the added personality that came with the stylization. It didn't make the sentences particularly hard to read and it still read in a very fun way.
I don't deny that, for example, "You speak false" could be written as "You're lying." But personally I find "You speak false" to be fairly self-evident, and still a creative way of conveying meaning, which I much prefer to the dry way.
I don't deny that, for example, "You speak false" could be written as "You're lying." But personally I find "You speak false" to be fairly self-evident, and still a creative way of conveying meaning, which I much prefer to the dry way.
Lee Chaolan
Member
Damn though if this thread isn't making me not want to play this. I bought the PSP UMD eons ago and can now play this on the big screen thanks to Henkaku. 
i don't see anything pretentious about the language used in this game.
the language used is designed to evoke a specific era in european language, not be a beacon of historical grammatical accuracy.
it's not difficult to understand either, unless you have zero exposure to literature.
i'm sorry for all those upset about the 'flowery dialog' but with respect, maybe you're just comfortable/complacent with the english you already know, and are insulted by the notion that you need to 'think' to comprehend something you feel you should automatically 'understand'.
the language used is designed to evoke a specific era in european language, not be a beacon of historical grammatical accuracy.
it's not difficult to understand either, unless you have zero exposure to literature.
i'm sorry for all those upset about the 'flowery dialog' but with respect, maybe you're just comfortable/complacent with the english you already know, and are insulted by the notion that you need to 'think' to comprehend something you feel you should automatically 'understand'.
well
like on one hand i enjoy how absurd it is and how stupid the renaming of characters are (zalbag -> zalbaag kills me)
but on the other the charm of the original is filtered pretty heavily in the new translation, like the board meeting where this recharacterization was approved was probably pretty interesting
clicking stasis sword and having agrias just call it steady sword because she felt like it was pretty meaningful to me as a kid too
i also want to mention that "blame yourself or god" has a sharp curtness to it and "tis your birth and faith that wrong you, not I" just reads as blame shifty "don't look at me ramza I just work here" shit
and also that I can't help reading all the lines in the voice of tim the enchanter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJZK6rzjns
like on one hand i enjoy how absurd it is and how stupid the renaming of characters are (zalbag -> zalbaag kills me)
but on the other the charm of the original is filtered pretty heavily in the new translation, like the board meeting where this recharacterization was approved was probably pretty interesting
clicking stasis sword and having agrias just call it steady sword because she felt like it was pretty meaningful to me as a kid too
i also want to mention that "blame yourself or god" has a sharp curtness to it and "tis your birth and faith that wrong you, not I" just reads as blame shifty "don't look at me ramza I just work here" shit
and also that I can't help reading all the lines in the voice of tim the enchanter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJZK6rzjns
Pinko Marx
Banned
It bothers me when people defend janky crap by saying its charming. What does charm mean here?
The original's translation made the story murky and unclear. There were some good lines as have been brought up in this thread, but overall the new translation puts a shine on story and adds a flair to it that gives the game a unique voice. It also gives the rest of the games in the Ivalice world a cohesion as they all share a similar language and tone.
Its ok if you prefer the original. But you're wrong. Objectively wrong
catapult37
Member
Remember how the original "Playstation" "game" had "quotations" everywhere to "emphasize" key "words?"
At least it's not "that."
At least it's not "that."
Weltall Zero
Member
What the hell, people. I've know what "mirth" means for decades and I'm not even a native English speaker. Seriously guys, read more.
i dont really care about all the positives you listed and prob dont agree w/ those things. what I mean by charming I guess is it's atemporal qualities, like how it weaves in cursing, how the naming of things aren't consistent, I dunno a whole bunch of things that get lost in the new translation. I don't think there's anything to defend in the orig translation because there is nothing wrong with it. it's like defending earthbound's translation, there is nothing to defend, it is it's own separate work to be seen in it's own context...
the idea that you can't like the original over the modernized one is completely foreign to me
but I guess making zalbag into zalbaag and olan into orran really shines the story up
oh dont forget algus into argath(?) lmao
Pinko Marx
Banned
if thats all you got from the retranslation then your opinion is even more wrong.
make another I am [x] joke and you'll get a combo multiplier to your wrongness.
Horseticuffs
Full werewolf off the buckle
I fell in love with the original work as a boy, but when I played War of the Lions as a man it truly won me over. Now, I'll be perfectly frank here, I've quite a love of purple prose so I took to WOTL like a duck to water.
I'll always have a place for Ivalice in my heart. I have not played a Final Fantasy since XII and I'm totally stoked that my NEXT Final Fantasy will be XII again.
I'll always have a place for Ivalice in my heart. I have not played a Final Fantasy since XII and I'm totally stoked that my NEXT Final Fantasy will be XII again.
The thread is mostly interested in being performatively excited to shore up their own self-image, though, which is why we've got geniuses describing the Japanese language as "too direct for good writing" and asking whether the player of a game meant to be a rough, unedited hidden chronicle has ever been to the theatre.
Lunarwhale
Member
War of the Lions is incredibly ambitious in what it tries to do and does a good job providing its own unique sense of flare to the localization. That being said, I don't really enjoy the faux olde English style that much of the cast speaks in. It's just not my preferred style of writing, and I rarely thought WotL completely accomplished what it set out to do. I think it suffers from a lack of brevity more than anything - which I understand is a stylistic choice, but there are many instances where it felt like they tried too hard to expand every phrase rather than leave some alone, which cost it some poignancy.
The "You speak false" line is a good example of this. "I'll not believe you" conveys mannerisms and speech well. "You speak false" feels ridiculous as an exclamation. The latter part of this line is already intended to serve as repetition and expansion of the first section. Expanding the first part is unnecessary, and makes the legwork of the second sentence redundant in effect rather than expansionary.
I actually like a lot of examples in the OP, but stuff like "I mislike this" feels like they were trying a bit too hard to avoid any more obvious options.
either "way" I'll "take" it over l i t t l e m o n e y, even if I'm endeared to the bluntness of the original (frequently nonsensical) translation.
The "You speak false" line is a good example of this. "I'll not believe you" conveys mannerisms and speech well. "You speak false" feels ridiculous as an exclamation. The latter part of this line is already intended to serve as repetition and expansion of the first section. Expanding the first part is unnecessary, and makes the legwork of the second sentence redundant in effect rather than expansionary.
I actually like a lot of examples in the OP, but stuff like "I mislike this" feels like they were trying a bit too hard to avoid any more obvious options.
either "way" I'll "take" it over l i t t l e m o n e y, even if I'm endeared to the bluntness of the original (frequently nonsensical) translation.
This is actually a reasonable criticism and one I concur with.
The game DOES indeed overreach, but I would argue that it does not do so with enough consistency to avoid the approach (quite unlike FF14).
Another editing pass however...
You just seem weirdly obsessed preferring the original translation just because the new one made some simple name changes.
There's a lot of things wrong with the original one. Badly, clumsily, too directly and sometimes wrongly translated shit, horrible grammar and typos galore. A few lines sound (arguably) better in the original game, but overall War of the Lions is just the vastly superior localization.
Count of Monte Sawed-Off
un33dab@dpu$$y
Ipad would be my pick.
Yeah I agree, but I never played the original. There's a Victorian/Baroque quality (maybe I'm misremembering it/misplacing it) to it I enjoyed very much.
Why do you have to convince people? It's just a conversation. I read the OP right when it was posted, agreed, and would have bet money on no one changing their mind. It's hard to make just one person switch sides from one opinion to another. In particular, I thought the first image was a solid example. I can understand it but it's something I had to think about it for a bit. Only a few people seem to be seriously addressing and debating OP's examples anyway. A lot are just making white noise posts saying they disagree in one sentence. For all we know they didn't even read or think about what the thread was saying. Especially considering how many generally just read the title and post and won't even try to engage. That's very common.
If I make a thread saying x popular game is flawed, I wouldn't be expecting most to go "Oh he's right, the game we all love is flawed!" That's not a backfire not getting that response.
it's something that stood out to me is all, coming from the original. like the idea that making into algus into argath was necessary is funny to me, I don't mean it as an argument for something haha, if anything it's a plus. every new name was hilarious. anyway, I feel like how I approach translation doesn't really mesh w/ most ppl in this thread, articles like these are closer to how I think of them: http://kotaku.com/the-man-who-wrote-earthbound-1188669175, http://therumpus.net/2015/07/the-rumpus-interview-with-jay-rubin/.
so I get the idea that the newer translation brings cohesiveness and packages the game as a more complete thing, but these things aren't meaningful to me like at all...that's ok right?
me preferring the original is just my personal preference, I like things like the text slowing down to match the timing of cutscenes, inconsistent spell/summon names, grammatical errors, like getting rid of these things is not at all important to me and changes the character of the game. like essentially the dissonance of the original plays a big part of why i enjoyed it, and the new translation goes to great lengths to stamp that out. the thing I like most about the new version is it's unabashedness, how it revels in how idiotic it is, it never lets up. but I like what they original put forward more is all, and the new one doesn't retain much of it.
I mean I definitely didn't expect a donald trump WRONG post in response but I guess maybe I posted too flippantly?
I agree with the OP on this. This translation as well as the modern translations of several Square Enix games (FFXIV and Bravely Default come to mind) come off sounding pretentious to me, which affects my enjoyment of these games. It seems to me that the translators often try to flex their literary muscles, choosing more obscure vocabulary and grammatical structures at every opportunity, even when it doesn't add anything to the text. It may give the translator a sense of self-satisfaction to be able to produce language like that, and in some cases players my feel pleased with themselves for understanding it (or inadequate if they don't).
But does it sound like something the character would actually say? Does it fit their personality? Does it sound like spoken English or written English? What does it add to the text itself? As a writer, am I genuinely trying to bring this world and these characters to life in a way that feels authentic and appropriate, or am I trying to prove something to myself and/or others? These are questions I think people should be asking when writing for games.
But does it sound like something the character would actually say? Does it fit their personality? Does it sound like spoken English or written English? What does it add to the text itself? As a writer, am I genuinely trying to bring this world and these characters to life in a way that feels authentic and appropriate, or am I trying to prove something to myself and/or others? These are questions I think people should be asking when writing for games.
Why wouldn't 18th/19th century prose be appropriate for a story about class war and knight-errants?
Unknown Soldier
Member
What Treehouse did to Xenoblade Chronicles X is literally a crime which should be punishable by death
There's a fan-translation of Fire Emblem If floating around, the entire main story of all 3 routes has been translated at this point and can be played beginning to end.
Pinko Marx
Banned
There nothing wrong with liking what you like. Even if what you like is sometimes incoherent and amateurish. I, too, sometimes enjoy things that can be confusing and unclear, because what is life without a
ｌｉｔｔｌｅ ｍｙｓｔｅｒｙ?
LinkSlayer64
Member
It's still readable.
indeterminacy is actually a pretty key thing to me when it comes to enjoying narratives lol
I can see why ppl wouldn't be into it, but if it's between the magical realism of the first trans vs. the referential historicity and narrative tightness of wotl, I'm def in the former camp
Never forget l i t t l e m o n e y, pls.
DarkConfidant
Member
This. They all speak that way so it seems normal for them.
I don't mind.
I remember the PSone game as being confusing to read, but it's been well over a decade since I've played that version.
l i t t l e m o n e y helped imprint my 8 yr old brain w/ the concept of class struggle before i even knew what class was!
i dont remember what the wotl translation is for the scene where ramza calls for a phoenix down because the iron giant kills mustadio, but that shit was tight too
i dont remember what the wotl translation is for the scene where ramza calls for a phoenix down because the iron giant kills mustadio, but that shit was tight too
Writing plainly or straightforwardly is fine, but that doesn't mean writing with flair or writing with a theme (in this case, WOTL is emulating classical plays) is an attempt to flex your "literary muscles".
I gotta think of some examples, but I've definitely played games that get a little up their own asses when it comes to philosophy. Probably some JRPGs.
Dragon Dogma's overused of "aught' comes to mind.
If there was ever a superfluous affectation to grace a localization it was that one. It's like they found one word that felt really archaic and then decided to stick it anywhere it could go because fuck yeah middle ages right?
Pinko Marx
Banned
Eh, that really doesn't even come into consideration for me. The plot to FFXV is pretty grounded, especially for a JRPG. The XIII trilogy is probably the worst offender.
Yeah I agree, but I never played the original. There's a Victorian/Baroque quality (maybe I'm misremembering it/misplacing it) to it I enjoyed very much.
That Victorianism is exactly why I like the writing but don't really feel it fits FFT.
Playing the original, with all its directness, feels as if I'm reading the diary of Olan Durai, often with dialog summarized down to his memories of broad topics and then expanded in my own mind.
Playing WotL, I expect that at any moment the camera will pan back to reveal that I'm on a date with Ashley Riot at the premiere of a controversial new historical drama.
WotL is still easily the better work for comprehensibility and accuracy, as to extend the metaphor the original carries all the inadequacies of men like Caxton.