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[hydragonwarrior]

I feel like I can empathize w/ ppl who find it pretentious, but to me I didn't really think the writer was trying to elevate the dialogue or anything, I really got a sense that the writer was just having fun w/ it

like to me this is both badass and knowingly silly

Holy crap Wiegraf went to town on that thesaurus. I don't remember anything being that ridiculously obtuse in the original...

 

[Haly]

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.

I never took the framing device that literally. I guess it's different for the original but with WotL's addition of the cel-shaded cutscenes, and given the artifical construction of the battlefield, I really felt like I was watching a stage play rather than reading a diary, which fits the nu-translation better.

 

[Pinko Marx]

Holy crap Wiegraf went to town on that thesaurus. I don't remember anything being that ridiculously obtuse in the original...

Succor is the only word close to being obtuse here.

 

[Haly]

As an aside, this is probably my first encounter with the word "mirth":

I owe a lot of my vocabulary to playing MTG in my formative years, so where others see archaism, I see the opportunity to broaden the player's literacy.

 

[Wolf Akela]

Succor is the only word close to being obtuse here.

Yeah, the rest of the words are common everyday words. Don't see why you'd need a thesaurus for it.

and lmao the l i t t l e m o n e y scene was a lot slower than I remembered.

 

[Resilient]

I agree with the OP. I'm not a fan of that translation style, particular how it appears in FFXIV. In FFXIV, it is clear that the translators intentionally go for more obscure word choices rather than clear ones, sometimes to the point of incoherence.

For example, instead of using the word machine, they use the word clockwork. Fine, right? Except, the word clock is never used in the game for a time-keeping device. They are refered to as an horologium or chronometer instead. Which is weird, since they use the word "bell" instead of hour for timekeeping. There is no internal logic, just a stubborn refusal to use plain language.

This eventually reached a boiling point in FFXIV in the Keeper of the Lake event, when the player first meets a really old dragon. It is a major scene that was supposed to add backstory and set up major future events. The conversation was utterly incomprehensible in the English version. The intended meaning was completely lost. I've heard that the devs had to take the translator to task over that debacle. Ever since, the flowery language has been dialed back a bit. Whenever that same old dragon talks later on, he speaks in completely plain language.

Fuck. I thought I was stupid when I got up to this bit and had 0 fucking idea what was going on. And I thought I was keeping up with the games story and language too. That shit was mentally cooked.

 

[PataHikari]

Nah that cutscene is very straightforward.
If you didn't know what's going on that's on you rather then the game.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

The only thing I prefer in the original is some of the names. Algus and Vormav roll off the tongue better than Argath and Folmarv or whatever the fuck. And Malak > Marach

That said, there are exceptions. Obviously "Queklain" was a bad translation of Cuchulainn haha

 

[Lothar]

I have another one.

What the hell does "mere will enough" mean?

 

[Haly]

Do you think sheer will is enough to achieve victory?

Can you understand this modernism?

You man enough?

Then you can parse that with just a little more effort.

 

[Basileus777]

I have another one.

What the hell does "mere will enough" mean?

That looks more like a punctuation problem than anything. But yeah, it's a poorly constructed sentence. There should probably be an "is" in there before enough.

Can you understand this modernism?



Then you can parse that with just a little more effort.

You can parse a lot of things, that doesn't make it a well constructed sentence. It's actually a pretty good example of sloppy writing creating muddled dialogue.

 

[MechaX]

I have another one.

What the hell does "mere will enough" mean?

... "Do you think mere will(power) (is) enough to see you victorious?" It uses dashes like it's Xenogears instead of just italicizing "will."

Like, the Wiegraf example is actually a pretty good one (simply because I don't even think Wiegraf is ever that theatrical when you get down to it), but this is kind of reaching.

 

[Famassu]

I have another one.

What the hell does "mere will enough" mean?

It just leaves "is" out and uses a bit unorthodox sentence structure. It's basically "Do you think mere will is enough"

 

[Son of Cervantes]

Just a quibble with all the people who keep mentioning "old English" as in "the English Shakespeare wrote his plays in."

Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in Middle English.

Beowulf was written in Old English, which looks like this:

http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/beowulf-oe.asp

The term Old English means something very specific. War of the Lions uses a faux Early Modern English.

 

[Valkerionseven]

I agree the language is overly lofty but it is a step up in terms of the original translation. Everything feels more serious and has more care.

Even if it reads like a wanna be shakespearian novel

 

[Haly]

You can parse a lot of things, that doesn't make it a well constructed sentence. It's actually a pretty good example of sloppy writing creating muddled dialogue.

So should we leave slang out of games entirely as well because they're not "well constructed sentences"? Or do we use vernacular, both common and esoteric, modern and archaic, to create atmosphere?

 

[Basileus777]

It just leaves "is" out and uses a bit unorthodox sentence structure. It's basically "Do you think mere will is enough"

In this case it's less unorthodox and more just poor. And yeah if you fix the sentence and make it a complete thought it reads a lot better.

So should we leave slang out of games entirely as well because they're not "well constructed sentences"? Or do we use vernacular, both common and esoteric, modern and archaic, to create atmosphere?

This is a bad comparison. WOTL uses faux-archaisms not real slang or vernacular. The image above is just an example of it being executed poorly. Saying that a particular sentence doesn't work is not passing judgement on whether games can have stylized dialogue.

 

[Platinumstorm]

As an aside, this is probably my first encounter with the word "mirth":

I owe a lot of my vocabulary to playing MTG in my formative years, so where others see archaism, I see the opportunity to broaden the player's literacy.

In western culture, I'm pretty sure 90% of people's first, and yearly, encounter with "mirth" is the We Three Kings song.

 

[Haly]

In western culture, I'm pretty sure 90% of people's first, and yearly, encounter with "mirth" is the We Three Kings song.

I have never heard of this song actually, either by its titles or lyrics. Nor do I see "mirth" in the lyrics.

Saying that a particular sentence doesn't work is not passing judgement on whether games can have stylized dialogue.

But it works fine for me? These phrases:

well constructed sentence

sloppy writing

muddled dialogue.

Are you passing judgement. I accept that not everyone can immediately read that sentence, nor that not everyone likes it stylistically, but what doesn't work for you works for me just fine. I wasn't passing judgement until you were.

 

[Mandoric]

I never took the framing device that literally. I guess it's different for the original but with WotL's addition of the cel-shaded cutscenes, and given the artifical construction of the battlefield, I really felt like I was watching a stage play rather than reading a diary, which fits the nu-translation better.

That's fair.

Honestly, where it really doesn't work for me is general spoken dialog in the MMOs - there the player's immediacy is indisputable, and all the "pray--" and "thou" ends up a sort of fantasy-themed "sempai" and "-tachi".

That said, I'm more than familiar with the idea that the target market likes that.

 

[Blargonaut]

I feel like I can empathize w/ ppl who find it pretentious, but to me I didn't really think the writer was trying to elevate the dialogue or anything, I really got a sense that the writer was just having fun w/ it

like to me this is both badass and knowingly silly

That line's great, but that "as you must" in the middle is redundant, IMO. Dude already said "when at last" so it's understood that he's implying that their defeat at his hands is inevitable? The "as you must" is just saying it twice, makes the delivery long-winded. It should've been:

"Your envenomed words succor me, for when at last you yield, their poison will consume you!"​

or my sick 101%-better edit:

"Venom your tongue may be, yet I'll see you choke on your poison yet. Now yield, as you must!"​

IMO

 

[Durante]

In this case it's less unorthodox and more just poor. And yeah if you fix the sentence and make it a complete thought it reads a lot better.

I don't agree. To me it sounds nice (and easily comprehensible) in the way it is originally written, and gives me a more unique feeling than if it had the "is".

Anyway, the more examples I see the more I like it. Also love the "succor" one. Someone had fun writing this.

 

[Haly]

Also people keep throwing out "faux-Shakespeare" as if it's some cardinal sin to imitate, even poorly, one of the seminal figures of Western literature.

I really hope you guys apply these literary standards to non-localized games, games actually written in English by English-speaking writers for an English audience, as well. I tend to be pretty choosy about games writing and even I consider some of the complaints in this thread to be picky beyond reason.

That's fair.

Honestly, where it really doesn't work for me is general spoken dialog in the MMOs - there the player's immediacy is indisputable, and all the "pray--" and "thou" ends up a sort of fantasy-themed "sempai" and "-tachi".

That said, I'm more than familiar with the idea that the target market likes that.

Well FFXIV is kind a travesty in this regard, and having recently finished Heavensward, rolling my eyes all the while, I can't defend it at all. But I also don't begrudge them working from a template like that because of the sheer amount of text. 90% of the playerbase skips it anyway. There is little merit, artistic or financial, to seriously editing MMO text like you would something smaller and personal like FFT.

 

[Deepwater]

I can't trust anybody who prefers the WOTL translation. I bet you guys prefer the Special Edition of A New Hope too.

 

[BigDes]

Also people keep throwing out "faux-Shakespeare" as if it's some cardinal sin to imitate, even poorly, one of the seminal figures of Western literature.

I really hope you guys apply these literary standards to non-localized games, games actually written in English by English-speaking writers for an English audience, as well. I tend to be pretty choosy about games writing and even I consider some of the complaints in this thread to be picky beyond reason.
.

I tend to think the Shakespeare sneering comes from not having an enjoyable experience of him in school and therefore shunning everything that looks and sounds like him.

Possibly why Shakespeare is always seen as this old fashioned fuddy duddy that wrote boring plays for old people and not the guy who, as an example, wrote a play about how usurping the throne always end in blood and failure and then performed it for the first time in front of a king who had literally just usurped a throne. Fucking balls on that guy.

 

[Blargonaut]

I have another one.

What the hell does "mere will enough" mean?

willpower

If it was me, though:

"Be ill of mind, you're nil boots still. No fill of will will till this hill."​

 

[Darksol]

I am come.

?

It's biblical imagery.

 

[Izuna]

Man, FFXII had beautiful voice acting. Balthier and Fran <3

Just read all of these lines in their voices. This is very Ivalice as intended

~~

I never actually finished FFT, but I love FFTA

 

[Dunan]

Dang, I never realized this. Funny that a thread criticizing WoTL's translation just made me appreciate it even more.

I didn't catch it when I played FFXII for the first time (the IZJS version, in Japanese but with English voice acting). I wanted to play it in Japanese because that was the game's original language and (with a decade or so of experience with JRPGs) I couldn't imagine the English translation being as good. I had played FFT in the original and had heard terrible rumors of how bad the English translation was.

But the spoken dialog in FFXII was so good that I eventually bought the English version and was just bowled over by how amazing it was (and that's when I finally noticed the constrained poetic style used by the Occuria; carried over into WotL and, I think, used a few times in FFXIV too).

The translators (Alex O. Smith and Joseph Reeder; they cannot be praised enough) added so many flavorful things to FFXII that the original lacked: differing accents for each region; the archaic speaking style that never becomes too overbearing; interesting naming conventions for the different races; a distinctive 19th-century-zoology-text style for the bestiary. These guys took video game translation to a new level with this game, and now it's hard to go back to anything that came before it. This game is an important milestone and I think future discussions of game translation will come to see it that way.

I totally understand if you're a non-native or are too young to have been exposed to these styles, but if you have enough English to read this thread, you can get through these games, and they're worth it.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

In western culture, I'm pretty sure 90% of people's first, and yearly, encounter with "mirth" is the We Three Kings song.

lol myrrh is not the same as mirth

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Never forget l i t t l e m o n e y, pls.

I always thought the translator for the PS1 version was paid little money and inserted this in the game as a joke of sorts.

 

[Dunan]

I always thought the translator for the PS1 version was paid little money and inserted this in the game as a joke of sorts.

It's not; the original really is like that. In Japanese, it works because each character is at least one syllable so you can slow it down and it's still normal. In English you would have to do it word by word; something like "We just... didn't... have... any... money."

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

This is the opposite of being true? Japanese is not generally very direct, requiring translators to fill in the blanks.

"Direct" was probably the wrong word to use there. I just meant that it's much less prone to the verbose, descriptive language you often see in English writing. Which is why literal fan translations of Japanese games are always very dry.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

I prefer it to be honest, and wish more games were written like this instead of the way most are written, dialogue needlessly repeated for emphasis and weight even though it is simple common english. I feel like most games dialogue treats the player like they are thick or illiterate.

Don't know a word? Google it and learn it. Fuck, not so long ago you had to go find a book to do that.

 

[Durante]

The translators (Alex O. Smith and Joseph Reeder; they cannot be praised enough) added so many flavorful things to FFXII that the original lacked: differing accents for each region; the archaic speaking style that never becomes too overbearing; interesting naming conventions for the different races; a distinctive 19th-century-zoology-text style for the bestiary. These guys took video game translation to a new level with this game, and now it's hard to go back to anything that came before it. This game is an important milestone and I think future discussions of game translation will come to see it that way.

I'd argue that you can say "anything that came before or after it".
I'm generally very hard on dubs and prefer the original acting, but FF12 was absolutely fantastic -- across the entire spectrum too: dialogue, flavor text writing, voice acting. Subsequent localizations by S-E were massive disappointments in comparison.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

It's not; the original really is like that. In Japanese, it works because each character is at least one syllable so you can slow it down and it's still normal. In English you would have to do it word by word; something like "We just... didn't... have... any... money."

The words "little money" are somehow displayed even slower than the rest of the text though. Clyde Mandelin describes it in the link I quoted: http://legendsoflocalization.com/qa-final-fantasy-tactics-has-little-money/

 

[Lucumo]

None of your examples seem weird to me, but I read books occasionally.

I first encountered the phrase "I am come" in Wuthering Heights. It does sound very odd.

This statement is not wrong.

 

[fvng]

Just a quibble with all the people who keep mentioning "old English" as in "the English Shakespeare wrote his plays in."

Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in Middle English.

Beowulf was written in Old English, which looks like this:

http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/beowulf-oe.asp

The term Old English means something very specific. War of the Lions uses a faux Early Modern English.

Yeah I think old english is just being used interchangeably just to indicate non-modern english.. but the issue is with what you pointed out as 'faux modern' english, which is fine except when it forgets it's supposed to be readable faux modern english, they throw ridiculous curve-balls or over-complicate something that could have been phrased simpler and more eloquent.

"I am come" is three very simple words. I don't think you understand what flowery means. "I mislike this" sounds a bit silly but flowery it is not, either.

None of the examples except maybe the first in the OP are all that purple-y,

That's the point, there are plenty of instances in the game similar to the first example... the rest were examples of things said silly when they could have been less eye roll inducing. "I mislike this" is easily understood but it doesn't make it less cringey

Some somebody say... backfire?

I will never get over how good this soundtrack is... I think I would put it on the same level as SOTC

Don't worry guys, Treehouse will do the next one, and you'll get your easy-to-parse, doge-filled script.

no one is asking for a dumbed down translation. WOTL is mostly an excellent translation, except for the times where the translators opted to unnecessarily complicate something that shouldn't have "I mislike this"

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.

Play it immediately

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'.

ooooh intellectual posturing. get over yourself, nobody is saying the text is Beowulf level of difficulty... for the most part the translation knocks it out of the park, except for the times it doesn't, which is what this inspired this thread.

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.

It'll be easy to persuade an XII-2 if the XII remaster sells well. Square Enix is fortunately very responsive to fan demand, better than most companies now I'd argue

 

[jett]

I wonder what's the text like in Japanese?

 

[fvng]

It just leaves "is" out and uses a bit unorthodox sentence structure. It's basically "Do you think mere will is enough"

The fact that you have to insert words in there for the sentence to make sense validates the fact that WOTL's translation stumbles many times.

Also there's a lot of people in this thread putting words in my mouth, I'm not saying this game is line for line incomprehensible, but there are times when the translators overcomplicated something that could have been easily said while retaining beautiful prose (most of my examples in my original post are exactly that)

 

[ethomaz]

I find the stylized translation unnecessary, and thus superfluous. "You speak false" could simply be "You're lying", "Make your purpose plain" could be "Speak clearly", "I mislike this" could be "I have a bad feeling about this".

I just much prefer something in line with the more straightforward Japanese script. I do acknowledge that it is a matter of taste.

I find the first option more in line with the period of FFT... and feudal Japan didn't speak like today too... the Samurai age was more like "You speak false" then "You're lying".

I guess you want something modern but some games didn't allow that due the period they place it story.

Another example I prefer how it is (fitting the period) than a direct modern translation... it gives more authenticity to the game.

BTW the is not required in this phase at all.

 

[Ganondorfo]

Man its weird that Square hasnt made a new Final Fantasy Tactics game for the PS4 with the same graphical style as Valkyria Chronicles. You can see that there are still a lot of fans that love the original (it gets a 10 page thread and thats big for a game from 1998).

I am sometimes daydreaming of a Final Fantasy Tactics 2 (not the other good Advance series), that is announced for the PS4 with a new Sakimoto epic score.

 

[BassForever]

You don't need the is in that example at all

"You think mere will enough" is just as valid as "you think mere will is enough"

 

[brian!]

That line's great, but that "as you must" in the middle is redundant, IMO. Dude already said "when at last" so it's understood that he's implying that their defeat at his hands is inevitable? The "as you must" is just saying it twice, makes the delivery long-winded. It should've been:

"Your envenomed words succor me, for when at last you yield, their poison will consume you!"​

or my sick 101%-better edit:

"Venom your tongue may be, yet I'll see you choke on your poison yet. Now yield, as you must!"​

IMO

The "as you must" really makes it for me, it reminds me of the soliloquy from the tart toter in adventure time

For ref: https://youtu.be/L4WBYhIBTIc

I want to reiterate tho that the excessiveness of the new translation is a plus to me, but i prefer the tone of the orig

 

[Lunarwhale]

I tend to think the Shakespeare sneering comes from not having an enjoyable experience of him in school and therefore shunning everything that looks and sounds like him.

Possibly why Shakespeare is always seen as this old fashioned fuddy duddy that wrote boring plays for old people and not the guy who, as an example, wrote a play about how usurping the throne always end in blood and failure and then performed it for the first time in front of a king who had literally just usurped a throne. Fucking balls on that guy.

Kind of the opposite for me at least. I love Shakespeare, but immitations tend to lack his wit and self-referential irony. His style was entirely his own, fabricating his own version of the language for melodrama, and he was aware of it, taking it to ridiculous extremes for the sake of theater that manages to be both engaging and knowingly outlandish, melodramatic, and gutsy. It's because of that I tend to be more critical of attempts to mimic his style. Works that copy his diction and structure but leave out his humor lose so much of what makes Shakespeare special and enduring.

That being said, I'm working through War of the Lions right now, and admittedly am catching a bit more of that. The Wiegraf line, out of context, is actually pretty good - the intentionally excessive and ornate flow of the line does a neat job conveying feeling while drawing attention to its own melodrama. I still think that for Shakespeare-inspired dialog, WotL holistically lacks brevity (excess loses effect when it's standard), but I'm beginning to appreciate its effort more now.

 

[fvng]

Another example I prefer how it is (fitting the period) than a direct modern translation... it gives more authenticity to the game.

BTW the is not required in this phase at all.

Fitting but is it the best possible way to communicate what he's saying? If it's leaving players scratching their heads, then there's a better way to say it while being faithful to the period/setting of the game.

 

[Durante]

Fitting but is it the best possible way to communicate what he's saying?

The clearest possible communication to the largest possible target audience cannot be the only purpose of writing in entertainment. Otherwise everything should be ELI5.

 

[Sibylus]

Fitting but is it the best possible way to communicate what he's saying? If it's leaving players scratching their heads, then there's a better way to say it while being faithful to the period/setting of the game.

Voice matters too. Bluntness is not optimal all of the time. What a character doesn't say is just as important as what they do say.

 

[entremet]

The original localization is a mess. I can't believe anyone prefers it other than nostalgia.

 

[Ratrat]

Would have been awesome if it was all voiced like FF12.