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[BlueBadger]

i genuinely hadn't even noticed as I'm playing but this



is hilarious. Why would anybody want it patched?

This is my take on it as well, actually. I just had a look through some of those screenshots (was careful not to spoil myself much) but I actually started dying from laughing at some of them. Tbh i'm tempted to just play through it before they change it

 

[Wagram]

I mean. The localization isn't great, but it's not like they needed to do this either.

 

[Taruranto]

There was a big hole in their localization effort

Damn, this one is good.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I mean, there’s one scene where even if you chose to play in English the Japanese dialogue will play. And i’m Pretty sure that scene was a flashback to earlier in the game too lol

 

[Durante]

For those who didn't know why NISA had to issue an apology in the first place...

https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

I hadn't seen these before. Things like the English location names being better in the Japanese version and completely wrong item descriptions really shouldn't happen.

 

[Korigama]

NISA undercutting XSeed led to a lower quality localization than what the series had been getting while Falcom stuck with the latter? What a shock...

Yes, good on them for admitting that they screwed up, but needing to redo everything after the game already released shouldn't have happened in the first place. I admit to not having any particular investment in Ys, but this potentially foreshadowing something like either them or Aksys taking over for Trails in place of XSeed is unnerving (both because of the level of effort that XSeed have put into quality localizations for the series up until now, as well as consistency as a result of having been the ones to localize more than half of the Kiseki games already).

 

[Dreamwriter]

i genuinely hadn't even noticed as I'm playing but this



is hilarious. Why would anybody want it patched?

I don’t see how that could be written better, maybe I’m just not a writer. It’s definitely not hilarious - she’s introducing herself, pauses on giving the rest of her name, and then says to just call her by her first name.

 

[vkrili]

I mean. The localization isn't great, but it's not like they needed to do this either.

Items in menus are completely messed up. Filled to the brim with errors. Say what you will about the localization (it's bad), but the errors absolutely need to be fixed to show even the slightest veneer of caring about the quality of their releases.

 

[sibarraz]

As both an FF15 and YS 8 player who enjoyed both games, Im having an horrible dejavu

 

[bbkkristian]

Nice. Too add to the requests: Replace any instance of "Ancient Species" with an actual proper name. It sounds so bad, especially when the characters use that term so frequently.

 

[petev11]

I'll probably hold off on playing the game any further until it is patched. It's unfortunate that I've been playing the game for more than 25 hours and I feel like I should start over once the patch is released. The localization is really poor and the dialogue tends to be overly literal, almost like a machine translation.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I don’t see how that could be written better, maybe I’m just not a writer. It’s definitely not hilarious - she’s introducing herself, pauses on giving the rest of her name, and then says to just call her by her first name.

Except she doesn’t give her full name.(and even if she did it’d still be bad because people rarely use the full name to refer to someone) It’s obviously a direct translation of the Japanese where the implication would be not to add honorifics like San after her name, but since those don’t really exist in English it’s just awkward

 

[petev11]

Nice. Too add to the requests: Replace any instance of "Ancient Species" with an actual proper name. It sounds so bad, especially when the characters use that term so frequently.

Yeah, I'm so sick of hearing "Ancient Species" or "Dragon Species." It doesn't sound natural at all and I don't think I can take much more of it!

 

[asagami_]

Well, between the localization and the PC port problems, especially the latter, it wouldn't surprise me if the key people at Falcom are not very happy with NISA, so this apology was kinda expected.

 

[FLD]

I can't help but wonder if word of their shitty localization reached Falcom and they were the ones who made them fix their mess.

The PC delay kinda feels like a blessing in disguise now, though. I'm kind of over it at this point. I'm not really anticipating the game anymore, so knowing it's not coming for at least another month and half doesn't really bother me as long as the final product is good.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

This is super great in theory, but honestly I cannot see how this will go well if it is supposed to be release at the end of November. There is no way they don’t have to either really overwork their employees to get it done or it just end with it being only slightly less shitty than before.

 

[Saint of Killers]

Anyone care to translate that apology Ys VIII translation style? /cruel

 

[Oreiller]

I can't help but wonder if word of their shitty localization reached Falcom and they were the ones who made them fix their mess.

I don't think so, they probably started working on this improved localisation quite early if it really releases in November. I hope so at least, for the sake of the translator in charge.

 

[SliceSabre]

Shocking, most companies pretend like there's nothing wrong and other people who do localization come to their defense regardless.

Good to see NIS own up.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Except she doesn’t give her full name.(and even if she did it’d still be bad because people rarely use the full name to refer to someone) It’s obviously a direct translation of the Japanese where the implication would be not to add honorifics like San after her name, but since those don’t really exist in English it’s just awkward

So you read the original Japanese and that’s exactly what this is? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass? It doesn’t seem like that to me. Like I said, to me it sounds like she starts to give her full name, pauses, decides against it, and says to just call her by her first name.

Maybe this is just a bad translation to people who know a little bit of Japanese (possibly from watching lots of anime) and make lots of assumptions based on that, or thinking it sounds “too Japanese”?

 

[vkrili]

I don't think so, they probably started working on this improved localisation quite early if it really releases in November. I hope so at least, for the sake of the translator in charge.

The story was picked up by Japanese sites and sent to Falcom directly. There's no way they're not aware of what's going on, at least.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

I don't see how that could be written better, maybe I'm just not a writer. It's definitely not hilarious - she's introducing herself, pauses on giving the rest of her name, and then says to just call her by her first name.

when translating the goal would be to convey meaning and feeling, not direct correlation. Honorifics are one of the most commonly fucked up things in localizations. Companies either leave them in (like atlus for persona) which can be acceptable but never ideal, or just botch the localization completely by adding non equivalent words.

Like when you have a localized character calling someone "Miss/Mr. X" in a situation where its not called for, which in English isn't many.

This instance is just silly as it drops the honorifics but maintains that sentence structure.

The whole feeling that is being conveyed is that they are wanting to be relaxed and casual. You can convey that very easily in a simple english sentence

Current: "Okay, My name is Alison. Please just call me Alison"
More natural english: "Alright, I'm Alison. Its nice to meet you"

"I'm xxxxx" is the usual casual greeting for an English speaker. You wouldn't say "My name is" without responding to a specific question or in a more formal setting such as an interview or presentation and usually demands a full name such as "My name is John Smith and I am the director of human resources" or something similar.

 

[bishopcruz]

As expected, the fan's notions reached Falcom and NISA.

Seriously though, I wonder if that fan petition I heard about a while back had anything to do with this?

 

[danthefan]

Shit happens, it's fairly refreshing to read a no excuses "we simply fucked up" explanation. Will buy for PC.

 

[Pooya]

that really looks like google translate lol

 

[Dreamwriter]

when translating the goal would be to convey meaning and feeling, not direct correlation. Honorifics are one of the most commonly fucked up things in localizations. Companies either leave them in (like atlus for persona) which can be acceptable but never ideal, or just botch the localization completely by adding non equivalent words.

Like when you have a localized character calling someone "Miss/Mr. X" in a situation where its not called for, which in English isn't many.

This instance is just silly as it drops the honorifics but maintains that sentence structure.

The whole feeling that is being conveyed is that they are wanting to be relaxed and casual. You can convey that very easy in a simple english sentence

Current: "Okay, My name is Alison. Please just call me Alison"
More natural english: "Alright, I'm Alison. Its nice to meet you"

"I'm xxxxx" is the usual casual greeting for an English speaker. You wouldn't say "My name is" without responding to a specific question or in a more formal setting such as an interview or presentation.

Is that the exact Japanese text in this specific case, that she’s saying not to use honorifics with her? You’ve read the original text?

 

[GoldandBlue]

I can't help but wonder if word of their shitty localization reached Falcom and they were the ones who made them fix their mess.

The PC delay kinda feels like a blessing in disguise now, though. I'm kind of over it at this point. I'm not really anticipating the game anymore, so knowing it's not coming for at least another month and half doesn't really bother me as long as the final product is good.

I wouldn't be surprised.

https://twitter.com/ClydeMandelin/status/916350654683033600

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Is that the exact Japanese text in this specific case, that she’s saying not to use honorifics with her? You’ve read the original text?

I have not unfortunately, that is an assumption on my part. Though even if I'm wrong on the reasoning for the English being so off, its still off.

 

[Lunar15]

Good on them for owning up to it.

Wish P5 could get another pass. I think both this game and that game's problems are way overblown, but I would be lying if I said that they didn't have problems worth fixing.

 

[Aaronrules380]

So you read the original Japanese and that’s exactly what this is? Or are you just pulling that out of your ass? It doesn’t seem like that to me. Like I said, to me it sounds like she starts to give her full name, pauses, decides against it, and says to just call her by her first name.

Maybe this is just a bad translation to people who know a little bit of Japanese (possibly from watching lots of anime) and make lots of assumptions based on that?

i’m assuming based on the context and my understanding of Japanese culture and the type of translations used that this is a 100% accurate but entirely literal translation and then using my knowledge of Japanese culture to easily identify why it makes sense there where it’s awkward here. And again, even if we’re supposed to imply that she said her full name (There’s no hint that this actually happened though), it’d Still be awkward since people don’t typically address each other by full names. If I said “hello my name is John Smith” then pretty much any normal individual is going to instinctively refer to me by John immediately after, not John Smith

 

[Zippedpinhead]

I’m glad I put my playthrough on hold.

I just can’t even. Honestly I don’t think this would have happened with XSEED (delays probably but not translation fails)

 

[Father_Brain]

NISA undercutting XSeed led to a lower quality localization than what the series had been getting while Falcom stuck with the latter? What a shock...

Yes, good on them for admitting that they screwed up, but needing to redo everything after the game already released shouldn't have happened in the first place. I admit to not having any particular investment in Ys, but this potentially foreshadowing something like either them or Aksys taking over for Trails in place of XSeed is unnerving (both because of the level of effort that XSeed have put into quality localizations for the series up until now, as well as consistency as a result of having been the ones to localize more than half of the Kiseki games already).

On the positive side, XSEED didn't start producing PC ports of Falcom's newer games until NISA and Aksys gave them competition for the localization rights.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

Is that the exact Japanese text in this specific case, that she’s saying not to use honorifics with her? You’ve read the original text?

It's a bad line regardless of the original text. A good localization wouldn't preserve something like that as it sounds awkward in English.

 

[Viale]

There was recently a campaign of people taking complaints straight to Falcom, I kinda wonder if that played a part in this (ie Falcom got word that NISA did a shit job and yelled at them for it.)

This was my thought as well. I wonder if there was an ultimatum involved in it. I already beat and really enjoyed Ys 8, but this gets me hyped for when I inevetibly replay for the plat.

 

[Quonny]

This is one costly mistake, but good on them.

Game is one of my favorite games of all time. No one should miss it, especially after this update.

 

[Phu]

Mephorashmoo

 

[jorgeton]

Welp. Literally in the last dungeon right now so a non event for me.

But glad it's getting fixed. The translation was probably the worst part of an amazing game. Felt like someone copy/pasted the script into google translate then cleaned up the grammar a tiny bit.

Big Hole, never forget.

 

[Moonlight]

Not sure why NISA is getting kudos for releasing a subpar product, saying nothing about plainly obvious problems with its' script prior to its' release and then announcing a bandaid when it became clear that people weren't willing to settle as they did with something like Persona 5. A month and a half is not enough time to go through this game's script, re-translate it, edit it, and proofread it without compromising heavily on at least a couple of those things. In reality, more like just a month since this translation patch presumably has to be certified to ensure it doesn't introduce more problems.

The worst part is that they talk about the game's translation like it's some great mystery how it was so undercooked and how they'd be 'investigating' the causes as though they weren't obvious to anyone with a realistic impression of how long high quality localization work really takes. The expected turnaround time for the script was insanely low, it's no surprise that the translators and editors couldn't turn in something acceptable when they were working under such insane deadlines on such a massive project. It's pretty obvious to me that the core of Ys VIII's problems stemmed from the very premise of how soon they promised it'd be accomplished. I imagine it had to have been a key factor in securing their bid for the title and considering everything that came after I can't imagine they gave a single thought about how they'd actually accomplish this until it showed up on their desks.

So they're okay with throwing the people who worked under it under the bus and do absolutely zero self-reflection on their actual localization practices. They broke basically every promise and low balled nearly every standard of acceptable localization because they couldn't see beyond the dollar signs in their eyes. I don't think they deserve a round of applause for that. Or the slightest bit of understanding. This has been an embarrassing story from start to finish.

 

[Soran]

Yeah, it probably lacked an editing pass or two I guess. I wasn't too bothered by it at first but it gets pretty awkward in the later parts of the game.

Yeah. I was checking Twitter yesterday for fanart and I saw a lot of japanese fans retwitting that article.

 

[JetSetRadio]

I'll give it a shot at 20 bucks, haven't played the franchise but reviews were surprisingly good.

 

[Oreiller]

The story was picked up by Japanese sites and sent to Falcom directly. There's no way they're not aware of what's going on, at least.

Yeah but if they're going to release it in a month, they probably started working on it quite a while ago. There's a ton of text in this game, I doubt they could fix it in such a short amount of time.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

So, this doesn't really confirm that pointed fan messages from overseas fans can reach Falcom and force an apology like this, but the factors and timing add up just right. I think Falcom staff saw both e-mails (based on a polite Japanese letter about the localization's flaws) and at least two popular gaming sites reporting on the Reddit thread where it all started. Falcom's president used to run a fan site himself, and maintains intimacy with fans as a core tenet of the company, so it's no surprise if he decided to take NIS to task about how their Western subsidiary handled this year's flagship Falcom release. All told, I'm glad to have this much encouragement, though I hope it leads to XSEED and Aksys vying more aggressively to please Falcom by not letting fans down. That's just better for us in general, though I only really trust XSEED since they prioritize localization quality more than NISA and Aksys.

On the positive side, XSEED didn't start producing PC ports of Falcom's newer games until NISA and Aksys gave them competition for the localization rights.

Yeah, and XSEED's done a bunch of self-care this year very likely because they've suffered from a big loss (Akiba's Beat bombed) and haven't landed as many projects as usual. Working on PC ports, a better social media presence, and hopefully working better with Marvelous Europe shall help them compete and keep Falcom localizations (at least Trails, which I fear NISA would massively screw up).

It's nice to see PR as rare as this, but NISA continually shows their double standards wrt localization for NIS games vs. licensed projects. They overpromised for this release and made Ys VIII their lead game for 2017 while delivering its script in poor shape, on top of missing the date for their PC version. We shouldn't reward them just yet, not until the script's actually gotten a good editing pass and reflects the original dialogue as it properly should. Otherwise, that's what the fan edit's for.

 

[Vamphuntr]

At least they are patching it. Can't believe an editor let some of the examples in the OP in the final script. Have they apologized for the PC version that was supposed to be available day 1?

 

[Soran]

Yeah but if they're going to release it in a month, they probably started working on it quite a while ago. There's a ton of text in this game, I doubt they could fix it in such a short amount of time.

Because they aren't. They are just fixing the biggest mistakes and calling a day.

 

[Saphirax]

Yeah but if they're going to release it in a month, they probably started working on it quite a while ago. There's a ton of text in this game, I doubt they could fix it in such a short amount of time.

Read the PR again. They say that they WILL have a new translator and editor go over the script. I’ve no idea why they set the goal at the end of November when it’ll lead to the same problem again - ridiculous deadlines.

 

[jonjonaug]

NISA releases crap localizations all the time and never answers for it, this might be because people were complaining straight to Falcom.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

Yeah but if they're going to release it in a month, they probably started working on it quite a while ago. There's a ton of text in this game, I doubt they could fix it in such a short amount of time.

The game came out less than a month ago, though. I really doubt they would start on a revision without any actual negative reception. That’s why I think even the fix might have problems.

 

[sungahymn]

I already beat the game, so I guess this is a good excuse to play again.

Hard mode here I come.

 

[Refyref]

Not sure why NISA is getting kudos for releasing a subpar product, saying nothing about plainly obvious problems with its' script prior to its' release and then announcing a bandaid when it became clear that people weren't willing to settle as they did with something like Persona 5. A month and a half is not enough time to go through this game's script, re-translate it, edit it, and proofread it without compromising heavily on at least a couple of those things. In reality, more like just a month since this translation patch presumably has to be certified to ensure it doesn't introduce more problems.

The worst part is that they talk about the game's translation like it's some great mystery how it was so undercooked and how they'd be 'investigating' the causes as though they weren't obvious to anyone with a realistic impression of how long high quality localization work really takes. The expected turnaround time for the script was insanely low, it's no surprise that the translators and editors couldn't turn in something acceptable when they were working under such insane deadlines on such a massive script. It's pretty obvious to me that the core of Ys VIII's problems stemmed from the very premise of how soon they promised it'd be accomplished. I imagine it had to have been a key factor in securing their bid for the title and considering everything that came after I can't imagine they gave a single thought about how they'd actually accomplish this until it showed up on their desks.

So they're okay with throwing the people who worked under it under the bus and do absolutely zero self-reflection on their actual localization practices. They broke basically every promise and low balled nearly every standard of acceptable localization because they couldn't see beyond the dollar signs in their eyes. I don't think they deserve a round of applause for that. Or the slightest bit of understanding. This has been an embarrassing story from start to finish.

You're right, but at least they're acknowledging complaints, unlike what happened with Persona 5. Although I wonder if the fact that they did so is simply because they have to compete with other companies for Falcom games, so they can't afford to give no shit like Atlus if they don't want to lose future contracts to higher quality companies like XSeed.

 

[jorgeton]

I'll give it a shot at 20 bucks, haven't played the franchise but reviews were surprisingly good.

Shoddy translation aside, this game is worth the $60 for the PS4 version IMO. One of the best action RPGs of the year and is pretty long without feeling like a drag.