Watch out, discourse is about. Spin the wheel and find out what people are complaining about this week! Are Pokemon fans setting their expectations way too high again? Have those goshdarn devs gotten lazier? Has theꦛ latest remake of a beloved classic gone woke?
We’ve got a fairly unique discourse to dig into this time around. Players are complaining about the localisation of upcoming RPG 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Unicorn Overlord, led by on the social media site formerly known as Twitter. The pos🌃ter, who goes by the username Zakogdo and describes themself as a “censorship opponent”, compares a litany of dia🅰logue examples from the original Japanese to the localised version courtesy of the demo now available on most platforms.
“One of the most persistent issues with the [localisation] is the endless attempts of the EN script to fancify dialogue, typically at the expense of accuracy,” writes Zakogdo. Their first example gives a direct translation of the original Japanese: “I think fighting Renault with our current strength would be difficult.” The localised version in the English-language game says, “Casting the gauntlet at Renault’s feet would only send us all to an early grave.” The latter is fancier, likely to better befit the medieval setting, but no less accurate. Zakogdo doesn’t provide a source for their translation, but stresses it’s a direct, an🍷d in their mind more accurate, translation of the orig๊inal text.
“We completely fell for it,” becomes “Guy laid out the bait, and we just had to have a nibble.” For a longer example, “General Valmore… I never thought you would lead a rebellion… However, I refuse to let you do as you like! I will strike you down here!” is apparently a direct translation of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Unicorn Overlord’s Japanese💖 script. The localisation is as follows: “Our &lsquꦿo;great’ general, reduced to little more than a base traitor, hm? You’ll find my head not so easily parted from my shoulders, Valmore. I wonder if you can say the same.”
While these certainly are different words, they convey the same general meaning. And, if I’m being honest, I’d much prefer to read a game written like the latter. But people are calling this translation “abhorrent” and spou𒆙ting unfounded claims that, “this reeks of localisers who think themselves better writers than the original Japanese authors.” Both are quotes from the X thread linked above, and show the p🅘oster has no understanding of how localisation, or translation full stop, works.
I feel uniquely positioned to argue this case. In a perfect world, I’d speak fluent Japanese, but I have a degree in Russian. Different languages, different alphabets, you got me there. But, as a part of my degree, I studied modules on translating both for business and literary purposes. I translated hundreds of texts over the course of my studies, and while I may no🦹 longer be fluent in the language, I remember the fundamentals of translatiಌon well.
The most important thing about translating is understanding. You must understand the text you’re w🌸orking with and the mood the original author is trying🅠 to convey, before you can even think about starting to change the words from one language to another. Only after fully comprehending this can you begin to translate the words on the page.
The best example of this is Alexander Pushkin’s short poem I Loved You. A Google translation of the beautiful verse produces gibberish, for obvious reasons. But ev🍬en a literal translation doesn’t read well.
“I you loved: love yet, maybe,
in soul mine has gone out not quite;
but let it you more not trouble;
I not wish to sadden you with anything.
I you loved mutely, hopelessly,
now by shyness, now by jealousy oppressed;
I you loved so sincerely, so tenderly,
as give you God to be loved by another.”
This obviously hasn’t even accounted for word o﷽rder, let alone metre or mood. The best translation of the poem is largely recognised to be by Richard Hewitt, and reads as follows:
“I loved you; even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tongue-tied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.”
It’s clear to see how Hewitt has changed the literal translations to fit the mood that Pushkin🃏 was trying to convey. He’s also changed words to match the original’s rhyme scheme and iambic tetrameter.
Translation and localisation are slightly different disciplines, with translation only forming a part of the latter’s job. Changing idioms, adapting references, and suchlike can be a part of the translation﷽ process, but 🌸are a crucial aspect of localisation.
Take another translation, this time by 2✱0th century Russian author Vladimir Nabokov:
“I w🔜orshipped you. My love’s reluctant ember
is in my heart still glimmering, may be,
but let it not break on your peace; remember,
I should not want to have you sad through me.
I worshipped you in silent hopeless fashion,
shy was my love, jealous, but always true;
I worshipped you with such a tender passion
as I should want all men to worship you.”
Nabokov takes the same approach as Hewitt, paying close attention to rhyme, metre, and mood, and comes to a completely different conclusion. In fact, Nabokov wrote three wholly different translations of this one poem in his lifetime. This is my favourite, particularly for the strong change from the standard “I loved you” to “I worshipped you”, despite – or maybe because of – the fact that it deviates from the tried-and-tested translation. “M🧜y love’s reluctant ember,” just hits so hard. Non👍e of them feel exactly the same as the original, as only Russian speakers will understand, but that’s the point.
So, video games. Would you say🎃 Hewitt or Nabokov “think themselves better writers than the original [Russian] author”? So why take that approach with the localisers 🌟of Unicorn Overlord? To say so is to fundamentally misunderstand the roles of localisers and translators, and to downplay their role in the writing process. The Unicorn Overlord localisers clearly believe that a game set in a fantasy medieval period should have fancier, flowery language that audiences expect from games set in that period. Countless games already do this, whether they were originally released in English or not, and it’s a sensible route to take.
Unsurprisingly, Final Fantasy Tactics writer and director Yasumi Matsuno has a nuanced take on the matter. “I believe that it is unacceptable for someone to alter a work without considering the original author's intent,” he says on . “However, when the market or language is different, a direct translation may not convey the intended meaning accurately. This is especially true for humor. Therefore, I think some degree of alteration is unavoidable.”
I encourage you to read his whole post, as it presents a good argument for understanding creative intent and getting approval👍 from the original author to make changes. I would argue that the intent of the writers has not been changed in any of the screenshots presented. There may be some nuance lost in translation and some slight mischaracterisations, but these are impossible to critique completely devoid of context. If a character’s personality was drastically altered acro🃏ss the whole RPG, there could be cause for concern. If one sentence makes them seem a little petulant, that could easily be balanced out over the course of the game.
I feel for the developers and localisers caught in this firestorm. They’ve only done their jobs, and done them well in my view. Perhaps there’s a world where every localised game was a literal translation of the original text, complete with obscure references and idioms that would go over our heads. If there is, I don’t want to live in it. Give me “I worshipped you”, give me “had to take a nib꧒ble”, give m🀅e the flowery, artistic version every day of the week. What is art for, if not to be expressive?
