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Am I the only one who's not a big fan of Square Enix's current localization?

ULTROS!

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Not to say they're not well made, in fact they're very well made but that's the problem. They're too well made to the point the text becomes bloated, wordy, and hard to follow.

I've been playing Type-0 HD lately and I'm getting irked by how wordy the game is and how it tosses so many term.

Type-0 HD isn't the only victim of the wordiness. FFXIII is also wordy with its fal'Cie and l'Cie thing. FFXII had wordy stuff in the beginning and threw in a lot of terminologies.

Also, not to diss on recent DQ localizations (mobile games), but I'm having a hard time following the text due to the use of old English. I prefer a simple translation.
 
From watching the GB quick look and some streams the English voice acting and dialogue in Episode Duscae is straight garbo. It sounds really unnatural. Not sure how much of that can get fixed for the final game but I hope it does.
 
Final Fantasy XIII was fucking nonsense in Japanese, too, so I'd put more of the blame on the original writers.

They went old English for Dragon Quest? That seems a bit of an odd choice, but I could see how it could add a lot of personality.
 
It seems like your issue is the base writing for the games, not the localisation.

Although I strongly agree that their localizations recently have been quite horrific. Especially the unecessary changes in XV.

Noct > Highness
Cidney > Cindy
Ignis British accent.
Promto mimicking the Japanese VA

Quite dreadful decisions I would say. To the point where its reduced my hype unless we get a different set of sub's for the Japanese audio.

I don't know who they're trying to appeal to with these changes. American teens? Good luck with that....
 
FF6's opening introduces one term (Esper) and one reference (War of the Magi).
FF13's first hour is an assault of nonsense terminology.

I find it more of an example of Square-Enix's terrible writing in general; localization is probably doing what they can to fix it.
 
They are garbage. When I play them I feel like I'm 10 again. Only now I can't accept the same standard of writing and acting. Hearing those voices in that FFXV. The juxtaposition between the graphics in that opening cutscene and the retrograde acting/writing is amazing. Also all of the names are nonsense anyways. Why would you change Cidney to Cindy?
 
Cartman86 said:
They are garbage. When I play them I feel like I'm 10 again. Only now I can't accept the same standard of writing and acting. Hearing those voices in that FFXV. The juxtaposition between the graphics in that opening cutscene and the retrograde acting/writing is amazing. Also all of the names are nonsense anyways. Why would you change Cidney to Cindy?
Click to expand...

I see what you mean it's almost an uncanny valley type of effect, where the more realistic and advance the graphics tech gets the more the cringeworthy dialogue and VO stands out.
 
Didn't have much of a problem with XII or XIII but I agree that Type-0 is a pain. I'll probably just be ignoring the finer story bits it if it continues the way its been.
 
M_Night said:
It seems like your issue is the base writing for the games, not the localisation.

Although I strongly agree that their localizations recently have been quite horrific. Especially the unecessary changes in XV.

Noct > Highness
Cidney > Cindy
Ignis British accent.
Promto mimicking the Japanese VA

Quite dreadful decisions I would say. To the point where its reduced my hype unless we get a different set of sub's for the Japanese audio.

I don't know who they're trying to appeal to with these changes. American teens? Good luck with that....
Click to expand...

Noct to Highness is stupid. Really changes the tone of the character relationships.

Also, it's obvious by listening that it's not an accurate translation of what is being said and makes me question anything spoken.
 
My main localisation issue with FFT0 is the voice acting. Far, far too often it falls into the tired anime tropes of girl with an annoying, overly enthusiastic voice that is apparently brain dead ("Moglin? Moglin!") or cooler-than-thou dude who knows everything.
 
ULTROS! said:
Not to say they're not well made, in fact they're very well made but that's the problem. They're too well made to the point the text becomes bloated, wordy, and hard to follow.

I've been playing Type-0 HD lately and I'm getting irked by how wordy the game is and how it tosses so many term, here's an example of how overly wordy Type-0 is:



Type-0 HD isn't the only victim of the wordiness. FFXIII is also wordy with its fal'Cie and l'Cie thing. FFXII had wordy stuff in the beginning and threw in a lot of terminologies.

Also, not to diss on recent DQ localizations (mobile games), but I'm having a hard time following the text due to the use of old English. I prefer a simple translation.
Click to expand...

OP, if you provide an example, you should actually provide and example and not just make up an even more verbose example of what was used in the actual game.

For a moment I thought I was reading something out of Malazan rather than a mock edit of the Type-0 intro.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
My main localisation issue with FFT0 is the voice acting. Far, far too often it falls into the tired anime tropes of girl with an annoying, overly enthusiastic voice that is apparently brain dead ("Moglin? Moglin!") or cooler-than-thou dude who knows everything.
Click to expand...

This! Between Duece's drawling monotone and that poor vendor in the class zero classroom the VA is abysmal. Duece may actually be worse than Edge from SO4...
 
The dub for Type-0 may not be good, but the Japanese cast is great. It has pretty much every current big name voice actor who is popular in anime/games, especially the females.
 
I thought this thread was going to be about this:

Q16UyKS.jpg
Click to expand...

Have Moogles been identified by any of these pronouns before Type-0? The fan translation called this character 'he', I believe.
 
XII's localization was their last great one. Bring back A.O. Smith to do the final FFXV localization, please. Somehow. Even though it's clearly started without him.
 
They're pretty terrible nowadays although I wouldn't say they were ever great to begin with.

I've always felt that their Kingdom Hearts localization is among their best IP wise.
 
Dio said:
I thought this thread was going to be about this:



Have Moogles been identified by any of these pronouns before Type-0? The fan translation called this character 'he', I believe.
Click to expand...

No particular clue with regards to the original jp text. Not certain if previous games can apply since there no real suggestion that Moogles in Type-0 have genders compared to other ones where they clearly do.
 
Their localizations have been overly liberal as of late. FFXIV had numerous cases where the script was changed significantly from the original Japanese. Sometimes this was to the improvement of the scene, but often the changes made the scenes significantly worse. :\
 
TheGreatDirector said:
They're pretty terrible nowadays although I wouldn't say they were ever great to begin with.

I've always felt that their Kingdom Hearts localization is among their best IP wise.
Click to expand...

Even if KH had a confusing story, I can still follow the terminologies.

The latest FFs (can't judge FFXIV) have bloated localizations and are wordy.
 
zennyzz said:
No particular clue with regards to the original jp text. Not certain if previous games can apply since there no real suggestion that Moogles in Type-0 have genders compared to other ones where they clearly do.
Click to expand...

Moogles are of non-specific gender in the japanese text. The use of gender-neutral pronouns is standard in japanese, but it's tough to make it work naturally in English because so many of our pronouns are gendered. I don't remember what we used in the fan translation, but I think we kept it gender neutral. We didn't create gender-neutral pronouns, though. That's neat.
 
Their localizations need a lot of work to ensure they don't destroy the original intent behind the Japanese script. Also they desperately need better VA direction. It's embarrassing for such high budget games.
 
coredecepts said:
Moogles are of non-specific gender in the japanese text. The use of gender-neutral pronouns is standard in japanese, but it's tough to make it work naturally in English because so many of our pronouns are gendered. I don't remember what we used in the fan translation, but I think we kept it gender neutral. We didn't create gender-neutral pronouns, though. That's neat.
Click to expand...

Well then, there's nothing wrong then. Ze and Hir are real gender neutral pronouns.

ULTROS! said:
Even if KH had a confusing story, I can still follow the terminologies.

The latest FFs (can't judge FFXIV) have bloated localizations and are wordy.
Click to expand...

says the guy who purposefully changed magitek armor to D'nars.

With a user name from the very game Magitek Armor originated.
 
OP your problem is with the original writing, not necessarily the localization. I'm almost positive that there's no way to bring a script like that into modern English and have it sound anything but silly.

That being said, Type - 0 has a good (so far) JP voice track. Stay away from the dub, if you can.
 
Kagari said:
Their localizations need a lot of work to ensure they don't destroy the original intent behind the Japanese script. Also they desperately need better VA direction. It's embarrassing for such high budget games.
Click to expand...

Patch 2.5 of FFXIV anyone? The English script made no sense at all unless you listened to it extremely closely. And even then, some elements you had to guess at or make assumptions.

The Japanese script was clear as day regarding all plot points. No confusion at all.
 
TalonJH said:
FFXIV's localization is kind of amazing at times.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Well, the text part anyways. Although they are obsessed with bad puns even by MMO quest text standards.

Voice work is...eh. But you can just switch the voice language so whatever.
 
The tutorial mission in Type-0 were everytime you see the boss of that level in cutscene she says "This sucks". That's one of her only lines. Says it like 4 times.
 
Outside of at most one or two good performances in a game, I don't think they have ever made a game I would say has good English VO. It always sounds bad. Its not the choice of actors though. FFXIII for example had a bunch talented and well known VO actors in it but the localisation and voice direction just sucks.
 
I'll say this much, whoever is doing voice acting direction over there needs to actually watch some teen disney or some shit because they have no idea how teenagers inflect. The way they speak in the FF15 demo is just some...real early 90's anime bullshit. Sounds like some Ronin Warriors mess.

MegaSackman said:
The blonde boy in FFXV is terrible... TERRIBLE.
Click to expand...

Like fucking whoa.
 
zennyzz said:
Well then, there's nothing wrong then. Ze and Hir are real gender neutral pronouns.



says the guy who purposefully changed magitek armor to D'nars.

With a user name from the very game Magitek Armor originated.
Click to expand...

I got that from GameFaqs thinking it was real since the user posted a well explained reason why he thought Type-0 was wordy. Sorry my bad. If you'd like, please post some scripts from Type-0 HD here.

My point anyway is

Kain said:
I hate FFXII or XIII's localization, it's like they are trying too hard to be serious.
Click to expand...
 
I hate FFXII or XIII's localization, it's like they are trying too hard to be serious.

Atlus localization team >>>>>>>>>>> the rest
 
funkystudent said:
Outside of at most one or two good performances in a game, I don't think they have ever made a game I would say has good English VO. It always sounds bad. Its not the choice of actors though. FFXIII for example had a bunch talented and well known VO actors in it but the localisation and voice direction just sucks.
Click to expand...

Well, to me, FFXII has excellent voice acting.

Kingdom Hearts has an overall good voice acting too.
 
Kain said:
I hate FFXII or XIII's localization, it's like they are trying too hard to be serious.

Atlus localization team >>>>>>>>>>> the rest
Click to expand...

*Except their biggest series. Cause their current persona work, outside of voice direction, is garbage.
 
zennyzz said:
Well then, there's nothing wrong then. Ze and Hir are real gender neutral pronouns.
Click to expand...

Oh, I had no idea. Cool.

But back on topic, yeah the localizations need work. I'm not at all saying that the fan translation of Type-0 is better.

I just expect more from professionals.
 
ALL the dialogue in FFXIV is wordy. NPC's just don't stop talking. They'll tell you their whole family history. I wonder if that's intentional to pad out the time spent playing the game.
 
ULTROS! said:
I got that from GameFaqs thinking it was real since the user posted a well explained reason why he thought Type-0 was wordy. Sorry my bad. If you'd like, please post some scripts from Type-0 HD here.

My point anyway is
Click to expand...

Well that's going to take a bit, since that localization' both condensed and made even more verbose two separate scenes. Treating them as one.
 
XIII in Japanese while not particularly making much more sense is subtly less obtuse and just... simpler? Like the translator wrote the English text but being under influence of the original didn't exactly check for whether people with no frame of reference to the original text would understand the result. I think sequels are largely suffering from the similar problem.
Dub is superior though, that O'Brien hnngggggg

XIV... I can't judge its localization without wanting to slap a Koji. Localization team (English one at least) supposedly works closely with the Japanese writing and lore team, but the result of this is interesting. While the original script is very clear and simple, English writers feel the need to high-fantasy everything up as much as possible, complete with fauxperean, 'eres and theres and sometimes the text is so full of this it's genuinely hard to read. But what's more, there's edits and alterations, ranging from somewhat innocent ones like refusing to use Fire-Fira-Firaga convention and making it Fire 1 and Fire 2 (only the English client does this) and removing anime-style callouts of attacks from bosses' dialogue to the point where entire cutscenes and characterizations are rewritten so much that interpretation of certain scenes by the English players changes completely. It's so weird for a game that people speaking different languages can enjoy side-by-side. Of all the translations the closest one appears to be French.
 
Garrett Hawke said:
My main localisation issue with FFT0 is the voice acting. Far, far too often it falls into the tired anime tropes of girl with an annoying, overly enthusiastic voice that is apparently brain dead ("Moglin? Moglin!") or cooler-than-thou dude who knows everything.
Click to expand...

Isnt the anime styled voices present in the jp version too?
I feel like maybe they want to get close to the original japanese anime styled VA
 
Ralemont said:
This doesn't sound like a localization problem.
Click to expand...

yup

modern square titles are awful. I tried watching the opening to Type-0 and after about 1 minute just skipped every cutscene in the game. First play through and I don't have an idea what's going on with the story.. Which would certainly be the same with watching the cutscenes.. only I didn't waste my time in the process..

I mean seriously.. it's like Square tries to one-up themselves on the awfulness of their stories/writing to an almost comical level.

Can't even believe this is the same company that at one point gave us FFVI, FFIX, DQ8, etc. It's like they are just trolling us now.
 
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