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So, for those of you who have the game; have any gripes with it?; I have... some.
Topic Started: October 18, 2015, 2:17 pm (2,323 Views)
Ajogamer
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You definitely may be right that we're using different standards to an extent, since game translations are by far what I'm most familiar with; the closest I have to compare to is more text-heavy RPGs and visual novels (especially since those are also a lot of what I play).

I'm not sure how familiar I really am with the visual style of Japanese writing, though I may have a sense of what you mean from some of the visual novels I've played (though I would still imagine that to be different than an actual novel).

But yeah, I definitely have a better picture of why you feel the translation's lackluster now. I still think it's a fairly decent translation as a whole, though it certainly could have been better as well.
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KulaRose
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That's disgusting. I LOVE IT!

Having read through this thread, I definitely do feel that in some ways, yes, XSEED makes mistakes, some grievous some not, and it certainly is good to hold them to a higher standard, but on another token, discouraging people from XSEED is also not a good way to go. I'm mostly familiar with the realm of game translations more so than anything, although I do have to note that I am passingly familiar with manga translations, both fan and official, and they too suffer from awful errors that are notable in the game translation realm.

Naturally, when it comes to game translation, I have to say, sadly, it is common for different language groups to not be able to exactly discuss the intricacies of exact wording in deeper plots. I.G.: Your ["uniquely-designed green pins in her hair." vs "hairpin a peculiar shade of green"] example. This kind of thing is, strikingly, surprisingly common. Yes, the adjective here is in the wrong place. I can tell they changed 'unique' to 'peculiar', nothing really lost there, word-choice wise, but changing the descriptor to describe the color instead of the design is very puzzling. As far as the plural thing goes, well, that's a common mistake in Japanese-to-English work, unless the number/amount was approximated or exacted via an adjective before that.

As someone who is not exposed to much Japanese outside of the entertainment realm, I have to say, quality-wise, XSEED falls within the margins of a 'decent' translation when it comes to Corpse Party. If you look around at sites like "Legends of Localization", mistranslations and errors are common throughout. Maybe things such as serious literature, poetry and so on get better QCed, but the entertainment industry as a whole seems to follow a more 'rewrite' type mentality. For example, English translations and dubs of Anime commonly have entire segments' wording rewritten from scratch, keeping only the plot details the same. That would make a serious discussion of nuances between fans of the Japanese original wording and the English official translation essentially impossible. Unfortunate, but that's what a localization commonly leads to.

But we're going off into the localization realm here more so than actual errors, which XSEED definitely has their share of. As Ajo wrote, some of the errors are of significant nature, primarily in implicit details and nuances that have been lost, as well as historically having things such as Name Tags mistranslated and misnamed. These are definitely errors that should be noted and fixed.

I, personally, have not gotten around to playing Blood Drive yet, so I, too, cannot speak about XSEED's handling of it in detail. But I did want to touch on such things as localization and errors. I am by no means an XSEED apologist, they've mistranslated some things in their history that, by my own standard, should have been fixed and patched. However, they're hardly the worst translation company, I would even say that they're pretty good by video game standards. NISA, ATLUS, IDEA FACTORY and Nippon Ichi have had mistranslations in their localization efforts that have been equally bad as XSEED's. Would I love to see the standard raised? Absolutely. Do I see it happening? Not any time soon. We've had errors like this for a long time, and actually, since the PS2 era, I've seen the quality of translation rise a little. The SNES/PSX era were especially bad when it came to translation work. Plus, as I touched on earlier, ironically, I see translation quality rising slightly, but manga translation quality falling. The last two issues of Spice and Wolf (manga) that I've read (official translation, mind you) had conversations that were borderline word salad. Very sad to see.
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Zaion
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FanFiction writer/Translator/Character Bio writer
Like I've said before, my main issue is that my standards of judging translations comes from the literature section. There are really good translations out there that do a fantastic job. All of Murakami Haruki books, "OUT", and some of the more famous pieces of literature such as "No Longer Human" have very thorough translations that don't have the errors XSEED makes. It is also impossible for me to discourage people from XSEED in terms of Corpse Party, as the only other option would be to learn Japanese.

I guess if you look purely at the gaming sector, then XSEED is on the better side of the spectrum in general.

Having been born in the PS1 era, and the N64, I am familiar that translations standards were a lot worse, and that they are a lot better now than they were before. However, XSEED still dropped the ball pretty heavily with Blood Drive. Blood Covered and Book of Shadows didn't make me as vocal as I am with Blood Drive precisely because they didn't do as bad a job. Still, the mistakes in those two games are of the same nature, but they weren't in plot relevant areas.

Also, although you mentioned a bunch of other companies, do we really want to accept the argument that there's nothing to be done because everyone else is doing just as badly?

This may be an issue of cultural pride as well. When someone is paid money to convert something Japanese into English I want them to do a good job. This goes doubly so for things I really really like. It seriously annoys me when I read something and I feel like I could have done a better job, and I'm not even a professional linguist.

In regards to the specific example of the hair pin(s) this is the original Japanese text.

気づくと、犬丸の目の前に特徴的な緑のヘアピンをつけた少女が立っていた。

Although many think Japanese simply doesn't differentiate between singular and plural versions of a word, resulting in the many confusions that occur in translation, there are clear rules in Japanese that dictate when a person is talking about one object and when they are talking about several. I'm not trying to be a grammar nazi with this. There will be times when certain grammatical structures will be difficult to get into English. But, if you're making mistakes with one of the most basic rules of Japanese, how are you getting paid by someone to translate an entire game where even more complex things such as implied subjects, changes of tense, inversion of word order for poetic stress occur numerous times?

Admittedly, what I am saying is pretty harsh, but if the only reason translators are able to get away with these mistakes is because nobody knows any better, then what's stopping them from just writing their own story using the game's assets?

In the end, this quote from the translator of "OUT" really sums up why I'm so annoyed by XSEED's translations.
Stephen Snyder
 
If translators are “invisible,” editors are doubly so, and I want to mention the important role they play in creating successful translations—perhaps particularly when the original is “untranslatable.”
There is too much of XSEED in the translations. They aren't silent. The "Butter up my pooper" line is the biggest example of this. To avoid name calling, the translator at XSEED took a normal sounding line in Japanese, and then changed it completely in order to portray who he though Seiko was. This isn't a good translation.
Edited by Zaion, December 7, 2015, 10:48 pm.
Check out my fanfic Corpse Party: Blood Drive Aftermath.

I can also translate from Japanese to English. Open to requests.
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WeirdRaptor
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Soul Mate
What was the original line in "Butter up my pooper" line in Japanese?
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf
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Skybird
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Grindblues

WeirdRaptor
December 8, 2015, 1:05 am
What was the original line in "Butter up my pooper" line in Japanese?
You can check this topic: http://w11.zetaboards.com/corpseparty/topic/8136363/1/
[ - Gran is the real deal. - ]
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WeirdRaptor
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Soul Mate
Thanks.
Edited by WeirdRaptor, December 8, 2015, 4:37 am.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf
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fahyda
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Student
I dont like the phantoms
It was not too bad when they first appeared in chapter 2-3, but im at chapter 4 and they appear every few seconds for me. Litraly i used a talasman on one and then as soon as i walk a few feet another one appears and starts to chase me.
Chapter 2-3 was ok with them because they only appeared on occasional times meaning i could explore only having to worry about hazards.

The only other problem i have is that there is an option to keep the flashlight runing forever. This is a problem to me because I allways had at least 1 set of batterys on my character's at all time. Having this as an option can kinda rurin a game for me.
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