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Best/Worst Localizations of Last Decade?
- Thread starter Don Fluffles
- Start date
Not disagreeing, but this is about games of the past decade, sigh.
Since English is not my main language, Persona 5 is fine to me.
I understand the story flow too.
I understand the story flow too.
I've not noticed any improvements. My favorite part of the localization is that a lot of the text messages are almost unintelligible.
The recent Yakuza localizations have been absolutely stellar, so much so that they actually improve on the original Japanese writing at times. Some of the hostess conversations are rather dry when translated literally, for example.
And my regards to whoever tried their best with the absolute garbage that Kojima wrote for Death Stranding. You did what you could and I respect that.
And my regards to whoever tried their best with the absolute garbage that Kojima wrote for Death Stranding. You did what you could and I respect that.
No, you're not the only one. Seen plenty of people who aren't fans of the regional accents and so forth (including me). I can't be certain specifically about XI, but I know in previous games the regional accents weren't in the original Japanese script and were added by the localisers. It's dumb and I wish they'd stop. Awful localisations.
One of the worst is Princess Maker 3 and 5.They did not hire a translator proficient in English. Funny thing is that the fan translation of pm5 is how a professional translation should have been. They even subbed the opening FMV. Unfortunately the script is not compatible with steam version
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I recall reading something like that when I lurked at NeoGAF back then. One guy was raving about how the script of one Dragon Quest game was simple and to the point and how changing that to anything that was actually entertainment was wrong.
It is still the stupidest thing I've ever read regarding translations and makes me believe that all the charm of these games comes directly from the work of the localizations. Basically the same as Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi.
Can't speak for the mario games but in the case of DQ I doubt it, the fan translations of V and VI and the official translation of VII on the PSX are all very entertaining. And none of them need to add a bunch of goofy regional dialects akin to 'allo 'allo to be charming games.
I'll take actually readable text over charming everyday of the week
Thankfully they toned it down on the subsequent games last decade (but every single one still HAD to have some silly italian accent village).
Yeah, Tactics Ogre is at the top of the heap for me. Fantastic source material with just the right amount of flavour on top.
Crimson Shroud too. The Matsuno games over the years have paired perfectly with the sensibilities of Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder.
EDIT: Virtue's Last Reward is also really underrated in this aspect too imo. There's tons of tics and very specific wordplay that they kind of ace bringing over and substituting with their own invention when it wouldn't make sense in English.
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I actually agree that Dragon Quest IV went overboard with the accents. it didn't bothered me THAT much, though, as it certainly compelled me to improve my English reading skills.
I'll take actually readable text over charming everyday of the week
Thankfully they toned it down on the subsequent games last decade (but every single one still HAD to have some silly italian accent village).
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There's several mentions of Ys VIII on the first page of this thread...
While perhaps not perfect, I really enjoyed the English script for Labyrinth of Refrain. It flows naturally, doesn't read like a typical translation, and even includes some little flourishes specifically for the English audience. It's a dark, emotional, and frequently unpleasant story, and the English version really carries that across.
Dragon Quest XI and Fire Emblem 3 Houses.
DQXI is absurdly charming the whole way through and FE3H done a great job of giving a huge cast instantly recognizable voices.
DQXI is absurdly charming the whole way through and FE3H done a great job of giving a huge cast instantly recognizable voices.
Death Stranding French localization/dub fixed the "Princess Beach" and "I'm Fragile but not that Fragile" lines. So it's great in my book.
I would say Yakuza 0's was the best. It has one of the best stories in the series, and the localization team came out swinging, setting a new gold standard for Yakuza localizations.
While I won't say the worst, the most disappointing was Castle Shikigami's. It deserved better.
I am happy they tried, though.
While I won't say the worst, the most disappointing was Castle Shikigami's. It deserved better.
I am happy they tried, though.
You are ignoring the many times the licalization improved on things like the whole character of bernadetta
Bernadetta in japanese is just painful to listen
Fates localization was really good for the source material it had, nowhere near some examples here where the localization made the game worse
Figured it was only a matter of time before you showed up, Mr. Party Pooper :p. Strongly disagree. I feel like the recent Dragon Quest localizations add a really charming vibe to it. It's like watching a great English dub of an anime that goes the extra mile with performances and script. I think the post above that compares them to the Mario and Luigi / Paper Mario games is spot on. It IS like that.
Yeah, in a perfect world, DQ wouldn't NEED to try so hard but it missed a whole generation of players and I think having that extra charming flair IS what the series needs to survive in the West. It HAS to work harder to make up for that lost time of having never been released in the West.
I'll definitely concede that IV tried way too hard with the whole accents thing. I still haven't played the modern official DQV, but thankfully newer games have reined it in.
Also for the record Zen Hero I think the whole thing with Hotto/Jipang and their Haiku speak is that they wanted to avoid really bad racist speak. Because having someone speak English with an Irish or Spanish accent is fine but trying to speak "Asian English" crosses a line.
Trails in the Sky games and Trails of Cold Steel games. The localizations are absolutely fucking amazing.
I'm not ignoring anything. I said it's quite good overall—just not the best in series, let alone all time. It absolutely has improvements, but it also has various instances of wooden dialogue and inaccurate wording or tonal framing, some with unfortunate impact on characterization for even major characters, chiefly Edelgard and Dimitri.
Off the top of my head these are some of the best ones that I can remember atm:
Nier: Automata
Judgment (Yakuza series as a whole has had great localization since Y0 now that I think about it)
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (I really liked the English dub, I don't care what other say on this one lol)
Dragon Quest XI
Nier: Automata
Judgment (Yakuza series as a whole has had great localization since Y0 now that I think about it)
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (I really liked the English dub, I don't care what other say on this one lol)
Dragon Quest XI
I mean, they've had the new localisation style since 2005. And the *only* mainline DQ game that has done really well is IX which Nintendo promoted HARD. I really don't think it makes a bit of difference either way.
I don't see the wooden dialogue, specially compared to the japanese one that feels more tropey
There are some difference in wording but nothing that impacts much for me, even in cases it didn't the wording didn't land well you can see in the context what the character meant
It's Judgment for me, as well. It's just so well done in every aspect and the quality of the localization team really shines through in tons of aspects. I thought it would be weird to walk around Kamurocho and hear characters speaking in English, but it ended up being so well done.
Uta Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth are the gold standards in a good localization. Fantastic scripts that read very well in english and really know how to deliver on both the excellent comedy and the really heartfelt moments. Definitely the best localization of any Atlus game I've played. XSEED localizations in general are almost always very high quality (I personally can't think of any recent examples that aren't). SEGA localizations seem pretty fantastic as well, looking at Yakuza, Judgement, and Valkyria Chronicles.
Ys 8 is ofc one of the top examples of the worst, being so notoriously bad the president had to issue an apology and promise to relocalize the entire game. The new localization, while nothing special as I'm playing through it now, is solid enough though. They definitely could've done a better job giving it the flavor XSEED does, but it's a dead horse by now.
I always hear of this game being one of the best NISA localizations, and one of their better recent games in general. I'm definitely keen to give it a look next time it's on sale.
Ys 8 is ofc one of the top examples of the worst, being so notoriously bad the president had to issue an apology and promise to relocalize the entire game. The new localization, while nothing special as I'm playing through it now, is solid enough though. They definitely could've done a better job giving it the flavor XSEED does, but it's a dead horse by now.
I always hear of this game being one of the best NISA localizations, and one of their better recent games in general. I'm definitely keen to give it a look next time it's on sale.
I don't know if it's the worst because it is probably some niche Japanese game that have the literal worst localization....
But I never have seen such a Trainwreck of a localization of a game that was YsVIII it makes even worse is that they were trying to ignore and cover the complaints, only when the news of the huge backlash arrived in Japan and surprised Falcon (thus threatening the partnership) they took the blame and redid the entire script and dub.
But I never have seen such a Trainwreck of a localization of a game that was YsVIII it makes even worse is that they were trying to ignore and cover the complaints, only when the news of the huge backlash arrived in Japan and surprised Falcon (thus threatening the partnership) they took the blame and redid the entire script and dub.
Echoing the translations for Dragon Quest XI, Xenoblade 2, and Fire Emblem Three Houses.
While it can't compare to the machine translated nightmares posted already, the Steam version of Final Fantasy V and VI got french translations which a friend of my (whom French Canadian) streamed those games from start to finish and quickly found out how awful those translation were. Like originally those games were gifted to him due to the awful graphics the steam version, but quickly found out the newly made French translation was just as bad.
While it can't compare to the machine translated nightmares posted already, the Steam version of Final Fantasy V and VI got french translations which a friend of my (whom French Canadian) streamed those games from start to finish and quickly found out how awful those translation were. Like originally those games were gifted to him due to the awful graphics the steam version, but quickly found out the newly made French translation was just as bad.
I'd agree with Judgment being up there - I was super hesitant about it getting a dub, but they nailed it perfectly, outside of a few NPCs still having stock Japanese "grunts" as it were. I'm hoping Like a Dragon gets the same treatment, even if it'll be very odd to hear Kiryu speak in English.
Also FWIW I wouldn't say Persona 5 is anywhere near the worst, not when you have lifeless translation jobs like Cyber Sleuth out there. It's definitely weaker than the games that preceded it, mind.
One of the worst I've actually played has to be that one game by the creator of Hotel Dusk that was released on the 3DS eShop. It's another one of those examples that proves localization > straight translation, because boy was it boring.
Also FWIW I wouldn't say Persona 5 is anywhere near the worst, not when you have lifeless translation jobs like Cyber Sleuth out there. It's definitely weaker than the games that preceded it, mind.
One of the worst I've actually played has to be that one game by the creator of Hotel Dusk that was released on the 3DS eShop. It's another one of those examples that proves localization > straight translation, because boy was it boring.
OP
OP
In the middle of a tonally dead serious scene, bringing up a cliche like that just made it a total meme.
I think that's where it ends in terms of lacking localization. The rest of the game seemed on par with other Tales localizations, sans dubbing. The Kor thing stands out because it's the only name that got changed that way and since it's an anime game, they say his name a lot.
... oh, I guess without dubbing the battle dialogue doesn't get translated. Which is a bummer, those are pretty cool in Tales.
Man, I'm with you on that. Not seeing the big discrepancy between P3/P4 and P5. Reading people's complaints, feels like they felt it was too stilted? But it came across as vibrant and lively as ever to me. Especially not something on par with the other examples of careless translation in the thread. Comes off more as having a bone to pick with P5 in particular.
Man, I'm willing to stan Netflix holding onto their Japanese content in order to dub them, but this aspect is frustrating to me. The subtitles are always the more literal Japanese version and don't match the English version, which is distracting. Wish they had two subtitle tracks but I dunno how difficult it would be to implement.
Dragon Ball Fusion's localization was pretty bad. Text going out of bound, some skill descriptions being senseless alongside some complete out of context translations (like referencing several characters by the wrong gender). For some reason they also decided they had to censor the violence, replacing all swords with wooden sticks with almost inaudible sound effects upon hit... (meanwhile, they still kept the fairly realistic gun used by Satan and a few other characters).
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Hearts actually had a really solid 8-4 localization, apart from the name stuff.
Splatoon 1 and 2 both had great NA localizations. I realize they're a little controversial for the liberties they take with the source material (DJ Octavio is much more serious in the Japanese script), but the localizations are excellent with their humor and tone, and I don't think Splatoon would be as popular without that.
Are you sure it wasn't something along the lines of:
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