Oh. I understand. I've been a console and RPG gamer for a long time. And I've been an anime fan for just as long. I'm well accustomed to the cult of everything-is-better-in-Japan.Originally Posted by Berserker
Oh. I understand. I've been a console and RPG gamer for a long time. And I've been an anime fan for just as long. I'm well accustomed to the cult of everything-is-better-in-Japan.
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That's not a particularly good thing, especially if the setting of the game isn't one where Japanese honorifics would normally be used. To a non Japanese audience, seeing a decidedly European knight, speaking English the entire time, all of a sudden call his king "-sama" instead of "my liege" would be jarring as hell. Good localization is more than just literal translation.
To be perfectly clear, I don't think the CG portraits look bad at all. I actually like them a lot. I just think the change was unnecessary considering we are in 2009 and not 1990 when something like this would be expected. As for editing out a bath scene...I don't know. It might be to avoid an M rating but Square-Enix has done far more risque stuff in the FF series and always pulled a T. And I can think of at least two or three other games with bath/shower scenes that got a T. So this does sound more like making the game less "Japanese" than it does for rating purposes. But, forgive me for sounding like a broken record, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense in a generation where anime has not only been accepted but outright celebrated. I'm not upset at the changes. I'm more confused than anything else. If this were pre-DBZ hysteria and pre-FFVII fanfare I might see where they were going with this. In February 2009, however, it just makes me go "WTF?"
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 02-10-2009 at 11:59 PM.
I agree with you on that. They've used them in Persona 3 and 4, which are both set in Japan and are especially Japanese games. In those two games specifically, honorifics are appropriate, IMO. In others, they might not be a good fit.
I am against all kind of alteration of an original game to 'localize' it. I am french, and we see it a lot when they adapt US shows for our market, and it always sucks.
Same for games. Let us enjoy the real experience, do not overdo it.
I suppose in those games it could be at least justifiable but I still question the benefit of doing it. English speakers never use "-san," "-chan," "-sama," etc. So if something is written in English, regardless of the setting, it still comes off as awkward. What sounds more appropriate in English? "We will be heading home, Yamashita-sama" vs. "We will be heading home, Mr. Yamashita." I don't think injecting the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the source language into the target language is all that helpful. When people are running around speaking English but tossing in Japanese honorifics you sort of lose the "spirit" of the sequence. Rather than coming off as just respectful as was originally intended, everyone starts to sound like freaking otaku. I think the best translations/localizations are the ones that don't constantly remind you that it was translated/localized.
Tell me if this is a strawman but does that mean you'd be against this situation:
In Magic Knight Rayearth, the character Caldina originally was written with a specific accent from a particular region of Japan. The characters even point this out at one point. When it was translated to English they gave Caldina a southern accent and had the characters point that out instead. Are you saying that it would have been better to have English speaking characters point out that another English speaking character was speaking with an accent from a region of Japan?
One thing I find extremely awkward, and it happens in more than one anime, is when the characters are speaking English but constantly make references to how they're speaking "Japanese." I realize this is a big problem for translators. If you have an anime where the characters are in an English class, there's extremely basic English written on the board, and they're complaining about why they have to learn English and why they can't just speak in plain Japanese, what the hell do you do? If you play it straight you end up with a bunch of dialogue that hangs a lampshade on the fact that it was translated and you have to force the audience to think "Ok, I'm hearing English but have to imagine that I'm hearing Japanese." The alternative is to change things around and deal with the flames from the purists who complain about the changes. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's why I think the anime that are said to have some of the best dubs are the ones that are decidedly more "western" such as Cowboy Bebop. You don't run into those problems there.
I think that there's a fine balance. At some point a translator has three options: translate it literally and risk having it not make sense in the target language, substitute the closest equivalent in the target language, or bullshit your way through it.
Hell, once in a while, the translation, even though far from the original dialogue, ends up being superior. There's a scene near the tail end of Dragonball Z where Goku is trying to convince Vegeta to fuse with him. The original Japanese more or less was just Goku saying "We need more power, let's get more power." The English translation had Goku say, "The Saiyans are gone. Our old race is dead. Let's fight to protect our new one."
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 02-11-2009 at 10:30 AM.
I welcome the change. To me it makes more sense than the original anime version. That would bug me.
OK let me get this straight. The "Original" portraits are 2D and look nothing whats being displayed, which ends up being somewhat distracting. The "New" portraits matches the action that is going on, thus ends up being a lot less distracting.
I fail to see the problem here.
Want to know a real problem? Lets take a look at Ys: The Ark of Napishtim and it's localization for the PS2. Originally the game had hand drawn 2D sprites, but then Sony decided that over here in America wouldn't like that at all. They changed all the sprites into 3D, added a horrible looking CG intro and in the end made the game look a little awkward. What's funny about that is there was still an option to hear the original Japanese voices, which is usually the first thing taken out of a localization.
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There's no reason they couldn't have left the anime-style portraits and menus in for those who prefer them, though. The main issue I have is with the removal of an entire scene from the game for the purpose of Westernizing it.
Depends on your perspective. Maybe they added the scene to Easternize it. The West buys a lot more console games than Japan does. WE are the key audience, not Japan. That even goes for mainstream JRPG's.
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
The 3d artwork for the main character wasn't at all bad in Ys VI, just "different" from the 2d sprites in the PSP and PC versions. For the US release, there was a code that allowed you to view the original cutscenes instead of the new 3d rendered ones in addition to being able to listen to the original dialog. Sucks that they were both only available via hidden codes, but it was nice that the options remained there for anyone that wanted to utilize them.
This is pretty much my viewpoint as well. We're the largest market for games right now, especially when it comes to a platform like the 360. They probably threw in whatever they could to help make it sell whatever copies it'll actually sell in Japan, but don't think for a second that they're the primary market. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find that the anime artwork was added for them, not removed for us.
Taking the other viewpoint though, it would have been nice to have an option to toggle between the two. Gotta love options!
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The more I think about it, this does seem like it'd be a good idea. I mean, all we're talking about here are a few 2d images, which take up an absolutely trivial amount of space on modern formats. Regardless of which version is "better", the fact remains that they did put extra effort into making this content, so it'd be nice if fans could have access to all of it.
This applies to Japanese gamers too. Perhaps some of them are annoyed that their version lack the portraits of ours?
A more interesting way to apply this for a console game might be to have the "alternate" character portraits/UI as an unlockable of some kind for each version - anime for the one over here, CG for the one over there.
Uh, what? That's not what I've seen at all, and I'm more deep into the Star Ocean community than just about anyone.
For those who are unaware, I should point out that the change isn't limited to in-battle portraits. They also completely redesigned the menu interface, and they removed all the anime portraits during dialogue. It remains to be seen if they'll replace the dialogue portraits with CG pictures, and even if they did, I kinda doubt they'd have as many expressions rendered in CG as they did with the hand-drawn portraits.
Honestly, I'm bothered that all this was changed at all. It would bother me just as much as if the situation was the other way around. It's just totally needless and pointless. Is it so hard to just give us the game the way that the developers intended it? This isn't the mid-90s anymore; we don't need our Japanese RPGs "Americanized". If you've been following past Star Ocean localizations, this team that is handling the series loves to get their fingerprints all over the games. I personally find it very arrogant and disrespectful. They're job is to localize a game, not to make it their own. All we need is a faithful yet natural translation of the script. We don't need every proper noun in the game renamed for no reason, nor do we need the visuals toyed with.
For those who try to make the argument that the new design is more fitting for the game, well, you must not know the series very well. Star Ocean has ALWAYS had hand-drawn anime-style portraits. In fact, look at the recent PSP releases. Their biggest selling point was how they had new anime cutscenes and portraits and such, and now they're trying to strip all the anime out of Star Ocean 4? It makes no sense at all. And even when the series made the switch to polygonal models for the characters, it was still blatantly clear that the models are trying to be anime in 3D form. I don't understand this recent trend of thought that a game has to be cel-shaded to look like anime. If you look at the Star Ocean 4 cast and can't clearly see that they all look like anime characters, well... I don't know what to tell you.
The previous anime character portraits had more to do with the technical limitations of the respective systems than a particular artistic style. Older RPG's were forced to use anime headshots because those still images actually looked better than the sprites. It was a way to "class up" the presentation. Now that console tech can make the headshots look identical to the in-game character renders, it's unnecessary.
Either way, it's a matter of perspective. I still say Star Ocean 4 was made for Western audiences. It's no secret that Japan has lost interest in console RPG's and has zero interest in the 360. They changed the core game to fit the Japanese audience. We have the original game, they have the "altered" version. My god...look at the Japanese menu's. TERRIBLE. Goofy "Star Ocean" logo aside, I much, much prefer the US menus.
We have the better version...and from what I've been reading, most US JRPG fans agree.
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
I do find there is a slight bit of irony in all of this. Remember that the original Star Ocean, which until the PSP remake didn't even see a U.S. release, has a fully spoken intro in English. Suddenly the idea that the game was "easternized" for Japan doesn't sound so bizarre a possibility.
As for the alterations to non-cosmetic things like menu layout, that's par for the course. I don't think anybody is against improving the camera or in-game mechanics for the western release of a game that had notable flaws. Likewise, I don't think people are against adding details like the Emerald and Ruby Weapons in FFVII. I don't think anybody was saying that adding those optional bosses was blasphemy because that's not what the original creators intended.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 02-11-2009 at 04:20 PM.
You do know that this localization isn't being handled by the team that handled the previous Star Ocean localizations, right? This one is being handled by 8-4, who has a pretty solid history of always running everything by the original game designers whenever they intend to change anything. You try to make it sound like they're the second coming of Working Designs or something....
Since you apparently didn't know about them, here's a video interview and here's a more recent interview. They're ridiculously awesome and dedicated dudes that, if anything, have only improved games through their localizations. Sometimes we get hosed because the publisher won't foot the budget or time to do various things (such as voices for the skits in Tales of the Abyss), but you can't really blame that on the team....especially when they'd previously shown their talent and diversity with Baten Kaitos Origins.
For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the company that translated the two Star Ocean PSP games. Going to have to check the credits again....I do recall that the translator (on the first PSP game at least) was the dude that runs MagWeasel.
edit - just took a look at the credits for Star Ocean 3 for fun and that was done by a totally different crew, apparently in-house at SquareEnix
I don't normally dump on anime-style artwork, but good lord was it horrible in the first PSP game. Haven't checked the second one out yet, but what the fuck was up with those eyes? Everyone in the game had those freaky hypnotized rape victim eyes. They were unsettling, even by anime standards.In fact, look at the recent PSP releases. Their biggest selling point was how they had new anime cutscenes and portraits and such, and now they're trying to strip all the anime out of Star Ocean 4?
Last edited by roushimsx; 02-11-2009 at 06:03 PM.
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Incorrect. JRPGs sell much more in Japan than they do here. For other games, you're correct, but every JRPG so far on 360 has sold worse here than in Japan.
Wow, where the hell are you getting your info? The Star Ocean series has always sold better in Japan. Yeah, they changed the game that comes out in Japan first. That makes a lot of sense.
Last edited by Sudo; 02-11-2009 at 09:11 PM.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and Last Remnant (to name the three I just looked up) all sold more in the US than in Japan. Lost Odyssey sold almost 5x more copies in the US than in Japan. For JRPG's released in both countries, the US sells more copies. It's just a fact. Google it.
From the prefacing statement "I still say..." in my quote I think it's obvious to all English speakers that I'm giving an opinion. My opinion is that Star Ocean 4 was made for the US. If it sells some copies in Japan...fine. Square Enix made the game for Western audience first and foremost.
"One of the ways I gauge a DS game is by recharges. "...Tycho (Penny Arcade)
The sales data may be true in the case of 360 JRPGs, though it wasn't when I last checked. I tend not to follow sales too long after games release, so I suppose they could've outsold the Japanese versions after a while. At any rate, Square-Enix didn't make Star Ocean 4, tri-Ace is the developer. The changes to the game are being made by Square-Enix USA, the publisher.
Well, I feel like a huge hypocrite. See, I'm only mildly interested in this particular change to Star Ocean 4, but if Square Enix were replacing the next Valkyrie Profile game's character art with CG portraits, I'd be screaming bloody murder.
Do you have a source on this?
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