Star Ocean 4: Now with less anime!

[Sudo]

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?

I don't have an official link, but I've seen it discussed on a few different forums.

[roushimsx]

I don't have an official link, but I've seen it discussed on a few different forums.

Oh, that sounds like a legitimate source. Same source that says Xbox 360 RPGs always sell better in Japan than in the US, right?

[Sudo]

Oh, that sounds like a legitimate source. Same source that says Xbox 360 RPGs always sell better in Japan than in the US, right?

Way to be a dick. If you actually read my other post, you'd see why I got the sales data wrong. If the other poster's source on the sales is VGChartz like I'm guessing it is, then they're most likely wrong anyway since they pull their data out of their ass and just estimate much of the time. As far as the removed scene goes, if it actually wasn't removed then all the better, and I'll be glad that people were wrong. If it was, then you heard it here first.

[VACRMH]

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.

I agree on some points, but there are a few that don't work for me. Such as -senpai. "So what are you up to Vaccy-senpai?" sounds alot better to me compared to "So what are you up to Upperclassman Vaccy?"

-chan is another one that could be hard to use I would think. But over the years I've gotten used to it and it's not really a problem for me.

Staying on topic about the whole Star Ocean issue, I can understand trying a different art style to attract people who are put off by anime style characters, but what bugs me is that everything was removed and not changed to an option to pick which style you would prefer.

[TonyTheTiger]

I agree on some points, but there are a few that don't work for me. Such as -senpai. "So what are you up to Vaccy-senpai?" sounds alot better to me compared to "So what are you up to Upperclassman Vaccy?"

That's where I'd rather them ditch it altogether and call him just Vaccy. English speakers don't have special ways of addressing certain people like upperclassmen so when speaking English the characters shouldn't either.

It's like how some anime have a younger female character address an older unrelated male character as "Oniisan." That may make perfect sense in Japanese but if you do a literal translation and have the girl run around calling him "big brother" in English it actually doesn't serve the same function. The tone is altered. And I think the dubs that do it are worse as a result.

Keeping the overall "feel" of the dialogue is more important than keeping the words or phrases themselves. To a Japanese audience, a girl saying "oniisan" is fairly normal. To an English speaker, however, a girl saying "big brother" comes off as weird or at least far more "cutesy" than I'm sure was intended. So the direct translation might be more "accurate" as far as raw dialogue goes but it's certainly not more accurate when the overall intent of dialogue is taken into account.

-chan is another one that could be hard to use I would think. But over the years I've gotten used to it and it's not really a problem for me.

It's hard for me to give a counterexample because we don't have many of these kinds of things in English. But how about this: Fucking as a middlefix. Abso-fucking-lutely. Massa-fucking-chusetts. "Fucking" is the only middlefix in the English language and it's particularly slang. We know the "tone" of the situation when someone uses it but imagine translating it into Japanese or any other language. What do you do? Do you just stick the English word "fucking" into the middle of some random Japanese word when that practice is completely alien to the language? I don't think it would be a good idea to do that.

Staying on topic about the whole Star Ocean issue, I can understand trying a different art style to attract people who are put off by anime style characters, but what bugs me is that everything was removed and not changed to an option to pick which style you would prefer.

As much as I love options, I don't think I've ever seen a game offer something quite like this. The closest I can think of is TMNT: Turtles in Time that let you select between "animation" and "comic" for the color palette. Would be nice, though.

[roushimsx]

As much as I love options, I don't think I've ever seen a game offer something quite like this.

The aforementioned Ys VI for PS2 offered this option.