Hey, everybody! This is the first post in what I'm planning on making a series about the localization of Japanese games. My first subject will be a quote from Legend of Dragoon, a classic Playstation RPG from 2000 (NA release).
For those of you not familiar with Legend of Dragoon, I highly encourage you to try to find a copy of it if you're into old-school RPGs. There's a lot to like about it - it has a good story, an innovative battle system, and a visual style very similar to Final Fantasy VII. That last one was a big selling point for me, since FF VII was one of my favorite games growing up, so playing Legend of Dragoon gave me a nostalgic feeling but with a new story. One thing that Legend of Dragoon was notorious for, though, was that it often had less than perfect translations. To me, and to many others, that was part of the game's charm. The translation wasn't so bad that it significantly detracted from the experience, but there were occasional odd moments, my favorite of which was the following message which appears when you investigate a fireplace:
For those of you not familiar with Legend of Dragoon, I highly encourage you to try to find a copy of it if you're into old-school RPGs. There's a lot to like about it - it has a good story, an innovative battle system, and a visual style very similar to Final Fantasy VII. That last one was a big selling point for me, since FF VII was one of my favorite games growing up, so playing Legend of Dragoon gave me a nostalgic feeling but with a new story. One thing that Legend of Dragoon was notorious for, though, was that it often had less than perfect translations. To me, and to many others, that was part of the game's charm. The translation wasn't so bad that it significantly detracted from the experience, but there were occasional odd moments, my favorite of which was the following message which appears when you investigate a fireplace:
Well now I just feel silly for buying all of those oysters.
Keep in mind that this line doesn't come in the middle of a romantic interlude, or even when you're staying overnight in an inn or at someone's house. This is just a regular old fireplace that you find while exploring. So why would the writers put this line in and break the tone of an otherwise un-comedic scene? Well, they probably didn't mean to.
When localization editors translate games, they aren't always looking at the text in the game like we are - oftentimes, they'll be using a computer assisted translation (CAT) tool and looking at lines of text within the tool. Think of it like looking putting your translation into Microsoft Word instead of directly into the game - by doing so, you can more easily review and correct your text, and there are extra tools like spell check and grammar check to help you out.
Even with the excuse that the translator might not have known the context, though, he was still working off of the game's original Japanese text. Surely the Japanese version didn't have an aphrodisiac fireplace, so how did the translator come to that conclusion?
I haven't seen the original text, so I can't say for sure, but my assumption is that the original text involved the Japanese word yaruki. Yaruki comes from the words yaru (やる), which means "to do", and ki (気), the symbol for feeling/spirit/desire. Yaruki is a word without a perfect English equivalent, and if translated literally, would mean something like "the desire to do it" - hence the version that the game's translator used.
A more accurate but less literal way of translating yaruki would be "motivation", but it would be slightly awkward to phrase the line as "The flame fills me with motivation!", so I would probably opt for something more like, "Watching this flame really gets me pumped up!"
All of that said, this is complete speculation, and perhaps the original version of the game did want to lighten the mood by surprising players like me who talk to every NPC and investigate every fireplace or pot that they pass by. After all, this is the same game that has a fellow inn-mate say the following gem:
When localization editors translate games, they aren't always looking at the text in the game like we are - oftentimes, they'll be using a computer assisted translation (CAT) tool and looking at lines of text within the tool. Think of it like looking putting your translation into Microsoft Word instead of directly into the game - by doing so, you can more easily review and correct your text, and there are extra tools like spell check and grammar check to help you out.
Even with the excuse that the translator might not have known the context, though, he was still working off of the game's original Japanese text. Surely the Japanese version didn't have an aphrodisiac fireplace, so how did the translator come to that conclusion?
I haven't seen the original text, so I can't say for sure, but my assumption is that the original text involved the Japanese word yaruki. Yaruki comes from the words yaru (やる), which means "to do", and ki (気), the symbol for feeling/spirit/desire. Yaruki is a word without a perfect English equivalent, and if translated literally, would mean something like "the desire to do it" - hence the version that the game's translator used.
A more accurate but less literal way of translating yaruki would be "motivation", but it would be slightly awkward to phrase the line as "The flame fills me with motivation!", so I would probably opt for something more like, "Watching this flame really gets me pumped up!"
All of that said, this is complete speculation, and perhaps the original version of the game did want to lighten the mood by surprising players like me who talk to every NPC and investigate every fireplace or pot that they pass by. After all, this is the same game that has a fellow inn-mate say the following gem:
I'm no expert on the economy, but I think this guy might be onto something.
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