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Post subject: Translation update
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:26 am 
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Hey guys,

I'm happy to announce that I'm nearly 2/3 of the way finished with the script. I'm also 3/4 finished with the misc. text (items, menus, etc.).

One thing I noticed is that this project will require a LOT of localization. So far, the main characters have quoted the TV shows "Kamen Rider," ""Momotaro Zamurai," and "Oedo Sosamo". Not exactly references that a non-Japanese audience will get.

There's also a few difficult Japanese/Chinese history questions during the quiz with the Sphinx in the second chapter of the game. These should probably be exchanged with US or UK history questions. I can post examples if needed.

One thing that intrigues me about the game, as I've told filler already, is that a lot of the words in the script are part kanji and part hiragana. So, for example, instead of the standard 洞窟 (cave), you get 洞くつ. This can make it a pain to look up words I don't know, but I've only ever seen one game do this before ("Light Fantasy", I *think*), so it's certainly unique. I can't imagine it being a space-saving technique, but maybe it is?

To Wildbill (who I assume is doing the localization/editing): Do you prefer the attack moves to be translated into English, or just romanized? So far, I've translated them where possible and romanized the ones that just sound awful in English. So for example, 百歩神拳 becomes Hyappo Shinken instead of "Hundred Walk God Fist". What do you think?


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:26 pm 
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Eien Ni Hen wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm happy to announce that I'm nearly 2/3 of the way finished with the script. I'm also 3/4 finished with the misc. text (items, menus, etc.).

One thing I noticed is that this project will require a LOT of localization. So far, the main characters have quoted the TV shows "Kamen Rider," ""Momotaro Zamurai," and "Oedo Sosamo". Not exactly references that a non-Japanese audience will get.

There's also a few difficult Japanese/Chinese history questions during the quiz with the Sphinx in the second chapter of the game. These should probably be exchanged with US or UK history questions. I can post examples if needed.

One thing that intrigues me about the game, as I've told filler already, is that a lot of the words in the script are part kanji and part hiragana. So, for example, instead of the standard 洞窟 (cave), you get 洞くつ. This can make it a pain to look up words I don't know, but I've only ever seen one game do this before ("Light Fantasy", I *think*), so it's certainly unique. I can't imagine it being a space-saving technique, but maybe it is?

To Wildbill (who I assume is doing the localization/editing): Do you prefer the attack moves to be translated into English, or just romanized? So far, I've translated them where possible and romanized the ones that just sound awful in English. So for example, 百歩神拳 becomes Hyappo Shinken instead of "Hundred Walk God Fist". What do you think?


Hi. Eien,

Wow, you are speedy! Taskforce is coordinating on PM, and he's always had a keen sense of well-rounded characterization/localization strategies, whereas I have a tendency (or maybe a weakness I need to work on some?) to key in on the most prominent players with whom I most identify. TF also has an irreverent sense of humor similar to mine and pretty much the whole outfit here. I'm sure he'll have some zany ideas to float around for those esoteric cultural anecdotes. We do our best work, sometimes, through brainstorming, and we'd like to hear your ideas, too.

TF will also take the lead on determining the style of naming conventions. We've done it both ways in the past and even mixed methods in the same game. In DoaE-II, we retained the mostly Chinese Pinyin tactics names used in DoaE-I. Generally, however, most of us tend to prefer usages such as "Hundred Walk God Fist" for the majority of terms, reserving Romanticization for a few unique instances, especially when the words have crept into our pop culture or the English side of the genre. If it's not too much trouble, could you include both? i. e. Hyappo Shinken (Hundred Walk God Fist).

BTW, I played NDS Dragon Quest VI recently and noted that American, British, Scot, Australian, and other characterizations were adapted. The Cockney went a little overboard, I thought, but we also like to mix regional English dialects in the same game. In Lunar Silver Star for the PSP, writers even invented an extra-heavy "inbred mountain hillbilly" culture and twang for one locale, a riverine town interlaced with rickety boardwalks. It seems that tones of modern RPG stories are really getting "out there" now. Are they imitating us, or vice versa!? One thing I noted in the PM video is the anime is quite racy in places, even "Amazon-ish". Have you encountered any PG-13 or R-rated content in the game dump? What do they call it? Hentai? Any of that in there?

So, I guess we should start tuning it up a notch on some of our backlog. Looks like the pile is about to grow taller quite soon. Thanks again, Eien!


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 12:13 am 
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Eien Ni Hen wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm happy to announce that I'm nearly 2/3 of the way finished with the script. I'm also 3/4 finished with the misc. text (items, menus, etc.).


Wow, you're really moving on this one. Thank you very much for moving so quickly on this and getting so far so fast.

Eien Ni Hen wrote:
One thing I noticed is that this project will require a LOT of localization. So far, the main characters have quoted the TV shows "Kamen Rider," ""Momotaro Zamurai," and "Oedo Sosamo". Not exactly references that a non-Japanese audience will get.


You'll think I'm crazy, but some/many of those could find their way into the final release. Maybe with cultural notes about the references. Could put these in game or in the readme. I guess it'll just depend on how it flows. If it doesn't work, Westernization will be necessary, but I'll definitely try to keep what we can, where we can. I'm chuck full of ideas on this and it is one of my favorite parts of production. A great solution I've found are double references. The Japanese reference along with an equally appropriate American reference. Might sound silly but it really does work with just a bit of effort. And the fun part is, I don't think we've ever used this technique but I'm really keen on it. I've seen it done in one or two professional anime and it can be far more interesting than just translation notes for conveying an idea.

I think Bandai might not have almost lost their shirt on Lucky Star had they just thought of a way to use this idea (though using it in the dub might prove to be difficult)

Wildbill can relay a story he'd rather forget about how I insisted we keep a decidedly Japanese anecdote in Slayers because with some elbow grease it would work in English :) And this is a game which I would never even personally want to play as I REALLY dislike slayers

Eien Ni Hen wrote:
There's also a few difficult Japanese/Chinese history questions during the quiz with the Sphinx in the second chapter of the game. These should probably be exchanged with US or UK history questions. I can post examples if needed.


Wow, OK now this is the place I'm really torn. If these questions prevent continuation of the game then I'm all for replacing them with questions just as equally challenging from our Culture. I guess it'll depend on scene is all I can say.

Eien Ni Hen wrote:
One thing that intrigues me about the game, as I've told filler already, is that a lot of the words in the script are part kanji and part hiragana. So, for example, instead of the standard 洞窟 (cave), you get 洞くつ. This can make it a pain to look up words I don't know, but I've only ever seen one game do this before ("Light Fantasy", I *think*), so it's certainly unique. I can't imagine it being a space-saving technique, but maybe it is?


Well Bongo` would be best equipped to handle the question of did this save space, but I have a feeling that it might have saved space by saving font tiles. Assuming those other kanji weren't in the tileset. I can't see it as a seriously good way to save space but considering how they used other techniques such as compression to save space, if the rom was full it was probably better to lose a few kanji than to go up 512kb or 1MB in storage space as that memory was expensive back in the day. Just my 2 cents that is worth far less than 2 cents :)

Eien Ni Hen wrote:
To Wildbill (who I assume is doing the localization/editing): Do you prefer the attack moves to be translated into English, or just romanized? So far, I've translated them where possible and romanized the ones that just sound awful in English. So for example, 百歩神拳 becomes Hyappo Shinken instead of "Hundred Walk God Fist". What do you think?


Ah, this is a good question. How much trouble would it be to have both? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'd rather decide how to handle those when we decide how Americanized the game will become during the production process. And what I mean is both for all entries. Although, If you just want to give the Americanized version, we could pull the other version from the Japanese text later if needed. So If you really would rather save yourself a bit of typing, this would also work and still be an option.

My thought process is this. We try to mostly focus our efforts one way or the other with this. As Wildbill states, we on occasion find ways to actually incorporate both though. When we do so, we usually try to pick a prominent style and then work from there to work the other in. Now, those names that do sound awful in English can always be improved. I'm not sure what kind of space we'll have for those names, but I'm sure "Hundred Walk God Fist" could be fixed into something similar that sounds more appealing. Using the Japanese names might also work if it is manageable for people to do so. This would only apply to attack names and such. Items would definitely not work this way, which I'm sure you'd agree about.

You never know, I might just be a gluten for punishment and do an anime/manga edition again (although, those names wouldn't apply here, the idea would) :)

/me watches as Wildbill's eyes roll back into his head.

Just depends on how zealous we get around here. One being far more localized than the other. This probably won't be necessary but the game will speak volumes about what we do and how to do it. And I'll be sure to ask you for your opinions and input too, as Wildbill said above, we like to brainstorm. :)

One final question. Mind if we make an announcement that you've made quite significant progress on the front page of the site?


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 2:30 pm 
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Phew! you all said a mouth full. Thank you Eien for all the hard work you have done.
We all really appreciate this and I, for one, appreciate all the updates you have provided us because it's been dead around here lately and I needed to see some thing happening.

I'm starting to think that I have forgotten how to hack and program...


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:28 am 
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Personally, I think that those Chinese and Japanese history quiz questions that you speak of should be kept. It might prove to be quite interesting and even informative for the player. After all, most of the people who will play using this translation will probably know a thing or two about Japanese history, so I don't think that it will be that much of a problem. Of course, if these in game quiz questions are really that hard, you could choose some other historical ones. Whatever the team decides upon will be fine. :)


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:31 am 
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First off:

Quote:
One final question. Mind if we make an announcement that you've made quite significant progress on the front page of the site?


Of course! :)

Quote:
In DoaE-II, we retained the mostly Chinese Pinyin tactics names used in DoaE-I. Generally, however, most of us tend to prefer usages such as "Hundred Walk God Fist" for the majority of terms, reserving Romanticization for a few unique instances, especially when the words have crept into our pop culture or the English side of the genre. If it's not too much trouble, could you include both? i. e. Hyappo Shinken (Hundred Walk God Fist).


No problem. Most of the move names are actually translatable, and for the ones that aren't, I'll provide a translation and romanization. There is one I'd specifically like to keep romanized, though: Shoryuken. Yes, THAT Shoryuken. :D

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One thing I noted in the PM video is the anime is quite racy in places, even "Amazon-ish". Have you encountered any PG-13 or R-rated content in the game dump? What do they call it? Hentai? Any of that in there?


Oh yes. There are jokes about chest sizes, one character looking like a boy instead of a girl (poor Kastle), and S&M glasses. It's all pretty much bawdy PG-13 humor, though.

Image-wise, this is probably the raciest thing in the game so far. It's Minerva in the "thong bikini" armor. You can also equip some of the "sexy" armor on Tua (the little girl), but I haven't tried because I have no desire to see that. :/

Quote:
Wow, OK now this is the place I'm really torn. If these questions prevent continuation of the game then I'm all for replacing them with questions just as equally challenging from our Culture. I guess it'll depend on scene is all I can say.


Quote:
Personally, I think that those Chinese and Japanese history quiz questions that you speak of should be kept. It might prove to be quite interesting and even informative for the player. After all, most of the people who will play using this translation will probably know a thing or two about Japanese history, so I don't think that it will be that much of a problem.


Let me post a couple examples of the quiz questions, so you can see what I'm talking about:

"What was the name of the scholar who was
Norinaga Motoori's master and who wrote
the "Manyoukou" in the Edo period?"

1. Kamo no Mabuchi
2. Kamo no Choumei
3. Youzan Uesugi

"Who was the son of Shotoku Taishi,
the man brought to ruin by Soga no Iruka in 643?"

1. Yamashiro no Oeno Ou
2. Arima no Miko
3. Otsu no Miko

The non-Japanese history questions weren't that bad. It looks like the only Chinese history question is about "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", so I think that can stay. Most of the questions on Western history aren't really that difficult, either.

IIRC, you can progress in the game without answering the questions correctly, but you miss out on the Sphinx's treasure.


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:05 am 
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Eien Ni Hen wrote:
First off:

Quote:
One final question. Mind if we make an announcement that you've made quite significant progress on the front page of the site?


Of course! :)

Quote:
In DoaE-II, we retained the mostly Chinese Pinyin tactics names used in DoaE-I. Generally, however, most of us tend to prefer usages such as "Hundred Walk God Fist" for the majority of terms, reserving Romanticization for a few unique instances, especially when the words have crept into our pop culture or the English side of the genre. If it's not too much trouble, could you include both? i. e. Hyappo Shinken (Hundred Walk God Fist).


No problem. Most of the move names are actually translatable, and for the ones that aren't, I'll provide a translation and romanization. There is one I'd specifically like to keep romanized, though: Shoryuken. Yes, THAT Shoryuken. :D

Quote:
One thing I noted in the PM video is the anime is quite racy in places, even "Amazon-ish". Have you encountered any PG-13 or R-rated content in the game dump? What do they call it? Hentai? Any of that in there?


Oh yes. There are jokes about chest sizes, one character looking like a boy instead of a girl (poor Kastle), and S&M glasses. It's all pretty much bawdy PG-13 humor, though.

Image-wise, this is probably the raciest thing in the game so far. It's Minerva in the "thong bikini" armor. You can also equip some of the "sexy" armor on Tua (the little girl), but I haven't tried because I have no desire to see that. :/

Quote:
Wow, OK now this is the place I'm really torn. If these questions prevent continuation of the game then I'm all for replacing them with questions just as equally challenging from our Culture. I guess it'll depend on scene is all I can say.


Quote:
Personally, I think that those Chinese and Japanese history quiz questions that you speak of should be kept. It might prove to be quite interesting and even informative for the player. After all, most of the people who will play using this translation will probably know a thing or two about Japanese history, so I don't think that it will be that much of a problem.


Let me post a couple examples of the quiz questions, so you can see what I'm talking about:

"What was the name of the scholar who was
Norinaga Motoori's master and who wrote
the "Manyoukou" in the Edo period?"

1. Kamo no Mabuchi
2. Kamo no Choumei
3. Youzan Uesugi

"Who was the son of Shotoku Taishi,
the man brought to ruin by Soga no Iruka in 643?"

1. Yamashiro no Oeno Ou
2. Arima no Miko
3. Otsu no Miko

The non-Japanese history questions weren't that bad. It looks like the only Chinese history question is about "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", so I think that can stay. Most of the questions on Western history aren't really that difficult, either.

IIRC, you can progress in the game without answering the questions correctly, but you miss out on the Sphinx's treasure.
I've never played a fighting game except Technos Samurai, so I'm not familiar with "Shoryuken", which I guess means a special attack or "(rising) dragon punch". But this is certainly an excellent example of cultural crossover.

You definitely answered my nagging question as to whether the bawdy content of the video carried over to the game. I am inclined to keep this element true to the original author's intent with only one notable instance that warrants further examination, and that is the dress style and nomenclature of the underage girl's battle equipment. Legally speaking, I feel we should tread very carefully on this one, as I assume you mean Tua.

Image

As for Ro3K creeping into Princess Minerva, nothing could make me happier. Taskforce will love the heck out of this, too, I'm sure (hee-hee...): Destiny of an Emperor meets anime. Yay, Liu Bei, bring him on!

The Japanese themes might work okay, too. One option would be converting them to Princess Minerva-related trivia.

Finally, that thong armor...? Phew-weee... I ain't touchin' that-un!! Ooh, this game may be too hot for this poor ol' innocent country boy to handle!

Thanks for giving us our first really good preview of the game, Eien!


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:53 am 
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Never heard of or played Street Fighter before WB? I guess you could call it a signature move.


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:33 pm 
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Shoryuken is also known as the "Dragon Punch" which is second only to Hadouken (or fireball) as the most famous Street Fighter II move. :)


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Post subject: Re: Translation update
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 5:35 am 
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Just wanted to say a huge thanks to Eien ni Hen for accepting our request to translate this script and for turning it around so quickly! I'm really excited for this one. I'd be curious to hear your impressions (with as few spoilers as possible) now that the script is complete.


The Devil takes notes from Lina Inverse? That sounds about right.

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