taskforce wrote:
No, I don't feel we really need to translate this term, as this won't be the only Japanese term left in this game. There will be a small number of Japanese terms left in this game. It is no harder than remembering the names of made up organizations or people in a game. I'm sure we'll find a place to explain what the term means at some point.
If people have an issue with a small amount of Japanese terminology, Oni II is not a game they should be playing. It is steeped in Japanese folklore and I personally do not want that eastern flair westernized. Now that isn't to say that there aren't places where westernizing won't be done, I'm not going to give you overload, but there are just some things that you can't or shouldn't westernize. A good example: I'm not going to call the Shinsengumi something like Ghostbusters just because they're off busting ghosts in the game. The Shinsengumi was a real Japanese force at the end of the Edo period. Sorry, not happening. However, I'm fine with calling a Miko a Shrine Maiden. Yet I'm not okay with calling a youkai or Oni and such as a ghost, spirit or other English term. They might be a somewhat close representation, but they are not an exact representation, and we can explain what a youkai and/or Oni is and move on. Heck, the title Oni is a Japanese term which is something like Demon or Devil. So, technically the English title is Demon/Devil II. Oni just sounds so much nicer.
It amazes me that people get bent out of shape about learning 20 or so foreign terms and their meaning sometimes but you can give them 500+ made up terms that only fit in the universe of a game like Shelldorado in Super Shell Monster Story and that is no issue. And, I'm not saying everyone is like this, but the next time you find yourself thinking, "Why didn't they translate this term into something more western friendly?", stop and think if remembering that term is any harder than remembering some made up term in some other fantasy game set in another world. You'll realize pretty quickly that learning a few foreign terms is not going to make your brain explode, you do it in other games, its just in those games its not the thought that it is a foreign term.
And this is why TF is doing the first pass on the game. We kept Dousen and Feng Shui in Chaos Seed when we could have called them a "Hermit Mage" and a "Wind-Water Harmony Enhancing System" (or whatever).
Well, we have a Hermit Crab and rather balmy Great Gnome in SSMS-I and II, so that takes care of the hermit and mage biz-ness for a while. But these Shinsengumi are deadly serious about this youkai-busting enterprise. They'll even bust down doors wherever their enemies are lurking. The fact that youkai can suddenly attain human form appears to portend dynastic-level changes looming in Nippon's immediate future!