Significant Differences Between English and Japanese

Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
Oh interesting, in French Hojo tells Cloud "rather than a SOLDIER...." and then Cloud has a seizure, but Hojo continues to speak so I wonder if the others heard him? They probably did, which would make them extra aware of Cloud's problems?

Also for LTD purpose, Aerith says "you came" using "vous", which means it's for everybody in the party, not only Cloud. The JP probably had no pronouns tho? Since it's often left out.
 
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
Strangelove said:
我々が捨てようとしている風景だ, it is a scene/scenery we are about to discard/trying to discard. i don't know about the 'fail' stuff since it sounds like what will happen if they do fail is a bad thing? the japanese line feels a bit more neutral to me, just that this is the future they will be changing.
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So Red XIII in Japanese is more commenting about how the visions they see are becoming "unfixed" (not pre-destined) due to the party beating Harbinger, rather than the visions being inherently a bad future?
 
Myst Knight

Myst Knight

Lv. 25 Adventurer
Suzaku said:
In the demo build it was localized as
Jenova Pulse -- one of the few major changes I noticed -- and the battle track is still Jenova Quickening. Obviously referring to a prenatal pulse, IMO.

I assume the name was changed late in development to more effectively convey the hallucinatory aspect of the fight. I suppose dreaming can still imply a nascent state.


As for the liberal translation, I know fairly early on there was talk of them attempting to localize the game less literally to better match the way Western players remembered the original English translation, which characterized characters somewhat differently and pushed a somewhat more profane tone.
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Final Fantasy VII in general feels like a product of its time; i.e. the super-edgy 90s, and I'm sure the translation only upped that perception (especially considering the way the original Playstation was marketed). It sort of makes for the remake's translation to pay homage to that. (although I think Cloud saying "shit" when he dodges sounds like he's grumbling that someone cut him off in traffic)
 
Purple

Purple

Charmed
Okay it seems quite a few fans are upset in Twitter because apparently the localization was poorly done in the remake and a lot of nuances were lost. I played it in English and honestly, I thought the script was great! Can Japanese speakers here confirm if I’m really missing out on a lot by not playing and to an extent knowing Japanese

Some even went as far as to say the English localization is not reliable and I’m like huh
 
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odekopeko

odekopeko

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Peko
Purple said:
Okay it seems quite a few fans are upset in Twitter because apparently the localization was poorly done in the remake and a lot of nuances were lost. I played it in English and honestly, I thought the script was great! Can Japanese speakers here confirm if I’m really missing out on a lot by not playing and to an extent knowing Japanese

Some even went as far as to say the English localization is not reliable and I’m like huh
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No, you're not missing out on a lot. Even though I may be one of those people who noted some changes, I don't think the English script is unreliable at all. And those changes do not take away from understanding the story overall.

As for Japanese players, most were tweeting about how the English script made some of the characters sound more "bold" and "less subtle" than in the Japanese version, but they found it an interesting change, figured it was done to adapt to the more open, American culture, rather than poor localization. [ie. Cloud's, "Nailed it, I know. Moving on."; Aerith's "We have a bodyguard. Mine!";not bleeping out Madame M, etc.]
 
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
I think I saw it mentioned prior to the release, when people were comparing the trailers' translations, someone said that in English, translation was more done with the idea of what the player would expect from the characters (because of US players' perception of characters). So it's the one with the most localisation. Other European translations are just more directly translated from JP because players don't have that kind of expectation. I know French players are probably more used to Japanese antics, with manga and anime being a big thing here since the 80's, and every generation growing up with them. We are or were until not too long ago, the second market for manga after JP after all :D

Also, here is Madame M swearing in French for all its glory :monster:

 
Strangelove

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
i have

begun my spreadsheet

which is only chapter 1 cutscenes (no in-game dialogue because the video i transcribed it from it doesn't have those) in japanese and i look at it and think how it's probably not going to be that interesting since a bunch of lines are just 'who are you! what's going on! stop! this way!
 
Obsidian Fire

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
The more interesting differences between the JP and EN are the names that are proper nouns rather than how things are largely phrased. Things like the character's move-sets being retranslations of their Limit Break names. Or some of the enemy names or enemy attack names (why cut Black Velvet as the Yazoo Whispers attack?) Or some location names... like Edge of Creation. A lot of those are references to the OG and Compilation that can be so easily missed if the name is changed. So it completely goes over EN player's heads. Also, those are Proper Nouns, they can be weirdly phrased and no one is going to think it sounds weird. Place names are also really important if they have some kind of location definition baked into them. And different location names/concepts have different shades of meaning that can effect "where" in metaphysical space something is going on.

I think the biggest phrasing difference I've posted about that actually mattered was Red XIII's reaction to seeing the "500 years later" vision. In JP, it comes across like the "500 years later" is a neutral end or at least, something Red XIII is aware that giving up could be a good or a bad thing. In EN, it sounds like it very much is a bad future Red XIII is fine with giving up. And that's... kinda important for how the story treats the OG's version of events. Are they something to be avoided because they led to a bad ending or something to be aware of because they're now something that might not happen?

The other big localization "blind spot" is the way Sephiroth's speech is translated in Edge of Creation. There is... no real way in English to really show a first-person pronoun shift like that. And the way that pronoun shift in JP is talked about in the Ultimiania makes it out to be... pretty important going forward. That a plot point that should be that big and noticeable can be completely glossed over just because of a localization... it's a bit... unfortunate.

I think the reason people do make a big deal of translation issues is because... there is plot-relevant stuff going on in the original language that still doesn't make it's way to the English speakers. And it's not just like... Easter-egg level content either. It's things like "how is the game telling us to think about the events of the original games" or "EoC Sephiroth is saying weird stuff... how different from the other Sephiroth's we see is he?" If the answer to important questions like that is different just because of the localization... that's... maybe not a huge problem. But I'd still say it was a problem. No one wants to play two different stories just because they picked one language over the other.

If the only differences were mainly phrasing stuff that all meant the same thing... it would be one thing. But given that the EN players didn't catch up on the Sephiroth pronoun differences until the Ultimania pointed it out to them... it's a slightly different problem.
 
Eerie

Eerie

Fire and Blood
The pronoun thing is impossible to translate in most languages, I think. JP has many pronouns for "I", unlike other languages. It's not something that can easily be translated, especially in such few sentences - usually you'd need a bit more to give a proper "feeling" of something different that is so subtle. We couldn't do anything but miss it, honestly.
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
That is all true, but also stuff that's kind of only relevant to super nerds like us who are likely to know of the Japanese terms anyway, lol.

For instance, no where in Advent Children do they actually refer to those weapons as Velvet Nightmares or anything. I agree that they they should have kept that name the same in the Remake, but only for OUR benefit. The average player wouldn't have known what that meant anyway.

As for pronouns, that's just an obstacle we've always had and always will. The original game has the same issue. Sephiroth says "ore" before Nibelheim, and "watashi" after. We've managed to tell coherent stories all this time even without that nuance, and so we'll have to continue. Just as things originating in English will inherently lose nuance when adapted for a Japanese audience.
 
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