How would you localize your game?

it feels like something he'd say in a Y1 tier dub

I do localize games. Nothing big, just small indie games, but still. I don't have as much freedom as when I translated manga, but there's not too many guidelines to follow. I do what I've done for years; I try to make sure they're as accurate as can be while as natural as can be. These things can clash at times and sounding natural usually trumps things, but still, I go to great lengths to keep things accurate, natural, and consistent, even if I have to go out of my way to keep things consistent between multiple translators on the same project. I don't like making things up unless it's something that simply can not be translated or there's a good reason to be liberal.

>play kiwami
>finally find out why some JAV vids have girls in tight dresses and dance with fans
thank you yakuza for being educational

Attached: kiryu2.jpg (750x746, 60K)

It’s because of the dropped g’s.

>game makes joke about The people that buy Takoyaki the most are single women, while the cheif winks.

OP why didn't you mention Ace Attorney??
there are some characters/story elements they change completely for the english release
though the pedo was a good decision because japs laugh at them and the west despise them and the joke is not translatable as a result

EAT YOUR BURGERS

Why do translators always give dialects a different English dialect and not just do the Mark Twain style?

No,localizers should respect the original writer's and creator's ideas and intentions,not change it to fit their agenda and please people that don't play games

>do the Mark Twain style?
elaborate please.

Easy, hire Chris Sabbot, make him do all the voices as Vegeta or Piccolo then hire Christopher Walken to play the main villain. Every game including hentai games should be localized like this

That's because you didn't translate takoyaki.
>the people that buy octopus balls the most are single women *wink*wink*
See now it's clearly a hentai joke.

I peacocked your mom.

Perfect, autistic literal one-for-one translations.
ここ人が多くある translated as "here, as for people, many exist" instead of "there are lots of people here"

>though the pedo was a good decision because japs laugh at them and the west despise them and the joke is not translatable as a result

I generally agree with AA localizations, but this is one I don't. I think it was obvious in Apollo Justice because Alexander O' Smith localized that one and didn't care, Janet just doesn't like creepy old pedos probably.

Mark Twain wrote phonetically or something I forget the writing style he did not spell the words correctly but how they sounded. So a thick Southern accent was written as "by gawd" instead of "by god" or a character with a lisp would have words replace s's with th's.

>Chris Sabbot
Yeah no thanks. I’d prefer playing something that doesn’t have a guy that labeled a dude a sexual predator and hoped he would off himself just because he doesn’t like conservative Christians.

Dragon Quest localizers love that style. Unfortunately, they abuse it.

Always 1, ideally with honorifics properly integrated and not just left as they are because that's you half-assing the translation. If you don't understand something about a culture then it's not the game's job to pander to you unless the game outright does it. Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan is the perfect example of integrating someone with no knowledge of the time period or history into your game by explaining everything in the story that's actually important and letting you absorb everything else by osmosis or by learning yourself. For example, there's a substory where Benkei guards a bridge, if you don't know who Benkei is then this is just a silly substory of an idiot guarding a bridge for some tolls, but if you know who Benkei is then this substory gains another layer of silliness to it because this idiot thinks he's Benkei.

Bringing a foreign culture closer to you is the reason why games should be kept as close to the original as possible

>But piccolo trained Gohan bro
>& Vegeta went SSJ4 with no tail man
Fursona 5 would be a real game if Joker was voiced by a man and not a bug

>giving a character an accent vs writing all their dialogue in a phonetic accent
i'm struggling to see a difference desu.

Attached: kiryu.jpg (1081x669, 63K)

>Ideally with honorifics properly integrated and not just left as they are because that's you half-assing the translation.

Yeah, this. It can be a pain dealing with them sometimes, but I just can't bring myself to use them because it feels like I'm being lazy. I used them for a little while years ago when I was new, but I hated it and stopped using them.

Southern is just another form of English kinda like how Brits and Canadians say Z and Aluminum wrong

The other is making a Kansai speaker talk like someone from Texas.

I wouldn't. I'd deny every attempt and every request to localise it, and pursue fan-translators to the maximum extent of the law, because most of them are pissants who think they're safe because the parent company doesn't care about English.

EOPs disgust me, and their constant bickering about translation as if there's some "acceptable" way to do things based entirely on their own personal preconceptions and how things "used" to be.

>If you don't understand something about a culture then it's not the game's job to pander to you unless the game outright does it.
>unironically refers to Yakuza by it's japanese name
get out of here you smelly weeb go back to your high school anime club

Attached: HAMBURG.png (498x278, 159K)

again, what's the difference between
1) giving them a texan accent
2) not giving them a texan accent, but putting all their written dialogue in phonetic texan

Attached: majimaspoiler.gif (100x100, 548K)

What's wrong with makin them talk like a southerner, yall

I don't see a problem with the honorifics,it adds a layer of authenticity to the translation imo,they don't bother me at least

Attached: 1556737408081.png (612x638, 264K)

>How are they not gonna understand whats going on when it's literally in English
Are you dense or do you not understand cultural differences?

>translating -san as Mr
oof

The original is Japanese countryside. They aren't Texan. Phonetically they would have the quirks of that Japanese region. Translators just see countryside Japanese accent and give them a countryside Texan accent. Phonetically they would sound different with the Japanese not having the long drawls of a Texan accent.

Ok then, explain it to me maybe?

Attached: 1515381779788.jpg (521x521, 44K)

>adds a layer of authenticity to the translation
It does the exact opposite, you delusional weeb.

The damage done to the Japanese translation community from years of unlicensed fansub work done by complete amateurs with little to no understanding of linguistics or translation will probably never be undone thanks to absolute retards like yourself.

I love Taylor Swift!

honorifics in the localization are lazy because REALLY in the grand scheme, they're pointless to leave in the localized versions.
>inb4 "BUT MY SUBTLETIES ARE LOST AAAHHHHH THE PLOT IS RUINED WITHOUT THEM"
bull fucking shit, your story already has a shit ton of issues if the literal only way you could understand the relationship between two characters is whether or not they refer to them as "x-san" or not.

Attached: Ariane.png (1495x893, 1.76M)

Alright Yea Forums how would you localize this?

There’s a new fighting game from japan. And the publisher ordered a dub to appeal to many people as possible. And to be rated T.

Theres One character your in charge of

>an American boxer, looks like a white mike Tyson. With these lines
>I RUV AMERICA
> GOA FUKA YOURSELF
>HAMBURGER

there are other ways to convey the level of politeness and familiarity than just leaving honorific. but of course altering the script even slightly makes autismos mad for whatever reason.

I hire Mike Tyson for the dub.

make him russian
>ZA RODINA
>IDI NAHUI SUKA
>BLINI

>PRAISE ISRAEL
>MUH GUNZ
>*clapping noises*

I respect the people who try to reword sentences or go out of their way just to try to integrate it without just leaving it out in the open. I understand it's hard and sometimes the context makes it really hard to do something (Lord knows kouhai/senpai must be a pain in the ass) but it means the person translating at least tried and thought about it even if the end result might be something weird like Gotou-chan in Kamen Rider OOO being Brotou, or Kiryu-chan being Kazzy, etc.

Leaving it be shows they didn't try hard enough. It's literally an untranslated part of dialogue. It fosters an environment where a translator can go "Well, it's too hard to translate that" and people defend them for it. Look at the One Piece situation with translating "Nakama" or TV-Nihon with leaving a bunch of crap not translated but putting the translation in TL notes at the top of the screen instead defeating the entire purpose.

Kenzan's not localized so calling it "Yakuza Kenzan" is weird, it's like saying "Yakuza Ishin".

>The original is Japanese countryside.
Well, no, that would be tsugaruben, maybe akitaben, or some of the rural islands.

People who think kansai is analogous to Texan are probably retards. Kansai is a vast region covering everything from Osakan up to the Kyotoites, and both are much closer to something like a Milwaukee accent.

I fucking hate American "localisers" with their bullshit football and political references.

Attached: g3wWgIoT6DiMHRH2V18dHuC0WjFBFTGKIhRV8HHULqc[1].jpg (1200x675, 138K)

But you don’t need to do that if you just leave the honorific. Viewers familiar with Japanese culture will understand it instantly, and viewers that aren’t can spend literally two minutes googling to look up what honorifics imply. Give your audience some credit, we aren’t mentally impaired, we can handle learning a few things by implication.

easy:
>RELEASE
>THE
>BOGUS

Attached: Super_Macho_Man_2.png (396x512, 97K)

Exactly. Yet for some reason Kansai characters frequently get Texan accents and say things like ya'll and howdy.

if your localization requires you to pick up a secondary source to understand it, then it's not a good localization. even if it's "useful" and "joining cultures"

>joke/story features things that make 0 sense when translated literally
are you saying you cannot come up with an example yourself?

>>But you don’t need to do that if you just leave the honorific.
You absolutely do.
>Viewers familiar with Japanese culture will understand it instantly,
Wrong. Because people have entirely incorrect preconceptions about what honorifics "mean" from years of anime and no actual study.

If you think you can understand it instantly, what's stopping you from just listening for them in the text? Why do you need them written down, are you perhaps a retard?

>How are they not gonna understand whats going on when it's literally in English?

Attached: 1494985577014[1].png (2208x1242, 1.9M)

that's just poor wording on telltale's part.

>Give your audience some credit, we aren’t mentally impaired, we can handle learning a few things by implication.
Why not just leave every other word untranslated, then? Then we can have wonderful learning experiences like "O-baka-san-tachi, I've korosu'd your nakamas."

Translations are not your learning material. They exist to translate, if you want a detailed study of the language used, you're never going to find it because this is children's entertainment, and nobody cares enough to try and explain 50 puns on the fly in a comedy show.

There's no other way to interpret "glass him" other than hitting him with the glass.

No, it's ESLs and Amerilards not knowing basic English.

What's funny is the reverse happens constantly. I played a game the other day where a fucking major character, named Merry, was translated to "Mary". Why? Because Americans are braindead, and apparently Merry, Mary, marry, and half a dozen other words are all pronounced identically in American, so the intern tasked with translating the work had no idea that there was any other way to read the name.

Those words have a direct English translation, you dummy.

people are pretty stupid... some people unironically thought this mean you were giving him another drink

>basic english
>straya tier shit
fuck off cunt

>But you don’t need to do that if you just leave the honorific
Why translate any noun then if someone can just look it up? Why translate "Nakama" at all since the definition can vary depending on the usage and can mean friendship of levels of comraderie? Why translate "Korosu" at all when people can just learn it means "murder" or varying levels of murder depending on usage? Why translate "-tachi" as "and the others" or word it so that it means a group, why not just leave "Boku-san-tachi" instead? Why translate "Boku" at all instead of leaving it when a person refers to themselves in a childish sense? Why translate "Omae" when we know it means a rude form of "You"?

Do you understand how idiotic this argument can get when using your exact same logic?

Attached: 1334156939277.jpg (304x1023, 86K)

I'm English, cocksmoker. Every real country that speaks English has no issue with the term, it's common slang.

>”glass him” literally has 2 other meanings. To do cheers and to fill up someone drink.

Attached: 9E6B8FEA-28D9-4870-8FC9-9F252E68EA77.jpg (683x558, 71K)

lol mad spic

so literally
>UK
>straya
fucking epic bros

slang isnt basic english. people arent generally taught brit street fight slang in schools.

I'd do it by keeping the text as close to the Japanese script as possible, possibly just moving pieces around to make it sound more natural. I have Japanese friends so I can always ask them how they would say it English and the like and then make a compromise from there.

If necessary, I might include T/L notes like in the thing this user points out.

They do add a layer of authenticity,especially if the game is located in Japan,because that's just what people use there. Why would you take that away? Many scenes and dialogues in Japanese games e.g. JRPGs are "pointless" in the grand scheme of things,but that doesn't mean that taking away flavor text and things that make the game more authentic (by using something that Americans for example don't use) make the game any better or believable

Am still not following, what are you trying to say exactly? Are you saying it would sound odd or unnatural?

Attached: 1554087366761.jpg (480x480, 28K)

>game needs a fucking translator's note
just don't fucking bother man, nobody will like your shitty localization if you seriously have to do that shit

Attached: keikaku.jpg (640x477, 27K)

Yes? I can't comprehend how anyone would have trouble understanding this

Yes. Translate this English joke into any other language you know and tell me if it makes sense.
>Why was 6 afraid?
>Because 7, 8, 9

>i need them to use -san or -kun, or whatever honorific in order to feel like I'm actually in a japanese world
again... if you seriously need an honorific to make the world and characters seem "authentic" then your story already has a shit ton of problems.

Attached: DcKY32XVAAAzber.jpg (600x466, 44K)

Jojo already did it for you bro

Attached: Shitsurei.png (724x300, 441K)

Flip the panels and make a stoner joke, problem solved.

Ok, so what? Fix it.

Attached: 1537885873468.gif (500x348, 478K)

Holy shit. That's what that was? Fug I just thought Zeppeli was retarded.

Where is the rei coming from? I get the 4 is shi and 2 is tsu.

Retard, sometimes it's unavoidable. For example, in the one the thing the other user suggested, takoyaki's English equivalent in Octopus Balls, but, everyone should already know what takoyaki is as it's a common food and in normal English (not american) it's normal to use the original noun. Thus, to make the joke more clear, even for people that know what takoyaki is, it is still beneficial to include the reference.

Unlike keikaku. There are a bunch of words that don’t have an Direct translation for it. Think of places names, food names and some phrases. Think of Jotaros catchphrase from JJBA. “Yare yare daze” there’s no direct translation for it so translator just use words that have a similar meaning to it but it’s not a direct translation that’s why you see so many different translations of it in fan material “good grief” “what a pain in the ass” “are you kidding me”

零, you absolute buffoon.

0

>translating your game
>not including language text book and vouchers for free language classes with your game instead

>be american, bong or yank and don't get this even though american is your first language
>be european like me whose first language is not english at all, still get what they meant
hmm, really wonder why..

Attached: 1549996928343.jpg (1024x768, 134K)

Are you deliberately misinterpreting my posts to post bad bait? I never said that you definitely HAVE to use the honorifics,or else the game will fall apart. I said that they don't bother me if they are used and don't make the game worse,the only thing I want to add is that they shouldn't be used if there is an English dub. That shit is cringy in the Persona dubs for example.

"Would you look at this shit?" is a perfect translation for やれやれだぜ, and the inability of translators to do their jobs is not an excuse to stop doing them.

There's no phrase in Japanese without a functional equivalent, at most all you're losing is the understanding that something is a repeated catchphrase if it's translated in context each time. Obviously this doesn't apply to fucking names, but those aren't translated in any language.

As evidenced by this thread, most Americans suffer from low IQ.

>I said that they don't bother me if they are used and don't make the game worse,
At absolute best, honorifics show that the translator or team associated with the project was born without a brain. So they absolutely do make a game worse, because they're strongly correlated with mouthbreathing ESL translation work.

1.
Just add translator notes for the extreme cases or something.
I hate it the most when they change names and setting. Almost dropped the AA trilogy because I couldn't get over the fact that they pretend it's Burgerland, but everything is clearly Japanese because they couldn't redraw the assets. Makes it look even more pathetic, borderline insulting.

>it shouldn't be used because muh cringe
reddit

>I hate it the most when they change names and setting
One of the most confusing things in Yakuza translation I have ever seen is when they changed the pet dog's name from Mame to Rex.

play it in japanese then.

you're fucking stupid and gay

>How would you localize your game?
If i cared about it as a piece of media that should be experienced as much as a pure manner as possible. Then i would keep as much as the original script only as mildly as possible rewritten either to change around some jokes or stuff that would not translate as well cause of cultural difference in taste of media and how its done. Nips love slapstick wacky shit while here in the west its mainly veiwed as corny shit. So for the sake of it being localized in shall we say as pure as manner possible i would also hope to reach as many people as possible not just for profit but so as many people can experience it and then with time change less and less and then as little as possible.

Essentially ill do a pokemon anime tier of thing. Hell since WB had the rights to pokemon in the first movie they took out some of the original score and instead put in music that they owned and to this day no one has given a shit about it due to if positive people enjoyed the memory of that shit that was tailored more to their cultural tastes.
If i did not care and was just a business suit. Then fuck it change as much as possible to reach the shallowest as fuck possible motherfucker. Cause Hell the main reason for shit to even exist is to make profit and what many people do not understand that they really want is for the shit they like to sell out as super hard as possible at least for a bit. Since then the money will be there for riskier and/or more untainted localization's to occur will exist as well that at least gameplay wise fuckers would have a bigger chance to experience that shit since for the most part and at least in modern day shit cant be localized as much like in the old snes and before day. Where shit at times was made more difficult for the western release while nips got and easier version of the same game and vice versa at times as well.

That said i need a 3 day ban from posting on this site so here a pic of makoto from sf

Attached: 89.jpg (1280x960, 179K)

For pedantic people like you maybe,people that just enjoy Japanese entertainment without knowing Japanese generally don't give a shit about "m-muh linguistics!! :(" as long as it's comprehensible.

Does "it sound like shit" fit your own shit taste more?

Make it like the original script. Only change shit I won’t know sorry didn’t watch anime or study Japan.
Remove -san,-kun, and -senpai, because I’m not a literal faggot.

I think the first Nier made a good move by localizing the protagonist from being a oniichan in the japanese version to being a father in the western releases. Contextually, it changed Niers character but thematically it stayed true to the original script.

american isn't a language
do you mean cherokee?

Yakuza

The japanese xbox version has papa nier too

Not the point.
Why do burgers think other burgers can't relate to anything that isn't set in the US of fucking A? What's the problem with just having a game about Nip lawyer?
They do that with foreign movies too, making shitty remakes left and right, make it an american setting, then cry about muh inclusiveness and whitewashing.

>Think of places names
Proper nouns aren't translated in any language. Otherwise practitioners of the Way of the New Lumber (荒木流) karate style would be cut down when a man ran in with his Passing Shower (村雨) sword swinging wildly when he encountered them training on the Wealthy Warrior Mountain (富士山). That's not to say they can't be translated, it's just that you will immediately run into problems when it comes to people's names ("Hi Mountain Rice Field River Peninsula" 山田川崎). You don't exactly call a guy named Kevin "Handsome by birth" whenever you greet him, do you?
>food names
What can't be translated when it comes to food? Because Japanese food for example is all pretty self-explanatory in its names. One guy even gave an example previously, takoyaki are octopus balls, sake is rice wine, yakitori is grilled skewered chicken pieces, yakiniku is literally grilled meat, etc. You'll very rarely run into stuff like okonomiyaki which is literally "Something grilled how you like it" but refers to a dish prepared in a specific way at which point you will most likely have to make a concession, but overall things can be translated.

Options 1 & 3. All or nothing. And have Option 3 be tongue in cheek. Concocting bizarre explanations for culturally incongruous situations. Everyone sits on mats on the floor because we must moved in; and this explanation is used everywhere.

Am I a localizer or a game dev? If localizer, I'd go with 1. The way I see it, I'm an enabler, not an entertainer. I'd try to bring the original writing to a new audience and stick as close to the source as possible. Rewriting and replacing things makes the result less like the original so keep that shit to the minimum, even if it means the end result might be less enjoyable to a less educated audience. If not understanding references bothers you, then either educate yourself so you'll get them, or pick some other game that doesn't have them.

If I'm a dev, fuck that noise and outsource localization to whoever seems competent. I can speak five languages but I ain't confident in being able to write coherent text in any but one, much less produce enjoyable writing. So messing with a translation into a language I'm not completely fluent in will likely just produce hilariously dumb results. Better leave that to a professional. Even if said professional decides to go with option 3 it'll still be better than anything I can do.

>okonomiyaki
>tfw all japanese people i meet always refer to this as pancakes
Okonomiyaki aren't fucking pancakes you stupid fucking japs!

>But someone who isn’t Japanese or know about Japanese culture is not gonna understand what’s going on. Example Yakuza

What secret knowledge should I have about Japanese culture in order to understand Yakuza 0. It is straightforward as fuck. There are no complicated cultural differences or what did I miss? Name examples.

Yaoi

when i make my game in japanese I'll issue DMCA or C&D to every cunt who starts translating it or posting videos where they explain what happens! learn the language or you don't get to enjoy the product! if you disagree go kill yourserl!

Those are some of the most generic food names there are and I'm not going to look them up, but most of them are probably even loan words in English.

>Those are some of the most generic food names there are
Because that's what the food is when you actually know what it is. Sushi is just raw fish slices placed on rice. These aren't some kind of magical food items just because they have a different name. If I said the name "pierogi" and translated it to "boiled meat/cheese dumplings" would you have the same problem? Because that's ultimately what these things are.

fpbp, exactly this.

Whatever method best preserves the cadences and cultural quirks of the language, but still allows for it to flow properly in English. Something like a step below 1.

>1) make the exactly the same the only thing that’s changed is the text to English, there’s not even a dub. But someone who isn’t Japanese or know about Japanese culture is not gonna understand what’s going on. Example Yakuza
This, but add a new menu option where the player can read translator's notes. For example, some dialog might be:
>Just according to keikaku![991]
And there would be a corresponding translator's note:
>[991] "Keikaku" means "plan".

Attached: xx.png (633x861, 115K)