Posted by Wildbill (pool-141-152-27-57.rich.east.verizon.net | 141.152.27.57) on October 29, 2008 at 23:30:34:
In Reply to: Possible mistranslation, censoring, or someone who doesn't know what they're talking about? posted by vkamicht on October 29, 2008 at 18:34:39:
> There's a discussion going on elsewhere...
>
> http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=563031&topic=46003330
>
> Basically one of the users brings up a fact that the main character is supposed to be called "God" for a point in the game, and his race as a Raiga is not known until later... and of course a bunch of theories were posted as to why this happened.
>
> Any official word on this subject?
Official word? Well, first Lennus-II is just a game, not a new Covenant for all mankind. Second, our English version is not a literal translation, but a simple yarn written originally in Japanese, that we adapted to a cultural style directed mainly at ourselves, but also toward a diverse Western audience.
Literal translations are a boring waste of time, in our estimation. We are never purists for the sake of purism. We want our versions of games to be fun to play, for us. We hope to settle into a segment of an epic experience for a few hours and lose ourselves in a fantasy world that thrills our senses, not create grist for an academic treatise. Once we have put a few thousand hours into these efforts, and are generally pleased with the results, we don't mind sharing our work with the world. And, for the most part, we find the vast majority of players - in a word - appreciative.
Discussion? During my brief scan of some of the posts at your link, out of the thousands of downloads of our patch, I observed a handful of people discussing Lennus-II. Most simply spoke of various aspects of game play, choosing this character over another, etc.
One individual, apparently bilingual, decided to "enjoy" our game by overlaying the Japanese version and providing his own spot "translations", side-by-side. In fact, he appeared somewhat obsessed with this endeavor, alternating between playing the game, translating, and writing copious amounts of comments, directed toward that handful of people, some who appeared as perplexed as I.
Well, most of us around Magic Destiny and Stealth just want to play video games, in English. Gosh, If I had started translating Dragon Quest VIII as I played the English version a few years ago, I'd be maybe halfway though now. Whoa! Think of all of the fine games I would have missed! If this fellow can read Japanese, why does he even need our patch? In other words, what's the point?
Anyway, you want my "official" word? I guess it's this. Anyone talented enough to both play an English game and translate its foreign roots at the same time is probably savvy enough to hack his own English interpretation. Like we, he could write it to please himself, but if I picked up a game that bothered me this much, I believe I would set it down immediately and go find one that was thrilling and fun to play!
But isn't it ironic? Have you ever noticed that the people who are the pickiest about artistic products rarely produce much beyond excess stomach acid?
I mused on this phenomenon in our L-II readme. Games are supposed to be fun, but a few people here and there, I have always noticed, manage to become highly agitated over one aspect or another. Wow! Is that a paradox, or what?
Thanks for dropping by. I hope you are one of our visitors who is enjoying Lennus-II. If not, we'll try to do better with Feda: The Emblem of Justice.
Well, back to work for this boy, on Feda. I don't know... Maybe I'm the one who's weird, but I'm as driven as your friend, except I'm just a writer, not a critic. 99 percent of the time I spend writing draws no attention.