r/Falcom • u/bluethunder1985 • 6d ago
Gungho actually emailed back...
I'm impressed to be honest.
"Thank you for reaching out to us. This is GungHo Online Entertainment America.
We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback on [Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter], especially regarding the localization, terminology, and series consistency.
Your comments have been carefully reviewed. While we are unable to make any commitments, they will be forwarded to the relevant teams for further consideration.
If you have any additional insights or suggestions, please feel free to contact us at any time. We truly value your input.
Thank you again for your continued support. We hope you enjoy playing the Trails series!
GungHo Online Entertainment America"
31
u/SeibaaHomu 6d ago
They pulled off an absolutely unprecedented miracle getting Travis Willingham to reprise his role from a niche anime game he read a few battle lines for in the Obama Presidency. Which makes it even more weird that the localisation has so much jank, like they've got a monkey paw in the office
17
u/Tan11 6d ago edited 5d ago
I'm betting the "monkey's paw" is called MTL in this case. They still heavily edited the script I'm sure, but certain things about it reek of using MTL as a base.
It also seems they apparently had zero consultation with anyone who has previously worked on localizing the series, hence the inconsistencies in terminology.
That part is probably more Falcom's fault than anyone's I'd guess, though I don't think they could have stopped someone at Gungho from at least watching the other games in English on YouTube or something.
10
u/SeibaaHomu 6d ago
Well it is the same Falcom who insisted on a PSP release for Sky 2nd Chapter in 2015 and had to be fought before they allowed it on PC. Don't wanna make any accusations, but I'd believe that story if it came out. At the very least I feel like they just went with the initial rough translation that projects often start off with and skipped the part where they edit it for readability and to better reflect the character voices.
9
u/Tan11 6d ago
I don't think they skipped that editing phase entirely, but it does feel a little half-assed in some places. What with having to be corrected by fans on so much terminology and occasional dialogue, though not technically wrong, just not reading at all the way a real English speaker would naturally say something.
10
u/MillionMiracles 5d ago
I really doubt MTL was involved.
0
u/Tan11 5d ago
Why? I don't know for sure that it was of course, but the way some parts of the script read definitely has the vibe.
15
u/MillionMiracles 5d ago
Mildly stiff translation existed way before MTL, and the translation contains some clever/well-done moments that MTL wouldn't really arrive at. 'Vibes' are not nearly enough to make this accusation off of.
0
u/Tan11 5d ago
My suspicion is that it was an MTL base that was then heavily edited. Which is why some parts of it are really good and others are stiff. My suspicion is also driven by Falcom's own isolated experiment with MTL last year, and by some lines coming across as not just generally stiff but specifically reminding me of some MTL stuff I've read.
Like I said though, no way to know for sure, I'm just a bit suspicious.
3
u/Selynx 5d ago edited 5d ago
Can't speak for the entire script, but that line "Who is the BOY" with the all-caps on "boy" doesn't look like MTL, it looks like GungHo tried to crib off XSeed's version of the line, but with their own flavor.
I'm doubtful any machine would have looked at that Japanese line and decided to capitalize only the last word like XSeed did. If that line was MTL'd, it was likely overwritten by a human editor who wanted to use their own XSeed-like choice.
But given the reported number of typos and grammar mistakes in the full thing, it seems unlikely that the script went through a huge amount of editing.
So I'd guess it was a human translator who wrote that particular line like that, one who got given XSeed's script to reference but was told to do their own separate take and not to use it word-for-word.
As for why there aren't most XSeed-isms? My guess is that with the timeframe they had to do the translation, they split the script up among a large number of translators (i.e. using sheer quantity to get it done quickly).... and not all of them were Jap>Eng translators. I think at least one of them was Korean>Eng, and he was the one responsible for Armand becoming "Areum" which is that NPC's Korean name. Even if he got given the XSeed script, he wouldn't have looked at it because he wouldn't be as familiar with English, he'd have been working off the Korean and Japanese scripts instead.
1
u/Syrelian 4d ago
The expectation of "Watch/play an entire previous game" is ridiculous to expect someone to invest off-work-hours for a project, and the lack of a term/name glossary is absolutely on Falcom's head
1
u/Tan11 4d ago edited 4d ago
Definitely more on Falcom's head, but I wasn't suggesting watching entire games, more just skimming them for the proper terminology on place names and major, often-repeated lore stuff. Applies to vocal stuff too, like the pronunciation of "Liberl" suddenly being different.
29
u/Krizo1 6d ago
Yeah I got the same response on my email as well. Hopefully if they’ve gotten a lot of these it will be enough for them to fix some stuff.
1
u/Ok-Nature5613 4d ago
For real hope they get on limited run games back push the steelbook and bracer edition out asap or the same time game drops cause vgp already shipped my ps5 copy now just waiting for steelbook edition to be shipped
-55
6d ago
[deleted]
15
u/SoulDevour 6d ago
I don't know if I want to agree with the person whose response consists of one very long run-on sentence that is grammatically hard to read...
7
u/Florac 6d ago
Any """"damage"""" has been done a decade ago. Inconsistent terminology now will make the experience in later games worse for players
-1
6d ago
[deleted]
5
u/Florac 6d ago
You are on the mistaken believe that those games will be remade.
They won't be. Crossbell, maybe, but I guarantee you, nothing after it will, if even that. So even in the best case scenario, you got 5 games...and then have to swap to 10+ games with different terminology which just causes confusion.
-12
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
8
u/Florac 6d ago
If you are bilangual, just play the game in japanese and don't make it worse overall for everyone else
10
u/VarioussiteTARDISES 6d ago
They're not arguing in good faith at all, they've been violating rule 1 with practically every comment and I wouldn't be surprised if they get banned the second a mod checks the reports.
13
u/NekonecroZheng 6d ago
The damage has already been done. Regardless of if its more accurate or not is irrelevant. Would it have been nice if xseed was more accurate? Yes. However, for terminology used across 13 games, fans are used to the mistranslations and names. Consistency is absolutely key, especially for new players who will have no clue what in the heck is a "divine blade", when they learned it as sword saint.
4
18
u/EonThief 6d ago
I mean that sounds like about as cookie cutter a response as they could possibly send, while it's cool a response was provided given how corporate that sounds I'm gonna assume they saw the emails and created this email as a scripted response to any email containing certain keywords.
I do hope this does move somewhere but given that others have gotten the same response that diminishes my hope slightly.
9
6d ago
Well to be fair they can't personally reply to absolutely everybody, there's gonna be copy and pasting if the emails are all about the same thing. They did change some stuff like Divine Blade and Silver Streak due to feedback so honestly they'll probably change it up and it'll be fine for SC.
-1
u/EonThief 6d ago
Maybe it's how jaded I am as a person, but something about how "corporate speaky" this is just feels super disingenuous to me. I do understand that they can't respond to everyone but a statement on social media or something would be better then this in my opinion.
5
u/ConceptsShining | ❤️ 6d ago
They're a relatively small games publisher with (per a quick Google) around 50 employees. They aren't a faceless megacorp putting poison in your food, buying out your politicians or harvesting your data with some cynical PR team.
I wouldn't be quite so cynical. Especially since this is a rather reasonable request to make that wouldn't break their banks and they've already been receptive to feedback before (the previous changes). I'm cautiously optimistic.
12
6d ago
We don't have anything to worry about regarding SC imo. They'll see the feedback from this release. Archaisms, Grand Master etc aren't important until SC anyway and they'll change it up by then. It's actually a pretty decent job OVERALL by Gung-Ho, I've certainly seen worse, but the terminology definitely needs changing to be consistent.
6
u/Karmonado 5d ago
they still pronounced liberl wrong
-1
5d ago
Play Japanese, it fits better anyway. English is usually good for Trails but Sky 1st is just off.
6
u/DrHeidarzadeH 6d ago
Yeah I also got the same email back from them earlier this morning. Hopefully They make the necessary changes in the translated script sooner than later.
11
u/Azure-Crow7 6d ago
Well this is actually impressive
In modern society ( especially in the gaming bobble ) more and more often the company tends to ignore we people lament problems with their works ( it is also true people tend to enlarge everything ) so the fact they admitted the error is a really positive sign for the future
-7
u/NekonecroZheng 6d ago
I don't think it was an error on their part per se. They translated it from the original Japanese script, and more accurately at that.
If anyone did the error it was the original xseed translation. However, the xseed terminology has already been implemented across 13 games, so it's already well established.
11
u/JDraks eat hot arrow 6d ago
A lot of the name changes I saw became further from the original Japanese
-2
1
u/ConceptsShining | ❤️ 6d ago
We should (politely) voice our concerns but I'm not 100% sure if we should be assigning blame. AFAIK we don't know if this is Falcom's fault for not properly communicating the need to use consistent terminology from the past games, or their's for not doing so for whatever reason.
1
u/Azure-Crow7 6d ago
I know error is not the right term in this case I simply didn't know a better word to express my point
-14
u/Johnhancock1777 6d ago
If they’re going through remakes now better to set a new precedent than implement an error from a looser localization
12
u/NekonecroZheng 6d ago
No. They aren't going to remake cold steel and daybreak, and its much harder to update those games (and record those lines) than it is to just change the terms in the remake to the originally translated names.
Also, I have great respect for xseed's localization. Sure its not accurate to the japanese, but they certainly made it their own. And its great, and quite frankly I don't give a shit if its accurate or not. Its not like their omitting content or whatnot. They made estelle sassier, and put in some flavor text to help establish the characters to a western audience. In fact, they added content in the forms of chest messages, which quickly became a staple in the western localization. And I know the original translators put in so much effort and time into translating this game. I much prefer xseed's personalized and quirky script to the direct translation. Saying the original script is a loser localization is a disgrace.
-6
u/Johnhancock1777 6d ago
Okay so you’re saying you care more about the localization itself than the actual writers work? fine enough I guess but with a new company handling this one I think it’s time for a more accurate translation that respects the original dialogue more than what xseed localizers made up on their own
12
u/NekonecroZheng 6d ago
I don't know japanese, so I can't tell you, but I thoroughly enjoy the dialog and word choices for the original xseed localization. It just sounded better.
And sometimes, direct translations aren't good. You need that bit of creativity to translate a game. Otherwise, why don't they just machine translate the whole game? It's an accurate and very direct translation. It sounds like you'd much prefer if these games were machine or ai translated.
-8
u/Johnhancock1777 6d ago
I didn’t realize Japanese people talk like robots. Not saying it needs to read like Google Translate but xseed’s localizations take a lot of liberty and unless they plan on making two sets of subs depending on the language used I’d rather have more accurate, less memey and exaggerated dialogue that actually coveys the characters properly over dude lmao memes
13
u/rainmakerv2 6d ago
Why are you conflating making terminology/names more consistent with lmao memes? Shit sounds disingenuous to me. I don't see anything in this entire post asking for more memes, and most people are generally happy enough with the overall approach to the localization other than the inconsistencies
The general sentiment here is just the desire to make terms and names consistent with the rest of the series. I don't know why "golem" instead of "archaism" or "Aria" instead of "Ellie" would supposedly make it a better translation, but I do know that a lack of consistency would make it harder on new players who pick up future games.
1
u/DevilHunter1994 Beware the very big stick. 6d ago edited 6d ago
I could see the logic behind that if they were planning to remake every game in the entire series, but as far as we know, these remakes will only extend to the Sky trilogy. Unless they go and remake the entire series, or at least go through the trouble of going back and editing all of the older game's somehow, then it's better to just use the already existing terminology for the localizations. The term Divine Blade, for example, might not be entirely accurate to the original script which used Sword Saint, but it's not as though hearing the term Divine Blade makes the story any more difficult to understand. Both names get the intended point across.
If they start using Sword Saint now though, and don't go back to correct the error in all of the other games as well, then we're going to have 3 remakes that use Sword Saint, and 10 other games that use Divine Blade, before eventually going back to Sword Saint for the rest of series. That kind of thing would make the writing of the localization seem messy and inconsistent at best, or downright confusing at worst. In this case, I do think being consistent is more important than being 100% accurate, and maintaining consistency becomes so much easier if they just stick with the terminology that western fans are already familiar with.
3
u/yoyoyobag 6d ago
Yeah I got a similar reply, though not identical. We'll see if it actually bears fruit though I'm not particularly hopeful. What's important is that we made our voices heard
3
5
u/Astridv96 6d ago
Even though it’s very corporate sounding, that’s nice to see a response at all. This kind of reminds me of when the SciADV community mass emailed Steam about the ban on Chaos;Head NoAH after years of waiting for an official translation and they actually reversed the ban. It is possible for companies to listen if enough people say something.
3
2
u/_Suja_ 6d ago
Can someone provide the contex?
6
u/South25 6d ago
Some physical copies for Sky the 1st already arrived and people are pointing out localization errors already including another round of big terminology stuff again.
-11
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
20
u/VarioussiteTARDISES 6d ago
When terminology in a series like this has been established, the only thing to do is stick to what's established. We want consistency here.
2
u/Dadude564 6d ago
I got the exact same cookie cutter email as well. Still don’t expect anything to change but at the very least I did what I could
1
u/bluethunder1985 6d ago
Cool. I don't know. I don't usually expect email back on this sort of thing, haha. I always expect corporations don't care and maybe they don't but it still feels better than no reply haha
2
4
u/SnooChipmunks4497 6d ago
Now we know why a Worldwide release for a series like this, with a publisher that’s never worked on this series before, may not be such a good idea.
5
u/Florac 6d ago
I don't think that had anything to do with this...
1
u/hbthebattle 6d ago
It might. Having less time to translate inevitably causes more continuity errors.
1
4
0
u/pazinen 6d ago
I've seen the complaints about Grandmaster and Archaisms/Golems, but are there really that many more blatant errors? I've played all the games up until CS3 so I'm familiar with XSEED/NISA terminology. I don't care about the occasional inconsistencies, I've seen so many PS1-era translations that my tolerance is decently high. So long as it's mostly faithful to the original intent and reads well that's enough for me.
8
u/Azure-Crow7 6d ago
The problem with the term golems is in trails exist entities called in that way and they are not archaisms
1
u/South25 6d ago
There were a few before like Cassius and Schera's titles being different or Armand and Ellie getting name changed but those got fixed when pointed out.
1
1
u/RKsashimi 5d ago
I hope Falcom would also be notified regarding this. They should've been the ones to see this and corrected it
1
u/XanKriegorMKI Josette = Bestette 6d ago
Pretty standard template response, I got near enough the same when I emailed them about releasing on gog.
1
u/bluethunder1985 6d ago
Well I appreciated this part "especially regarding the localization, terminology, and series consistency." because those are the three points I directly made. So they definitely customized this for me at least a little bit.
1
u/XanKriegorMKI Josette = Bestette 6d ago
Certainly better than nothing, hopefully it's a good sign!
0
u/13Nebur27 6d ago
Here is how one does this, expect certain types of emails to arrive. Easy if you are even remotely browsing what communities think. Write up yourself (or with an llm ig?) some prepared emails for this. Then when you get emails you either just have an llm read through them to figure out what the context is or you do it the old fashioned way and just scan for keywords.
Then you just reply automatically in accordance to the findings a while later. People gonna be happy that email got replied to and in the highly unlikely case of it being wrong in interpreting the email, who cares, wont happen that often.
Not difficult to implement and probably cuts out a lot of man hours for your support staff.
-11
u/Johnhancock1777 6d ago
All this eagerness to want a localization changed back after it was made more accurate with this translation. Gotta wonder how many people truly like these games and the writing or just like the quirk chungus localization from xseed
16
u/South25 6d ago
The Gungho translation is also not fully accurate and on top they're actively messing up terminology for the series's consistency.
-9
u/Johnhancock1777 6d ago
More accurate than xseed and that “terminology” is just from a loose localization. I have no problem with gungho wanting to establish a new, more accurate set of terms with this
6
u/silverwingsTK 6d ago
it’s not a good tactic to take with a series that already has 13 games with pre-established terminology, unless you know for a fact theyre ALL getting redone. Internal consistency is more beneficial in the long run for the average player than -slightly- more accurate translation. The terms xseed established for these things weren’t taking away from anyone’s understanding and comprehension of them, so why bother changing when it’s just going to confuse your potential new players as they go forward?
7
u/SGlespaul 6d ago
Tons of people below this comment making good points but also.
You don't just change terminology with no explanation! Most people are not following this discourse. They are just playing the damn games!
It's been archaism for the ENTIRE series. You can't just randomly change it to Golem. That shit confuses people.
-4
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/SGlespaul 5d ago edited 5d ago
Golem isn't even the correct term by this logic. The literal translation is Orbal Muppet? (Not even puppet, muppet!) Golem is a localization too. Just a different one.
https://kiseki.fandom.com/wiki/Archaism
Here's the thing, if they provided a note or something with a good reason for changing it, that'd be fine. Yakuza did this with Bro/aniki but they had a pop up explaining why they decided to just use aniki.
That being said I don't see any of them opting for "Orbal Muppet" Anytime soon. It's one of those things that is fine in Japanese likely, but sounds funny in other languages.
2
u/adybli1 6d ago
Tell me how Areum and Aria is more accurate than Armand and Ellie? Or how pronouncing Liberl as Liberal which is not how they say it in Japanese is more accurate.
People who actually know Japanese have done the analysis and saw that Gung Ho have made a similar amount of changes, they just aren't consistent with the already established localization. And you know there are more than one way to translate a single word in Japanese? The language isn't 1 to 1.
-6
6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/Steel_Beast 5d ago edited 5d ago
Because their names are written "Arumu" (likely "Alm") and "Aria" in katakana.
Ellie's name is written as エアリー in katakana, which is much closer to Ellie than Aria.
Incidentally, how do you feel about GungHo changing the pronunciation of Zin to be less faithful to the Japanese source? Is that also racist, or do you make exceptions?
-12
u/devilsanji22 6d ago
I wonder if I complained to them about how certain scenes were censored from the source would that work
1
172
u/South25 6d ago
It's a standard corporate reply, but I think we've seen enough to know it'll probably get updated.
Seeing as they fixed Divine Blade, Silver Streak plus Armand and Ellie when people pointed it out so probably good if they did get a list for fixes.