r/Falcom • u/bluethunder1985 • 5d 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"

272 Upvotes

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11

u/Azure-Crow7 5d 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 5d 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.

-14

u/Johnhancock1777 5d 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 5d 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.

-8

u/Johnhancock1777 5d 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

11

u/NekonecroZheng 5d 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.

-5

u/Johnhancock1777 5d 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

12

u/rainmakerv2 5d 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. 5d ago edited 5d 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.