King Says: "Suikoden translation has been good."

[fc_conn]

Yeah...the Japanese word that they use for "rune" actually can mean "crest" too. So...yeah.

Translations are weird. A 100% literal translation is rarely a good thing, though. Sometimes a teeny but of localizing and embellishment can go a long ways. But I agree with everyone that Syaries looks better than Sialeeds.

Personally, I will be happy with the game as long as it's legible. Which I am sure it will be. :D

BTW, if you guys think Suikoden 2's translation is shoddy, go look at Legend of Heroes IV for the PSP. They took a great story and turned it into rubbish. It's practically Babelfish speak. Stuff like "coin is of inside pocket toward the gleaming sun traversal." So...bad as Suiko translations can be...it could be worse...be thankful. ;)

[El Regrs]

And there was always Final Fantasy Tactics' translation...with winning quotes such as:

"Nobody's wants you to be king!" Way to ruin a critical scene, Delita.
"You said spread... what the hell did you spread?" Golly Ramza, from over here, it sounds like VD.

And their irritating habit of forming the contraction "you'll" where it wasn't grammatically correct. And those descriptions in the equipment shops, especially with one of the crossbows being described as "unusually big, gives a huge reaction." (Don't worry; my mind was already in the gutter at the Ramza quote.)

Suikoden II is the only game I know whose translation rivals that. And I only say this because I haven't played the games other people are talking about.

[Himuro]

wtf @ the crossbows description. :lol

Final Fantasy IV SNES NA had an awful translation as well.

[MMan9000]

Compared to some translations I've seen in previous games, Suikoden V has pretty decent translations. I still don't get how they got a cat to say Sonya, or Yoshino refers to herself as her husband....
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[Vextor]

No no, Yoshino calling herself in the third person is okay. The problem is when she calls herself her own husband.

[Blazing Camp]

I think it's traditional for Japansese to refer to themselves in the third person from time to time. What I don't get is why some translations get the gender wrong, like When Kahn refers to Sierra has a "he" when clearly she's a female. I hope they don't put something like that in Suiko 5.

[Arenegeth]

I just posted another comment in his blog which I find hilarious; if it doesn't come up I'll post it here to show you what I mean.
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[MMan9000]

That's actually what I was referring to, I just typed the wrong thing, I was having to do a report and I saw the words third person, so that's probably why I typed it. Bear with me and my zone-outedness....
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[Arenegeth]

Hahaha! It Went through!

Check it out under the name Cortez, number 34.

Hahahahahaha!!!
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[John Layfield]

If my comment gets through I'll be very surprised. I doubt the thinest layer of flattery possible will be enough to squeeze my sarcasm-laden feedback through the Gestappo. Sorry, I mean, Konami blog monitors.

Suffice to say, I'm eagerly awaiting more information on the Zexen Rune.
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[melange]

Well I tried posting something in Japanese about the translations being less than stellar.. we'll see if it goes through..
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[Arcana]

Suikoden III's translation wasn't horrible, in my opinion. It made sense. I'm sure that many people disagree with the names here and there. They apparently ruin a sense of purity or accuracy. Still, I much prefer good grammar and style over naming conventions. Basically, the text has to make sense. I don't care if it's the Fire Hero or the Flame Champion, as long as they tell me what the Flame Champion is and then use it consistently for the rest of the game.

There are many games I've played that have blatant grammar errors. They will misspell words, have words that are missing, and attribute improper pronouns to people. Those are really the errors that should receive priority for repair. Sindar, Cyndar. Whatever, it's all the same to me. That does not bother me. However, characters saying the wrong lines, or referring to themselves as their own husbands are really what deserve attention.

I feel that a lot of people here in this thread are really grasping at straws, here. They're picking apart the game because there's some sense of wanting some sense of "purity" of the Japanese language, a language that the majority of us don't read or speak. SARS is a little bit of an exception, but because he's fluent in two languages, he's ultimately going to notice errors.

No, a comment saying that the North American release of Suikoden has a good translation is not justified. I don't feel that at all. Suikoden II had a horrible localization. However, crying about little things like spelling differences of an ancient race shouldn't really be what people should crack down on. Obviously, repeated usage of terms in previous games should remain consistent (Blinking Mirror; Runes) but I'd consider being a bit more forgiving of occasional and rare references. Fire Hero is said how many times in Suikoden II? How about "Sindar"?

Yes, there are problems. I just think that getting riled up because they changed the name of the Fire Hero to "Flame Champion" really isn't the example that we should be waving around to prove that Suikoden's translation is bad. In general, though, the story makes sense, and much of the content is intact, and it does not take gigantic amounts of mental cognition to link up some of Suikoden's obscure references.

I mean, instead, you could be inserting bad Star Wars quotes in the text. I don't think I can forgive Atlus for doing that to Tactics Ogre.

Suikoden's far from perfect... but really, there's just so many more ways they could be butchering it. If there are errors in Suikoden (with the exception of S2), then they're not as obvious as everyone in this thread would like me to believe.
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[EZ_Rabbit]

Just on the subject of the Flame Champion vs the Fire Hero.

Its really MORE realistic to imagine that a character
who has such an ambiguous name would have more
than one variation on it in different areas of the world.

And Keepers of the Flame doesnt sound much like
the warriors that I associate with the Fire Bringer.
In fact, they sound alot more like a religious sect to my ear.

But seriously...

The nit picking over words that roughly translate to similar things,
or a dozen or so grammar errors in an entire games worth of text...
Or a few inconsistencies throught an entire series...

These problems dont even come anywhere close
to what was done to the Final Fantasy and Wild ARMs series'...
Games where mistakes were so prevalent they became the standard.

So again, relative to other games out there...Suikoden has it pretty good.

I'd hate to see the reaction to a genuinely bad translation
where they actually mess up the plot behind the game
or the central idea of the characters.

Now maybe if they had made Hugo call Chris a spoony knight...

Now THAT woulda been something... :D
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[bbsting120]

I could post my own lengthy post, but instead i'm going to take the lazy road and just say...

What Arcana said. :mrgreen:

[Professor Daravon]

What I don't get is why some translations get the gender wrong, like When Kahn refers to Sierra has a "he" when clearly she's a female.

That's actually a pretty easy mistake; Japanese tends to be vague when it comes to pronouns.
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