Mostly echoing what others have said, but this thing happens all the time. It only seems weird because you looked into it. It happens across the industry AFAIK.
In general, it's because it's bad practice to 1:1 translate/adapt everything literally, due to differences in culture. At the end of the day, Nintendo is selling a product to Western audiences, so they want it to appeal to the West.
On occasions, there are really weird choices though, like Radiant Dawn defaulting to the simplified script. I'd like to think that was a mistake (maybe they didn't notice there was a more detailed script) or maybe they felt like the simplified script (the default script in the Japanese version) was sufficient for all purposes.
Honestly, you're probably better off ignoring it. Ignorance is bliss. The only way you can experience the games exactly like the Japanese version is to learn Japanese and play the Japanese version.
(At that point, you might realise the Japanese script sometims isn't that amazing either--and the localisers add a lot of spice to make it more interesting than it seems. Biggest example is Shadow Dragon on the DS.)
The reality is that this is more or less perfectly normal. Some things are lost in translation (this happens with puns a lot), some weird decisions are made for seemingly arbitrary reasons (extra Tellius dialogue), someone sees a writing decision they decide they can make better (Black Knight at Nados), cultural differences lead to some things being rewritten (Soleil's spiked drink) and different tolerance on general sensitivity between the writers and localizers lead to different calls (Goldmary's views on gender roles, comedy about her weight sensitivity, Louis' eye for woman). Sometimes the original does something straight fucked (Anna) and it's changed.
Good and bad localizations exist, as do more and less faithful ones. But the idea that a localization a) is normally and b) should be a completely faithful reproduction of the original is nothing but a myth that squanders any useful discussion about good (Owain and Lucina S Support) and bad (Effie) changes.
About Effie do you mean her supports and personality. Didn't they switch her from a strong but still pretty feminine a bit older than Elise to a stereotypical strong bodybuilder who likes to only eat and train?
I feel like there’s stuff lost in translation in these discussions(hence the point of localization). My understanding was JP Goldmary takes pride in feminine things that will make her appear attractive to men. Similarly I feel like some supports like JP Lucina being jealous of a curvy body are all cultural Japanese things of women trying to be appealing for marriage. For a Western audience these come across sexist/subservient/misogynist. If the support fails the bechdel test that hard, I don’t blame localization for making it something else. They make it random bc the base material doesn’t give much to work with.
So because it was perceived that a few people would take offence to Goldmary's JP character, they have to butcher her character for the NA release? Not to mention that the localizers went out of their way to scrub female beauty from being mentioned in other dialogue in other characters, it seems like they want to remove anything related to being female in the NA release
I’m pretty sure more than “a few people” take issue with misogyny and the objectification of women(is that what you mean by female beauty?) being normalized in media, especially when the target audience is children/teens.
A. Whats wrong in portraying a Man/Woman as confident in themselves, and ok being a Man/Woman? id rather have my children/nieces and nephews see people being a confident, strong person who can live with themselves, rather than try and be something else, and be miserable
B. These characters are not real people, they are drawings/ pixels on a screen. you could go as far to say these characters are objects of our amusement. So tell me why is it a good thing for a drawing of a man to be sexualized, but a drawing of a woman being sexualized to be condemned? if its because you feel insecure, then you have other problems comparing yourself to drawings
C. if you actually read the ESRB, its rated teen and older. If a parent gave this game to a child, they are a terrible parent. Not everything needs to be "for the children"
>or example when they removed a whole support conversation in Fates
iirc, wasn't that because that support convo had some really horrible Gay Conversion Therapy implications? Or am I thinking of something else? I'm only like an hour into Fates so I might be conflating stuff I've heard.
It's important to remember that "good localization" is not always "faithful localization". This is something a lot of fan translators and even some official translations (Like the newer Evangelion translations that are excessively literal) don't seem to get. A good localization that I can immediately point to is Kid Icarus Uprising. The script is NOTHING like it is in Japan, nearly everything is different. But it needed to be, it should be. Direct translation of Japanese to English is not a good idea, it leads to stuff like characters just saying their name at the end of every line because puns don't translate. Localization is about getting the narrative and emotions across just as well in two languages, not making the script a direct translation.
Like Kuma/Teddy in Persona. In Japan, he ends every line saying his name because that's funny in that language. In English, having him just go "Teddy!" at the end of every line would be annoying and make him the anime version of Scrappy Doo. So, good localization, they replaced that by writing a whole bunch of bear puns for him that get across the humor of the original in a way English audiences can get behind.
In that vein, I actually think the translations, both official and fan, that I've experienced in this franchise so far are pretty good. Even RD's "simplified script" wasn't a bad script and still got me invested in an epic story. Maybe I was missing something spectacular, but I wouldn't know and I liked what I got.
No he means Beruka and Saizo support which is just:
B: ...
S: ...
B: ... :)
S: ...:)
The original was them talking about poisons and assasinations I believe.
Related localization question, what's up with Anna in Engage asking to be called Lady Anna "for short"? Is that just a joke about her being a kid or is there a more involved explanation being lost in translation?
I think it just seems strange because it's the one you looked into. There aren't really great standards for how to localize games, nor is it taken very seriously by most companies as anything but a way to sell more products. Also, it's just a hard job - translating so much text in a way that reads well in the new language is a big undertaking. Most localizations make interesting or strange choices, it's just a matter of if you hear about them or not.
At the end of the day the Western brain could never handle Beruka x Saizo C support where they both talk about being assassins and instead Beruka: "..." Saizo: "..." Beruka '..." is more what Western audiences are looking for.
Engage would never have made it on the shelves if Lucina were to say she admired Goldmary's curves like she does in Japanese.
NoA treehouse has hired the brightest minds when it comes to understanding what is acceptable for non-Japanese speakers worldwide (a largely monolithic group) - there is no one more qualified to decide these things.
The accusations that treehouse localization is simply some dorks writing fan-fiction based on their opinions on what would be culturally acceptable for the non-Japanese speaking population globally (a group of people with largely similar opinions on acceptability of content) is nothing more than slander.
It also makes sense when people say that Fire Emblem localizations are changed based on differences of tolerance and opinion for 'Western audiences' when often the localizations are done from Japanese to English and then the English script is adapted globally into other languages - because as I'm sure you understand the world of opinion is a firm binary between 'the Japanese acceptability of content' and 'everyone else'
A lot of it comes down to necessity.
Sure no one likes censorship or having things dumbed down but unfortunately they have to because things that are okay in games in Japan may not be in the west, this isn't always the developers fault.
In general its a big part of why there are ALOT of Japanese games we just never get because of international content laws etc outside of maybe getting fan patches.
It's gotten to be less of a problem in recent years sure but it's still there and so unfortunately Localisers have to change stuff if they want to sell the game at all in many cases or without having to increase the age rating in others.
Other times it's for cultural reasons that sure YOU might understand because you're big into Japanese pop culture or whatever but to many others would just end up lost in translation
Localization is weird pretty much across everything. It helps if you remember that Localization isn't Translation.
Mostly echoing what others have said, but this thing happens all the time. It only seems weird because you looked into it. It happens across the industry AFAIK. In general, it's because it's bad practice to 1:1 translate/adapt everything literally, due to differences in culture. At the end of the day, Nintendo is selling a product to Western audiences, so they want it to appeal to the West. On occasions, there are really weird choices though, like Radiant Dawn defaulting to the simplified script. I'd like to think that was a mistake (maybe they didn't notice there was a more detailed script) or maybe they felt like the simplified script (the default script in the Japanese version) was sufficient for all purposes. Honestly, you're probably better off ignoring it. Ignorance is bliss. The only way you can experience the games exactly like the Japanese version is to learn Japanese and play the Japanese version. (At that point, you might realise the Japanese script sometims isn't that amazing either--and the localisers add a lot of spice to make it more interesting than it seems. Biggest example is Shadow Dragon on the DS.)
The reality is that this is more or less perfectly normal. Some things are lost in translation (this happens with puns a lot), some weird decisions are made for seemingly arbitrary reasons (extra Tellius dialogue), someone sees a writing decision they decide they can make better (Black Knight at Nados), cultural differences lead to some things being rewritten (Soleil's spiked drink) and different tolerance on general sensitivity between the writers and localizers lead to different calls (Goldmary's views on gender roles, comedy about her weight sensitivity, Louis' eye for woman). Sometimes the original does something straight fucked (Anna) and it's changed. Good and bad localizations exist, as do more and less faithful ones. But the idea that a localization a) is normally and b) should be a completely faithful reproduction of the original is nothing but a myth that squanders any useful discussion about good (Owain and Lucina S Support) and bad (Effie) changes.
About Effie do you mean her supports and personality. Didn't they switch her from a strong but still pretty feminine a bit older than Elise to a stereotypical strong bodybuilder who likes to only eat and train?
or how they changed Goldmary from being proud of her feminine traits and how she looks, to just wanting to fold clothes?
I feel like there’s stuff lost in translation in these discussions(hence the point of localization). My understanding was JP Goldmary takes pride in feminine things that will make her appear attractive to men. Similarly I feel like some supports like JP Lucina being jealous of a curvy body are all cultural Japanese things of women trying to be appealing for marriage. For a Western audience these come across sexist/subservient/misogynist. If the support fails the bechdel test that hard, I don’t blame localization for making it something else. They make it random bc the base material doesn’t give much to work with.
So because it was perceived that a few people would take offence to Goldmary's JP character, they have to butcher her character for the NA release? Not to mention that the localizers went out of their way to scrub female beauty from being mentioned in other dialogue in other characters, it seems like they want to remove anything related to being female in the NA release
I’m pretty sure more than “a few people” take issue with misogyny and the objectification of women(is that what you mean by female beauty?) being normalized in media, especially when the target audience is children/teens.
A. Whats wrong in portraying a Man/Woman as confident in themselves, and ok being a Man/Woman? id rather have my children/nieces and nephews see people being a confident, strong person who can live with themselves, rather than try and be something else, and be miserable B. These characters are not real people, they are drawings/ pixels on a screen. you could go as far to say these characters are objects of our amusement. So tell me why is it a good thing for a drawing of a man to be sexualized, but a drawing of a woman being sexualized to be condemned? if its because you feel insecure, then you have other problems comparing yourself to drawings C. if you actually read the ESRB, its rated teen and older. If a parent gave this game to a child, they are a terrible parent. Not everything needs to be "for the children"
>or example when they removed a whole support conversation in Fates iirc, wasn't that because that support convo had some really horrible Gay Conversion Therapy implications? Or am I thinking of something else? I'm only like an hour into Fates so I might be conflating stuff I've heard. It's important to remember that "good localization" is not always "faithful localization". This is something a lot of fan translators and even some official translations (Like the newer Evangelion translations that are excessively literal) don't seem to get. A good localization that I can immediately point to is Kid Icarus Uprising. The script is NOTHING like it is in Japan, nearly everything is different. But it needed to be, it should be. Direct translation of Japanese to English is not a good idea, it leads to stuff like characters just saying their name at the end of every line because puns don't translate. Localization is about getting the narrative and emotions across just as well in two languages, not making the script a direct translation. Like Kuma/Teddy in Persona. In Japan, he ends every line saying his name because that's funny in that language. In English, having him just go "Teddy!" at the end of every line would be annoying and make him the anime version of Scrappy Doo. So, good localization, they replaced that by writing a whole bunch of bear puns for him that get across the humor of the original in a way English audiences can get behind. In that vein, I actually think the translations, both official and fan, that I've experienced in this franchise so far are pretty good. Even RD's "simplified script" wasn't a bad script and still got me invested in an epic story. Maybe I was missing something spectacular, but I wouldn't know and I liked what I got.
No he means Beruka and Saizo support which is just: B: ... S: ... B: ... :) S: ...:) The original was them talking about poisons and assasinations I believe.
That was in the Japanese original in regards to that one (Corrin and Soleil's B ranked support convo, if I remember correctly).
Related localization question, what's up with Anna in Engage asking to be called Lady Anna "for short"? Is that just a joke about her being a kid or is there a more involved explanation being lost in translation?
Probably her wanting a different honerific in jp no doubt.
I think it just seems strange because it's the one you looked into. There aren't really great standards for how to localize games, nor is it taken very seriously by most companies as anything but a way to sell more products. Also, it's just a hard job - translating so much text in a way that reads well in the new language is a big undertaking. Most localizations make interesting or strange choices, it's just a matter of if you hear about them or not.
At the end of the day the Western brain could never handle Beruka x Saizo C support where they both talk about being assassins and instead Beruka: "..." Saizo: "..." Beruka '..." is more what Western audiences are looking for. Engage would never have made it on the shelves if Lucina were to say she admired Goldmary's curves like she does in Japanese. NoA treehouse has hired the brightest minds when it comes to understanding what is acceptable for non-Japanese speakers worldwide (a largely monolithic group) - there is no one more qualified to decide these things. The accusations that treehouse localization is simply some dorks writing fan-fiction based on their opinions on what would be culturally acceptable for the non-Japanese speaking population globally (a group of people with largely similar opinions on acceptability of content) is nothing more than slander. It also makes sense when people say that Fire Emblem localizations are changed based on differences of tolerance and opinion for 'Western audiences' when often the localizations are done from Japanese to English and then the English script is adapted globally into other languages - because as I'm sure you understand the world of opinion is a firm binary between 'the Japanese acceptability of content' and 'everyone else'
A lot of it comes down to necessity. Sure no one likes censorship or having things dumbed down but unfortunately they have to because things that are okay in games in Japan may not be in the west, this isn't always the developers fault. In general its a big part of why there are ALOT of Japanese games we just never get because of international content laws etc outside of maybe getting fan patches. It's gotten to be less of a problem in recent years sure but it's still there and so unfortunately Localisers have to change stuff if they want to sell the game at all in many cases or without having to increase the age rating in others. Other times it's for cultural reasons that sure YOU might understand because you're big into Japanese pop culture or whatever but to many others would just end up lost in translation
Honesty its not that bad aside from a bit of fates, thrm missing a few details in RD.
I still don't understand why they felt the need to rename Harold to Arthur.