The bizarre, true story of Metal Gear Solid’s English translation (written by Jeremy Blaustein; the man who did it)

[Schlauchkopf]

How else do you think he hangs around with his celeb friends all the time? Do you think his assistants are with him 24/7?

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I always wondered about that. His first english language speeches occured during MGS4's development and he pretty much said he listened to a pre-recorded version of his prepared speech to memorize it phonetically. Either way, even if his english improved by now (Which it probably has to some extend.) doesn't really change the fact that he didn't speak much english during MGS1 and 2's development, where the Blaustein drama occured.

 

[EarthPainting]

You can count me among the people who thinks Metal Gear Solid 1 sounds more natural than the subsequent Solid games. The only other real stand-out in the series is Rising. The rest of the games sound more fan-translations. I'm not sure if I can entirely blame the localisers for that though, since apparently the Japanese dev team got more involved in the process after the first game. Translation work becomes infinitely harder when your clients have a basic understanding of the target-language. They might know the words, but not their nuances in meaning or tone, or contexts in which they are used. Once they start giving poor feedback or making demands, things can get messy. Other M is a notorious victim of this. Blaustein hit the nail on the head when he said translation is an art, and not a science.

I also don't remember if it was MGS2 or 3, but I believe the person who translated the game's script didn't even get credited in the end.

 

[Sankara]

Blaustein has been involved in a whole lot of classics:

Silent Hill 1,2, 3, 4
Valkyrie profile
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
MGS1

 

[brooklynb_jp]

Fantastic read. Thank you for sharing. He makes a very good point about having to please too many people with a job that's impossible. I find that the people who prefer a literal translation also tend to be more vocal, so there's pressure to keep as close as possible to the original script instead of localizing it and making it more entertaining for the target audience.

I can also say from experience that the existence of Google translate makes the job somewhat harder for translators because you have staff that don't speak English spotting differences that they don't understand. For many companies, this takes away from the trust that translators would otherwise have.

There's no right answer for how to approach localization, and that's kind of the problem.

 

[Richter1887]

Thanks for sharing.

Makes tons of sense now that I think of it. MGS 1 had the best tone and writing so this makes me think the translation is a big part of the reason. When you compare MGS TS with 1 you could tell the characters had less personality. Ming Lei was the only one improved in TS.

 

[Dragon1893]

I can understand a writer not being happy with people changing his work without permission, especially in the case of Kojima who isn't just a writer but the mind behind the entire game, but he made a bad call here. I have a feeling that if this happened today he would've been more reasonable. He probably wasn't aware of the complexity and nuances of localization, it's never going to be a literal translation and hopefully this is something that Kojima understands now. Blaustein deserves nothing but praise for the effort he put into this game, I have mad respect for people localizing japanese games.

This was a cultural quirk of working in Japan, where members of each department sit in their own area. It's an unspoken rule that you don't just go chatting people up at their desks unless you have some kind of directive to do so, or a specific task.

As a result, there was no synergy in the office itself. Breakthroughs happened while relaxing over a cigarette, where everyone felt more or less equal and let their guard down. We would also sometimes be asked to play some of the company's games and give our thoughts on them.

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This is so weird, if they realized how productive these conversations were, why not establish regular meetings between all departments?!

 

[Deleted member 36578]

This is a pretty amazing article and I'm glad it was shared. I had no idea how different this version was from the Japanese one.

Blaustein has been involved in a whole lot of classics:

Silent Hill 1,2, 3, 4
Valkyrie profile
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
MGS1

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Lol do we have him to thank for "What is a man?"

 

[Deleted member 41520]

I can understand a writer not being happy with people changing his work without permission, especially in the case of Kojima who isn't just a writer but the mind behind the entire game, but he made a bad call here. I have a feeling that if this happened today he would've been more reasonable. He probably wasn't aware of the complexity and nuances of localization, it's never going to be a literal translation and hopefully this is something that Kojima understands now. Blaustein deserves nothing but praise for the effort he put into this game, I have mad respect for people localizing japanese games.



This is so weird, if they realized how productive these conversations were, why not establish regular meetings between all departments?!

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Pretty classic Japanese work culture. Everything at the desk has to be 100% "productivity" not realising that productivity needs downtime and space for creative cooperation (which the workers cram in at smoke break)

 

[catswaller]

All of the times this guy took a boring phrase and coined a term for it (osp, halo jump, etc) rule, i can't imagine the franchise without those things. But the side by side "which is better" lines he shows in the article all suck.

 

[Jraphics Horse]

I'm familiar with a lot of this from that old interview tape, but it's a great read all the same.

All of the times this guy took a boring phrase and coined a term for it (osp, halo jump, etc) rule, i can't imagine the franchise without those things. But the side by side "which is better" lines he shows in the article all suck.

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Tbh I can't find any mention of HALO jump in MGS1, but the general example works all the same.
HALO jump does however show up in Metal Gear Ghost Babel/ MGS GBC, so maybe he had a hand in that, I can't find the full credits.
( I'm ignoring MGS3 obviously because he was long gone by then)

I'd go so far as to say the localization style played a big part in the game becoming so popular in the West.

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Absolutely.

Lol do we have him to thank for "What is a man?"

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Yes this is covered, and explained, in the article.

 

[Schlauchkopf]

Since this topic also mentions SOTN, I always find it funny how Blaustein is responsible for one of the best full video game localisation of it's time, that still holds up today, but most of the other huge projects he was involved with turned into localisation disaster memes even if the blame doesn't lie with him. I think it was in that old podcast interview that was posted earlier where he said he only did the translation for SOTN, the voice acting and casting where all out of his hands. Then he was also responsible for localizing the Silent Hill games as well as Shenmue, which are infamous for their bad voice acting, which are partly caused by the restrictions he had to work with. (Having to cast english speaking actors within Japan, having to cast by look rather than voice performance and other interference from the japanese side of things, etc.)

 

[fiendcode]

Snatcher and MGS1 are by far the best Kojima localizations imo. Too bad we didn't get Blaustein's Policenauts as well, I wonder how far he got?

 

[FantasticMrSnake]

Nice read!
Poor guy, i wonder if Kojima still feels the same about him (Jeremy Blaustein) did he made more game translations after this?

 

[Phil me in]

The best story, dialogue and voice acting makes mgs the best mgs.

 

[beelulzebub]

blaustein wasn't worthy of kojima's grace, it seems

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Not sure whether I like this post or love this post.

On-topic, Blaustein brought so much character to Snatcher and MGS1. That example that pitted his translation versus the Twin Snakes is a damning example of how much more lifeless more literal translations can be.

 

[Stryder]

This is why MGS4 has such an awful story.

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My thoughts while reading this. MGS4 is the first MGS game that kojima truly wrote on his own without having anything edited by a peer. His co-writer left after MGS3 and the quality says it all.

The fact that a lot of iconic lines from MGS1 weren't even supposed to be there is just fascinating to me adds more fuel to my opinion that Kojima was never a good story teller in the first place.

The games are still fun to play though. He's a good game designer who thinks he's a great story teller.

 

[Dr PeterVenkman]

This make perfect sense in how odd and quirky a lot of kojima's writing is in English post mgs1. I'd like to think that names like die Hardman might be changed by someone like blaustein?

 

[Rogue Agent]

My favourite writing/dialogue is from the original MGS1, so I really appreciate what Blaustein did here. Shame that he didn't return due too all this bullshit.

 

[Syril]

die Hardman

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And here I thought he'd never beat Hot Coldman.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

"Finding meaning on the battlefield" is awful, like god-awful. Except maybe in a hammy way, and MGS (1998) was far less hammy than MGS2 onwards.

What soldier would ever say that? The "good at killing" thing is still forced - but it's forced because he's being confronted as being a "legend" when he doesn't see himself like that - so he pithely says he's good at killing.

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Do you think love can bloom, even on a battlefield?

 

[Deleted member 12009]

Man, really dissapointed in Kojima's reaction. Blaustein absolutely elevated MGS and, frankly, we need more translators like him.

 

[jett]

Jeremy Blaustein is a legend. I can't believe he coined the word codec for MGS.

And Kojima is, frankly, an idiot. There's no doubt in my mind that the dialogue in Death Stranding will be more of the same trash we're now accustomed to. MGS1 stands forever alone among his work in terms of the quality of dialogue and writing, all thanks to Blaustein's amazing translation work.

 

[Javier23]

How else do you think he hangs around with his celeb friends all the time? Do you think his assistants are with him 24/7?

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Haven't exactly kept up with the topic, but I'm pretty sure one of these famous dudes mentioned Kojima always brings a translator along.

 

[FantasticMrSnake]

He's not a native speaker, but Kojima does speak English and understands it as well.



How else do you think he hangs around with his celeb friends all the time? Do you think his assistants are with him 24/7?

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Not sure if he understand what he says, or if he's just reading it phonetically.

 

[AuthenticM]

also, it's like everyone forgot Suikoden 2.

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What about Suikoden 2?