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The bizarre, true story of Metal Gear Solid’s English translation (written by Jeremy Blaustein; the man who did it)
- Thread starter NotLiquid
- Start date
Great read. Even though I still liked most later Metal Gear games, there was something off about them without Blaustein's involvement in the later MGS games specifically.
8-4's work on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is definitely the only other thing comparable in the franchise (I loved the final JFK/JD codec conversation in MGS2, yet have no idea how much of that was thanks to freedom with its localization), who were probably only free to take liberties as a result of it not being written by Kojima himself while he only produced as opposed to the same member of his staff at KojiPro who had written the cancelled MGS:R. I'm still glad that MGR got made and that it was Kojima himself who chose Platinum for it, but the rest of the series absolutely would've benefited from others having a say and him not going completely unfiltered.
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The plus side is that he'd go on, do Silent Hill 2, and was brought back to do 3 & 4.
Then again, I honestly believe he had better overall writing to work with on the SH games than he did MGS1.
That's a shame, he did a great job with 1. I need to replay it to appreciate it more now that I'm older though. I think he would have vastly improved 2. Whoever did 3 did a good job though, for the most part that game is just solid all around.
This struck me as the most hysterical part of all that. Kind of surprised that this didn't lead to a script that was even more outlandish than what we got in the end.
I remember someone asking this to Marc Laidlaw back when he was still working on Policenaut's translation and the answer being that it's pretty much the same speech in the japanese version.
The overall impression by the way being that MGS2 has a more literal translation than MGS1 but at the same time also having more actual translation errors than 1.
Honestly, it shouldn't have changed his views about anything. The dialogue from the opening of SOTN is actually amazing—it's really the voice acting that makes the scene so silly.
To be fair to Agness Kaku, with the quality and missing context of the material along with the lack of support from the team, it was a miracle that the localization was even done.
Ah, I see. I still remember how disappointed I felt after hearing people claim that MGS4 was closer to MGS2, only for it to have nothing as good as that one conversation that made that game worth it, and instead have dialogue and moments that made the worst parts of MGS2 look like high art (I say all of this in spite of ultimately liking MGS2 and even 4 in spite of their many flaws). As far as 4's writing goes, it pretty much peaked with Snake's "war has changed" speech at the beginning.
Full disclosure, the HD SotN using the PSP localization instead of his has much to do with why I don't want that version.
I mean, the main story was about a guy who thought he had inferior genes because they were recessive, but it turns out he actually had dominant genes. Of course he's a great writer
IIRC, Twin Snakes wasn't a port of MGS1, it was a "re-creation" of MGS1 using a GameCube port of MGS2's game engine.
And since Silicon Knights was "re-creating" the game (under Kojima's supervision), there were direction changes, like Snake infamously backflipping off in-air missiles.
And since there were changes between MGS1 and Twin Snakes, neither the Japanese nor English MGS1 scripts would fit Twin Snakes properly (it would be like trying to fit square pegs in round holes). SK could have tried to cut things up and delete some bits and pieces and add some new pieces to fill in the gaps, but the audio quality and formats weren't the same (PSX vs GameCube/PS2), and while most of the actors made themselves available for reshoots, people would notice the differences between the old and new performances, especially if both performances were contained in the same game. So it was decided to just have the actors do the whole thing all over again from scratch.
And since SK was a Western developer, Twin Snakes wasn't "translated" or "localized" as MGS1 had been, it was created bilingual, by a Western dev, while Kojima was looking over their shoulder.
But yeah, Kojima's (misguided, IMO) dissatisfaction with MGS1's translation would have been why Twin Snakes was made with a more literally-translated style rather than trying to recreate the style of MGS1's original English release.
Yup, Yakuza 0 has no English voice track and the localization is leagues better than persona 5 for example.
FFXV also has a good translation, particularly during the campfire scene.
Call me a philistine, it "mankind I'll needs a savior such as you" is great.
Also, a tidbit, David Hayter took a pay cut to get the actors back to voice their roles.
Fun fact; Jeremy is the brother of the late great Maddie Blaustein, the most known voice of Meowth. Jeremy even worked on the Pokemon anime and films, at least in the late 4kids era. No clue if he still is tooday.
A lot of the time people don't understand that a good localization oft takes liberties with the original text in a way that makes sense within the world. Great examples of this include both Earthbound and XIV, the latter being almost entirely different compared to the stiffer JP text while still making complete sense in context.
It's a shame Kojima has to exert complete control over everything, considering it leads to some incredibly stilted lines and delivery.
It's a shame Kojima has to exert complete control over everything, considering it leads to some incredibly stilted lines and delivery.
Tim Rogers had a nice little comment about MGS4's translation in his old website. Was a good read, although it's the classic Tim Rogers wall of text.
This is a really underrated post, c'mon guys.
It was a good read. I don't agree it paints Kojima in such a bad light, or at least not worse than whatever we already know - Blaustein focuses on his experience and that's what makes the piece interesting.
I also agree 100% with his philoshophy and there's no way anyone can say any later MGS English script is better written than 1.
Rising is a very good example - and SOTN for all it's problems with voice acting is very memorable for better reasons than worse, script-wise.
His localization was great, and it's even more amazing when taken in the context presented. Still there's too much missing from the story to draw conclusions over Kojima here. Someone had to convey the information to him that the translations were not exact. My guess is that whoever did that did it with a spin that made Blaustein look bad to Kojina.
That was on Kojima, rather than Silicon Knights. He specifically asked Ryuhei Kitamura to make the cutscenes like what he did in Versus, rather than keeping them like in the original.
My position regarding localization is that I prefer to hear or read what the creators wanted to say than what a translator thinks is better or "funnier".
Translating from a complete different language is not easy and take some liabilities because different languages work with different concepts to get a point across.
But I would rather something that sounds Japanese than having some silly American idiom or joke as replacement.
Translating from a complete different language is not easy and take some liabilities because different languages work with different concepts to get a point across.
But I would rather something that sounds Japanese than having some silly American idiom or joke as replacement.
Agreed. Do you remember the MGS2 conversation between Raiden and Rose after he's been captured and interrogated? Yikes! And many defended it for reasons I'm unable to explain. And the cheesy over dramatic music that fades in as he's recounting his experience as a child soldier.
MGS1 was for me, had the best dialogue in the game that afforded the actors more for more subtle, nuanced performances. From the spoken dialogue I'm seeing in the trailers for Death Stranding, I already seeing hints of Hideo's Kojima-isms creeping into that game too. Man, I wish Last of Us 2 was coming out in the fall.
Jeremy is a legend. His reworking of Kojima's two scripts were absolutely perfect and exactly what he needs in terms of an English localization team. I can't believe the MGS1 cigarette line came strictly from his own experiences studying under pressure for the game. I still sometimes think of OSP in games too, it's a great term.
For those who don't know, he also did an amazing job with Snatcher, the voice direction for 1996 was really good when you consider the time. He also fixed some bad elements like Katrina's young age.
For those who don't know, he also did an amazing job with Snatcher, the voice direction for 1996 was really good when you consider the time. He also fixed some bad elements like Katrina's young age.
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This is blowing my mind. Never really thought of how localization played a massive part of the masterpiece we know now. The use of the word Codec is so iconic now
I respect Kojima's vision for his games, and how he builds his gameplay around the story, but he really needs someone else to just write the damn things for him. It gets worse with every game, and I'm frightened to imagine what turd will be unleashed on us with his next title.
Eh, I mean probably but I wouldn't use this story to confirm it. Kojima doesn't speak English, so if he has Japanese speakers telling him the localization was bad/not what he wanted then he's probably going to believe them. Japanese devs are routinely oblivious to English localization quality, especially in the 90's.
lol, I dunno, I kinda like the "A" lines. "Can only find meaning on the battlefield" definitely sounds more Snake-like than "I'm just a man who's good at what he does. Killing." I think that assertion that Westerners don't describe themselves as feeling nostalgic is pretty baseless. The Alaskan Olympics thing is a wash.
The problem isn't that the lines he invented are better or not. He inserts a different character into the game. It's obvious that Kojima would dislike such an approach.
Subtle, lol. Unfortunately, this is a similar problem that just happened with Evangelion.
Incredible read.
Edit: I know you're not defending Kojima, I'm just saying it's foolish and the translator was so on-point in MGS
"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.
He really doesn't. The character remains the same - the character is just less blandly executed. Less boring to hear. Also tends to convey more "tone", which is part of the reason MGS was so bloody influential - the tone is incredibly on-point throughout.
Edit: I know you're not defending Kojima, I'm just saying it's foolish and the translator was so on-point in MGS
He's not saying that a westerner wouldn't describt themselves as "nostalgic", but that an American person wouldn't normally use the word in that context. In recent years people have started using it like that a little bit more, but back in the '90s you wouldn't just say it any old time. "This makes me feel nostalgic" - you'd never say that. So JB removed it and made the words simpler, which made the scene shine and made it easier for the VA to portray.
"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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It was a "remake" not a "remaster", which is the parlance.
Admittedly the only reason the MGS games are any good is probably because he's a control freak.
same applies to Blaustein too:
also, it's like everyone forgot Suikoden 2.
If a game has a Japanese setting like Yakuza, then a localisation that retains that native feel is important. A game like MGS that has nothing to do with Japan and is focused on American military personnel, should not read like a bad Japanese soap opera.
Metroid Other M had a famously literal localisation that was directly overseen by Yoshio Sakamoto and the result is one of the most awkward and despised game scripts of all time. The most important thing for a good localisation is that it sounds natural, literal translations of Japanese scripts tend to veer into Star Wars prequel territory with reams of inane exposition especially when characters are trying to express emotion. People in the West don't actually talk like that.
Jeremy did a fantastic job. People don't understand how localization works, and how hard it is to do it well. And it's hard to explain because most of the time, the person in charge of the project in its source language is obviously not fluent in the target language. So you just have to trust someone else to tell you whether they did a good job or not. Blaustein did an excellent job at making the dialogue less literal and more like words people say. The series never came close to that again.
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If any MGS1 lovers out there haven't played Snatcher or at least watched a longplay I urge them to do so. The localization and writing stood out to me long before I'd even know Blaustein's impact on these games. It's such good over-the-top hardboiled action that's smooth as a well-oiled revolver chamber, the VA direction stood out a bunch to me despite how it used a bunch of unknown actors. It's like a kickass combination of Star Fox 64's cheesy character beats and MGS1's natural sounding tone. The world feels crafted with such a believable, genuine care despite how much it's Kojima's most blatant hodgepodge of movie references and homages.
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?