Ys VIII: Localization Update, PC release delayed to 2018

[SaberVS7]

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Yes because NISA actually made people aware of an Ys game outside forums and comments and got Kondo interviewed at big outlets...you know Marketing. Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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And a post like that is reminding me that I need to get back to cracking at that draft for a thread I had planned before the previous place got razed.

"Bad Ports and Bad Localizations: Falcom Games in a Post-XSEED World"

If NISA or anyone else gets Cold Steel 3, I guess we can officially say that XSEED has been Atlus'd.

Spoiler: "Atlus'd"

When Demon's Souls and other big gambles Atlus made were so successful that much bigger fish smelled blood in the water and swooped in, leaving Atlus USA in its present state of only being able to scrounge table-scraps for 3rd Party games to localize.

 

[Wereroku]

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Yes because NISA actually made people aware of an Ys game outside forums and comments and got Kondo interviewed at big outlets...you know Marketing. Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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How good does it do to get extra marketing if a huge chunk of your audience can't buy the game.

 

[Puweyxil]

Eh, I just put over 70 hours into this game and the few localization issues didn't hamper my enjoyment of it in the least.

 

[Mozendo]

Haven't been paying too much to the story, but has Falcom made a statement on this incident?

Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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[Yunyo]

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Yes because NISA actually made people aware of an Ys game outside forums and comments and got Kondo interviewed at big outlets...you know Marketing. Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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You've posted this drivel as a drive-by post in almost every thread on this subject in the past while ignoring everyone responding to you. Are you really going to carry that crappy behavior over to a new forum?

 

[Deleted member 11008]

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Yes because NISA actually made people aware of an Ys game outside forums and comments and got Kondo interviewed at big outlets...you know Marketing. Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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If there's a god, XSEED will try to deliver Cold Steel 3 this decade, along Zero and Ao.

NISA would did shit regarding the past games.

 

[Sun's Resting Place]

If there's a god, XSEED will try to deliver Cold Steel 3 this decade, along Zero and Ao.

NISA would did shit regarding the past games.

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Yeah, like, Cold Steel 1 and 2 came out within a year of each other over here in the US. XSEED was NOT slow regarding Cold Steel.

Everyone thinks that every single game XSEED releases is slow because of Trails SC. After the SC fuckery, they heavily streamlined and fixed up their translation pipeline.

There's one thing that will make localization a little slower, even if XSEED is faster than ever before: Falcom will NOT let another company start translating their games until the game is out the door and actually released, as history goes. This means XSEED's hands are tied in terms of actual work on localization until the game comes out - so now that CS3 is out, XSEED pretty much would have JUST STARTED localizing it (a gigantic text/voice filled RPG, at that.)

 

[Thoraxes]

You've posted this drivel as a drive-by post in almost every thread on this subject in the past while ignoring everyone responding to you. Are you really going to carry that crappy behavior over to a new forum?

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Was gonna say something similar, haha.

The fact of the matter is that NISA fucked up enough that they are dedicating time/money/resources to fix something that they clearly acknowledge as a problem. If it wasn't a problem, we wouldn't even be having this thread right now, and they definitely would not be putting in the time to make it right.

 

[Echo]

On the subject of the last 10 or so posts...

I too hope XSeed gets CSIII over NISA, mostly for consistency sake. I'm curious if XSeed will handle the CSI+II PS4 ports as well though...

 

[Pasokon Deacon]

The fiscal year actually lasts until March, so this will probably already be out by the time it's over.

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Falcom counts their fiscal year starting from September, which is why they usually have shareholder meetings a few months afterward.

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Yes because NISA actually made people aware of an Ys game outside forums and comments and got Kondo interviewed at big outlets...you know Marketing.

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el oh el

Plenty of gamers know the name "Ys" as a result of the Steam releases since 2012. Maybe you'd have an argument with Trails games, but those are finally getting videos from popular channels (Mother's Basement and Easy Allies) and plenty of word of mouth. NISA's short-term burst marketing doesn't offset a poor quality product, one version of which people won't be able to purchase for maybe several months.

If NISA or anyone else gets Cold Steel 3, I guess we can officially say that XSEED has been Atlus'd.

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Hmm...Shinichi Suzuki, now the president of XSEED, was also president of Atlus USA before he left around 2011/2012 (need to dig up the source article for him joining). I bet he would MFing hate to get stuck in this situation yet again, and thankfully it seems like XSEED's lucking out since their competitors are struggling to localize Falcom games which XSEED could have done without drama or a bloody aftermath.

 

[Chaosblade]

On the subject of the last 10 or so posts...

I too hope XSeed gets CSIII over NISA, mostly for consistency sake. I'm curious if XSeed will handle the CSI+II PS4 ports as well though...

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Falcom is probably porting them, but basically the only reason XSEED wouldn't release the ports is 1) licensing issues or 2) they don't get CS3 for whatever reason and don't have any incentive to work on the series.

 

[the_wart]

pulling the original quote:



sounds like it was more of a case-by-case thing that was transformed into a complete rewrite.

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Digging up the original announcement, they also said

As for Ys VIII itself, we will have a new translator and editor go over the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations.

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Which to me sounds like a complete editing pass with new people who were presumably heretofore unfamiliar with the project. A lot of work for two months, even if they didn't actually rewrite everything. In any case, their original intention is no longer all that relevant!

 

[duckroll]

that one is pretty sad. the graphic design team is pretty damn great across the board so something like that happening is super unfortunate.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to be a dick, but isn't it too coincidental that so many aspects of this particular release is messed up? Something feels rotten here, regardless of good intentions. Was it being rushed to meet unrealistic deadlines promised as part of the bid?

 

[Vylash]

Between this and Tokyo Xanadu I'm praying Falcom sticks with xseed from now on, this stupid little experiment was a complete disaster

 

[CaptainUnderpants]

A long time back when I was still working in the advertising industry, there'd be this one company in China (or was it Taiwan? I can't remember) that's we'd send all the written copy that needed to be translated. They'd come back to us with Chinese, Korean and, depending on the situation, even English translations for non-English copy.

Long story short, this big mess is probably a situation where the same firm that did the Chinese translation for the game also did the English one.

That said, has anyone played the Chinese version? If the localisation is good, I might as well get that version instead of waiting for the English one. If not, I'll probably settle for a 2nd hand copy of the Japanese release...

 

[Coolclimate0]

Just how bad is the localization? Is it unplayable? And by that I mean is it almost impossible to follow the storyline do to localization issues and translation?

 

[preta]

Just how bad is the localization? Is it unplayable? And by that I mean is it almost impossible to follow the storyline do to localization issues and translation?

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No, it's readable and understandable, it just doesn't read well.

 

[Meffer]

Man I really wanted to get this game. Is the PS4 version still good for a play through or just wait for everything to get patched up?

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Honestly, I say it's great game. Damn good.

 

[Etain]

Hmmm... yeah, don't think I'll wait on the retranslation then, though I had started up Ys VIII again recently anyway! But it will be a nice incentive to replay on PC, or even on PS4 at a higher difficulty.

 

[Meffer]

What a mess, XSEED better get CS3 or I'll cry.

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Why wouldn't they? They did a fantastic job with the series so far.

 

[Kayfabe Bebop]

I've gotten sidetracked by other game releases, so I don't mind waiting for the update.

I would still recommend the game to those who would not want to wait, though. There are quirks here and there, but they remind me of some localizations from back in the day. It has a certain charm to it.

 

[Herlaking]

Hope they get CSIII. I'd like to play it in the current decade.

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[Xavi]

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Whew

 

[EarlGreyHot]

What a mess. Put my playthrough on hold when I heard they were re-translating the game. Guess I'll wait a little longer.

Such a shame, it's a great game.

 

[rainking187]

Why wouldn't they? They did a fantastic job with the series so far.

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They were doing a fantastic job with Ys as well though.

 

[Xavi]

Why wouldn't they? They did a fantastic job with the series so far.

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Yes, just like Ys in the past.

 

[Widdowmaker]

Am I the only person who wasn't bothered about the translation? It wasn't amazing, but it was perfectly serviceable. I wouldn't allow this issue to stop myself from playing the game.

 

[preta]

Am I the only person who wasn't bothered about the translation? It wasn't amazing, but it was perfectly serviceable. I wouldn't allow this issue to stop myself from playing the game.

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Good for you. It's still a subpar effort by the standards set by the previous localizations in the series, and doesn't do the game justice. A localization that's significantly worse than the original material shouldn't be accepted just because it's readable.

 

[Etain]

Am I the only person who wasn't bothered about the translation? It wasn't amazing, but it was perfectly serviceable. I wouldn't allow this issue to stop myself from playing the game.

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It's enough of a reason to wait, potentially, but if this were never coming I wouldn't consider it reason enough to not play the game, no. Legend of Heroes PSP this is not.

 

[Hrodulf]

Just how bad is the localization? Is it unplayable? And by that I mean is it almost impossible to follow the storyline do to localization issues and translation?

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https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

https://kotaku.com/the-french-on-ys-viiis-vita-box-is-literal-nonsense-1819981754

In addition to some abysmally translated lines, they botched things that were already in English. Why anyone would want them to work on a game with even more text after seemingly Google translating this one is beyond me.

 

[Widdowmaker]

Good for you. It's still a subpar effort by the standards set by the previous localizations in the series, and doesn't do the game justice. A localization that's significantly worse than the original material shouldn't be accepted just because it's readable.

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It doesn't make the core game bad. I'm not saying don't wait, I'm just saying I think it's a bit daft not to play a game at all based on a subpar translation. If I didn't play JRPGs based on poor translations I would never have played so many JRPGs in the 90's. Games like Final Fantasy VII and Star Ocean: The Second Story had subpar translations, but the core games were still really good. I had a blast with Ys VIII because at its core it is still a very good game.

 

[EarlGreyHot]

https://kotaku.com/the-french-on-ys-viiis-vita-box-is-literal-nonsense-1819981754

In addition to some abysmally translated lines, they botched things that were already in English. Why anyone would want them to work on a game with even more text after seemingly Google translating this one is beyond me.

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Oh wow I didn't know about that French nonsense. That's really sloppy.

 

[Widdowmaker]

It's enough of a reason to wait, potentially, but if this were never coming I wouldn't consider it reason enough to not play the game, no. Legend of Heroes PSP this is not.

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Maybe I view it differently to a lot of other people. I'd love every Japanese game to have an amazing English localisation, but that just can't happen. I also grew up playing JRPGs in the 90's, a decade where the standards of localisation increased, but for the most part the translations were still very subpar, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the games I played.

 

[shimon]

Sonofabitch bc that's what 2018 needs,even more jrpgs in the first couple months...

 

[RalchAC]

https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

https://kotaku.com/the-french-on-ys-viiis-vita-box-is-literal-nonsense-1819981754

In addition to some abysmally translated lines, they botched things that were already in English. Why anyone would want them to work on a game with even more text after seemingly Google translating this one is beyond me.

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Does NISA mostly rely on freelance translators for their projects or do they have some inhouse ones?

In any case, it seems they're talking seriously their review and retranslate effort. Which is amazing. I mean, the fact that it needs to happen isn't, but they could have done a quick and dirty job, change the worst lines and call it a day as others have said. I may buy the game and wait until it's fixed to play it, just to show them that this is what you should do when you botch your localization.

 

[AniHawk]

Sorry, I didn't mean to be a dick, but isn't it too coincidental that so many aspects of this particular release is messed up? Something feels rotten here, regardless of good intentions. Was it being rushed to meet unrealistic deadlines promised as part of the bid?

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i have personal experience with back of box stuff (and graphic design work for retail products) and generally speaking that doesn't get rushed too often. on occasion things can go wrong in really dumb ways. one thing i did when i was green was not link a file to the art work, so the image came out pixelated on the final print. this happened during creation of the master, so it would have been missed by several people who normally would have checked it. another time, i worked on a book and a design element was removed last-minute, but i hadn't managed to pull it from every page when i thought i did (it was on a master page but it also had been put into some pages on an individual basis). so the design element stayed on some pages and was gone on most. frustrating and embarrassing to me since i consider myself to be pretty good at checking those details.

in the case here, a translation would have been done by a french speaker - the backs of boxes don't get machine translated. however if there was a placeholder for the text in the north american release, i think someone forgot to transfer over what was done in the french pegi release.

I was under impression that actually did happen with Ys? Saw some discussion about how the PC version being delayed past September would be a big deal for Falcom.

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it depends on the contract. if there was a payment made per version, or per version per region (yikes), then it would be a really big deal since now it's two quarters late. however if the payment was made on the first release, then the issue is a matter of pride regarding the ys series and its history on the pc.

 

[Cqef]

It doesn't make the core game bad. I'm not saying don't wait, I'm just saying I think it's a bit daft not to play a game at all based on a subpar translation. If I didn't play JRPGs based on poor translations I would never have played so many JRPGs in the 90's. Games like Final Fantasy VII and Star Ocean: The Second Story had subpar translations, but the core games were still really good. I had a blast with Ys VIII because at its core it is still a very good game.

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Look, last I checked, we're not in the 90s anymore, and there's no reason to settle with crappy localisations in this day and age. For almost a decade now, we've had great Falcom game releases from XSeed. So why should we lower our expectations and standards to try to enjoy a newly released game with a crappy localisation now?

 

[Widdowmaker]

Look, last I checked, we're not in the 90s anymore, and there's no reason to settle with crappy localisations in this day and age. For almost a decade now, we've had great Falcom game releases from XSeed. So why should we lower our expectations and standards to try to enjoy a newly released game with a crappy localisation now?

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Did I ever once say you had to settle with crappy localisations? No, I didn't. But does that change my point that a poor localisation doesn't change the core experience? A good game is a good game, regardless of the localisation, because what defines a good game is the core mechanics themselves. Also, to be honest, I think some people ask for way too much, sometimes to the point of complaining when there's no real need to. For example, the complaints some people had with Persona 5. Those complaints were honestly petty. Japanese to English localisations are difficult, they always have been and always will. The fact that the series has had good localisations in the past bares no relevance to what it will get going forward. XSEED has a good reputation, but it hasn't always been excellent. NISA has also, in the past, done good localisations. You can't expect the same level of standards on every release, it's unrealistic.

 

[Deleted member 7130]

So the PC version will have more/different VA than console versions? I do find it a bit annoying how dialogue will switch between VA and text only sometimes multiple tomes within the same scene.

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Did I ever once say you had to settle with crappy localisations? No, I didn't. But does that change my point that a poor localisation doesn't change the core experience?

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If story and especially characterization is something important in a game to you, dear god yes it does. The trails games lose their value without the life the characters were given.

Even older games with translation issues like FFVII still managed to give the characters individual voices, something thats becoming increasingly lacking in localization studios not named xseed or 8-4

 

[Kromeo]

I'm hopeful that we'll see much less of a delay with CS3, but if it ends up taking years again I wouldn't exactly be surprised.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Outsourcing is hurting the industry. Yes localizations are becoming faster, but quality is suffering as a result. Gaijinworks still does all their localization in house, which is why they take forever, but at least we know it'll be good quality.

 

[Cqef]

Did I ever once say you had to settle with crappy localisations? No, I didn't. But does that change my point that a poor localisation doesn't change the core experience? A good game is a good game, regardless of the localisation, because what defines a good game is the core mechanics themselves. Also, to be honest, I think some people ask for way too much, sometimes to the point of complaining when there's no real need to. For example, the complaints some people had with Persona 5. Those complaints were honestly petty. Japanese to English localisations are difficult, they always have been and always will. The fact that the series has had good localisations in the past bares no relevance to what it will get going forward. XSEED has a good reputation, but it hasn't always been excellent. NISA has also, in the past, done good localisations. You can't expect the same level of standards on every release, it's unrealistic.

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If you're fine with Ys VIII's current state and enjoy the game, then more power to you.
But I'm sorry to say that we shouldn't settle for lesser localisation quality when we had better in the past. The localisation of a game should at least remain on par with the quality of previous entries or, even better, improve it. But please, not the other way around. I can't believe I even need to spell this out.

 

[Widdowmaker]

If you're fine with Ys VIII's current state and enjoy the game, then more power to you.
But I'm sorry to say that we shouldn't settle for lesser localisation quality when we had better in the past. The localisation of a game should at least remain on par with the quality of previous entries or, even better, improve it. But please, not the other way around. I can't believe I even need to spell this out.

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Like I said, I'm not saying you have to settle with it. But like I also said, it's completely unrealistic to expect every single game to have a perfect localisation.

 

[Dust]

I was about to buy YsVIII on PS4, is localization that bad? Should I hold off?

 

[Soran]

The saddest part is how much people are still making excuses for Nisa and eating this crap, all coupled with an annoying high and mighty attitude.

 

[Deleted member 15538]

I'm waiting for the first digital sale anyway so cool I guess.

 

[Wereroku]

I was about to buy YsVIII on PS4, is localization that bad? Should I hold off?

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It's not unplayable but it awkward in several places. Just from looking over some more of the examples it really seems like they translated it from Japanese to a different language then back to English. That's the only way I see the butchering the already english names that were in the game.

Like I said, I'm not saying you have to settle with it. But like I also said, it's completely unrealistic to expect every single game to have a perfect localisation.

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I mean given the proper time and budget you could easily get high quality localisations for all games. We really should expect that of all companies.

 

[Cqef]

Like I said, I'm not saying you have to settle with it. But like I also said, it's completely unrealistic to expect every single game to have a perfect localisation.

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Okay, now, where did I ask for a "perfect localisation"? Yep that's right, I never did.

All I'm saying is, we should strive to get better stuff. Aiming to make better, doing better. That's going forward.
NISA's job on Ys VIII is going backwards. And no one should be fine with that.

 

[Widdowmaker]

Okay, now, where did I ask for a "perfect localisation"? Yep that's right, I never did.

All I'm saying is, we should strive to get better stuff. Aiming to make better, doing better. That's going forward.
NISA's job on Ys VIII is going backwards. And no one should be fine with that.

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Thing is, rather ironically, I do agree with you. I do think we should have a higher level of standards now than in the past. And I'm not saying I'm super happy with the translation of Ys VIII. I just think not playing a great game because of a muddy translation is something I don't understand, especially when it isn't as bad as most people are making it out to be. I spent about 100 hours with Ys VIII, and the bad moments were honestly few and far between. For the large majority of the game it was a fine translation.