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Googleshng - May 20 '03- 2:00 Eastern Standard Time
I got some darn good news today. Now I just need to go confirm it.
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Random Name Changes
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Hey Google,
On the topic of translation nitpicking, I must ask what the deal is with a few odd name changes of certain RPG protagonists. Among the most significant is Roto from the first Dragon Quest trilogy, which got changed into Erdrick in the original "Dragon Warrior" (yes, they went back later and changed it to Loto in the Game Boy Color versions). But there are a few others I'd like to mention, like Robin to Isaac in the Golden Suns, as well as Yuris to Maximilian in "Dark Cloud 2." There are plenty others, but I mean, how do the translators come up with these things?
-Otterland
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Googleshng:
Well, in a lot of older games, you'll see names totally changed to get rid of stuff that sounds too Japanese
(Loto to Erdrick being a good example). Then there's cases where a translator really doesn't think a
name matches a personality (like Tina to Terra), changes due to character limits, and I'm sure a few
translators slip in the occassional family member or in-joke (for example, various NPCs in Robopon 2 are
named after staff members from gaming news sites).
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Or they might actually speak Esperanto...
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hey slimy
this is regarding the 1000 words letter sent in yesterday by the nameless translation dude !
Anyway.. he talked about Espers a bit and I thought i'd barge in for a few words. In french... as well as in other latin based language... Esper is a reference word coming from espoir and esperance (french) mean hope...which makes a lot of sense. Espers are embodiment of hope.
And this is just for fun.... Banon refers as Terra being the Returners last ray of hope... Terra being half Esper...
you know what I mean :D
the overweight irish ninja
Dan
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Googleshng:
Interesting theory, although Esper is also a somewhat commonly found sci-fi term applied to people with
psychic powers (You know, like ESP-er). Either way.
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The last letter I will print on this subject.
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Goog,
Provided that the set of characters used to represent Kefka in Japanese were indeed pronounced the same way Kefka would be in English, Cefca Palazzo would be an improper spelling of his name. Given the given last name, his name is obviously meant to be Italian. The Italian pronunciation of Cefca is, roughly, Chefka. Now, one could argue that it's an Italian name with an English pronunciation, but that sounds to me like a name ripe for anglicization at the border, and in either case, the name was likely spelled Kefka for clarity, as hard c's aren't always intuitive in English, a problem which would not have arisen in Japanese do to the aforementioned swappability of k and c.
Either way, it is impossible for Kefka to be a mistranslation, as that is a technically inaccurate term in this situation. The correct term would be transliteration, and it could not be a transliteration error as it correctly renders the pronunciation in the destination language's characters. Although it could be a copying issue, that's not certain either as the English version of his name written by the Japanese could easily be incorrect. So, in conclusion, everyone should just shut up and just worry about playing games instead of meaningless bits of localization.
--Rico, the bastard who translated "Master of Thunder in Both Earth and Heaven" as "Summoner". Hurl rocks at him.
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Googleshng:
And that's the end of that.
For the record, I doubt creepy DQ fanboys would have been any happier with "MoTiBE+H" as the name of the
class. Hmm... "Motibeth..." actually that has sort of a nice ring to it...
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Epilog Fun
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Greetings Googleshng,
To get off the topic of the Kefka-Cefca controversy, and yet to stray from matters concerning E3, I wanted to discuss a (RPG) game endings. Usually when a game has been beaten after numerous hours of sleep-conquered gameplay, the RPGamer is usually treated to a flashy FMV sequence or some non-interactive character interaction that ties up losse story points. What I have yet to see fully implemented (and would like to see) is the idea of an "extended ending". The only game I have played that contained something along these lines was Threads of Fate , where once the final boss has been beaten, you end up back at the main village and are allowed to roam freely around town, although only to talk to your numerous NPC friends and thus tie up loose ends. What would be interesting to see is a game where once you have destroyed the final boss, you are allowed to once again roam the game's world, finishing the quests you may have missed or left unfinished, and in turn enjoy the effects of your victory (i.e. grateful townspeople, rulers, etc.) Or, what would be even better would be once the final boss has been beaten, you traverse the world and are greeted by the prospect of new sidequests provided by townspeople, rulers, old wisemen etc. Nothing too epic, just an enjoyable romp through the post-non-apocalyptic world you have saved. When you got tired of the quests or finished them all, to "beat" the game, you would simply retreat to your home/homebase/hometown, and trigger some sort of story sequence, which would effectively "end" the game. This seems an enjoyable prospect (to me at least) simply because when I beat a game, the endings always seem to sell me a little short. An extended ending would simply provide for (what seems like) more of a closure to the story, or even a way to relax after an hour+ long battle with an evil being bent on world destruction/domination.
Meh, just a thought.
Vyse the Expialidocious
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Googleshng:
There actually are quite a few games that do that. Off the top of my head, I can name the entire Pokémon
series, and Lunar 2. I could probably rattle of a few more if I thought about it, and I could make a somewhat
weaker case for the original Phantasy Star, where you don't actually even have reason to believe the last
boss even exists until you go back to tell your friends about how you killed the evil emperor.
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