[slowbeef]

I'm not really qualified to answer because my Japanese doesn't go beyond very light conversational.

For the record, though, Marc is - in fact - a professional game translator, so it wasn't just someone who is fluent imposing their vision onto the game (if they misunderstood parts or something), it was localized.

As far as I'm aware, the script is indeed accurate and more of a localized translation than a literal one.

Again though, I can't really speak very intelligently to this.

Are there any specific parts you are referring to?


edit:

One thing I might be able to touch upon is the original intro tries to emulate Snatcher in that it starts:  "2010, Beyond Coast is completed, etc.  2013, police officers..."

It's a little ambiguous though, because the story itself is actually being told from the perspective of 2013 - meaning that Beyond Coast was built and the Policenauts were chosen and trained "three years ago".  To that end, I know that's why Marc moved 2013 into the next sentence as opposed to keeping it as a... paragraph header?

This is going off of memory from awhile back in the patch.

[DarknessSavior]

Well, I'm by no means a professional translator, as I've only taken a little over a year's worth of college Japanese. However, a transcript of the first large scene in the game was provided to me, and I did my best to translate it.

First, your version:

The name's Jonathan Ingram.
30 years ago, I was one of Beyond's Policenauts.
Course, it feels practically like yesterday thanks to the EMPS accident.
They're vivid memories.
My wife, friends, career.... All gone.
That accident ruined my life.
Now I'm a private eye-cum-negotiator in this wonderful place we call "Old LA".
I negotiate with child kidnappers and human traffickers,
intermediate ransom exchanges, track down escaped cons....
It's dangerous work.
But for a guy at the end of his rope like me,
scum like that are the only thing putting food on my table.
Guess it beats still being out there.
I've got some time till that client gets here.
This place is full of all sorts of mementos.
There's some newspaper clippings and photos on the walls, and a couple other photos on my desk.
They keep the blanks in my memory filled.

Not bad. Well written, for the most part.

Here's my version. I left the Japanese in there, because as I said, I'm not fluent in Japanese. There's likely to be mistakes. But here it is:

俺はジョナサンイングラム。
I'm Jonathan Ingram.

30年前、スペ―スコロニ―の#R{BEYOND　COAST、ビヨンドコ―スト}#で#{警官、ポリスノ―ツ}#として働いていた。
30 years ago, I worked for the Policenauts of the space colony Beyond Coast.

もっとも、#R{EMPS、エンプス}#事故で宇宙をさまよっていた俺には、わずか数年前の事にしか思えない。
However, thanks to the EMPS incident, it only feels like a few years back that I was roaming about in space.

まだ生々しい記憶だ。
They're still vivid memories.

あの#R{EMPS、エンプス}#事故で過去を失った俺はこの汚れた#{街、ロサンゼルス}#でネゴシエ―タ―まがいの探偵をしている。
Because of the EMPS incident, I was forced to part with my past. Now, in dirty Los Angeles, I do pseudo detective-work as a negotiator.

#{妻、アイツ}#や友人、仕事‥‥‥何もかも30年前に置いてきてしまった。
My wife, friends, job... Just about everything was taken away from me 30 years ago.

そして俺は30年後に置き去りに#―
And then, 30 years later, I'm lost again...

今の俺にとってはこの街が唯一の#{記憶、メモリ―}#だ。
Now, the only memory I've got left is this city.

探偵といえば一昔前までは浮気調査や家出人探しが主だった。
Long ago, the so-called detective work was primarily investigating unfaithful lovers and looking for people who had run away from home.

今の#{オ―ルドLA、OLA}#では#{幼児誘拐、キッドナッピング}#や人身売買の#{交渉、ネゴシエ―ト}##―#W身代金の仲介、脱獄犯の逮捕、保険監査員のサポ―トなど‥‥‥やばい依頼ばかりだ。
Now, in Old LA (OLA), I get nothing but dangerous work: kidnappings, negotiating with slave traders, mediating ransom deals, capturing criminals who've escaped from jail, supporting insurance claimsmen and the like.

だが‥‥‥俺みたいな過去をなくした探偵にはそんな世の中の膿がなければ飯も食ってけない。
Alas...for a guy like me who has lost his past, a world without scum means that I can't put food on the table.

せいぜい、腹が一杯になるまでがんばるしかないか‥‥‥
At least it helps keep my stomach full, huh...?

‥‥‥さて、#{依頼人、クライアント}#が来るまで何をしようか?
...Well, what'll I do until the client gets here?

この部屋には、俺の#{過去、メモリ―}#を示すものがたくさんある#―
There's alot of things that bring back old memories in this room.

前方の壁には、新聞の#{切り抜き、スクラップ}#や写真が#―
On the front wall, there's scraps from the newspaper and photographs.

Upon finishing the translation, it seems like many things are missing (in fact, it seems like entire lines were skipped). Also, it seems like many sentences were combined, when in the original, they were not.

I apologize if this seems at all rude of me. I don't mean to cause an offense, I just noticed a bunch of things were missing.

~DS

[scarboy]

Maybe I'm a little biased because I'm on the team (I haven't even played Policenauts yet, I only did programming work on it), but I think Marc's translation reads a lot better than the one you posted. Your translation might be ok as a direct translation, but in real life I don't think I know anyone who speaks like that. A Policenaut who was frozen for years is not going to start a sentence with Alas... or be so verbose, especially when he's talking to himself.

[slowbeef]

I don't really take offense to it.  (The translation wasn't my deal anyway!)

I hope this doesn't come off defensive, but I think the hack reads more like a localization of a released game than a literal translation and I think that's what we were going for.  Again, our translator does this for a living and has actually worked with/is friendly with Jeremy Blaustein - the guy who localized Snatcher and Metal Gear Solid.  (Actually, Blaustein was going to be one of our beta testers, but it fell through at the last minute.)

I guess where I'm coming from is when you say "lines are missing", I want to make it clear that we didn't gloss over things because we couldn't translate them, or that we purposefully shortened them due to technical limitations - it's not the case either way.

[zera9924]

... but I think the hack reads more like a localization of a released game than a literal translation and I think that's what we were going for.

I'm not sure I understand. Were you aiming for a nostalgic tone with the translation?

This is just constructive criticism, but judging from what sniplets of the script I've seen, it looks really unprofessional. Are you saying this is done on purpose? I guess I could understand that kind of approach with a really retro game -- such as with an NES translation -- but PSX?

[Carnivol]

... but I think the hack reads more like a localization of a released game than a literal translation and I think that's what we were going for.

I'm not sure I understand. Were you aiming for a nostalgic tone with the translation?

This is just constructive criticism, but judging from what sniplets of the script I've seen, it looks really unprofessional. Are you saying this is done on purpose? I guess I could understand that kind of approach with a really retro game -- such as with an NES translation -- but PSX?

There's a bit of a problem with DarknessSavior's literal and "complete" translation, and that is the fact that the scene in question here is an FMV sequence, which means that you have heavy restrictions as far as the amount of translated information you can provide goes.

Anyone who's worked with professional subtitling knows that there are times when you have to cut things a bit short (sometimes incredibly short, even), rephrase stuff a bit and such. This for the sake of making things fit properly within the time given, and that without creating huge ass blocks of text on the screen (as some might know, you really shouldn't want to "fill" the entire screen with text from one side to the other, and you should never exceed more than two lines of text on-screen at the same time when doing subtitles like this...) When I've worked on some titles, there have been a lot of problems with both studios and QA teams not understanding the basic concepts of subtitling and the reasons for things like that (Probably a mixture of cultural "dub-country"-backgrounds and general lack of care when it comes to making something look presentable and professional)


(Speaking of care and presentable, bla bla bla stuff)
slowbeef, dunno if you guys are looking for much feedback, but there are some tiny things I noted down while playing through the prologue of the game:

1. Subtitle timing for NIS/FMVs. I dunno if you guys have had much control of the timing (or if you're limited to the original timing of the Japanese subtitles), but I guess some re-timing of a good few of them could be needed (if possible). Was able to read everything as it went by, but there were times when it was more of a subconscious absorbation going on than me actually reading the entire text.


2. System text could possibly need some touches (you know, boring saving/loading stuff, button references, error messages, etc...). However, this might just be me... I just tend to find myself slightly bothered by stuff that doesn't somehow comply (or stay consistent) with some sort of guideline document and/or other titles by the same company. I don't have any PS1 games fresh in mind, but the PS2's glossaries are still fresh in mind (and mostly applicable to PS1 games, I suppose)


3. Menu options. I dunno if it'd be an easy hack or not, but wouldn't it be a good idea to just remove the options for enabling/disabling subtitles? (And evt. force them to constantly stay on, in case someone loads an old save where these options are saved... assuming they are.) Keeping the options might have been good for testing (incase there are corrupted subtitle strings or something), but I guess it's kinda pointless to keep it in final.


Anyway, in general, I'm impressed by the work the entire team's done on it. It looks good, feels good, and smells good! I did spot some stuff that I think could've been worded better, and I think I might've even spotted a couple of typos (even of the "missing word" kind, which are the most evil ones! 'Cause the spellcheckers wont pick those up), nothing big, though. But it's easy to get annoyed by small things.  I would've had screenshots of those if it weren't for me playing on a PS1.

Also, I saw some people elsewhere complain about a few random lines, like some dialog being more or less "internet talk" (such as... "quoted for truth", I believe), which I don't really see the problem with, and some about just general elements in the original game itself.... A certain photo and "looking like fag" (or something along those lines) comes to mind, which I guess could've used some different wording (I'd probably build it around "looking a bit queer" or "kinda gay". I guess fag sounds offensive somehow... but then again, I tend to have to worry a bit too much about ratings whenever I write/edit/proofread something in my native tongue )


Pardon this tiny wall of text. Seems like I can't do short posts when I finally decide to post something.

[slowbeef]

I'm not sure I understand. Were you aiming for a nostalgic tone with the translation?

This is just constructive criticism, but judging from what sniplets of the script I've seen, it looks really unprofessional. Are you saying this is done on purpose? I guess I could understand that kind of approach with a really retro game -- such as with an NES translation -- but PSX?

No, and I don't know what you mean by "nostalgic" tone.

Maybe you should give it a whirl yourself?  Seriously, though, "unprofessional" is definitely the last thing I'd call it - I don't know what snippets you saw or what context they were in.  Maybe you'll still feel the same way afterwards, who knows.

If you didn't enjoy the game, I'm sorry about that.  Again, there were no functional causes for any discrepancies you might find.

1. Subtitle timing for NIS/FMVs. I dunno if you guys have had much control of the timing (or if you're limited to the original timing of the Japanese subtitles), but I guess some re-timing of a good few of them could be needed (if possible). Was able to read everything as it went by, but there were times when it was more of a subconscious absorbation going on than me actually reading the entire text.

2. System text could possibly need some touches (you know, boring saving/loading stuff, button references, error messages, etc...). However, this might just be me... I just tend to find myself slightly bothered by stuff that doesn't somehow comply (or stay consistent) with some sort of guideline document and/or other titles by the same company. I don't have any PS1 games fresh in mind, but the PS2's glossaries are still fresh in mind (and mostly applicable to PS1 games, I suppose)

3. Menu options. I dunno if it'd be an easy hack or not, but wouldn't it be a good idea to just remove the options for enabling/disabling subtitles? (And evt. force them to constantly stay on, in case someone loads an old save where these options are saved... assuming they are.) Keeping the options might have been good for testing (incase there are corrupted subtitle strings or something), but I guess it's kinda pointless to keep it in final.

These are all pretty good points.  We actually did remove some menu options (like "Ruby - On/Off" since that makes no sense without Japanese"), but yeah, it may have been wise to remove Subtitles as well.

The timing was under our control to some extent, depending on the scenes.  Fun aside: I had to lengthen the timing in the Motorcycle scene in Act 2 because they are really illegibly fast in the original.

[Gemini]

Maybe you should give it a whirl yourself?

When that friend of mine told me about the weird stuff in the translation, I actually decided to test it for myself. The translation reads fine most of the time, but there are sentences that feel just wrong, which is noticeable especially when voice actors are actually speaking. I must say, I was shocked when I saw Karen calling Jonathan an asshole even if the original line said "Go away!". Some things feel just too exaggerated and not very professional in my opinion.

[DarknessSavior]

Also, when dealing with subtitled videos, it's very easy to tell when you skip content. If you have a guy speaking for 45 seconds and all you get out of it is a sentence, there's a problem. >_>

~DS

[Carnivol]

Also, when dealing with subtitled videos, it's very easy to tell when you skip content. If you have a guy speaking for 45 seconds and all you get out of it is a sentence, there's a problem. >_>

~DS

Indeed, but fortunately this isn't the case with the Policenauts prologue chapter intro.

But if a guy speaks "non-stop" for 10 seconds, you can't really squeeze in more than 6 lines of text (which is where you're starting to push the line for such a short timeframe), where each line is maybe 45 characters at best, and since you're dealing with two different languages... space issues may become even worse (I dunno what the average length growth is for Japanese -> English, but with various European languages, you generally estimate a "potential/variable" growth of up to about 30-50% in length)

These are all pretty good points.  We actually did remove some menu options (like "Ruby - On/Off" since that makes no sense without Japanese"), but yeah, it may have been wise to remove Subtitles as well.

The timing was under our control to some extent, depending on the scenes.  Fun aside: I had to lengthen the timing in the Motorcycle scene in Act 2 because they are really illegibly fast in the original.

Aah. I see. Dunno if you guys are planning on evt. doing an updated (v1.1?) release or do something else (Private Collection, Saturn version, other platforms and/or games), but I'm at least pretty confident in that whatever evt. any of you do next, the final product will be worth a look.

[BRPXQZME]

average length growth is for Japanese -> English

Ridiculous is what it is. It does depend on how tersely you decide to translate.

[slowbeef]

Some things feel just too exaggerated and not very professional in my opinion.

To be honest, I'm not fluent enough in Japanese to speak very intelligently on this.  Again, all I can say for sure is that the script is not the way it is because of any technical limitations.  I passed along the thread to the translator, so you're all being heard on this.

What can you do?  My point was just if you say "I saw an excerpt or two, and it looked rather unprofessional," my response is "Well, try it out to see the whole thing in context, because maybe an excerpt doesn't come across correctly by itself."

If you play it and you still feel that way, well, thanks for at least giving it a shot before passing judgment.

[theteapirate]

The whole translation itself felt on the whole very professional and well thought out, in my opinion. Certainly the best I've seen in a fan localization. I could definitely notice some stylistic references to Jeremy Blaustein's localization of Snatcher, so the fact that he and Marc are/have been colleagues in the past makes sense. I'd even go so far as to say that if one were to read the two sequentially, I think you'd be hard-pressed to tell that they weren't adapted by the same person, just with different standards as to what needed to be censored. Every rewrite applied to the script, I felt, enhanced the experience and made it more relatable to its target audience -- clearly not the person trying to apply rudimentary Japanese knowledge to produce a dry, boring translation in their head so they can complain about how the translator mistranslated the Japanese kuso as "damn" instead of "shit" in this week's Naruto -- but the fan looking for an experience that made him love the stylistic-prequel Snatcher as much as they did.

People, please realize, coming from someone who has been doing this for years on end on a hobby-related basis: while there are schools of translation that tend to lean more toward the literal as opposed to maybe taking as much liberty as Marc's did, there is more to translation between languages as different than feeding things through EDICT and parsing grammar differences within your head.

Perhaps some of you aren't really cognizant of this, either, but the writing for most Japanese games (especially RPGs) and anime is actually fairly poor. Very seldom do you get any sort of true characterization besides the eternally-recycled stereotypical speech patterns that most translators just tend to drop/ignore, or, God forbid, leave as-is. (I've seen modern fansubs go as far as to put things like "blah blah blah~jya" or "blah blah~de arimasu"... truly a horror to witness for anyone striving for readable prose.) In English, you're forced to have to think past these often untranslatable tropes if you want to create a memorable piece of literature, and the same goes with making a memorable localization. In comparison to other works, anyway, Kojima's writing actually lends itself well to English localization, as it draws so much influence from American movies that the translator has an easily-available source to draw some stylistic inspiration from.

</frustratedwannabeprofessionaltranslatorrant>

So, in conclusion, anyone who puts Marc's work down on this is a poopiehead.

[zera9924]

So, in conclusion, anyone who puts Marc's work down on this is a poopiehead.

No one is putting his work down. Whatever happened to constructive criticism? I must point out that there are a lot of snide comments in your post directed at us, and potentially anyone else who would raise legitimate concerns with this translation. Calling something unprofessional is not necessarily done with malicious intent just because it's a negative implication.

On another note, it's really strange that there's so much "industry" posturing going on in this discussion. I don't know the story behind this, but appealing to one's credentials does not validate any opinions or standards one might hold. The nature of the translation method is not being debated, (in fact, I was simply criticizing the bad grammar and awkward syntax) but in releasing such work to the public, you're opening yourself to scrutiny. When the public doesn't approve, are you going to rally your co-workers into a lynch-mob against anyone who disagrees with you? Good luck with marketing if that's your attitude.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

This is just constructive criticism, but judging from what sniplets of the script I've seen, it looks really unprofessional. Are you saying this is done on purpose? I guess I could understand that kind of approach with a really retro game -- such as with an NES translation -- but PSX?

i have basically the opposite view. from what snippets i've seen, it looks absolutely brilliant, and a good translation of the original script. that opening script that DS posted and the "i look like a fag" screen included. obviously it is in a localized style, so if you don't like that sort of thing, i suppose it's unfortunate for you. but i am just not seeing how this is remotely "unprofessional". are there many grammar mistakes that are obviously mistakes and not stylistic choices on the part of the translator/editor?

Perhaps some of you aren't really cognizant of this, either, but the writing for most Japanese games (especially RPGs) and anime is actually fairly poor.

THIS. i dunno how much this applies to this game, though. the japanese opening script DS posted seems pretty decent, at least.

[Gemini]

My point was just if you say "I saw an excerpt or two, and it looked rather unprofessional,"

And my point is that I noticed that pretty much every time the characters speak and the dialogue seems somewhat over-edited or uses stuff completely uncalled for (again, Karen saying "You asshole!" feels just wrong, and there are other examples like that). It's not just the introduction, it's been 1,5 chapters like that. I think I see what Marc was trying to do with the script, but to be completely honest, over-editing is never a good solution especially when you start dropping errors or making up stuff (that is what usually happens with many official translations). This usually leads to the translator trying to make the script feel "cool", which isn't really what a translation is supposed to do. There's always a line to draw between accuracy and style.

Anyway, I'm at Ed's place now, tasting Anna's (I thought her name was Ana?) "delicious" cuisine.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

This usually leads to the translator trying to make the script feel "cool", which isn't really what a translation is supposed to do.

are you sure? there's an inherent assumption you have to make about the tone the original writer was going for. it seems a generally safe assumption for most such cases that the writer was going for a somewhat "cool" script that reads well. i dunno how successful they are at that, but you would think that's the intention. what else would the intention be? that they intended for the script to be dry and crappy? i mean, if upon reading it you come to the conclusion that the script is intentionally dry to produce a specific effect, that's one thing, but...

There's always a line to draw between accuracy and style.

and that line is not as euclidean as you seem to think. a line can be translated inaccurately if it isn't translated with the correct style, even if the words have the same technical meaning. i don't claim to have knowledge of the specific in-game situation referred to, but depending on the circumstances, translating "go away!" as "you asshole!" could be more accurate than translating it as "go away!". again, i am not familiar with this particular line in-game, and i'm not necessarily supporting this particular choice of words. i'm just saying it isn't outside the realm of possibility that it is in fact a good translation--and possibly in fact better than if they had just gone with "go away!" or somesuch.

i think where i'm going with these two quote/reply blocks is that you also have to look at the script as a whole, not just at individual lines. you have to look at the entire spectrum of character dialogue, not just whether kuso was translated as damn or shit, to borrow an admittedly rather demeaning illustrative example from theteapirate   obviously i don't mean that that's what you're doing, but sometimes one can get bogged down in the small details without seeing the big picture, or how the big picture actually synergizes with and improves those small details.

[Spinner 8]

The whole translation itself felt on the whole very professional and well thought out, in my opinion. Certainly the best I've seen in a fan localization. I could definitely notice some stylistic references to Jeremy Blaustein's localization of Snatcher, so the fact that he and Marc are/have been colleagues in the past makes sense.

Not to mention the subtle (and not-subtle) references to Metal Gear Solid, another of Blaustein's localizations. When Jonathan exclaims "A surveillance camera?" the first time he sees one, man that's gotta be a reference. :)

I'm not much for the tired literal-vs-localized argument that's starting to show up here (in before lock btw), but I just wanted to chime in and say that this is definitely one of the best fan-translated scripts I've ever read. Maybe the best. And man I've read a lot of fan-translated scripts.

Everything, on the hacking and scripting side both, was done so damn well! I hope everyone involved is immensely proud of the work they've done, as they should be.

[Gemini]

are you sure? there's an inherent assumption you have to make about the tone the original writer was going for. it seems a generally safe assumption for most such cases that the writer was going for a somewhat "cool" script that reads well.

Well, you can make a script that sounds very good and still avoid the "coolness" as much as possible. Tom's (aka shivalva) definitively a master at that. The translation he did on Innocent Sin is probably one of the most accurate and well written I've ever seen, if not really the best.

a line can be translated inaccurately if it isn't translated with the correct style, even if the words have the same technical meaning.

If we refer to the asshole line, to me it doesn't seem like the context where it's located really justifies it, nor does the "broken Engrish" factor that would make you want to edit/reword the sentence to be less broken and appear more like they're talking in English for real. It's really one of those lines that make you say "WTF just happened!?". I'm generally ok with liberties here and there, but getting carried away feels... well, not very ethical?

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Innocent Sin

i think this might make for a good example... something i recall from when it was released was that one character had the dubious title of Underpants Gang Leader. yep, from the FAQ:

[Underpants Gang Leader...? Isn't it Captain Pants?]

Captain? Of what, a football team? Or a ship? Eikichi's the leader of a gang... The delinquent students of Kasugayama High... "Banchō" doesn't mean "captain" in any sense of the word. He's a gang leader. He became the leader of his gang because he'd pull down people's pants and humiliate them by showing them in their underwear... The Japanese word "pantsu" is used to describe underwear (even though it sounds more like the English word "pants"). That's why I chose "Underpants." It seems silly, and that's what it was intended to be. Lisa was trying to make fun of him. Some of the lines in the game (specifically in the Zodiac) wouldn't make sense if this term hadn't been used.

so apparently, it was Captain Pants in the localization. i would say this was obviously a bit of a flub -- but not for the Captain part. the "Pants" part obviously should have been "Underpants", or "Underwear", or "Boxers", or something. so why couldn't he have been Captain Underpants, then? Underpants Gang Leader sounds really, really stilted. did the japanese sound stilted? or was it going for a smoother feel to the title? depending on how it's used in the story, various permutations like "leader of the Underpants Gang", or "Captain Underpants", or even something crazy that's further localized like "Underpantsers' Boss/Underpantsers' Leader" (basically calling the Underpants Gang the Underpantsers (Underpanzers?), or something) would have been far less weird sounding. even "Underpants Gang's leader" works better overall, i'd say.

i'm not sure i'm seeing the argument that "captain" is a mistranslation of "banchou". there aren't really many better words in english to convey that idea (maybe Boss). but using a stilted combination of words to try to improve technical accuracy at the cost of style and quite possibly stylistic accuracy isn't necessarily the best answer.

(i mean no offense to Tom; from what i recall seeing, i pretty much liked what i saw of his work. this particular thing just stuck out.)