Dragon Quest I+II Addendum Fix by Rod Merida

[RodMerida]

I was not specifying you.

Anyway, I still remember how you called me ignorant in our last correspondence, when I was just sharing and reasoning my point of view.

[Chicken Knife]

I was not specifying you.

Well, you might as well have, as the essence of your original replies to me was essentially the same.

I'm also trying to understand how you can admit elsewhere that English is not your forte, yet you consider yourself an authority on the quality of English in the  RPGOne script. I certainly hope that you don't consider yourself an expert on assessing its translation accuracy.

I do understand your devotion to an extent. RPGOne gave us a great gift in the work they originally did to make this game playable in English. And I think that the historical importance of that work will always be acknowledged in this community. As a huge Dragon Quest fan, I've always been grateful for what they did. But I wish you could acknowledge that different fans have different temperaments and appreciate different styles. While my group's approach is one of near-total loyalty to the Japanese works, someone else may come along and want to do a rewrite that isn't based on the Japanese. Some people will like it, many will not. What harm does that cause? Choppasmith and I have different philosophies and have had very different aims in our endeavors, but we have frequently collaborated together and have always sincerely congratulated one another on accomplishments. He's someone I'd like to get a drink with one day.

Even though it's not my taste or the taste of many, in the name of acceptance, I'm fine with your choice to have the big splashy intro screen for your version. But the fact that you want to ensure it stays there out of spitefulness toward future works that don't align with your ideals? I hope you reconsider your thinking.

[RodMerida]

I'm philologist.
I have been my whole life studying languages, including English (but not only English). But I'm not native. That means I'm probably not so qualified for making a professional translation to English (I may sound 'foreigner' at some moment, without noticing), but I am for playing and understanding well an English translation, and noticing if it's good or not. I think my knowledge about English grammar is enough for noticing that, even though I'm not familiar with some idioms, because I've never lived in an English-speaking country. The same way someone may know Latin without practicing its speaking. He won't maybe produce authentic material in Latin like Cicero, but he can understand and translate Cicero very well, appreciate its quality, and even notice mistakes in handscript copies. That's called "Philology".

Do you or your group have a similar knowledge of Japanese language, by the way?

[Chicken Knife]

Look--I don't consider the English script to be an objectively bad one. I've played through a hundred translations (fan & official) that are worse. I trust that you can tell the difference between an English script that is of a decent quality level versus one that isn't. And I also trust that your knowledge of grammar is probably better than a lot of native English speakers.

But language isn't just about rules--it's about feeling. The abstract connotations of words, the subtleties of expression and phrasing, all those things add nuance and color to writing in a way that is very difficult for all but the most immersed non-native speakers to completely catch hold of. Not to boast, but I think I have a particularly strong sense for those things, and there are a lot of scripts that would be considered "decent" quality that I have a very hard time enjoying because of those subtle kind of issues.

With the work I'm involved in, I play through the games with my finished scripts about 4 or 5 times, making extremely subtle changes to improve what I perceive to be the "naturalness" of the language. I agonize over this kind of revision process, while fully aware that 98% of the people who play with them will neither notice nor care about these subtle improvements. They would have been just as happy with an earlier rendition of the script that was "good enough" to the average person. Back when the RPGOne script came out, there were so many important Japanese games that had yet to be translated to English. Teams back then--perhaps rightfully--took a "good enough" approach to their work, lest they fall into the quagmire of perfectionism that causes one to spend years working on single projects.

I happen to have a different temperament, and I think that a few of the fans of our work have caught that about what we do and appreciate it. People have repeatedly asked us: "When are you doing the SNES version of DQI&II?"

I think that it's important for you to accept that my perspective is different than  your perspective, and that doesn't have to put us at odds against each other.

The same way someone may know Latin without practicing its speaking. He won't maybe produce authentic material in Latin like Cicero, but he can understand and translate Cicero very well, appreciate its quality, and even notice mistakes in handscript copies. That's called "Philology".

Do you or your group have a similar knowledge of Japanese language, by the way?

nejimakipiyo is *this person* in our group. They are a very good translator and bring a lot to the table.

But the fact that they are not a native Japanese person means that they will occasionally miss certain things or get confused by obscure expressions. It's frequently me who notices that the result in English feels ever so slightly wrong. Then we have dattebayo, who is a Japanese native, review the matter. He will help us navigate the subtle elements that only a native Japanese person would have generally caught. Usually when there is a matter that requires him, I go and check how other fan and official translations handled the item, and generally there were problems. For the fan translations of DQI&II & especially III, I witnessed a lot of literal renderings of expressions done in a way that missed the intent. I gave you a couple examples in a prior message, but there were many more.

[RodMerida]

It's not bad, RPGOne's script, admit it. And it does make me feel. It makes me feel I'm in some kind of Late Middle Ages or in some kind of Shakespearian era; not very exagerated, though. Here they didn't write the Thou's and Thee's (in the NES official version they overuse them; they never use You or Ye singular for polite situations or courtesy as it happened in Shakespearian English, what shows a stereotyped way of archaic English; RPGOne's translation doesn't do that, it's far from that, actually).

I think you are being too perfectionist.
However, I understand you, I'm perfectionist too with my own translations. I do exactly what you are saying.
But I think RPGOne's script is not so scarce of linguistic sophistication to do him the same... after 20 years... If it was a pidgin translation, or even a shoddy one, in proper English, but with poor vocabulary (like the Spanish translation of DQ1+2 made by a Chilean I found) I would completely agree you, but I don't see RPGOne's translation is poor in vocabulary. There's something about redoing his job that makes me feel bad, man! As if I was stealing a lollypop to a child or something. That's not good! I feel pity (or sadness, I don't know how to describe). I feel it's an injustice.
He is even dead!

But okay, put me examples of RPGOne's dialogs and the way you'd had translated them, with their Japanese original counterpart, to see if it's true this oldie work needs to be redone.
I need to see something objective!

I accept your perspective is different, of course! It's obvious it is.

[Red Soul]

I think you are misunderstanding, Rod.
Rewriting a script doesn't mean in the slightest that there is any level of disrespect for the original work, but time passes, standards change, and people are also different.

I am a purist when it comes to the script. The closer it can be to the source, the better; others might not agree, and that is fine too. Humans are fallible creatures though, and if anyone held perfect knowledge about any subject at all, they'd be nearing godlike status, but none of us are there yet.

However, that doesn't mean people shouldn't try to improve the things they love and ultimately patches are very much a result of personal or collective effort. Some will appreciate it, some won't.

I understand your sentiment though; you feel it's not ethically valid to modify the script due to the passing of RPGONE.

[RodMerida]

Not only the "passing", the script is okay. If it's not like that (made up translations for example), let's demonstrate it.

There is no problem to improve things when they really need to. Yesterday I improved that "Ball of Light" thing (it's very few anyway, but if we start like this, changing little things, we fall into endless perfectionism about something that WAS released like that! That's the historical work, and it's good).

What worries me is if it's intellectually honest to redo that translation.

[Chicken Knife]

It's not bad, RPGOne's script, admit it.

I already did. It's much better than the DQIII SNES translation--I'll certainly say that.

And it does make me feel. It makes me feel I'm in some kind of Late Middle Ages or in some kind of Shakespearian era; not very exagerated, though. Here they didn't write the Thou's and Thee's (in the NES official version they overuse them; they never use You or Ye singular for polite situations or courtesy as it happened in Shakespearian English, what shows a stereotyped way of archaic English; RPGOne's translation doesn't do that, it's far from that, actually).

I'm not sure where you pick this up. RPGOne's script strikes me as pretty contemporary in its language approach, as it should be if the objective is to be faithful to the Japanese. The Japanese game is almost completely written in standard style, not medieval / archaic.

There's something about redoing his job that makes me feel bad, man! As if I was stealing a lollypop to a child or something. That's not good! I feel pity (or sadness, I don't know how to describe). I feel it's an injustice.
He is even dead!

Ok, that last quip even has me feeling a little bad now. 

But okay, put me examples of RPGOne's dialogs and the way you'd had translated them, with its Japanese original counterpart, to see if it's true that oldie work needs to be redone.
I need to see something objective!

I've frequently lamented to nejimakipiyo that we should have kept a tight account of every error we uncover and fix in every other version, because, obviously, we were going to be questioned and doubted at every turn by those who are fiercely loyal to the near perfection of this version or that version.

I already gave you two examples of errors. Either missing (or censoring) the scandalous Inn text with the princess in DQ1 & the line about Hargon himself growing enormous (instead of what should be his ego) in DQ2. When I recently played through DQ1 for bugs, I ignored nearly all the NPC text. I just spent a few minutes visiting a few towns quickly. A few observations: yes, the writing in general is pretty decent. Also, the translation of enemy & item names is pretty decent, but I did pick up on a few problems quickly. "Token of Roto." The underlying Japanese word could mean token or emblem. I think it could be agreed that emblem makes more sense in English for what that item is. Also, the enemy name, "Meda", which they left untranslated--probably not knowing what to do with it. At first glance, it's a nonsense word in Japanese, but a closer look reveals that "Medama" is the Japanese word for "eyeball", and the eye is probably the most prominent feature of that creature. Our translation, "Eyeba", actually translates the word in an equivalent manner (eyeball truncated). Other issues: they translated the blue colored dragon as "Kiss Dragon", which is both awkward and incorrect. That Japanese word is an odd one, but the options would seem to be Keith or Kith. We went with Kith. One last thing: they refer to the shrines as monoliths; I'm not sure why. The meaning of that Japanese word is pretty clear.

I'll promise you one thing. If we ever do publish a retranslation (or possibly merely a revision) of this game's script, we will do so with utmost respect to the RPGOne team, as we are all indebted to them for their labor and, as you say, the good job they did, all things considered. That respect will be made loud and clear in the way that we publish. I'll probably even say that the version we create is not intended to supersede or eclipse that which came before, but to offer an alternative reading, and one that's in line with our past work and ideals.

And for the record, I won't be saying all that about the current DQ3 SFC English script. That thing is a straight up hot mess.

[RodMerida]

I'm not sure where you pick this up. RPGOne's script strikes me as pretty contemporary in its language approach

Yes, it's modern English, but it has a kind of oldie taste in many rethorical resources it uses.
I'm not intending it uses renaissance grammar nor conjugations.
But that was one of your points to state this needs to be redone! "It's too archaic, and it should not be." Or that I understood.

I already did. It's much better than the DQIII SNES translation--I'll certainly say that.

I'm translating that one to Spanish and I find it very professional and good too. You want to redo that too?

Either missing (or censoring) the scandalous Inn text with the princess in DQ1 & the line about Hargon himself growing enormous

And for that you have to redo the whole thing? Just fix those little things and let's update. If you want I include them in the next update.
Are you sure Token of Roto is a wrong translation? I understand it referes to some kind of medal, signal, or shield. Not much difference there among Token and Emblem. And as someone already told you everybody knows it like Token of Roto in the SNES version so far, it appears like that in all the walkthroughs for the SNES version, and so on. I have many problems with people when I try to change standardized names. If for example I try to replace, in FF6, CYAN by CAYENNE, or KEFKA by CEFCA, people eat me. It's not possible to do that anymore once people have been decades playing like this. You can't appear and change TERRA to TINA, it doesn't matter how the original was. You can't change Esper to Genjuu or to Phantom Beast, nor even to "Djinn".

If everybody drives by right you can't drive by left (unless you're in Britain, then you have to adapt to left, and can't go by right).

I agree with Meda and Kiss Dragon. Those things I fixed them in my Spanish translation, too. I include them if you want. They're minor changes that fix some obvious mistake.

I'll promise you one thing. If we ever do publish a retranslation (or possibly merely a revision) of this game's script, we will do so with utmost respect to the RPGOne team, as we are all indebted to them for their labor and, as you say, the good job they did, all things considered. That respect will be made loud and clear in the way that we publish. I'll probably even say that the version we create is not intended to supersede or eclipse that which came before, but to offer an alternative reading, and one that's in line with our past work and ideals.

Okay.

And for the record, I won't be saying all that about the current DQ3 SFC English script. That thing is a straight up hot mess.

You want to change everything! Lol.

Why don't you use that energy for translating from Japanese to English new things?

[JKPhage]

A troll why?
I think everything I've said so far is reasonable.
I've even offered solutions (like removing the spinning).

LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

How may this poor splash screen bite you?

This was literally your first response to people saying they didn't like the splash screen. When I pointed out that you had a bad attitude in response to it, you responded with this:

*LOLOLOLOL*.

Whatever you've said since, you came out of the gate acting like a troll and basically gave everyone the impression of not caring at all what they say. When people kept explaining to you why the intro was annoying, unnecessary and incredibly undesirable, you kept digging your heels in an refusing to accept their reasoning. Even in the most recent response where I mentioned that it could potentially cause seizures for people with epilepsy, you laughed at the idea that it could be dangerous. If there is any bad attitude towards you, it's your own fault for having a bad attitude towards everyone to begin with. Your attitude is piss-poor and instead of just accepting that people don't care for your decisions, you've basically fought against changing it through some misguided notion that adding a translator/hacker credit to a title screen is "disrespectful" to the game when practically every other hacker does the same and nobody finds it offensive or bothersome, but a spinning rainbow-vomit holdover from an incredibly obnoxious era of game dumping is somehow less offensive.

You also tried to disparage the alternative patch offered because *one* person had an error that they posted about, which I have not encountered using the same patch and nobody else has mentioned having. Sorry to tell you, but it's 100% a better version than you offered. I might be willing to give you a little slack if you hadn't spent the entire discussion pushing back against any criticism, trying to invalidate any opinions that don't line up with yours and disparaging other translators/hackers. You put me off of your own patch entirely because of your attitude. The fact that there was a better option given is just a bonus.

[Cyneprepou4uk]

[Red Soul]

Are you sure Token of Roto is a wrong translation? I understand it referes to some kind of medal, signal, or shield. Not much difference there among Token and Emblem. And as someone already told you everybody knows it like Token of Roto in the SNES version so far, it appears like that in all the walkthroughs for the SNES version, and so on. I have many problems of people when I try to change standardized names. If for example I try to replace, in FF6, CYAN by CAYENNE, or KEFKA by CEFCA, people it me. It's not possible to do that anymore once people have been decades playing like this. You can't appear and change TERRA to TINA, it doesn't matter how the original was. You can't change Esper to Genjuu or to Phantom Beast, nor even to "Djinn".

I understand what you mean, there, but I don't agree. Of course one can do it; being used to something doesn't mean the original script and meanings are invalidated. Terra is Tina originally and nothing can change that. Localization is important but does not supersede the original script.

Let me give you another example. Frog's sword (that once belonged to Cyrus) is called Masamune in the localized script for Chrono Trigger. Is that how it is usually named? yes. Are people used to it? yes. Is that correct? no, because it's called Grandleon in the original script. The Masamune was just a silly insert by the translator.

I find such pointless changes appaling, and while it doesn't exactly fit precisely in the scenario here, I'm just illustrating why initiatives like Chicken Knife's are so important. If people would rather have whatever script was originally localized, they are free to do so, but that's not the only valid position.

[RodMerida]

This was literally your first response to people saying they didn't like the splash screen.

Deserved.

Terra is Tina originally and nothing can change that.

Yes. Nothing can change TERRA was TINA, but TERRA improved it. Unless you prefere to play reminding "Tina Turner". Come on, don't compare TERRA, so enigmatic, so mystic name, with... "TINA", that sounds to a pop star. Who preferes that? Only in Japan where Tina doesn't have those silly pop-starry connotations.

Grandleon is very beautiful, though.
But Magus, it's much better than... "Mao" (Tse Tung, LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. Mao Tse Tung! Do you imagine playing that way? It's impossible. There is even a bear trademark that is "Mahou". There is "LMAO". There are many things: no, it's impossible to restore Magus to Mao after having been improved to something so beautiful and Middle Ages-like as "Magus" is, that sounds to a mix of Latin and the Arabic or Persian word "Majūs"; it sounds to sorcery!).

Another example: Schala and... Sara! LOLOLOLOLOL. It seems my neighbour! 10000 years ago there is Sara? How come?

Some localizations of Woolsey were made up. But others objectively improved.

If everybody drives in a country by right, you can't drive by left! You need to adapt and be normal!

But Grandleon is very beautiful, I agree. Nobody knows what it is but it's beautiful.

If people would rather have whatever script was originally shipped, they are free to do so, but that's not the only valid position.

Okay, I get your point. But it's a pity he is not using that energy to translate new stuff with his Niponologist friend, and instead he wants to redo everything. Even DQ3! Oh, my...! @_@ What a sacrilege!!

but a spinning rainbow-vomit holdover from an incredibly obnoxious era of game dumping

LOOOOOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOOOLOLOLOL.
JUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja (Spanish laugh)

Why do you hate things so much? Lol. Calm down, man! Take it easy.
They're just games!

[Chicken Knife]

Yes, I also don't understand the concept of taking a localization or translation and putting it on this elevated pedestal, acting like it is definitive and cannot / should not be altered and amended. That kind of adulation should be reserved for the original version in the original language. That's the definitive thing. That's what should be celebrated most vigorously. It's sad to me how little focus there is on Horii and his work through this whole discussion.

Yes, it's modern English, but it has a kind of oldie taste in many rethorical resources it uses.
I'm not intending it uses renaissance grammar nor conjugations.
But that was one of your points to state this needs to be redone! "It's too archaic, and it should not be." Or that I understood.

This was some kind of misunderstanding. Undoing inauthentic medieval text was something I did with the NES versions.

I'm translating that one to Spanish and I find it very professional and good too. You want to redo that too?

Yes. It reads badly most of the time, and it's full of errors. We will come up with some kind of lengthy example list eventually. PS, there were probably 20 times during our NES DQ3 translation where the original NES localization handled an expression or difficult line correctly and the SNES fan translation botched it. I'm sorry, but they didn't know Japanese very well.

You want to change everything! Lol.

Why don't you use that energy for translating from Japanese to English new things?

Maybe one day, but my main interest is the Dragon Quest series. We ask a lot of the player by introducing innovations like a new and more faithful spell naming system, so in return, we want to provide a lot of DQ games for people to play with that system. Additionally, DQ is my favorite RPG series, and I want a version of most of those games to exist in English that pleases me. Wanting them to exist is why I started these projects, and if some people happen to enjoy them along the way, great.

[nejimakipiyo]

Okay, I get your point. But it's a pity he is not using that energy to translating new stuff with his Niponologist friend, and instead he wants to redo everything. Even DQ3! Oh, my...! @_@ What a sacrilege!!

Over the years of our friendship, Chicken Knife and I have spent hours upon hours discussing lines in Dragon Quest games for the simple reason that we are passionate about & love Yuji Horii's writing style. When we publish hacks to retranslate games from the ground up, we aren't just changing things for the hell of it. We are doing it because up to now, no faithful translation existed for these games. In every translation to date, both official and non-official, Horii's intent has been obscured by many things: censorship, mistranslations, overly stylized translations that depart a long way from the original text, removal of cultural and mythological references such as in monster names, and more.

We cannot just transfer our passion to another game series or untranslated games. We translate DQ because we care about it. The fact that it is Dragon Quest, that Horii's mind was deeply involved in the writing, is the crux of what makes it fun and interesting for us.

I believe our translations have a solid place and provide a new option for people to choose from, for those who are interested in reading a high-quality, authentic script.

[RodMerida]

no faithful translation existed for these games[...]
censorship, mistranslations, overly stylized translations that depart a long way from the original text, removal of cultural and mythological references such as in monster names, and more.

Wow.
Okay. Maybe you are right.
Can I see some examples of those, with Japanese and RPGone's text (and your alternative)?

Anyway, you both are talking in a way it seems I'm not letting you do this.

[Chicken Knife]

Wow.
Okay. Maybe you are right.
Can I see some examples of those, with Japanese and RPGone's text (and your alternative)?

Anyway, you both are talking in a way it seems I'm not letting you do this.

We will eventually get comparative example lists together, sooner rather than later hopefully. It would have value that extends beyond this particular discussion.

And as far as you letting or not letting us do this, well, it's not really about letting. My hope is that we would have your blessing and cooperation, because I wouldn't really want to use your bug fixes without permission, and we find the splash title screens unfitting for our projects in general. I suppose we could attempt to reinvent the wheel and fix the same things on our own. I personally spent several painful months working on fixing a few basic DQ3 NES bugs. It was a good learning experience, but I don't think we will ever be great hackers. Translation is our sweet spot, so when we have an opportunity to get some help on the hacking side, it is much appreciated. The fact that you want to continue fixing bugs on DQ3 and DQ6 SNES is a really awesome thing from our point of view, and it is certainly my hope that there can be an amicable understanding between us.

[RodMerida]

Okay, but look.
Can't you accept another kind of non-moving splash screen with a background image?
You really considere THAT intrusive something like that?

If the thing is so distorted and unfaithful like your Niponologist friend says you have my blessings, of course. I remove you the splash screen (if you have not done it by yourself already). But let me see some material about those distorsions so I can make myself an idea of the dimension of the problem. If the thing is serious I will help in whatever I can.
I could even use that for retranslating my own Spanish translation (even though you can't imagine how lazy I feel about that idea).

[saldite]

I do think it's an interesting thought process of keeping things the same out of tradition or respect, and changing things to be more accurate to modern conventions. You'll see it even with official re-releases and remakes, where you have fans talking about how the original script was better due to having more character/liberties with the original translation, or even instances where the newer one will still keep certain retro lines for old fans (FF games like to do this quite a bit). Part of what I always thought was cool with romhacking patches was the idea of having the options for how you want to play (or, if you have the technical ability, to make the options you want to play). Especially with something like Dragon Quest/Warrior where you have old localized names, new localized names, different translations depending on how close to Japanese you want to get, etc, I'm all for more options even if they aren't ones I particularly want myself.

All that said, the most important thing is having a mostly bug-free experience regardless of how you want things to go, which is definitely a big plus (although, even there, you have some fans lamenting the loss of certain bugs/exploits).



Semi-related, @Rod, as a general "bug"-report, I think there are a few places in RPGOne's OG patch's naming got the wires crossed. I haven't checked the original one, but I know there are a few bits of text here or there still left in this one mixing up DW/DQ patch terminology. A good example from DQ1 is a line where they mention Princess "Gwaelin", but then a little bit later in the same line mention Princess "Laura" (as she's referred to in the rest of the game). Likewise, there was a part later in 2 where I got stuck due to not knowing what to do for the same reason. An NPC says something like "You need the Eye of Malroth to enter the castle" or something, in which "Eye of Malroth" is the DW name, but in-game the item is referred to as the "Statue of Evil". It wasn't until I started googling around that I realized the were both the same item. It might be good to fix these lines just to make sure the wires aren't getting crossed, especially with DQ2 where NPC hints for what to do next are a precious necessity (oh god are they ever precious).

That said, I played through all of 1 and 2's 1.00 to 1.03 patch (kept updating as releases came out) just fine on my SNES and didn't really notice any outstanding bugs or additional script mash ups. I know the equipment screen in 2 didn't properly layer the princess's name as a choice (i.e. when choosing who to equip, her name was hidden behind a window). My princess ended up named "Samantha", and there were a few text overflow issues as a result of the name being long, but definitely nothing major or gamebreaking. Thanks again for all of your hard work!

[why3132456]

I have a very deep knowledge of English grammar

Really? Well...

I'm philologist.

Do you mean "I'm a philologist"?

I have been my whole life studying languages

Do you mean "I have been studying languages my whole life"?

i am (qualified) for playing and understanding well an english translation

Do you mean "I am (qualified) for playing and understanding an English translation well"?

i may sound 'foreigner'

Do you mean "I may sound like a foreigner"?

I'm not normally inclined to be a grammar stick-in-the-mud, but if you're going to make such grandstanding claims as "I have been my whole life studying languages" and "I have a very deep knowledge of English grammar", perhaps consider not making such simple mistakes in your post. I could understand such errors if you admitted to being a non-native speaker with little experience (I was once a non-native speaker too), but as a translator, you might want to take more feedback.