miffy495 Posted November 23, 2006 Secret of Mana is an amazing game, with stellar co-op. Children of Mana, I am avoiding at the moment because of this forum's reaction to it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nappi Posted November 23, 2006 Explains why I had trouble remembering whether the game was Secret of Mana or Children of Mana. I was under the impression that the DS version was just the remake of the SNES one, thus having the same name.. Childret of Mana. Damn, I feel smart now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
twmac Posted November 29, 2006 Yufs, localisation QA aren't arseholes. In many cases the person required to check or translate the words is presented with an excel spread sheet, with no context of what is actually happening in the game. To blame the translators is short sighted, and maybe the companies fault for not giving them more of an idea of what was going on. It would be like having an animated film where the voice actors don't have a clue about the plot or characters. Another problem that games have. I used to despise localisation, but after only 2 years in the business, I don't know anymore. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted November 29, 2006 Yufs, localisation QA aren't arseholes.In many cases the person required to check or translate the words is presented with an excel spread sheet, with no context of what is actually happening in the game. To blame the translators is short sighted, and maybe the companies fault for not giving them more of an idea of what was going on. It would be like having an animated film where the voice actors don't have a clue about the plot or characters. Another problem that games have. I used to despise localisation, but after only 2 years in the business, I don't know anymore. I was calling the people who runthe company assholes... sorrry for my lazy and bad and hrad to understand writing...nd they employ other assholes to keep running the company... Not the localisation people. Although from my experience, for some reason, companies employ terrible, terrible testers. Is there such a lack of clever people who play and like games out there? Maybe just in Brighton... Although actually, I've never seen that method of localisation before... is that true? We always just played the game through... sometimes wishing that we COULD have a spreadsheet so we could run it all through fucking spellchecker... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gfoot Posted November 29, 2006 We've always sent spreadsheets for localization, with each language in a different column. But they get a copy of the game as well, and we try to be responsive at answering queries about context. Often we get sent back screenshots with wobbly circles drawn on them, highlighting problem areas and asking which string in the spreadsheet they need to change to fix it. In each case I can remember, it pretty much took up an entire coder's time to coordinate merging back the translations, supplying information and new builds of the game to the translators, and double-checking that the text actually fits on the screen afterwards. It needs some investment from both sides really. The sadness is when really common gaming slang words get literal translations. That's the real give-away that a company is just hiring cheap foreign students, rather than people with any understanding, or interest in, games. I guess the other give-away is when a high percentage of the translators are women. Sometimes you also suspect that they're not actually playing through the game anyway. I think there's a lot to be said for running translation and QA in parallel, rather than having a separate pass of QA for the translations later on. Why should localisation bugs be treated differently to any other kind of bug? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Salka Posted November 29, 2006 The thing I find unforiveable about CoM though, is that it's such a massively unfun localisation issue, and it's in the FRONT END. It's not hidden away inside the depths of the game somewhere, behind several different dialogue options from a random NPC somewhere in the middle of a side-quest. It's right there, blatantly, in the front end, where everyone can see it. And it sucks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
twmac Posted December 6, 2006 Brighton testers = shit. Ouch. That is fair criticism of CoM. For it to be in the front end is completely unforgivable. In other cases, I remember one Localisation tester joking with me how the term 'Fire in the hole' had been directly translated to 'Grenade!' in Spanish. The situation was a character firing a rocket launcher into a tunnel. He changed the subtitle to the appropriate term. The game, unfortuantely had had the audio localised, which there are going to be quite a few bemused spanish players out there. gfoot, you may well disagree but I believe that to implement localisation QA earlier becomes a chicken/egg situation. Audio and text are often not put into games or even fully decided on until a late stage in game development. A problem in itself, but to address this issue means money. Hiring voice actors to re-record audio is unlikely to happen in anything but AAA titles. Re-writes of scripts is simply not possible due to the fallout it will cause to the rest of the develpment team (re-rendering of FMVs, restaging of certain set pieces, etc). So, certainly, some games could be tighter and more cohesive. But the occasional sloppy loc is forgivable when you face cancellation or limited release (generally Japan only). What I wouldn't give for a shittily translated version of Biomotor Unitron 2, a proper (but scratchy) NA or EU version of Shikigami no Shiro on the Xbox or an almst non-coherent version of the two shinning force sections on the Saturn so that I could fully enjoy that saga in some form or another. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wrestlevania Posted December 6, 2006 Although actually, I've never seen that method of localisation before... is that true? When I've worked on software in the past, one of our (the developers) tasks was to go through the entire program cutting and pasting every sentence into an Excel spreadsheet. This was then fired off to some localisation company in the arse-end of nowhere for translation. No idea how effective it ultimately was because we didn't quality audit the translation results with native speakers. And I get the distinct impression this is generally how it's done -- certainly in the UK software industry at any rate... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elmuerte Posted December 6, 2006 Localization is always fun. Well, the fuck-ups are. Like in a certain version of MS Word they incorrectly translated "align left" it was translated to "verwijzingen uitlijnen" which translates to english: "align links" since "links" is "left" in dutch and "verwijzingen" is "links", but 1 and 1 together and well.. you've got something odd But yeah, often translations are done pureply on text basis, but even if context is involved they often screw up. I often see this in the subtitles on Dutch TV. It's like the translators have no clue. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
