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1:26 am
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August 21, 2012
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I gotta be honest, the one thing besides high prices that’s holding me back from purchasing any RPG’s that were released in North America during the Super NES’s lifespan is the quality of the translations. From what I heard, some story elements were cut out of Final Fantasy IV as well as Secret of Mana for the North American release. I even heard that there’s a retranslation for Breath of Fire 2 since the original translation was so poor. How bad are the translations for the other RPG’s.
Also, are there ANY Super Nes RPG’s that have an accurate translation (doesn’t lose many plot details in translation & is generally accurate to the Japanese version)?
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10:57 am
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January 18, 2013
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I think this is entirely relative. What would you call a “good” translation, anything that Ted Woolsey wrote? Do you like or hate the English version of “Soul Blazer”?
I say English translations of RPGs are what they are. If you like them, okay; if not, there’s always other versions.
11:13 am
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August 21, 2012
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John Legendoffzelda said
I think this is entirely relative. What would you call a “good” translation, anything that Ted Woolsey wrote? Do you like or hate the English version of “Soul Blazer”?I say English translations of RPGs are what they are. If you like them, okay; if not, there’s always other versions.
I should’ve been more specific. By good, I meant something that’s accurate & doesn’t deviate too much from the Japanese version. Aside from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest & Breath of Fire 1, I haven’t played any RPG’s translated by Ted. I’m not sure how to describe it, but his translations from what I’ve seen are pretty simple.
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2:19 pm
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March 14, 2012
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You have to put it into perspective. Ted Woosley was a single man operating under insane time constraints combined with NOA’s strict standards. This is work that entire teams do in contemporary times. For what they are, he did a fantastic job. I’m just happy they CAME here.
If you are interested in a more “pure” conversion, many Reproduction merchants offer these “re-translations” for sale. But SNES was not the time period for accurate translations. It was typically done by lone individuals or in very small groups, and they usually were rushed.
Exploring the New World on Nintendo Switch. Currently Playing: Zelda BOTW, Octopath Traveler, Sonic Mania, Yoku's Island Express, Mega Man 11. Currently Watching: Marble Hornets, Luther, Black Mirror, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5. Currently Reading: Influence by Robert Cialdini.
8:15 pm
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February 12, 2013
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I think it’s important to distinguish between “translation” and “localization”.
Certain things just can’t translate directly from one culture / language to another. That’s where the importance of localization comes into play. Woosley may have taken a few too many creative liberties (Frog’s accent for example) but there’s no question he did a fantastic job localizing some of Squaresoft’s later SNES titles (I don’t think he did FF2 or SoM).
Another example of a company that did fantastic localizations is Working Designs. Their quality exceeded even that of Mr. Woosley at the time. Working Designs would generally stay true to the main plot of the original games, but would famously spice things up by making the dialogue from random townsfolk humorous. This was a brilliant design choice that made talking to the locals fun; since most NPCs didn’t (and still don’t) have anything useful or interesting to say.
Now playing: SNES - Phalanx, R-Type III, Genesis - Bio Hazard Battle, PS3 - Dragon's Crown
7:07 am
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February 11, 2012
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When I was a kid the notion of translations being bad would have never occurred to me unless it was clearly bad. I took them for what they were. I actually didn’t know many games were censored back then. Now as an adult being “uncut” or as close to the original source material as possible is important to me and many others like mark it seems.
At least we have the knowledge to change the translation of Super NES games if we so chose. But the best official translations definitely came after the 16-bit era though I must admit I don’t know anything about the TG16/Duo RPG translation efforts.
4:37 pm
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May 23, 2012
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Talking more of censorship, I recall the first I knew of it was when they stopped Mortal Kombat having blood on the SNES because of Nintendo’s stance of not depicting overt violence. I wonder if this altered any ‘localizations’ of RPG’s that were released outside of Japan? Wasn’t it also true that NoA censored any religious references as well? Knowing what we do now I often think that was why games like Shin Megami Tensei, Sweet Home etc were considered off-limits at the time. Still, I do envy America’s choice of RPG’s as opposed to mine at that time…
Lately I’ve been enjoying the fan-translation of Mother 3 – a game that everyone should play.
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