How well did the translation patch age?

[mariovsonic999]

I always wonder how well translation patch aged after the release of Shadow Dragon and Awakening.

For me, I think the patches, specifically Mystery of the Emblem, Genealogy of the Holy War, and Thracia 776, didn't age well. Firstly, the dialouge, for me, kinda sound very awkward to say the lines and there are some lines that doing some google search show that some were mistranslation or lost in translation, like Lex's comment to Azel in the prolouge and translation of Lopto Sect to Lopto Church in Thracia 776. Second, bunch of graphical hiccups appear in some patches like level up panel shaking in certain emulators and especially, the menu in Thracia 776.They are minors problem but they are very distracting to me. And lastly, the name of the setting and characters. This might be from being spoiled from the games that did get english translation, obviously, so while there was name like Shiida/Sheeda amd Navarre/Nabarl/etc. there are names like Biraku/Vyland and Homeros/Homers and Seram/Salem.

Anyways, I want to know about your opinions on the translation patch, whether they are still good or they aged poorly.

[shadowofchaos]

Define "aging well".

Because from what it sounds like, the awkwardness that is caused by names, which we've all heard before...

Updating them to the Awakening conventions isn't "improving" or "aging poorly" if they don't happen to conform to it.

Or just generally the Thracia 776 patch. Which the implementation of is very freaking buggy.

Edited January 29, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[RJWalker]

What you have to realize that the translations patches were made with the intention of making the game's plot readable and understandable. The exception to this is the FE12 patch which clearly goes beyond just making the game understandable. The localization is made with the intention of giving the translations its own 'personality' in way.

That said, the FE5 patch is barely functional with mercenaries in the final chapters so powerful that even hovering your cursor over them literally breaks the game.

[BrightBow]

It's more like the patches were never truly finished, rather then mercenaries being that powerful.

[Klokinator]

The FE5 patch needs a major revision. I had hope for Joesteve's retranslation but then a bunch of glitches happened (Which in retrospect were likely because my rom was incorrect) so I think he gave up on that. Unfortunate, but perhaps Holsety and company can attempt an FE5 revision in the future? I love their work and they make high quality translations.

[Crimson Red]

I dunno if translation patches can really "age"... In general i'd kinda ditto what Ranger said. Though really we didn't do a ton with the FE12 localization... it might seem like that to some of the... hardcore Japanese literalists and such but really we didn't take nearly as much liberty as a professional translation group would do or anything like that. Sure, there's a couple silly jokes and we tried to make it a little bit more interesting and make sure it didn't feel like an awkward literal translation, but the differences are relatively subtle IMO. The other translations were definitely kind of like "let's get this done" oriented though and I agree when it comes to that stuff. I think part of that is why people are still trying to remake FE6... they weren't satisfied with the script to some extent lol

that's all i have to say on that tho

[gringe]

Well hey, if there's anyone willing to do the hacking (or teach me what I need to know) I'd certainly be down for helping update FE4 and FE5. I can translate Japanese no problem and helped update the FE6 patch already (still a work in progress, though). Already helping bookofholsety a little with his FE4 script, but by helping I just mean looking on baby name websites for alternatives to Cassie.

Edited January 31, 2014 by gringe