I normally don't play Japanese games in English but with VC's PC release I wanted to give it a shot. I was surprised to find out just how weird the translation was, but before I start complaining I will say that someone playing this in English and has no knowledge of Japanese will have no problems with it.

Here's just a few things that bothered me:

• English Welkin and Japanese Welkin are almost completely different characters. The English one seems dumb while the Japanese one just seems cloudcuckoolander.
• Using nicknames as a translation for honorifics that already have equivalent terms in English is just stupid.
• There are just some lines that stick out just because of how literal they are compared to how localized the script is normally.

I'm curious for an example of that first one. You make him sound way more interesting in Japanese.

I don't speak Japanese but over the years I've picked up on a lot of common phrases, names and words and one thing I've noticed in most localised games that have Japanese voice available with English text is that the translations are always super interpretive, assuming the player has never heard of Japan before.

On the flip-side, whenever a game has a really accurate translation what tends to happen is that if you're not a hardcore Japanophile you'll have no idea what the hell's going on. Never can seem to find a happy balance here.

Isn't that they just having to adapt for scene durations?

I don't understand much about japanese at all, but I've heard that there are like single phrases in Japanese that if translated literally would turn into a 2 page essay in english...

@zeik: It may be more the tone of the voice actors but one example I can think of when he compliments Alicia's body armour by comparing it to the carapace of an insect, and then trails off from there.

Interesting that you should say that. I just so happen to have picked up the Japanese version of this game earlier today, and plan on playing it soon. I'll be interested to see how the conversations differ, based on what I remember from playing it in English a few years back (when I didn't know any Japanese, heh.)

No, that was probably just someone exaggerating, I fear. The Japanese language is definitely constructed in a way that allows for the conveyance of a lot of information in a compressed form when compared to any given English translation, but I can't really think of anything that would be so impossible to translate as to require such drastic changes in tone or dialogue.

Incidentally, I played through all four of the MGS games in Japanese over the course of the previous year. I'd played them before in English, but that was quite a while ago. Back when I was playing them in English, I remember thinking that some of the dialogue was strange or funny, which was often entertaining. The knowledge I have since gained about Japanese has cast a new light on that stuff though. Some of the idiosyncratic ways in which the characters speak in that series ("Metal Gear?!") make a lot more sense in the context of a Japanese anime-styled action game. That's not to say they're not still ludicrous and self-aware in the Japanese versions, but I found myself understanding better what caused the games and their dialogue to be the way it is. I'm currently playing through Persona 4 in Japanese and a similar sentiment holds true there, I think. It makes me wonder whether Jeff and Vinny (or, by extension, Dan and Drew) would find these games more or less entertaining in their silliness if their knowledge of Japan and Japanese had been more profound.

@dudacles: Speaking of P4, the age old question: is it good localization to change what I assume was "onii-san" in Japanese into "big bro" in English? Because when you hear Nanako say "big bro" enough times it becomes endearing, but in reality it's hella awkward since no cousin would ever call their cousin that in English. Then again I feel like that game's localization can get away with whatever because it doesn't try to hide that it's set in Japan (thankfully), so obviously every character in it should be speaking to each other in a way that makes sense in Japanese culture.

@bisonhero: She actually called him "onii-chan" and with they handled the honorifics in that game, they should have just left in as that. Though the weirder thing about p4 is how they left -san in but still changed the way everyone referred to everyone else

@bocam: -san is the only widely known honorific outside of Japan, so I kinda get why that's the one thing that made the cut. I'd be really curious to see the meetings for localization where they decide how Japanese they can leave the dialogue when the story is very obviously is set in Japan, with an all-Japanese cast of characters. I guess they decided they didn't want to have to teach players new things if it all possible, so they left the -sans in everywhere they made sense, but didn't want to teach players a bunch of new honorifics. And they had to acknowledge certain Japanese things even if they aren't commonly known words (like the kotatsu).

At least they didn't pull an Ace Attorney and insist it was in sunny California, in spite of incredibly obvious Shinto shrine maiden character.

@bisonhero: Nanako saying "Big Bro" seemed perfectly fine to me. I never thought it was awkward at all. It's not like she just starts calling him "Big Bro" out of nowhere. Dojima makes a reference to him being like a brother and she likes the idea and starts calling him "Big Bro". Makes perfect sense even in English.

Saying "onii-chan" would have been way more awkward and out of place, even with honorifics in the game. It would be much harder to set that up to make sense to anyone who doesn't know what it means.

@bisonhero: Everything I've seen about Ace Attorney's translation is hilarious because it's like they've given up. Also the fact that the games take place in the future and that's not talked about. And the judge's brother is Canadian or something?

@bisonhero: Yet, they also left in kun and senpai. The thing that's strange with how they decided to use -san is that added it on to first names (even though in the japanese release all the members of the investigation team minus Kanji referred to each other by their last names) which is not proper use of the honorific. They wanted to make it japanese but did in a very dumb way.

I've only played Valkyria Chronicles in English and I definitely got the impression that Welkin was more Cloudcuckoolander than Idiot.

I would agree ... I only played maybe 3 or 4 hours so far, but he didn't seem to be an "idiot" to me. I'd be really interested in what gave OP that impression.