That being said, Persona 5 definitely stood out for not translating intentions and inflections in speech much more than 4 did. It didn't ruin the game for me or anything, but there's no way you can argue it's a good translation. A good translation takes the intention and context of a language and converts it into something natural and representative of the other language. There are a TON of examples of this in Persona 5 being done very poorly.
And I didn’t argue it’s a good translation (FWIW the translation team appears to have been mostly unchanged from P4). But I think at least some of what probably seems odd to people is that Japanese interactions strike most westerners as out of place, while Atlus stated that they wanted to keep things very Japanese in order to emphasize how odd it was for these characters to develop in such an environment. It could have been a plausible stylistic choice to not fudge or laboriously explain cultural context (it probably made it much easier to include the Japanese audio track as well), though of course YMMV. On the other other hand, the decision to weirdly exaggerate the pronunciation of some of the Japanese names makes it seem like they were trying to over-localize, so who knows?
One thing that comes to mind is how Vinny and Jeff laughed heartily in the quick look at Larry saying to Sojiro, “Please take care of me.” I assume that’s yoroshiku onegaishimasu in the original, and I think it’s a reasonable translation, even if it strikes westerners as clunky. They could have made it sound more fluid to western ears by making it something like “nice to meet you”, but that would have slightly changed the nature of the interaction from what it would be in Japan. The latter tells the other person how much the meeting pleases you, the former acknowledges your inferior position and requests good treatment. It is, after all, a game about freeing oneself from subservience to others.
What made me facepalm in the Persona 4 games was “wry smile”. Especially in the Arena games, someone was giving a “wry smile” every 15 seconds. I started to think it had to be some kind of in joke among the translators.
You're right about one thing, Matt. Persona 5 is no Persona 4 Golden. Because Persona 5 is a better game.
Agreed, and I effing loved P4G. I get that the localization was imperfect, though I think some of what people consider bad localization was Japanese cliches and cultural references not being laboriously contextualized for other audiences, which I'm fine with. And yeah, the big bad starting off as a cup is weird. He gets much better, though.
Not enough love for Persona 5 in these lists, presumably in part because it's known to take a billion point five hours and too few were willing to commit.
Super late to the party, but just listened to the show, so here we go. Too much text and lots of spoilers:
I agreed with many of the complaints these guys had, but they seemed to affect me to a much lesser degree. And there was so much to like besides! I agree with the guy who said they could have spent more time focusing on what they liked; after all, it deeply affected them enough to take the unusual step of making an entire standalone podcast and they liked it overall. Ben keeps describing it in blasé terms, but he gave his real review on the Bombcast: After something like 110 hours, he stayed up until 2am to beat it, and at that moment, super-late on what I think was a work night, after beating this game he'd spent so much time on, he immediately considered starting a new game+.
Various thoughts:
There were some loose ends, including that some of the random crowd dialog at the end of the game made it seem like people hadn't become all that free from their previous habits. And it's true that the way Morgana's shadow(?) was handled seemed off. My hope is that some things will be addressed in a Persona 5 FES, or one of the weird genre-change games they did after 4. Persona 5 RTS? FPS?
Agree that Akechi was perhaps too obviously a narc. But did have some suspicion that Ryuji's desire for fame or Morgana's foreboding about really being a bad guy might have played a part in our betrayal.
No mention of the bosses, who were pretty awesome, excluding perhaps the weird fight against a giant goblet. The end boss and all his mechanics, Shido and all his forms, Akechi's delightful craziness, Madarame's crushingly hard giant painting monster (by far the hardest boss of the game at that point), etc. etc.
I liked all the dungeons, though I agreed with Ben that specifically the mouse mazes in Shido's dungeon could be a slog. It was an okay idea, but there were just too many of them. Still, all the other portions, The Cleaner, all the other bosses, the music, and the denouement made it plenty of fun overall. Futaba's level could also be a little annoying at times, and it laid it on a little thick at the end, but I liked the initial darkness of it. I liked the portals in Okumura's, and even liked the jumping through the presses (makes me wonder if Ben used the run button).
There was so much good music, but I like that Ben mentioned Life Goes On. The perfect music for the exams, and the win chimes felt great.
It sounds like they only chose to date one girl, which is a shame. The Valentine's scene when you date as many as you can is fun, particularly with Brojiro helping you out. I spent the whole game fearing that you would get some karmic retribution for dating multiple girls, the way you had to crush everyone's hearts on V-Day in P4G, but I loved that it was mostly played for laughs here.
Agree that the cut scenes were pretty weak, and they could have done most of them well in-engine (though it might have been tough to appropriately render Ryuji's post-Shido heroics). They actually seemed inferior to in-engine rendering a lot of the time, particularly in that they had lower frame rates.
I liked Yusuke a lot for some of his dialog jabs and banter. I was worried at first from his design that he'd just be relentlessly emo. He was, as Ryuji noted, a little too one-note, though, with everything art art art.
Somebody here mentioned the lack of queer characters, and they did a whole article about it up at Waypoint. I think it's a little unfair, though the hyper-sexual gay guys who give Ryuji gay panic are unsettling. It is a small sample size, and IIRC there are a couple of moments where Futaba hints about being... flexible. I think she startles Makoto at one point with a throwaway line that references her attractiveness.
The Igor reveal was pretty awesome. He did seem much more sinister this time out, but nothing outright evil, and c'mon, this guy has been helping you out relentlessly for five main games (including both parts of P2) plus side games. I thought it was great that they made the voice part of it, after the voice switch shocked Jeff and Vinny.
The music track over the end credits was disappointing. Not that bad a song, but it was morose where P4's felt more appropriately cheerful.
Kind of unfortunate that Ben used the flu-Reaper trick to get OP and take the challenge out of the combat. But if he wasn't enjoying it, guess it can't be helped.
I was also pretty annoyed by Ryuji's one-hit-kill skill. I didn't need to actually grind at any point, though.
I liked the hints that the team was on to Akechi (the hazy effect at certain times that was obviously covering some secret plan-making).
I liked The Twins, but wasn't so much a fan of Lavenza. Not clear why their hats spell 'OXYMORON'.
It was weird that Shido would be trying to drunkenly assault some women in the backstreets of the protagonist's cow town.
Makoto's deadline was a little weird. It would be a little awkward, but were they really that threatened that this guy would release pictures of them in a club?
What were the mentioned "circumstances" that led Shujin to accept this kid against their usual practices?
They tried to explain it, but it was still a little weird that nobody noticed there wasn't actually a body after Akechi supposedly killed the protagonist.
It was nice that they had all those different endings for different deadline-missing conditions.
Having the NPC social links provide dungeon benefits was a welcome change that patched a weakness of prior games, even if they "artificially" altered your slink targets.
Ultimately, I had so much fun with this game, it was really hard to decide between it and P4G, though I can understand that people might have liked P4's core team more as well, and P5's set pieces were weaker. While obviously FF15 was not exactly universally loved, I played it through and liked it, then was amazed by how vastly superior this game was and how much loving care was put into every tiny aspect by comparison, in spite of FF's massive budget. This was very likely my favorite RPG, and I've played quite a few. I am, admittedly insanely, on my third play through and already looking forward to a fourth.
It's unfortunate that it seems it won't stand much of a chance at GotY discussions, though if it doesn't at least win Best Styyyyyle it will blow my goddamn mind. It should also put up a great fight for Best Soundtrack.
Anyhow:
Best dungeon: Despite complaints, Shido's!
Best girl: Futaba edges out Kawakami (but Kawakami's perks are the best). And oh hell, Goth Doctor. You know what? Give me all of them.
Best song: Any boss theme, including Will Power (the persona awakening theme).
Best moment: At the end, when you leave the cafe for good. Sojiro gives a gruff goodbye, saying basically eh, you'd better get out of here before you're late. Then when the door closes, he takes his glasses off for a second to wipe away a tear. You got me there, guys.
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