Damn, that's mental. But 2 manually translated versions? Spoiled for choice here, but how would we know which to pick before playing them? There are different translation stlyes out there? Or I'm assuming there is a list of what translation A has over translation B etc?
Thanks for the work.
Every update I do typically comes with a brief summary of all changes as well as some images so this time I'll also include a few of what the MTL v Manual looks like and users can also request that of Scion.
What I mean by translation styles is essentially the personal choices made by translators in the process of development when there is no consensus on what is "right" or "wrong" and the little flairs and bits of personality that eventually get sprinkled in sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. Some examples of things that will define a style are:
ex1: moving from Japanese to English will always present the issue of what to do about honorifics, whether a translator romanji-cizes them in translation("Hello, Krakenkiller-san!"), removes them entirely ("Hello Krakenkiller!) or attempts to find an equivalent ("Hello Mr.Krakenkiller") is one of the most obvious and definite style decisions translators have to make early on and one that can affect a player's enjoyment depending on which you prefer.
ex2: there's also the issue of things which get lost in translation or sound weird when translated. A big one that will be present in this game is the protagonist's usage of the word "
妾 " . Translated as literally as possible it means "concubine" or "escort", which is why in the MTL out right now there's a lot of it in text,
BUT it's also true that this a word that women specifically would use to refer to themselves. To me, it comes off as an archaic or grandiose/arrogant way of talking about yourself that you would expect from demon that's been alive for a long time, and tried to translate that feeling as best I can. It's one of things I most curious about in Scion's translation as I think it's one of the most important parts of her character and I can see 3 different ways to do it.
There are also things like the drawls of speech patterns, jokes that rely on grammar or phoenetics which don't exist in English, Keigo (or polite language which we don't have in English) and things like Japanese onomatoepia vs English onomatoepie (A bee's bun bun or buzz buzz).
These are only 2 examples but I think you can get what I mean. There's TONS of little decisions like that. So while for the most part all accurate translations should say the same thing, the
way in which they're said can change how you feel about the overall experience.
edit: sorry for wall of text.
tl;dr: some people say cock, some people say dangalang.