shmurfer

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2019
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I don't wanna belittle the TL work done or anything, but is there a way to bring back the "official" translation? I played a previous version before with the official TL (that clearly had less features) and the translation was not very good, but it made more sense than this in a lot of aspects. Like in this version, half the time you're called brother, and half the time you're called "onii chan", just a weird inconsistency. Then stuff like you pick "bento life" and then it shows "lunchbox life" on the top left, or you pick "part time life" and it shows "rough life" in the top left. And despite "take your dick out" making more sense than "blow on my dick", if you do it and she doesn't like it, she says "it used to be cool"...? What? There's quite a few stuff like this and I just played for an hour or so.

I know it sounds like I'm being rude, but I genuinely appreciate any and all TL work that went into the game, I just prefer the version that makes more sense overall, and wonder if there's a way I can switch over to it.
You'd have to do the work of copying over the official translation for the original parts of the game, and then using this translation for the DLC parts. Or wait for Shade to finish off the translation since it's still missing parts due to local election issues taking up lots of his translating time.

Or consider Imouto_prpr's weeby translation. It's pretty consistent. At worst, more accurate to the source material at the expense of being harder to understand for people used to dubs.
 
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Nape3

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Aug 20, 2024
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You'd have to do the work of copying over the official translation for the original parts of the game, and then using this translation for the DLC parts. Or wait for Shade to finish off the translation since it's still missing parts due to local election issues taking up lots of his translating time.

Or consider Imouto_prpr's weeby translation. It's pretty consistent. At worst, more accurate to the source material at the expense of being harder to understand for people used to dubs.
I appreciate the info and link. I think there's a perfect middle ground between literal translation and localization that a lot of TLers seem to miss (again no shade thrown... pun intended), I'll have to check that one out as well. I wish Shade luck with the local issues.
 

Imouto_prpr

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May 5, 2024
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I appreciate the info and link. I think there's a perfect middle ground between literal translation and localization that a lot of TLers seem to miss (again no shade thrown... pun intended), I'll have to check that one out as well. I wish Shade luck with the local issues.
There is definitely no way to entirely please everyone, and different people have different priorities, but for me personally, readability is indeed a big factor in the enjoyment one gets from a translation, possibly even more so than accuracy. If a translation is pleasant enough and plausibly faithful, you probably won't even think about its accuracy, or at least not be concerned enough about it for it to damage the experience. If it reads poorly, on the other hand, it makes it easier to get frustrated with every other error as well and just end up feeling worse about everything.

Shades's TL is definitely rough at the moment, I'm sure he would admit as much and is working on it. Kagura's TL is disappointingly awkward in many respects... some parts make me wonder if the main person they had working on it is even a fluent English speaker, honestly. Which really is a shame for a game that, niche as it may be, is wildly good and surely deserves a better shake.
 

Ferghus

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Aug 25, 2017
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There is definitely no way to entirely please everyone, and different people have different priorities, but for me personally, readability is indeed a big factor in the enjoyment one gets from a translation, possibly even more so than accuracy. If a translation is pleasant enough and plausibly faithful, you probably won't even think about its accuracy, or at least not be concerned enough about it for it to damage the experience. If it reads poorly, on the other hand, it makes it easier to get frustrated with every other error as well and just end up feeling worse about everything.

Shades's TL is definitely rough at the moment, I'm sure he would admit as much and is working on it. Kagura's TL is disappointingly awkward in many respects... some parts make me wonder if the main person they had working on it is even a fluent English speaker, honestly. Which really is a shame for a game that, niche as it may be, is wildly good and surely deserves a better shake.
I think it also depends on how story heavy a game is. If we're talking about this game, sure, a little inaccuracy is probably fine. If we're talking about Sister Travel, hell no, accuracy is important. There's parts to that game where I have to wonder if the person doing the translating themselves understand what the hell is going on plot-wise.
 
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DatWanGai

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Apr 15, 2019
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I think it also depends on how story heavy a game is. If we're talking about this game, sure, a little inaccuracy is probably fine. If we're talking about Sister Travel, hell no, accuracy is important. There's parts to that game where I have to wonder if the person doing the translating themselves understand what the hell is going on plot-wise.
This. And for the love of god, if a game is character driven like Kozue's Strange Journey. Don't mess up their characters by trying to add in western phrases and memes. Like Kozue's Strange Journey.
 

TootinCommon

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Jun 28, 2020
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This. And for the love of god, if a game is character driven like Kozue's Strange Journey. Don't mess up their characters by trying to add in western phrases and memes. Like Kozue's Strange Journey.
I remember hearing someone say something like "bad localizers view their job as a creative role instead of a technical role" which is probably the most succinct criticism I've heard about shitty localizations.
 

Imouto_prpr

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May 5, 2024
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I think it also depends on how story heavy a game is. If we're talking about this game, sure, a little inaccuracy is probably fine. If we're talking about Sister Travel, hell no, accuracy is important. There's parts to that game where I have to wonder if the person doing the translating themselves understand what the hell is going on plot-wise.
Cases like that are more an issue of script quality than necessarily accuracy. You could easily imagine a localization which completely changes the dialogue yet is consistent with itself, so it's perfectly logical to follow, but not at all accurate. It's when you get those inconsistencies that you start to wonder what the issue is. If you were having a good time, you might not think that far at all; without checking against the original script, how would you even know?

That said naturally I would prefer that translations do aim to accurately represent the original script to the degree that they can, which for some reason is an eternal struggle with English localizations. But, script quality is what you are evaluating long before accuracy can come into the picture; if it is unpleasant to read such that you're not having a good time, anything else it might be is moot. If you are having a good time, it might only be years later that you run into something that makes you realize that the "translation" was actually completely full of shit.
 
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DatWanGai

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Apr 15, 2019
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Well you found the hidden stuff. There's also a dream scene that unlocks afterward which has them talking to each other, and the mandrake is in it.






Apparently all the names in Travel if literally translated are names like Medic Girl, Sword Girl, and Support Girl (This one is Aidelle, but I got that from memory I could search my posts for the exact name).




It's probably going to be more of a reboot, because the explorer demo implies it's a sequel to Travel.
View attachment 3992572
It has the Travel art style compared to DLC Fantasy (which the demo existed for before DLC was worked on). Or apparently all of the imouto games because I didn't post this for a few hours and missed a bunch of discussion.

Based on said discussion, yeah treat it as a reboot and travel's story being largely ignored until referenced. The first Monster Girl we see in Fantasy's world is the Mandrake which doesn't make sense if Travel's plot was consistent with Fantasy.
quick questions: Where are you two getting this information about Sister travel getting a reboot/remake? And how does the explorer demo imply it's a sequel to Travel when the main MC and heroine looks to be completely different from Travel? How are you connecting these seemingly unconnected dots??
 

Imouto_prpr

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May 5, 2024
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I remember hearing someone say something like "bad localizers view their job as a creative role instead of a technical role" which is probably the most succinct criticism I've heard about shitty localizations.
Translation necessarily has a creative component, as languages do not not map 1-1 to each other, and cultures all have their different ways of expressing things, let alone references to obscure things that audiences in another language have absolutely no hope of knowing about. But there are very much differences in attitudes towards how those challenges should be handled. I can't help but think of a little event in Persona 4 that really captures this for me (so much that I have this screenshot of it from forever ago).

tl note it.png
The correct answer, as per the game mechanics, is the first one (make up bullshit). Fundamentally, I disagree with this approach. When I run into this issue, what I'll do is grab the offending phrase and start doing web searches on it. Fortunately these days, there will often be encyclopedia entries about a lot of niche things, or you'll see people using it in actual conversations and be able to figure out what's going on. From there, you can decide if there is a sufficiently accurate English equivalent, or if not, how you want to represent it. Ancient weeb that I am, I find TL notes acceptable, so that may ultimately be the result.

In this way though I'm very happy to be doing fan TL rather than anything "professional". This way I can just handle it however I want to see it in the script: writing for an audience of one (me), rather than some theoretical audience of paying consumers. The "average player" experience can shove itself, I'mma just make the translation that makes me happy, and if there are others who enjoy it as well, then that's just a bonus.
 

TootinCommon

Newbie
Jun 28, 2020
65
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Translation necessarily has a creative component, as languages do not not map 1-1 to each other, and cultures all have their different ways of expressing things, let alone references to obscure things that audiences in another language have absolutely no hope of knowing about. But there are very much differences in attitudes towards how those challenges should be handled.
I understand that some creative liberties need to be taken to make a translation read well, my issue is with translations that try to undermine the authorial intent, mess with characterization, make things more "palatable", etc. When a translator makes an alteration to a script because they personally didn't like the original message, that seems kinda shitty to me. I think the best translations are the ones that try to preserve the original message as much as possible, and let the viewer/reader/player decide for themselves how to feel about it.
 

Ferghus

Engaged Member
Aug 25, 2017
2,899
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Translation necessarily has a creative component, as languages do not not map 1-1 to each other, and cultures all have their different ways of expressing things, let alone references to obscure things that audiences in another language have absolutely no hope of knowing about. But there are very much differences in attitudes towards how those challenges should be handled. I can't help but think of a little event in Persona 4 that really captures this for me (so much that I have this screenshot of it from forever ago).

View attachment 3993770
The correct answer, as per the game mechanics, is the first one (make up bullshit). Fundamentally, I disagree with this approach. When I run into this issue, what I'll do is grab the offending phrase and start doing web searches on it. Fortunately these days, there will often be encyclopedia entries about a lot of niche things, or you'll see people using it in actual conversations and be able to figure out what's going on. From there, you can decide if there is a sufficiently accurate English equivalent, or if not, how you want to represent it. Ancient weeb that I am, I find TL notes acceptable, so that may ultimately be the result.

In this way though I'm very happy to be doing fan TL rather than anything "professional". This way I can just handle it however I want to see it in the script: writing for an audience of one (me), rather than some theoretical audience of paying consumers. The "average player" experience can shove itself, I'mma just make the translation that makes me happy, and if there are others who enjoy it as well, then that's just a bonus.
If we're talking about obscure idioms, sure. If we're talking about puzzles that would otherwise be impossible to solve, also fair game. But don't touch the overall plot or characters. I wouldn't bother playing a plot-heavy game outside of MTL unless I gave a shit about what's going on. And I'd reason that the guy who wrote the characters/scenes/plot for the game dumped a shit ton of hours into making a long ass story because they give a shit about the plot and want you to give a shit about the plot. To have a half-assed localization that ignores the creator's intended experience feels insulting to the effort that went into the game.

Edit: And I also want to point out that not every story is going to find an audience in another language. If it doesn't look like it'll work without rewriting a significant portion of the script, don't even bother localizing it, just leave it alone. Anything that requires you to buy into a significant amount of knowledge external to the game should automatically be disqualified for translation/localization.
 
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shmurfer

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2019
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quick questions: Where are you two getting this information about Sister travel getting a reboot/remake? And how does the explorer demo imply it's a sequel to Travel when the main MC and heroine looks to be completely different from Travel? How are you connecting these seemingly unconnected dots??
It's all inferrence. I'm not saying Travel itself is getting remade or anything, but the plots from Travel and Fantasy are not consistent with each other despite the ending of Fantasy implying it's going to continue on into Travel (Although a big part of this could be a faulty localization from Kagura). Meanwhile, Explorer's demo implies pretty strongly that it's a direct sequel to Travel, with a neat story gimmick to excuse why it's you and a random girl to start with. Since Travel's story was probably made as a once off thing to excuse a plot that lets a character fuck a bunch of imouto stereotypes, but Fantasy is trying to tie it all into a single franchise universe, it's safer to let the newer games bring up what parts of Travel's plot still matter.

It's actually pretty likely Explorer's going to be getting the remake treatment at this point. Inusuku's essentially had 3 art style changes with the three games he's made since Travel / Explorer Demo. He's also learned how to actually implement a mouse. To go back to the full keyboard control of Travel / Explorer Demo is a bad look after making a game whos english port has been bought at least 200,000 times on steam. It'd be nice to see if the Live2D ass animations of Explorer will stay in the game if the art is updated to post Fantasy DLC levels.
 

Proloc

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Sep 23, 2023
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Inusuku posted his long term plans few weeks ago.
First he finish monochrome remake ( encore). - All art is done and only story/scripts left to do.
Then he is doing Explorer.
1725318734490.png

There is also possible bad news about monochrome remake.
1725318801375.png

Since Fantasy had battle game elements it was easy to release on steam with Kagura games.
But Inusuku is not sure it is possible to release monochrome remake since it is mostly H visual novel.
 
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Imouto_prpr

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May 5, 2024
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If we're talking about obscure idioms, sure. If we're talking about puzzles that would otherwise be impossible to solve, also fair game. But don't touch the overall plot or characters. I wouldn't bother playing a plot-heavy game outside of MTL unless I gave a shit about what's going on. And I'd reason that the guy who wrote the characters/scenes/plot for the game dumped a shit ton of hours into making a long ass story because they give a shit about the plot and want you to give a shit about the plot. To have a half-assed localization that ignores the creator's intended experience feels insulting to the effort that went into the game.

Edit: And I also want to point out that not every story is going to find an audience in another language. If it doesn't look like it'll work without rewriting a significant portion of the script, don't even bother localizing it, just leave it alone. Anything that requires you to buy into a significant amount of knowledge external to the game should automatically be disqualified for translation/localization.
Heh, I quite like your edit point. It goes the other way, too: writing with a "global" audience in mind can impose a lot of restrictions on a Japanese writer. 9 years in, the only mobage I play still has no English version, and it's almost certainly better for it; the sensitivities can be quite different indeed.

Unfortunately, money tends to be a better motivator than creative vision, and licensing the IP and shipping slop seems to be pretty effective for the parties involved.
Since Fantasy had battle game elements it was easy to release on steam with Kagura games.
But Inusuku is not sure it is possible to release monochrome remake since it is mostly H visual novel.
That's unfortunate for Inusuku. Guess we should make an even more concerted effort to purchase the game directly when it drops.
 
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gaiar31

Member
Oct 12, 2018
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Inusuku posted his long term plans few weeks ago.
First he finish monochrome remake ( encore). - All art is done and only story/scripts left to do.
Then he is doing Explorer.
View attachment 3994546

There is also possible bad news about monochrome remake.
View attachment 3994547

Since Fantasy had battle game elements it was easy to release on steam with Kagura games.
But Inusuku is not sure it is possible to release monochrome remake since it is mostly H visual novel.

Encore illustion finish .. So Fast!!
 
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