In one of the Capcom Unity MH4U localization blogs they discussed the process in which the North American Translations of the Magala weapons were chosen:

Something that was interesting to us when we were localizing the game was the Magala class weapons and how they liberally used English for the weapon names. For example, the Insect Glaive is called Aim of Trick (アイムofトリック) and one of the Long Swords is called The Law (THEロウ). All of Gore Magala’s weapons use the “of” naming style, while Shagaru Magala’s weapons use the “the” style. These names were kind of tough to localize because while we can obviously just transliterate them into English, the naming was done to make them seem a little “off” (in Japanese we’d call this strangeness, iwakan, or 違和感), so we had to get that part down too. What we ended up doing was novel, but I’m assuming a major pain in the butt for the European localization. All of the “of” weapons were translated into German, while the “The” weapons were translated into French. Later on there are weapons related to the “new” Gore Magala that use a slash instead of an English word, so there we combined both the German and French into one name. There are your strange, but accurate weapon names!

Pretty cool localization insight, but this morning I noticed something, and after doing a little researched I’m reasonably confident that the Magala Hunting Horns naming scheme reflects the stages of Loss and acceptance after death.

In order they are:

Kummerklang (German for The sound of Grief)

Stage 1: Denial and Isolation, being overwhelmed with feelings that you can’t face others.

Gramklang (German for The sound of Wrath)

Stage 2: Anger, self-explanatory

Trauerklang (German for The sound of Mourning)

Stage 3: Bargaining, or the act of internally asking yourself all the what-ifs, what could we have done differently, etc.

La Sépulture (French for The Sepulcher, which itself is either a location for burial or interrment, or a verb describing the act of being laid in such a place.)



Stage 4: Depression

“A reaction to practical implications relating to the loss. Sadness and regret predominate this type of depression. We worry about the costs and burial. We worry that, in our grief, we have spent less time with others that depend on us.”

La Joie (French for the Joy)

Stage 5: Acceptance

and lastly:

Le Grégorien (French for The Gregorian, a reference to Gregorian Chants )

Gregorian chant, monophonic, or unison, liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, used to accompany the text of the mass and the canonical hours, or divine office

and possibly a double reference with a band called Gregorian with the horn becoming more of a guitar in its final stage.



I will admit that I could just be seeing meaning where there isn’t any, but if its intentional then kudos to the Localization team!

I’m not as familiar with the other weapon types but I would not be surprised if some of the others had underlying themes.

11:42 am • 8 March 2015 • 47 notes