Hmm~ I have a question for you, if u dont mind. I checked some of your earlier posts and u said that FE7 had a fairly close to the original translation and was nothing like FE13. So... Do you think its a good thing? That it had such little differences and that FE13 has so many? Its just curiousity so u dont have to answer if u dont want to~

Cut for length. I’d leave a preview but it’s difficult to summarize, and since it’s sort of a controversial view, I’d rather people read all of it or none of it.



As a fan of the Fire Emblem series, I strongly prefer FE7′s approach over FE13′s.



This says more about my feelings toward FE13 than it does about my feelings toward FE7. I feel that FE7′s translation was highly faithful and smooth enough not to draw attention to itself. It’s good, but my favorite localization is probably FE8′s. I feel that FE7 still has a few parts (I think I gained this impression in the Lyn’s Story main chapter scripts) that are kind of lumpy and read distinctly like something that used to be written in Japanese. FE8′s script flows so well as English, with its dramatic moments beautifully rendered, while still being faithful enough that you can typically line up the translation and localization side by side.



I feel that the liberties that the localization took with FE13 were in many ways destructive toward the original work. There are two outcomes of sticking in a thousand small jokes that I think are significant.

The first is that it chips away at the impression you get of a character. For example, you might see a polite character being strangely dismissive of someone’s problems, and it might turn a socially anxious dorky flirt into a bona fide PUA.



(Sometimes I play a game with my friend where we take turns throwing pieces of FE script at each other and trying to identify where that line came from. Outside of FE13, we typically have a pretty good idea of who said something, even if we can’t entirely place the line. But if it’s an FE13 quote, we often have no idea if it came from characters as different as Morgan, Severa, Brady, and Gerome, because every single character is written with the same voice sometimes.)



The second is that you get the impression that FE13′s localization can’t even bear to take itself seriously, which I honestly find more embarrassing to watch than if it had played its cartoony dramatics straight.



The original FE13 script lived in a very cartoony anime world where things subscribed to the Rules Of Drama and Not Real Life and it just presented itself like it 100% believed in that. And sometimes you see Sumia trip and fall and you’re like “oh god not this trope again,” but sometimes people believe fully in their big grand cheesy heroic dreams and it’s honestly kind of cute how happy they are.



The localized FE13 script is like watching the above, but while hanging out with someone who’s constantly whispering to you, “oh my god did she just trip over nothing again?? that’s so dumb.” “haha she wants to be a heroine or something? I guess that’s her schtick? riiight.” “lol the creepy kid has a tragic past. of coooourse he does. they’re never just, like, graduates of wizard school with weird hobbies.” And you progressively start to get the sense that you should probably not take any of this seriously either, because ha ha this is dumb right? That’s why your companion is mocking it.

And I mean, I definitely don’t think FE13 is high art and I’ve openly criticized the way it abandons the thoughtful attitude toward war that the rest of the series had maintained. But watching the English version of FE13 fall somewhere in between sincerity and embarrassed self-parody is just really painful.

Aside from the jokes, I would also say much of the rewriting of the FE13 script runs right over the implications of the original, although (as bookofholsety knows) I can be insanely picky about rewritten lines that don’t give precisely the right impression. It probably doesn’t really matter much in a work like FE13 where you’re not supposed to read too much into the words that one person chooses to use with someone else.

(I also feel like the localization of Henry was a new low in terms of what they were willing to alter for no readily apparent reason, but I’m sure you’re all tired of me harping on that.)

However, at the end of the day, fan translators and official localizations have different objectives. Most fan translators, myself included, are here because we love the original work and we want to share it with you. I believe that when we do major projects like game patches, we should be aware that our scripts are going to be the only way that people without Japanese skills can experience the work. Your script is going to represent the game to the vast majority of English-speaking fandom! So I’m pretty critical of fan translators who want to “have fun with” the source in a way that’s inconsiderate of people who presumably came here to enjoy the actual game in all of its brutally realistic depictions of war and not your Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged jokes.

But the translators who do official localizations aren’t here on behalf of the artistic integrity of the work. They’re here because someone is paying them. And someone is paying them so that they can sell a Japanese product in Western countries. If they make a change that tramples on the original creators’ intentions but makes the work sell better, I can’t blame them. That is basically in their job description as localizers.



So, at the end of the day, I can’t really hold the FE13 localization against the people who did it. FE13 sold. FE13 sold really well. There’s obviously a large group of people who enjoyed the game they provided to the point where they convinced their friends to give the company money, so well, as far as they’re concerned–mission accomplished.



Tl;dr: From my perspective as a die-hard fan, I’m definitely not happy about the FE13 localization. It’s not necessarily about how many changes there are, but the kind of changes they were and the overall impact they have.

The FE10 translators left out an entire alternate script and stuck in several conversations that they wrote from scratch. I don’t mind those changes because the overall feel of the game and its characters was left intact. The FE13 translators translated every last piece of FE13 that was ever available in Japan and they did not take it upon themselves to insert their own conversations. But their persistent micro-changes largely changed the feel of the work and completely changed what several characters were all about.

So, well. Here’s my big belated rant about FE13′s localization, I suppose.

