Chrono Trigger Retranslation

[Ryusui]

Originally Posted by Gideon Zhi

Agreed. No offense to anyone, but while there are some things that just don't translate well, dorky is dorky no matter what language we're talking Might as well go with "Evil King Flaming Death Black Dragon Wave" for Hiei's big attack in the Yuuyuu Hakusho cinefighters if you're gonna be that literal. Which I'm not, I should probably add - I'm keeping the romanized form of it, "jaou-ensatsu-kokuryuuha" 'cuz it just doesn't translate well.

I forgot you were doing the YYH games. ^_^

You know, it'd be interesting if somebody tried replacing the voice effects with clips from FUNimation's dub...sure, it'd probably be impossible to unmix voice and music, and a lot of people wouldn't appreciate it...but it'd be a kick to hear "Kurayagare!" replaced with "I'm gonna kick your ass!" (From the episode where Yusuke and Hiei first battle. I forget the title...)

P.S. Oh, forgot to mention. I am a YYH fan...ever notice what the lyrics in my sig are?

P.P.S. *does a double-take* Wow. Just when I thought I was the only one to translate "ensatsu" as "Flaming Death" instead of "Immolation". By any chance, did you pick up that translation from a guy named Yusuke Urameshi on GameFAQs? (That'd be me.)

[Shinrin]

Originally Posted by KingMike

Remembers swear-filtered games...

lol well how bout shit? i dunno if they filter those bad words or not..

[ATG]

Well, I'm all for the retranslation of Chrono Trigger, since most people who know how to read a block of text the way a writer or an editor does would notice that there are a few holes in the continuity of the script—but I certainly didn't realize that 50% of it was canned. I thought it might have only been roughly around 10%...

Originally Posted by Ryusui

"Kaeru" also means "to return" or "to change", FYI.

That's probably the best reason why "Kaeru" should be retained. To the best of my knowledge, the original Chrono Trigger has a lot of word-playing—or puns—scattered around the game. Actually, it appears that it also has its stock of logical puns besides the literary ones.

"Kaeru" means "frog", or "to return", or "to change". What does that suggest? The character Kaeru most certainly looks like a frog (duh), and he was changed by the Maou's (or Demon King) right-hand man (whose name escapes me). He desires to return to his old self. Apparently Yuji Horii wants us to realize that that's what "Kaeru" really is, so keeping the original japanese word is logical in this case. It's more than just making the name sound nicer or uglier, or servicing the "fan-boys" (man, that sounds digusting). In the case of "Kaeru"—as well as any other name with a similar case, a simple liner note included with the patch—or within the readme—would suffice.

*Off Topic (sorry about that): Yu Yu Hakusho was also televised here in the Philippines—I think 3 or 4 times...maybe 5, including the incomplete run back in 1992. Yusuke was called "Eugene", Kurama "Dennis", etc. Jaou-ensatsu-koku-ryuha was simply changed into Itim na Dragon (or Black Dragon in English). And it was called Ghost Fighter here.*

Anyway, Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite SNES RPGs (I've already played it more than 20 times and I'm still not tired of it) besides the Quintet games from Enix (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, or Robotrek), and Tales of Phantasia. Which reminds me...all this bickering concerning the retranslation of Chrono Trigger is almost exactly identical to that little topic back on the DeJap Board, when some idiot was complaining about the way DeJap translated Tales of Phantasia (the swear-words, Arche's "wet dream", and Klarth's moderately revolting comments to Cless). She said it was because she was an underaged little girl and she was scared her parents would see her playing such a "revolting game" so she wanted DeJap to retranslate it so her parents wouldn't say she was playing such a "revolting game". Some of the Zsnes regulars explained the neccessity of the various contents, but she kept on complaining, and it went to the point where some of the other members discussed the philosophical importance of swearing.

And Sky, I don't think your translations are too literal. They're just fine with me. Come to think of it, this is the third time I've heard about people complaining about fan translations of FF. They said RPGe's translation of FF5 was too bland, J2E's retranslation of FF4 was marred because of Trainspotter's numerous revisions, and now they say FF6's translation is too literal? Really now...next thing you'll probably hear them say is that Ted Woolsey is the God of Translation.

[Sky Render]

Really now...next thing you'll probably hear them say is that Ted Woolsey is the God of Translation.

Some already do. I've seen a number of Woolsey purists claim that his translations are "perfect", that he "left nothing out" and that he "changed nothing significant". Any time you spring that particular interview where Woolsey admits that his CT trans got cut down by about half on them, they either: a.) shut up and go spam a different board, b.) try to get you banned, or c.) act like you didn't post a link to said interview. I've seen some pretty bad cases of denial before, but a lot of Woolseyites take the cake.

As for those arguments against various translations, actually I think the main complaints with FF4 and ToP were that they got over-localized. There's a fine line between staying true to the spirit of the original game and going "I don't like how this reads, I'm gonna rewrite it so it's funnier/more interesting/more vulgar". Then again, there's also a fine line between staying true to the original and giving the player an absolutely literal translation...

[Phantasia Knights]

Originally Posted by ATG

and it went to the point where some of the other members discussed the philosophical importance of swearing.

You %$*&^# $%^($*^ *#*%@%$!!!!!! j/k LOL. I knew something was off about about CT when I saw the references to band members. Though it was really funny to slam it to Ozzie, I think it'd be funny to slam condiments as well :p

[ATG]

Originally Posted by Sky Render

There's a fine line between staying true to the spirit of the original game and going "I don't like how this reads, I'm gonna rewrite it so it's funnier/more interesting/more vulgar". Then again, there's also a fine line between staying true to the original and giving the player an absolutely literal translation...

That's true...and it all boils down to the translator/script editor's opinions. A person may translate a game and consider it "true to the original," while others may argue that it "isn't literal enough to be true to the original."

I must concede that some of Trainspotter's revisions were a bit out of place, though. Considering the number of people who worked with the script prior to Trainspotter's involvement, perhaps it might be natural. Some of his additions were not completely neccessary to the game, and I feel that it doesn't really improve it much—in some places, it actually confuses me.

Too literal could make it seem robotic and repetitive, while too much localization could make it seem long-winded and even unnatural.

Supposedly, DeJap did the translation of the ToP script based on the Playstation version, which was a lot more blunt in some places than the original.

I think it's also a problem when it comes to romanizing katakana. The katakata for Ma—ru could end up being translated as Mahrl or Marlh if you didn't have the original copy of her romanized name.

[ATG]

I suspect the "Vinegar", "Mayonnaise", and "Soy Sauce" thing has a reason as well...probably something in the order of mayo going well with vinegar, and soy sauce going well with vinegar. When you combine them, you get a peculiar combination of flavor; it's the same when you combine those 3 henchmen: you get a rather peculiar team.


Maybe the Lala name also means something? I mean, she does sort of look like an older version of Fancy Lala j/k.

[Krynis]

I think the problem with Ted Woolsey's translation is that alot of us younger guys grew up with his translations, I think this is often the reason for such fanboyism.