Localization announced by XSEED as "Story of Seasons"

[Taniyama Mai]

I didn't approve of his behavior in the slightest. Some say that he gets "better" but there's no helping someone that egotistical and jerkish. He was just terrible. I still don't know how he managed to hang around Rod of all people... And thank goodness that there is no Allen 2.0 running around in SoS. I can deal with Neil-like behavior, so I think I'll like Nadi. Especially since Neil was the only ANB bachelor I could stand.

It's amazing at how much of a turnaround there is from ANB to SoS. Honestly, I have to say that I'm really loving the marriage candidates this time around. Especially knowing that their characters will stay intact. I really didn't like that many candidates in ANB... For SoS, I feel like marrying them all. And then there are the regular villagers. I was very worried about Marian for a time. It feels great knowing he'll be staying as is. I think I would've blown a gasket if Natsume made him into a woman... No more worries now though.

Oh yeah, and I have to say that I love your signature! Ghost Hunt is awesome!

same here. plus, he doesn't actually get better. if you marry him, he does call you his princess and stuff, but the things he says are still possessive and abusive and awful. I am SO glad there's no one like him in the new game and I love the characters and the art style in this game so much, it makes me SO sad there's no gay marriage because I SO badly want to be gay in this game.

no kidding. I had a hard time figuring out who to marry last time, even though the characters looked cute enough, they were just meh. those that looked really cute usually had rather meh personalities, and the only one who was cute but still had a good personality called me a man so I just couldn't go with that. this time, I can't decide because there's too many awesome people to choose from! really it's the only HM I've wanted more save slots in in a long time.

ahh thank you! it's one of my fav shows =) I made both the icon and the sig all myself!

[Melody Muse]

Poor Neil... I think I would've liked him even better if he was more gruff. He's still one guy I actually like though (never got Sanjay or Amir for the record). Now, that makes me suspicious of Soseki now too... Did he mention being old every other sentence in the Japanese version? I would hope not... And I pray that Klaus doesn't pull the same stunts either.

Shortening dialogue... That means there are plenty of missed opportunities for the characters to shine and overall improve the experience. Maybe that was the issue with ToTT for me. Nothing grabbed my attention. See, I usually come for the gameplay and stay for the characters. I've played way too many RPGs, so I don't like bland characters. Natsume giving what was basically the cliffnotes version is kinda sad. And their formatting of text could've used a bit of work in my opinion.

I haven't talked to Soseki much in the Japanese version, but I don't remember him saying how old he was all that much. However, he might have used a form of dialogue that older men tend to use? I'm not the best at dialects. (Poor Neil--I only can understand him so well because his rough dialogue is fairly simple verb and word forms, aha.)

I also haven't heard Klaus lament on his age or anything. It seems like I always talk to him when he's talking about the weather and how he enjoys walks, though. (But the weather comments are shared by most people in the game--although that tends to be fairly common in Japan; they talk about the weather as often as we ask "how are you?".) But given the translation dialogue thread Finn posted and my own readings, I haven't seen anyone repeat themselves too awful much unless I manage to only talk to them at the exact same time/during the same weather pattern every day. Plus they have a few dialogue strings anyway to keep it varied.

Yeah, the shortening of dialogue is pretty common in translations, but is growing less so now, I think, but it especially is present in older games. Like for example, in Mega Man Legends/64, when you kick the can behind the baker's shop, in the English version it says something like "Please recycle your discarded cans. Got 1000 zenny!" with no explanation why kicking the can behind the bakery was something that was bad, and turned you into "dark" Mega Man. However, when I played the Japanese version, there was another line of dialogue that explained how the shop keeper sighed sadly and threw the can away.

But as the anon said above, and corrected me on (thank you for that Fishy!), now a days we can work over the limits, even if it is harder. So while when a company like Natsume can give us problems like that HG's BDay dialogue or that botched line of Neil's after a festival, I'm confident that XSeed will do good work and give us the most true translation, even if they have to do more than a "paint job" on a couple dialogue boxes. I'm certain they had to do that a bit in RF4, given how dialogue heavy RFs are!

plus we got a statement from XSEED that things like character limits (in naming) will be much bigger than before, because of something about the text size or something. basically the space needed for Japanese characters is different than what's needed for English, so when they translate it, any place we need to insert text will have a bigger character limit than we're used to. (their example I believe, or someone's example was I think if it's 6 in JP we can expect something like 9/10-12 so think roughly twice as much)

Can you link your source please? I thought I saw the exact opposite stated in this thread, with a quote from XSeed explaining that due to the 6 character limit for names being hard to change coding-wise, we would be stuck with it. And someone explained why 6 is plenty in Japanese (usually) but not so much in English (or Romaji).

[Taniyama Mai]

Can you link your source please? I thought I saw the exact opposite stated in this thread, with a quote from XSeed explaining that due to the 6 character limit for names being hard to change coding-wise, we would be stuck with it. And someone explained why 6 is plenty in Japanese (usually) but not so much in English (or Romaji).

sure! I just saw it in one of the other threads.

http://www.fogu.com/hmforum/viewtopic.p ... start=2235

it's on that page and a little on the page before it. here's the screenshot that said it from twitter:

[Blue Rose]

It says he's NEVER worked on a Japanese game where the English counterpart DIDN'T receive an increase in character size cause of the font size change.

You probably missed the "didn't" and read it wrong. I did on first glance, as well.

[Nurse Fin]

Soseki was even worse about the age thing in Japanese IMO. Instead of saying "I" like a normal person he would refer to himself as "this old man". Like a weird way of talking in third person. It drove me insane because he was so condescending even though he seems like the type to pass out in a mountain of empty beer cans :p

Klaus mentions his age occasionally, but his attitude is a lot different than Soseki's. He is more sporty and active/healthy (going by the guide he's only around 35 so he should be...) but his sensitivity about his age, while it isn't to the same extreme, is for a totally different and more relatable reason. And even though Klaus seems physically more youthful than Soseki (no hypochondria) he is way more mature than Soseki is omg :[

I don't want to say too much though. But I didn't like Soseki even in the original text. And Neil really really lost something in translation; such a shame because the way he talked was adorable

Grammar mistakes and "this line wasn't in the Japanese version at all??"s aside Allen was pretty spot-on though. I was surprised

[Taniyama Mai]

fascinating. I'm even more angry about allen though if that's true. I expected better from them, especially since this is a "kid's game". such people should not be shown as acceptable dating options to children or anyone.

but that's completely off topic and I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)

I really do hope (and expect) that we don't loose anything with any of the characters this time. I do however, hope things don't stay *too* literal, like that seed I think you and Hatsuu were talking about before, what was thought to be a cherry blossom (I think?) would be translated using a Spanish word? that'd be crazy confusing to me and I'd have no idea what anything is if they do that with too many things. like I get there's a lot of plants that I don't know the name of, but still.

I mean, there comes a point when really close/literal translations just get weird. (like that infamous Death Note seen with the subtitle "all according to my kekaishi" with a translator's note "kekaishi means plan")

[Melody Muse]

Finn, thanks for the correction! I just didn't register that part because I didn't talk to him a ton and my lack of Japanese fluency had me skimming over it.

Well I believe they kept the word cereza because it was used in the original Japanese. So it's not like the "all according to keikaku/keikaku means plan" part. (I think you are thinking of the anime Kekkaishi, Taniyama, when writing that. Two veryyyyyy different meanings.)

Personally, when they do something like that, such as with cereza, I want them to keep it. I want to know the original intent, including stylistic flair. I don't see the two situations the same even remotely. I mean sure, if XSeed did something like called bacon and eggs "bakoneggu", then I'd have a problem. But using a foreign word when the original writers did? I want them to keep that; the writers used that word for a reason, after all.

[Taniyama Mai]

Finn, thanks for the correction! I just didn't register that part because I didn't talk to him a ton and my lack of Japanese fluency had me skimming over it.

Well I believe they kept the word cereza because it was used in the original Japanese. So it's not like the "all according to keikaku/keikaku means plan" part. (I think you are thinking of the anime Kekkaishi, Taniyama, when writing that. Two veryyyyyy different meanings.)

Personally, when they do something like that, such as with cereza, I want them to keep it. I want to know the original intent, including stylistic flair. I don't see the two situations the same even remotely. I mean sure, if XSeed did something like called bacon and eggs "bakoneggu", then I'd have a problem. But using a foreign word when the original writers did? I want them to keep that; the writers used that word for a reason, after all.

(yea yea yea, I'm not fluent and it's been years since I've seen that photo. it was also the best example I could think of)

in that particular case, yea, I wouldn't mind it, but typically, I have NO idea what any of the flowers are and it bugs me (especially with my mom having such a green thumb and growing so many different things). I don't know if it was just natsume's crappy translating, or what, but I could never really figure out what anything was until I grew it and figured it out by looking at it cause I sometimes know them by a different name or just recognize the physical look of it. like, it's one thing to have a foreign dish that I don't recognize the name of, and I'm lucky I'm fluent enough to know what a daikon is, but if there's a more common, more easily recognizable name for a particular plant, I prefer that simply because then I don't feel quite so stupid trying to pick out what I want to grow =/

[Guest]

fascinating. I'm even more angry about allen though if that's true. I expected better from them, especially since this is a "kid's game". such people should not be shown as acceptable dating options to children or anyone.

but that's completely off topic and I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)

I really do hope (and expect) that we don't loose anything with any of the characters this time. I do however, hope things don't stay *too* literal, like that seed I think you and Hatsuu were talking about before, what was thought to be a cherry blossom (I think?) would be translated using a Spanish word? that'd be crazy confusing to me and I'd have no idea what anything is if they do that with too many things. like I get there's a lot of plants that I don't know the name of, but still.

I mean, there comes a point when really close/literal translations just get weird. (like that infamous Death Note seen with the subtitle "all according to my kekaishi" with a translator's note "kekaishi means plan")

It really seems like you are trying to exclude people as much as possible here, first you insult females for liking yaoi couples and now you're insulting people who like Allen. I think you should really pull back the reigns on how freely you speak about everything. Also, you go on and on about things *you* want... (This game isn't just for you, you know that right?) It's repeated information and to be honest, I'd rather see more posts from other people. It's one thing to say that you dislike a character, but it's an entirely other thing to sit there insulting the character and stating how you feel it doesn't belong because of your personal experiences. If that's the case, then all the characters would end up being kicked to the curb at some point because someone, somewhere, has had a bad personal experience with someone like each of those characters. (For me, I don't approve of Soseki. But I don't want to upset other people by going into great details about that. This isn't the time or the place.) I just really hope you understand how insulting you have been and improve upon that in future posts.

[Guest]

fascinating. I'm even more angry about allen though if that's true. I expected better from them, especially since this is a "kid's game". such people should not be shown as acceptable dating options to children or anyone.

but that's completely off topic and I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)

I really do hope (and expect) that we don't loose anything with any of the characters this time. I do however, hope things don't stay *too* literal, like that seed I think you and Hatsuu were talking about before, what was thought to be a cherry blossom (I think?) would be translated using a Spanish word? that'd be crazy confusing to me and I'd have no idea what anything is if they do that with too many things. like I get there's a lot of plants that I don't know the name of, but still.

I mean, there comes a point when really close/literal translations just get weird. (like that infamous Death Note seen with the subtitle "all according to my kekaishi" with a translator's note "kekaishi means plan")

It really seems like you are trying to exclude people as much as possible here, first you insult females for liking yaoi couples and now you're insulting people who like Allen. I think you should really pull back the reigns on how freely you speak about everything. Also, you go on and on about things *you* want... (This game isn't just for you, you know that right?) It's repeated information and to be honest, I'd rather see more posts from other people. It's one thing to say that you dislike a character, but it's an entirely other thing to sit there insulting the character and stating how you feel it doesn't belong because of your personal experiences. If that's the case, then all the characters would end up being kicked to the curb at some point because someone, somewhere, has had a bad personal experience with someone like each of those characters. (For me, I don't approve of Soseki. But I don't want to upset other people by going into great details about that. This isn't the time or the place.) I just really hope you understand how insulting you have been and improve upon that in future posts.

I don't see where she insulted anyone for liking Allen. In any case, Allen's behavior is really unacceptable. He's abusive as hell and the fact that he's a bachelor in a kids' game is kind of disturbing. There is nothing wrong with people criticizing that. Also, I'm not sure what was said about the yaoi thing, but the fetishiziation of homosexuality is pretty wrong. Liking a gay couple isn't wrong, but liking them just because they are gay and you think it's hot is pretty bad.

[Guest]

fascinating. I'm even more angry about allen though if that's true. I expected better from them, especially since this is a "kid's game". such people should not be shown as acceptable dating options to children or anyone.

but that's completely off topic and I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)

I really do hope (and expect) that we don't loose anything with any of the characters this time. I do however, hope things don't stay *too* literal, like that seed I think you and Hatsuu were talking about before, what was thought to be a cherry blossom (I think?) would be translated using a Spanish word? that'd be crazy confusing to me and I'd have no idea what anything is if they do that with too many things. like I get there's a lot of plants that I don't know the name of, but still.

I mean, there comes a point when really close/literal translations just get weird. (like that infamous Death Note seen with the subtitle "all according to my kekaishi" with a translator's note "kekaishi means plan")

It really seems like you are trying to exclude people as much as possible here, first you insult females for liking yaoi couples and now you're insulting people who like Allen. I think you should really pull back the reigns on how freely you speak about everything. Also, you go on and on about things *you* want... (This game isn't just for you, you know that right?) It's repeated information and to be honest, I'd rather see more posts from other people. It's one thing to say that you dislike a character, but it's an entirely other thing to sit there insulting the character and stating how you feel it doesn't belong because of your personal experiences. If that's the case, then all the characters would end up being kicked to the curb at some point because someone, somewhere, has had a bad personal experience with someone like each of those characters. (For me, I don't approve of Soseki. But I don't want to upset other people by going into great details about that. This isn't the time or the place.) I just really hope you understand how insulting you have been and improve upon that in future posts.

I don't see where she insulted anyone for liking Allen. In any case, Allen's behavior is really unacceptable. He's abusive as hell and the fact that he's a bachelor in a kids' game is kind of disturbing. There is nothing wrong with people criticizing that. Also, I'm not sure what was said about the yaoi thing, but the fetishiziation of homosexuality is pretty wrong. Liking a « lame turnip » couple isn't wrong, but liking them just because they are « lame turnip » and you think it's hot is pretty bad.

There is nothing wrong with a woman who likes to see two guys kissing. It's logical: if i like hot guys, then i'll love two hot guys. But if she doesn't respect gay people, then she's something beyond stupid.

[~Zebra-Pants~]

I think this is the thread with the talk about gender neutral pronouns; there's so many I kinda get mixed up so here's as good a place as any.

Hatsuu answered about including gender neutral pronouns in dialouge and events.

(Spoiler for length)

Spoiler:

Anonymous asked:
Could you guys still find a way to sneak in gender neutral dialogue into Story of Seasons? Pretty please! At least a little! I loved that about RF4, it made the game so much cuter. It made me feel a bit represented, being non-heterosexual myself, and that was a great feeling. I'm sure other people felt like that too,

I'm not totally sure if this question is talking about avoiding pronouns or making everyone’s sexuality sort of neutral, so I’ll try and answer both. Sorry if I’m not answering correctly. If a scene is exclusive to the female protagonist, we’re going to use pronouns indicative of females. If it’s exclusive to the male protagonist, we’ll indicate as much. Otherwise it’ll be what it’s supposed to be, like we’ll avoid pronouns if they’re meant for both the male and female protagonist. You can’t really do that as a whole without sounding extremely stilted because English wasn’t really built upon sounding natural when constantly avoiding pronouns, unlike Japanese. I do understand the need for someone who doesn’t identify with male or female pronouns to feel represented, but the main characters in SoS do identify as male and female, so we’ll use them when appropriate in context for a smoother localization. Whatever characters do identify as in the game, we’ll use. How characters act towards each other in the Japanese, we’ll also use. For example (and this is a general example, not an example of use in the game since I haven’t yet seen the story text directly), were someone born male to identify as female, we’d use female pronouns wherever we could. However, if there was one character who didn’t quite understand that, they’d use male pronouns instead as less of a recognition of what that other character identifies as and more of a personality quirk because they’re hard-headed or whatever. For those that did understand, they’d use female pronouns.
For in case this is meant for dialogue that made half the characters’ sexuality questionable at times (I always did feel like I should’ve been able to marry Margaret as Frey)…we’ll follow whatever the Japanese has as well, like we did with RF4. We did have our fun with the dialogue and we’re certainly the type to roll with whatever’s going on instead of tone it down, but we did pretty much keep it like the Japanese. We just added…our lovely personality. People like personality, right?

[RopeMaidenKirie]

^Thanks for posting that Zebra!

Yeah, so it's exactly how I thought it was going to be--just like RF4's localization.

Soo excited for this game (yes I have the JPN edition but there's a lot lost since I'm not fluent yet) but I'm going to have a problem with who to go for... Again xD I really like Mistel, Rega and Klaus, but with their translation who knows. Maybe Cam will end up getting more personality. All bets are off (though I'm assuming I'll probably like Mistel/Rega still the most)

[centen]

I think this is the thread with the talk about gender neutral pronouns; there's so many I kinda get mixed up so here's as good a place as any.

Hatsuu answered about including gender neutral pronouns in dialouge and events.

(Spoiler for length)

Spoiler:

Anonymous asked:
Could you guys still find a way to sneak in gender neutral dialogue into Story of Seasons? Pretty please! At least a little! I loved that about RF4, it made the game so much cuter. It made me feel a bit represented, being non-heterosexual myself, and that was a great feeling. I'm sure other people felt like that too,

I'm not totally sure if this question is talking about avoiding pronouns or making everyone’s sexuality sort of neutral, so I’ll try and answer both. Sorry if I’m not answering correctly. If a scene is exclusive to the female protagonist, we’re going to use pronouns indicative of females. If it’s exclusive to the male protagonist, we’ll indicate as much. Otherwise it’ll be what it’s supposed to be, like we’ll avoid pronouns if they’re meant for both the male and female protagonist. You can’t really do that as a whole without sounding extremely stilted because English wasn’t really built upon sounding natural when constantly avoiding pronouns, unlike Japanese. I do understand the need for someone who doesn’t identify with male or female pronouns to feel represented, but the main characters in SoS do identify as male and female, so we’ll use them when appropriate in context for a smoother localization. Whatever characters do identify as in the game, we’ll use. How characters act towards each other in the Japanese, we’ll also use. For example (and this is a general example, not an example of use in the game since I haven’t yet seen the story text directly), were someone born male to identify as female, we’d use female pronouns wherever we could. However, if there was one character who didn’t quite understand that, they’d use male pronouns instead as less of a recognition of what that other character identifies as and more of a personality quirk because they’re hard-headed or whatever. For those that did understand, they’d use female pronouns.
For in case this is meant for dialogue that made half the characters’ sexuality questionable at times (I always did feel like I should’ve been able to marry Margaret as Frey)…we’ll follow whatever the Japanese has as well, like we did with RF4. We did have our fun with the dialogue and we’re certainly the type to roll with whatever’s going on instead of tone it down, but we did pretty much keep it like the Japanese. We just added…our lovely personality. People like personality, right?

I think Hatsuu makes a lot of sense here. Based on what I've heard about various scenes as well as the different NPCs' personalities, it would sound very awkward if no one referred to a cisgendered MC with any gendered references (e.g. princess). English doesn't sound natural like that, and using a different pronoun (e.g. they, xe) when the MC's gender identification is known would be strange.

I think it's probably a bit too late to expect SoS to be altered drastically on any front, so I'm just happy to know that XSEED is pushing for more inclusive titles in the future.

[mong mong]

fascinating. I'm even more angry about allen though if that's true. I expected better from them, especially since this is a "kid's game". such people should not be shown as acceptable dating options to children or anyone.

but that's completely off topic and I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)

I really do hope (and expect) that we don't loose anything with any of the characters this time. I do however, hope things don't stay *too* literal, like that seed I think you and Hatsuu were talking about before, what was thought to be a cherry blossom (I think?) would be translated using a Spanish word? that'd be crazy confusing to me and I'd have no idea what anything is if they do that with too many things. like I get there's a lot of plants that I don't know the name of, but still.

I mean, there comes a point when really close/literal translations just get weird. (like that infamous Death Note seen with the subtitle "all according to my kekaishi" with a translator's note "kekaishi means plan")

It really seems like you are trying to exclude people as much as possible here, first you insult females for liking yaoi couples and now you're insulting people who like Allen. I think you should really pull back the reigns on how freely you speak about everything.

Totally agree with fishy here. I mean I like wooing Allen cause i don't always like going for goody-two-shoes and adorable sweet characters all the time when I'm playing a game. I have a fair share of time doing that in real life. So Allen is something different to me and yes, different people have different taste preferences and quirks.

And I do think her phrase saying "I don't feel like putting up with his psycho fangirls (if they're as bad here as they were on tumblr at least..)" is quite harsh to be honest. It's one thing to have an opinion, and it's another to present it in a rude manner.Ironically, she is being somewhat like Allen, despite disliking him for being abusive and awful. And before I was accused as one of those psycho fangirls, i'll just say this here that this is the first time that I actually disagree with people saying Allen is horrible, just because the poor way the opinion is voiced.