That said, I am always curious about how original vs. localized scripts differ -- but usually the key differences can be sufficiently documented in an article or FAQ or something.
Anyway, I loved WD. Who cares if they bastardized the original scripts? We got some great stuff from them... I don't know if more faithful translations would have been as memorable or as enjoyable. For example, I love the bastardized "Battle of the Planets" cartoon we got here in the States, since that's the cartoon I grew up watching. This rings even truer for Robotech. Regardless of how bastardized the U.S. localizations were, they're the ones I love.
When great liberties are taken with orginal source material, I do like to be aware of it... but it doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the creative localizations as well.
Eh, you know, I agree with you in a way, but it's kind of interesting. Take Working Designs. I'm an American and I was targetted as such with their localization for N. America for some game, let's say CF2. I buy the product, highly enjoy it, and wind up still having fond memories for it even today. Now, I'm still naive at this point. Where the game came from is of no interest to me. Whether WD created it from scratch or took it from another country and made it its own, it's inconsequetial to me, right? Assuming I'm still naive about how exactly it came into creation.
Fast forward to now. You get on the Internet and you run into these "purists..." They start whispering in your ears about liberties taken with the translations of various games WD did, right? You didn't know this before and curiously enough, you didn't friggin' care, did you?? Hehe. So, you ask them, would the script have been better with a more one-to-one translation? They say,
"NO, that's not the point!! The original script writers had their material altered beyond recognition! You never got to experience it!" Oh, I say... Oh...
What's my point?? I think it's what Cypher said to Mr. Smith, "Ignorance is bliss..."
I know I enjoyed WD a lot more before I had rabid WD and Victor Ireland haters 'whisphering' in my ears about their "bastardizations..."
It also goes to my experience with one of them who used to help with my translation projects for Ys games. Shimarisu is her nick, and originally I was quite happy to have found someone who was both a Japanese/English translator and a loyal Ys fan. Take the "Ys I Complete" game. Originally, Deuce, my current translator, appeared out of nowhere and translated the script in two weeks. I didn't search him out, he found me. I left the patch system as such so that anyone could edit the script and he went and took advantage of that. So I played the game with his script, and really enjoyed the game, but it wasn't quite finished and he had some incomplete strings to deal with. I had already made arrangements with Shimarisu to work on the script, so I thought, hey, two translators would help with a more accurate translation/localization, so the more the better, right??? WRONG!!!!!!!
Alright, so she finishes her proofing/rewriting of Deuce's script work, and I make a patch and I'm all happy thinking the mistakes would be gone, but then, after playing the game, I start noticing something... something had gone awry.... I'm telling you, I was almost ready to cry. I'm like, WTF, what's going on here? This is horribly dry and repititious!! There were horrible lines by Sarah like, "She is my aunt. She will help you. She can found to the north..." I'm like, what happened to the good lines by Deuce??? Little did I realize this chick used to argue with Victor Ireland in IRC and claims because Vic once told her to go learn Japanese if she wanted games translated her way, she in fact, did just that.... OMG! To "balance" her perception of a world gone mad with localization styles done by companies such as Working Designs, she feels the need to go to the extreme opposite and boy does it show!
Anyway, her translation was circulated for a long time with my patch, until early 2005 when Deuce and I decided to redo it, and finish the job with Ys II Complete which we did. We fixed a lot of mistakes and he had restored some of the naturalizations he had originally done and the script is better for it. If you want an example of a crap literal translation, take a look at my Xak III patch. Akimaru, who proofed that, now regrets his Japanophilia/Fanboyism for leaving it with a more literal translation style. It's bearable, but it shows.
So yeah, all that experience colors my opinion of purists. If people listened to them, we would all be damned with horrible, horrible scripts... Believe you me. I've seen it!!! I've had the displeasure of failing miserably with my editing attempts at it! DON'T YOU BELIEVE 'EM!!
Above all, don't let them destroy your image/love/respect for Working Designs! NEVER!
