Best of 2012! Fan Service: The 5 Stupidest Flame Wars

Every fandom has disagreements but these five aren’t worth having.

By Mel Turnquist. Posted 12/31/2012 10:00 Comment on this     ShareThis

Translations and Localizations Ahoy!

A winner is you!

When a video game is released in countries other than Japan, it has to be translated about 90% of the time. While sometimes people import the original Japanese version, the majority of gamers in the West play translated or adapted versions of their favourite games. That’s where localization comes into the picture. Things get more Americanized as an effort to try to get people to understand the storyline better. This is a legitimate thing that can sometimes be misconstrued if the wrong localizer/translator is at the helm. Sometimes it can be charming if misdone, but there’s the instances of when it is butchered beyond repair. The big argument here is whining upon whining about if the localization is good or bad. More often than not, people complain about the littlest changes. Like “Oh my god, they didn’t do the comedy style of Japan!” which relies on puns but puns are very hard to translate into any language. Or the song lyrics are done well but not to the exact pinpoint accuracy that people want it to be. Ted Woolsey seems to be the most subjected to this kind of fandom stupidity. He has done a great job with translations and localizations which change things rather drastically, but it still makes it work. The purists, however, feel that everything was ruined forever because of this, no matter how well done it may be. This is the kind of argument that makes me want to scream in frustration. There are instances when the translations and localizations could be terribly butchered but to base the crappiness of a game just because they didn’t get the littlest detail correct is absurd.

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