We mustn't offend the all powerful NPCs!

[socksuke_uchiha]

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

i don't think it's literally impossible to understand what's being said from what i've seen, and i'm hoping/guessing the really atrocious lines ("they're holding nothing back and are serious to kill us") aren't happening every time someone opens their mouth? but they had a pretty average amount of time to get this done, especially when you consider that they pushed the release date back by almost two months. for comparison, tales of berseria came out in japan at roughly the same time persona 5 did and it released in january in america. i'd guess that both games probably have a comparable amount of content, but berseria's translation is perfectly legible. both games are kind of niche, too, so it's not like this is comparing a series like persona to something like final fantasy xv.

it sucks that they lost their main translator but i'm really surprised they're releasing the game like this, and i'm even more surprised that (apparently?) no reviewers pointed out how flawed the script is. stilted but understandable can still be unacceptable in terms of quality imo since it's a product people are paying for, and it seems to be toeing that line a little right now.

on the other hand, maybe they'll use a patch to clean things up or something now that it's finally out?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm assuming if it gets enough backlash, a patch will be in the works soon enough.

But also to respond to your point about the length of Berseria VS Persona 5 - I've fully played both, and the amount of lines in both games doesn't even begin to come close. Persona 5 is significantly larger than Berseria - by a very, very wide margin.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

fingers crossed, then! i don't want to see people harass atlus over it or anything, but after waiting for so long for p5 to come out and then get translated, i don't want to have a weird translation sour the experience.

that being said, i didn't know there was that big of a difference in terms of how much text each game has, so that's my bad! i knew p5 was pretty big, but i figured the sheer amount of skits in berseria would've helped bridge the gap since it's pretty hefty in that department.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

I do hope they fix it! I don't want people to go crazy at atlus either, but people have a right to be saddened by this sort of thing.

And yeah! Berseria has a lot of skits, sure, but Persona 5 is like, visual novel levels of text. The (very long) story plus all that texting they do, all the different options that change conversations, and the s.links. Plus all the action text for the activities and demon negotiations and ... yeah, Persona 5 is just very large text-wise.

[(Anonymous)]

so did you miss all the garbled sidequest text in berseria?

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

you mean the sidequest with eleanor and kamoana at the end of the game? that was pretty baffling (and tbh i'd love to know how it even happened), but it seemed more like some sort of issue with whoever put the text into the game rather than an issue with the actual translation/script, which is specifically where my problem is with p5. from what i understand, all of the voiced dialog matches what's on the screen in p5, it's just... very awkward and worded pretty poorly in spots. in berseria, the audio made perfect sense as far as i can remember, but the subs (while phonetically similar-ish) were wrong about certain words and phrases, like they put it through a speech-to-text program or something.

i probably should've mentioned that problem after bringing up berseria's script, tho, or omitted the comparison altogether since the games aren't as similar in size as i'd assumed. regardless of whether or not it's a different kind of problem, you're right that it was still an error with their overall localization process.

[(Anonymous)]

the fact of the matter is most reviewers, and even most consumers, don't really consciously notice or care about translation quality. So long as you aren't pushing out something with an error every line, nobody's going to point out stiff wording or an inability to nail a character's voice.

[(Anonymous)]

on the other hand, maybe they'll use a patch to clean things up or something now that it's finally out?

From what I hear, submitting update patches to Sony can be an expensive process. There's a chance Sega won't have trouble covering the costs for Atlus since P5 is one of their biggest releases, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Don't forget those awkward lines are also English dubbed word-to-word. If Atlus were to patch in a script fix, they'd have to also redub the script so it matches with the new script.

If you combine the costs of THAT with how much it'd cost to get a patch through Sony, ahahahaha.

ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

having seen most of the localization now, the dialogue usually isn't that atrocious. there are lines every once in a while that were clearly translated too literally, and some with actual errors, but for the most part it really is just... stilted. there's a distinct lack of overall polish that leads to a large chunk of the script sounding bad.

it's still serviceable, but in a game this text-heavy (persona 5 has significantly more text than tales of berseria does), a script that frequently sounds stilted and sometimes far too literal is a much bigger problem than usual.

expanding on my original comment though, there's definitely one character they mishandled. a lot of his lines are worded too formally even when they're not supposed to be (and that never fully goes away either), several of his lines or lines about him lost, changed, or mistranslated important details, and some lines randomly had things added that weren't there in the japanese text. he doesn't come across as a completely different character, but it's enough that he feels off in the localization, and that's probably the biggest problem with it that i've seen so far.

oh, and the way they translated one specific term feels... weird? there's a set of incidents tied to people suddenly acting recklessly in ways that endanger people around them. the japanese version uses 精神暴走事件 to describe those, which literally translated would be something like "rampaging mind incident(s)" since 暴走 means to run wild/act reckless/rampage. the localization translates it as things like "psychotic breakdown (cases/incidents)" and talks about people being driven psychotic, which doesn't come across the same way (the incidents are about those people acting in dangerous ways without regard for others and then not remembering it afterward, like a train driver crashing the train he's driving, not just them turning psychotic). it's a smaller issue than the above, though.

a patch to fix the translation quality would be nice, but since they'd have to redo a lot of the voice acting and putting out patches costs money, i wouldn't count on it happening even if there's a lot of backlash. it's probably not feasible for them.

this localization really needed more time. time actually spent fixing it, since it looks like even though the last delay was supposedly for localization concerns, they didn't actually fix anything. it's an obvious rushjob, and in a story-heavy game, that's really bad.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

If P5 Golden/Ruby becomes a thing then maybe they'll fix the English script for that. For the current PS4 release though? Doubt it.

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

honestly the translation feels stilted if you don't compare it to other atlus games.

compared to P3/P4, Etrian Odyssey, and Catherine this game is prettyf uckin great

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

no, it really isn't. it's about on par with persona 3's. persona 4 mostly did better at natural-sounding sentences than this game, and etrian odyssey and catherine have stellar localizations (even if EO suffers from text limits for some names).

i'm more concerned about mishandling that character and inconsistent/mistranslated sentences and phrases, though. looking at the fandom's reactions as people go through the game, i've noticed some misunderstandings cropping up that definitely have to do with the localization messing up some key details, or mistranslating some sentences in ways that leave out important details/add details that are contradictory to the rest of the scene or a connected scene/miss important wordplay/change the sentence in such a way that it comes across completely differently/mess up explanations for some things.

it's still not too much of a problem overall, but it's prevalent enough in important scenes that it makes the localization far less than ideal, especially combined with the stilted phrasing problem.

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

are you sure you aren't mistranslating, Anthony Burch?

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

anthony burch just whines about the localization sounding bad to him, not whether it's mistranslated or not.

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

Point to you on that but it still sounds like you're mistranslating it

Re: ayrt, slight spoilers?

[(Anonymous)]

when there's problems like a scene clearly using singular forms in the original scene that the localization somehow manages to translate as plural? or leaving out key parts of sentences, adding details that weren't in the original sentence and contradict another line in the same scene, and even things like mixing up こんな国 with この国? or inconsistent translations of the same phrase, when the phrase in question is an important recurring element in the story? no, not really.

i'm not saying the localization is an utter trainwreck or whatever like some people have. it's nowhere near that bad. but it has its problems (which largely seem to stem from the localization being rushed, since the bulk of them could've been avoided by spending a little more time checking the script for accuracy and consistency), and some of these problems have already led to some misunderstandings in the western fandom that i've never seen in the japanese fandom since the original release. that's a clear sign that the translation isn't ideal.