When thinking about a game’s localisation, it's easy to think only of the script. However, there are many other important matters to consider! Today, I want to examine one of these, the linguistic elements present in the game’s environment that go unspoken by the game's characters but are seen by the player's eyes. Shop signs, posters, notice boards, letters, and books all fall under this category. How developers build the environment for foreign locales when they themselves may not speak its language? This post examines the way a number of developers (originating from both the USA and Japan) have tackled this issue, and discusses its effect on player immersion. Read to the end to see an example from a Japanese game that demonstrates the incredibly jarring effect a disparity between the language used in the game's dialogue and its environment can have.
To start this post, let me mention games like Final Fantasy that are not set in the real world. I imagine that a fantasy setting is extremely convenient for developers because it means they do not have to live up to player expectations about how its environment should be presented. For a fantasy world, everything from the architecture to the fashion to the language can be created from a blank canvas. In regard to this latter aspect, in the past game developers have often used this freedom to fill their fantasy worlds with a made-up language. When you're dealing with a made up language you can just clump together a bunch of symbols. The above screenshot from Final Fantasy XII is one such example. There's no chance of anyone finding a spelling-error there! However, the same is not true for games set in the real world!
To start this post, let me mention games like Final Fantasy that are not set in the real world. I imagine that a fantasy setting is extremely convenient for developers because it means they do not have to live up to player expectations about how its environment should be presented. For a fantasy world, everything from the architecture to the fashion to the language can be created from a blank canvas. In regard to this latter aspect, in the past game developers have often used this freedom to fill their fantasy worlds with a made-up language. When you're dealing with a made up language you can just clump together a bunch of symbols. The above screenshot from Final Fantasy XII is one such example. There's no chance of anyone finding a spelling-error there! However, the same is not true for games set in the real world!
In contrast to games with fantasy settings, for games set in the real world, players will have certain expectations about how it should look and sound. Developers are obliged to live up to these expectations in order to preserve player immersion. For example, take the mission from the first Call of Duty that is based on the battle of Stalingrad. You play as a Russian soldier fighting Nazi invaders. All the characters around you speak in English with a Russian accent. If you think about this, it's pretty strange but the proliferation of English as a lingua franca has gone a long way to acclimating people to this phenomenon. For example, Schindler's List is a film set in Germany with German characters, yet everyone speaks fluent English and nobody bats an eyelid. In the context of this Call of Duty mission (and games in general), it's like the game’s audio is dubbed. I doubt there are many people who genuinely think that Russian soldiers in World War Two conversed in English. Moreover, the use of accents (in this case Russian) helps straddles the line between a full translation and a preservation of the foreign language.
Perhaps it for this reason that player expectations for the game's environment often differ. There is no way to “dub” an environment; items are either translated or persevered in the foreign language. I think this is why although a game’s dialogue will be presented in English, the language of the environment is preserved in the language of the setting. For example, in Call of Duty: World at War, shops signs are all presented in Russian cyrillic. (As an interesting side note, I asked my brother (a Russian translator) about this sign. He commented, "It says 'Capital (as in capital city) Restaurant.' Although in Russian the correct spelling of ресторан (restaurant) doesn't have a 't' at the end. It seems to be the Bulgarian spelling of the word.' Although it's a shame, it's not too big a shame as the sign looks the part and I doubt barely anyone in the game's targeted Western audience had the Russian linguistic ability to notice this mistake).
When localising game set in Japan, the same strategy is often used i.e. translate the dialogue but don't translate the environment. For example, in the localised version of Persona 4, the characters converse in English but their surrounding environment is often filled with Japanese characters. Unlike the Phoenix Wright games (whose localisation involved the setting being changed from Japan to American), Persona 4 leans heavily into its setting of a Japanese high school. Indeed, in dialogue too, features many Japanese words (such as senpai) that would normally be translated into something else. Although I doubt many people stop to think about it, I think this game in particular of the aforementioned sensation that the game is being dubbed. I imagine players are aware that they are viewing Japanese characters who are living in Japan that speak Japanese. Indeed, given the game’s environment, it would surely be extremely jarring to think that the characters actually converse in English.
Now to discuss the matter that prompted me to write this post, the environmental language of the Wii game, Another Code: R – A Journey into Lost Memories, developed by Cing, an independent Japanese developer (that sadly went bankrupt). The game is a point-and-click adventure game set in the Seattle area of the USA. In other words, it is a game created by a Japanese developer but set in a country with a language foreign to the developer. So how did they approach the linguistic issues? First, the dialogue is in Japanese, which is not particularly surprising given that the game’s creators were Japanese. What did catch my attention was the environmental language. It is presented entirely in English! At first, this does not seem particularly shocking, after all, the game is set in Seattle. It would have been stranger to see signs in Japanese, right? However, the difference between the environmental language presentation and the dialogue language does become an issue. Just look at the below screenshot from the game.
The above screenshot is of a note that a character left the protagonist. It is written in English, “looking for Dad.” First of all, it doesn't seem very natural for the character to use the present continuous form. (A more natural note would read something like, “Gone to look for Dad.”) Second, note how Dad is not capitalised (although I can forgive this error as it is a young child writing this note). However, these quibbles pale in comparison to the strangeness of how in the game, the protagonist picks up this note and “reads” it aloud. I use quotation marks because what comes out of her mouth is a Japanese translation of the note. She is shown to be reading English, but she is speaking as if was written in Japanese... I found this extremely jarring, and it broke my immersion in the game. The time this issue reared its head again, displayed in the screenshot below, it was almost comical.
In the game, the protagonist finds a letter from a woman to her elderly mother (pictured in the screenshot). As is clear from the above screenshot, the game shows a closeup of the letter. It is written entirely in English! In the game though, when the character reads the letter she speaks Japanese! But the player can clearly see that it the note is written in English!! This presents the unusual circumstance of the localised version of the game (i.e. one where the characters speak English) being far more natural than the Japanese (because it shows an English speaking character reading an English note). The game's level of detail is good enough to make the letter legible. Although the English seems to be grammatically accurate, it isn't particularly natural. For example, “Dear Mom, …I insert this letter into the photo book by Vincent whom you and dad don't like." Interestingly, I checked this scene in the localised version and found that they edited the letter graphics. I imagine they weren't content with the not completely natural English, and also felt it would be jarring if the words the protagonist read differed from those displayed on-screen.
I also checked the note, and this was unchanged. However, when the protagonist reads it she correctly says “Dad” rather than “dad.”
Overall, I thought this was a fascinating issue to explore. I can see how tough it must be for a Japanese developer to make a game set in an English-speaking country, and vice versa too. Thankfully, there is a solution! As most console games nowadays feature voice-acting, it is possible to combine English voices with Japanese subtitles and thus prevent any jarring linguistic disparity. This was recently demonstrated by Deadly Premonition, a game set in Washington, America but developed by Access Games, a Japanese developer. However, in this era of low-budget indie and mobile games, voice-acting is likely something many developers cannot afford to budget for, so the question remains for these studios how to approach creating the environment for games set in foreign countries.
Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts or questions about this topic, please leave them in the comments :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment