Second Opinion is a game that involves playing as an amateur surgeon. In the Japanese version of the game, the events take place in Japan, but in the English localisation the setting of game is the USA. The majority of the gameplay involves operating on a patient, and before each surgery the above briefing screen appears and introduces the patient. Given the switch of setting, these details required localising rather than just translating. At first, I presumed this equated to giving the game's generic Japanese names English equivalents. In the case above, Matsuo Tanaka was changed to Kevin Turk. It also makes sense that for the patients' height and weight, the metric system is ditched in favour of the US system. However, caught my eye is that the translator was aware that the average body measurements between Japan and the United States differ, and therefore needed to be tweaked. I imagine this is an aspect that could easily be overlooked, but in this case, the translator increased the weight and height of the patient to create an image closer to that of a typical American citizen. To be precise, the US patient is approximately five kilograms heavier and fifteen centimeters taller than his Japanese counterpart. Great work!
