- Hey y'all Scott here. And I could certainly go for
a definition right about now, well, times three. Localized to make or become local. Well, at least one of us
found our calling today. And if you excuse me, I'm
going to be ordering a shipment of notebooks to localize
for the Tucson Arizona area so they can more clearly understand them. They just don't get it over there. And I know finally, someone standing up for the
people of Tucson, right? Translation and localization, are Venn diagrams two best friends. There's so many similarities but overall they're definitely different. Translation is taking words and converting them from
a different language while localization is
taking the general concept of something and adjusting it, or even completely changing it, for a different audience and
a different part of the world. Translation and localization are not one. However, localization
involves translation. Of course, in the video game industry localization is a huge
aspect of development, and is many times overlooked. Sometimes localization is as simple as hitting the go translate button. This was definitely the
case with games back in the eighties and early nineties. Old-school RPGs and games
with heavy amounts of text, generally had very little effort
put into the localization. Instead of rewriting a
game script to feel more at home for the new audiences area. It would basically be just
a straight translation with multiple grammatical
and spelling errors. But other times, especially nowadays, localization could be as daunting of a task as developing a whole new game. The script for the 3D S remake of dragon quest seven
filled an entire bookshelf. Now that's a localization. The process generally starts during the development
of the game nowadays, originally it would start after the game originally released. A team of translators and writers will receive updates and explanations from the developers of how certain scenes and characters are meant to be portrayed. Then the localization team will start to rewrite them to feel natural in the new language while
also keeping the spirit and main idea from the original. However, sometimes some things
are just too darn exotic. Many elements from many
games are different across the world based on cultural norms. What may be OK in one country is totally like, way not OK in another. Recently with the aid
of everybody's favorite, the internet, it's been
blatantly obvious when something has changed
from the original release. Nintendo of America has
always been notorious for changing up elements of
games for a Western release. Back in the eighties and
nineties, they had a strict policy on the lack of violence,
sexuality, and religion, but as Japan has different cultural norms these policies led to editing and censoring localized
versions of Japanese games. To this day they're still very keen on stripping anything too
sexy from their games. Of course, Japan is much more
down for sexuality in media. So it makes sense sometimes to tone things down in Westernized releases. The US version of Bravely Default made some outfits much less revealing and upped the age of minors in the game. Xenoblade Chronicles X, totally
let you customize boob size but that was completely stripped
out of the Western release. Tokyo Mirage Sessions
#FE had ages increased, more clothes added to some mega skin shots and just some racy shots
altered to be anti racy shots. Fatal Frame: Maiden of Blackwater featured un-lockable costumes which allowed you to
play in barely a costume. And this was just straight up removed and replaced with some
Nintendo crossover outfits as the game was published by Nintendo. These aren't anything that
affect gameplay in any way, however, many players weren't too happy with the changes, bellowing censorship. I don't know, you see a lot of
these things don't make sense for the Western world
and just don't make sense in context of the game like
Fatal Frame is a horror game. Does it really make sense to
play the game in anti clothes? But to be fair it was always
supposed to be M rated, leaving the costumes in a game intended, not only for adults, but
a rather niche audience wouldn't start riots in
the street in my opinion. It's all about how these
changes affect gameplay, in my opinion, and in
those examples, they don't. Those are all cosmetic and make more sense in terms
of the Japanese market. However, sometimes pockets of gameplay are removed in localizations in which Fire Emblem Fates
had a few instances of this. Fates allowed you to pet the characters with the stylist coinciding with the relationship
building mechanic in the game basically, pet the character, they'll like you better. This was completely gutted from the Western release due
to the suggestive connotations. Also the Japanese version of the game included a
scene where a homosexual character is drugged and
cured, of said homosexuality, which may be considered
as say, it with me now, gay conversion therapy. Yeah, that's gone from
our stomping grounds. Yeah, it's unfortunate when entire pockets of gameplay are removed
for international releases but I mean, gay conversion therapy. Localized changes to games have been happening for years in Earthbound, Ness is naked here in Japan but has the audacity to wear
pajamas in north America. The arcade Beat Him Up Final Fight featured the female
character Poison as an enemy, but when making the
transition to north America Capcom didn't want people to get all up in arms about the
player beating up a woman. So instead of changing
her spray to some dude they just said she was a dude, huh? When Contra was being localized to Europe they changed the title to Probotector and made human characters robotic due to potential conflict with
the gun play in the game. Many a times blood in games
is straight up removed or turned into some funk, riddled color, Zombies Ate My Neighbors
had the blood removed here in north America. Yet Uncharted Drake's
Fortune had the blood removed in Japan and in PAL territories Castlevania Bloodlines
had the blood removed and the title changed the
Castlevania, The New Generation. The character Soda Pompinski in Punch Out was originally named
Vodka Drunkenski in Japan. Oh boy, it's not just suggestive
elements that are changed throughout regions. A lot of the time translation
just F's with the script and changes the meaning of
certain aspects of the game. The Legend of Zelda Triforce
Heroes was a lighthearted, don't take me seriously, multiplayer Zelda title for the 3D S. So the American
localization team took that as an opportunity to cram
internet memes into a Zelda game while the European version
feels much more Zelda like in terms of the script. Final Fantasy 10 featured the characters, Unitel Titus, I love you, while the Japanese version
translated to a simple thanks. Yeah, those two sayings don't necessarily mean the same thing. I've never played Final
Fantasy 10 or ten two. And from what people
say, it's not super weird but when you take into consideration what the original intended that line to mean it definitely leads to some
solid discussion and analysis I have no right to get into. The Kirby games have a
long history of changes while being localized, not so much with the
actual games themselves but with the box art, apparently
Americans hate the concept of Kirby being a happy go-lucky Tuft of God knows what so loads of Kirby box arts in north
America give him some solid angry eyebrows to imply that
he's not just having fun but having fun with some attitude. Sometimes localization is just too much for some games and they're
simply left to rot in Japan. The most famous example
has been Mother Three, a part of the series
we know as Earthbound. It was the final entry in
the series and was originally in development for the
Nintendo 64 DD, was canceled, then resurrected as a
game boy advance game. Of course it never made its way over here which is unfortunate and also incredibly infuriating based on how much Mother Three is referenced in games like Super Smash Brothers. This has led to a dedicated group of fans to translate the game themselves which is how most people
outside of Japan have played it. Captain Rainbow was a WII
game developed by Skip, creators of Chibi-Robo and
focused on a has-been superhero trying to regain his
popularity and meeting up with a few Nintendo
characters that time forgot. Now, with Mother Three and Captain Rainbow these are two titles with
a fair amount of text and being such obscure and niche games in the time of their release localization just never happened. With Dead or Alive Xtreme
Three that wasn't localized due to being too honk and sexy. I can picture the American reviews as I speak a spinoff of
the fighting game franchise Dead or Alive Xtreme is
a beach volleyball game. And when the third one
released for PS4 and PS Vita, Koei Tecmo announced it would never make its way over State side but the PS4 and Vita are
region free, thank God, but this is why censorship
generally happens, cultural differences. It's not all about censorship and differences between
cultural norms, however, sometimes the localization will change or remove something for different reasons or for no reason at all. One of the earliest examples of a game being changed
drastically in the conversion from Japan to north America
was Super Mario Brothers 2 on the NES, as it wasn't
the Japanese version at all. The original Super Mario Brothers 2 was meant to be a game for
those who mastered the original. It was incredibly
similar to the first game but with some jacked up difficulty. When Nintendo of America received the game they noted it was too difficult
and similar to the original. Thus, they took another game with some Mario like
elements, Doki Doki Panic, plopped some Mario sprites
in, made a few extra changes bada bing, bada boom, the
sequel to end all sequels. Of course, both the American version of Super Mario Brothers
2 made its way to Japan as Super Mario USA and the Japanese version
made its way over here as Super Mario Brothers The Lost Levels. The Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda 4 Swords Adventures, featured a mode only in that version called Navi Trackers. There's nothing specifically
wrong with this mode, it's just only in the Japanese version. Of course, there's good localization where the new interpretation houses
the spirit of the original but is now understandable to those in a different part of the world. And there's bad localization that could either be a sloppy quick translation or remove slash change
elements for no good reason. But it's incredibly interesting
to see just what was lost in the process of localization. But it helps to look at how
some things are censored in one territory, but
similar things aren't. Like why is blood and
games not OK in Japan, but OK sometimes? I mean, this is the same
country that was home to the classic Famicom game, Hitler's Resurrection
Top Secret, a game about guess who's coming back, also known as Bionic Commando here. I got in the notebooks I have to localize for Tucson, Arizona. Hopefully there's not much
I have to change, Jesus. (electronic music)
