Xenoblade 2 thoughts (no spoilers)

[vivster]

NoirSon said:

vivster said:

Funnily enough I am way more familiar with the Japanese folklore that whatever they're trying to rebrand it overseas. Who would've thought that people who primarily play JRPGs are somewhat familiar with Japanese culture or at least interested in it.

If anything it's really distracting when you have the Japanese audio which references completely different names from what you're reading. They should've included alternative names for people who specifically downloaded the Japanese language pack. One could assume that those people can take a few Japanese names.

 

I am also familiar with the names, but they weren't necessarily aiming at those of us that have knowledge of the culture or myths of Japan, they mainly went for approximations and used their own and other western cultures as the reference points once again for gamers that may not be as aware. I wouldn't hold language pack against them, since it is very obvious they added that at the last minute and for the most part you don't often see them include different sets of subtitles even in most anime or games these days that match both the original Japanese track and one that reflects the localization.

It can be off putting but it is a minor annoyance. You have a worst example with Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, where they left the Japanese audio in there (mainly to save money and not have to get English singers) but they didn't bother to sub the battle dialogue probably since in battle there is already text on the screen. Sometimes sacrifices are made for costs or game play or I think in regards to Xenoblade 2, they wanted to go for less of a Japan-centric tone and more of a mythical fantasy world tone, having the names of major characters be 85% Japanese doesn't really build toward that.

In anime fansubs they're clever enough to leave Japanese names alone because they know how annoying it is. And because they know who their audience is.

I think it is very much irrelevant which mythology they take from. After all it is a fantasy world and you can name everything you want after anything you want. So why not just leave it as they are? It doesn't get more coherent just because you use western myths. And in this case they are even specifically built upon Japanese folklore, so why not use just that? I don't understand what's so bad or damaging to introduce people to different cultures, especially when the product they're consuming is made in that culture by people who live in that culture.

Final Fantasy is a great example here. They borrow from pretty much every mythology that ever existed but in all versions they leave the names intact because they specifically want to reference certain characters from certain cultures.

But to come back to the actual point of contention here; it's not about the reasons or motivations behind localization. It's about the annoyance of not being able to follow the Japanese dub because the subtitles say something completely different. Every time a new character is introduced I have a hard time understanding what their name in Japanese is because the subtitle prompts me with something completely different. It's not made better by the fact that they actually keep some of the names.

And while we're at it, there are no subtitles for dialogue outside of conversations. There are games that do that. They even have it in the options menu so you can turn on and off subtitles for battle dialogue. But not this one. Just another little oversight.