Currently have a good handful of Vesp goodies on the way that are all in different stages of completion (the translation work is completed on all of them, as far as this chunk goes. Other parts are still in progress, like final checks, subbing, etc). Can't give exact dates when any of them will be ready, but at least some of them should be out soon!
every time I see people say Yuri is edgy/rough/etc, or that he's not the silly type or they don't expect a specific silly-adjacent reaction from him, I actually have to sit in shock with this tiny little physical gut reaction at the impression people have of him.
like I know why and it's unfortunate, but it's still just mind boggling how differently people perceive his personality if they only played the game in English (and not even JP audio).
it like, makes me deeply sad and also infuriates me bc people shouldn't have to know JP or have to play in JP audio to get a character's intended personality, or to at least be exposed to what they can understand (such as vocal cues with just the audio without knowing the language). the personality should be properly carried over into another language. there shouldn't be such a discrepancy in how people understand them.
So something that has felt awful to witness for me is the overall fandom's reactions to the way the Tales remasters have been ordered. I had once read information on Tales' official website when the project first began that detailed the reason for their order, but I haven't been able to find it since then, and it's probably buried now in other content.
Thankfully, a Famitsu article just came out detailing more or less the same/similar information. As I've explained here and there, it's related to the source code. Thankfully, I can direct people to this article now because I hate just having to say "trust me bro, I saw it", but I haven't been able to find the original information for a long while now because I unfortunately didn't think to keep it when I first saw it.
So, I'd like to remind folks... please stop getting mad at the devs working on the remasters for the order of games. Please stop getting mad at the devs for not just releasing Abyss on day one (and I say this because Abyss has the loudest group, and there's been a lot of vehement reactions to the fact that they're "not" remastering Abyss "yet"). It's not a matter of them ignoring fans. They're going with the easiest games to remaster first, because it makes more sense to start with the games that don't need much work to get them onto modern consoles. They did want to start in order, from the beginning, with the remasters, but it simply wasn't feasible with the source code situation. Originally, they wanted to start from the oldest and work their way up.
Specifically, that's the main goal here. To get the console locked titles onto modern consoles. They picked Graces and Xillia because they were easier to work on. Older games will need a lot more work, and potentially even reverse engineering if they don't have access to the source code any longer (which, while I cannot personally verify this, I've heard many times over the years within the fandom that Symphonia for GC and Abyss both lost their source codes or at least chunks of them, just as two examples. I've also heard Abyss' coding was a mess. Again, I cannot personally verify this, but if true, it would makes remastering Abyss much more difficult and time consuming. It would also explain why they continue using the PS2 version of ToS over the original, if they no longer have the code for the GC version).
That said, remastering with the requirement of reverse engineering really depends on how much they'd need to do. If it's too much, it might be better to just... remake the game, rather than remaster something as old Abyss and backwards. The thing is, if they have to reverse engineer a large chunk of the game(s) anyway, I feel like they'd just be better off remaking the older games from the ground up, rather than going through all that effort with such dated games to remaster games that will feel like their age. Personally, I don't know about reverse engineering in a lot of depth, so if anyone else knows, they can feel free to pitch in on whether it'd still be worth it over a full on remake, but just from what I know of it from my own research and understanding, it might not even be worth remastering some of the oldest games.
But that said, again, just be aware that their given reason for their remaster order is based on the source code of the games. I realize there are games people would like to see, and there are games I'd like to see as well. It just worries me a lot when I see such hate and backlash for "why not Abyss" (or insert whatever other game, but it's usually Abyss), despite that... they've already stated their reasons, but because it was in Japanese, western players probably didn't even look at it, and many probably didn't know.
But it worries me because Tales' fanbase, even the Japanese side, has been worried about the state of the franchise for a while now, ever since the rightfully infamous Tomizawa took it over (JP fans were even scared that TalesFes 2023 would be the final TalesFes. That's how bad the state of the franchise has been in recent years). This project is the best thing we've gotten in a very long time for Tales, and I don't want it to fail, because if it does, I can't see that being good for Tales' continued longevity.
I'm worried that all the backlash over their choices and all the hateful comments they get will hurt the only thing Tales has going for it right now, and has had going for it in a long time. I love Tales and I've been with it for most of my life, so I don't want it to fade into obscurity, and that's what I'm worried might happen if this project flops because people didn't know the reasons for their order, or refused to care (and I say that because some people genuinely just don't know, while others just leave very aggressive comments about it).
I realize the whole censorship issue exists with Xillia's remaster, and that's its whole other discussion. Just remember that has nothing to do with the specific title being released at any given moment. Xillia's remaster was also leaked before the project announcement even happened, so it's probably been in the works for a pretty long while.
I'm just saying this because I really don't want this project to just die out because people were angry that they focused on "more recent" games (and I say "more recent" in quotations because Graces came out in 2009. While it got a port with an extra post game storyline after the fact, the core of the game that the port was taken from released in 2009. Xillia released in 2011. Yes, that was a long time ago!).
Essentially, I'm just saying, I hope people will take this to heart and understand how they're choosing what games to start with and not be so furious with Tales over the order of releases. They want to get as many games as possible on modern consoles - and ofc they do! MONEY! Bamco? MONEY! Trust me, they'd LOVE to get everything out that they could, nice and speedy with a quality that fans won't be angry about and will be pay for. I believe them when they say their release order is relevant to the source code. I'm sure releasing Abyss would be a success and would give them that money. The fact that they haven't released the most asked for game yet does tell me that yeah, it's not as simple as just remastering it. They might have other obstacles in the way that's making it take longer.
As some of you already know, Legendia is my favorite Tales game, and it was released in the same year as Abyss. I have a lot of fears about the dub situation for Legendia tbh, so a remaster and remake have always been a little scary for me, because I adore the dub cast and overall dubbing. Given western Bamco's track record of rehiring Tales VAs though (and the general inactivity of some of its actors), I worry they wouldn't bring the cast back for the entire second half of the game they didn't dub. I also wouldn't want them to redub the first half of the game... but it'd be weird if they dubbed the second half with new VAs and left the old ones in the first half. I'd rather the second half just stay undubbed at that point.
That said, do I still want Legendia on modern consoles? To be able to share my adoration of it and Moses with new fans? Yeah! I want some improvements on the battle system and the sidequests, for instance. Some of the quality of life features Graces got. But I'm sure Legendia won't be the easiest thing in the world to remaster with how old it is.
Tl;dr pleaseeeee don't be aggressive about the games we get to Bamco. I do not want them to axe this project and leave Tales to rot again. The remaster project itself is already a massive undertaking I never even dreamed they'd do, much less with seemingly most of the original devs on hand. I just want this project to succeed, and I worry that the backlash they get about literally anything and everything they do will make them stop.
Imagine if you hired someone to translate a meeting between world leaders, who didn't know each other's language... and someone mistranslated something someone said... intentionally... because the translator didn't like that specific world leader... and then suddenly two nations were at war bc the translator didn't see the value in translation accuracy... and the responsibility of thousands or potentially millions of lives being lost was on the shoulders of the translator...
OBVIOUSLY THIS IS AN EXTREME EXAMPLE AND THEY HIRE TRUSTED PROFESSIONALS FOR THAT SHIT LOL I'm just saying that when people hear the word "translator" in fandom, some people's thoughts about accuracy is that it seems insignificant. But the example I'm giving is essentially saying, you are translating someone else's words. Not your own.
The words you translate have a weight to them, potentially with consequences (whether that is an irl war, someone getting harassed because of a tl that pisses ppl off and they think the original speaker actually said those words they didn't like or made a character ooc on purpose, etc), and are understood to be someone else's words. People think what you translate is actually what someone else said/wrote. And it should be! That is the literal essence and purpose of translation! That is what translation is. It is taking someone else's words and making them understandable to a foreign audience.
So when people say translation accuracy doesn't matter in fiction, that tells you they don't look at translation as being what it really, literally is - conveying someone else's words/ideas. If you don't respect someone's words for a piece of fiction or entertainment, how could you be trusted with translation period? Fiction, story writing, etc, is the lowest bar, because it's not a real life situation. If people won't even respect someone's story and translate it so it retains being told the way the creator wants it told, how could they be trusted to translate interviews (including fandom interviews, which are between real life people)? News? Real people's conversations?
How do we know they won't just personally, in their opinion (in which opinions on what's being said do not matter to a translator and should not affect their tl, because your job in tling is not to have an opinion, it's simply to tl the words), find something the person said irrelevant and unimportant, so they don't convey it when translating? If they're someone who purposely adds or removes context with a bias, negative or positive, how can we trust them to keep it out of a real person's words?
It's because "fandom translation" is viewed as unimportant, and it's really not. It's as important as any translation. As long as the words are not yours and belong to someone else, accuracy matters. It's no different, in terms of accurately conveying something, than speaking English (or any shared language) to someone, then going to your friend and telling them "xyz said this!" and intentionally misconverying what that other person was saying, despite all three of you speaking the same language. It's disrespectful, and depending on who you say it to and how, potentially dangerous.
And yes, fandom is rabid. Some more than others. You need to be very careful of the words you convey when it could affect real life people because of a vicious fanbase (are any of you aware of Laura Bailey getting death threats thrown at her and her infant son over a video game character's actions? That's the sort of shit that happens in fandom. Now imagine if you caused that scenario to happen to someone because you didn't give a fuck what your translation was, or you purposely fucked around with it. Obviously people who do that are shitheads to begin with, but you do not want to give them fuel, and you do hold the responsibility of making sure that if people like that go after someone, it's not partly your fault for riling them up by misconveying the words someone said, either because you didn't care enough or because you wanted to fuck around. It's sorta like, if you have a known killer in jail and they get out because you decided they can, and they kill again, you're not the one who killed, but you sure did enable it to happen despite knowing it could).
Basically, I'm saying it starts small. The apathy starts small. The "well this isn't important anyway" mindset starts with something that's seen as simple or harmless (in which some people think mistranslating fiction made by another person doesn't matter). Entertainment in general is also often disregarded for translation accuracy being important because it's not real life. But again, if people can't even have the respect to sincerely convey someone else's fictional story, something that shouldn't affect their real life, how can they be trusted with something more serious?
Point being, a translator is the messenger. If you translated someone saying something horrible, that's on the person. But if you change someone's words to sound horrible, that's on you. If you changed the words of a horrible person to make them sound great, well, you're probably a whole entire issue yourself.
That's not to say mistakes don't happen. Again, as I've said before, they do. It's a matter of whether or not the mistake was intentional. It's a matter of sincerity, and it being an honest mistake that the person is willing to correct. If their full intention was to convey the words honestly, all they have to do is admit they made an error, and if it's important (ex. a real person's words), inform people you had an error and give them the correction. Having mistakes doesn't make you less valuable as a translator. Mistakes can help you learn. They can help you improve by learning from that mistake.
Also, this isn't saying the matter of interpretation is the same as inaccuracy. Interpretation is a whole other topic.
Respect what you're translating. If you won't even respect a person's fictional story, you obviously don't respect the person/people behind it because you don't care to respect the story they were trying to tell. If you can't respect other people, why should anyone respect you?
Translation is literally, QUITE LITERALLY, conveying someone's words/intent (and I'm not talking about the whole "literal translation" debacle. That's a whole other topic and issue with layers and nuance, and there are different "meanings" behind what someone is referring to when they say "literal" translation). If you can't take it seriously and be respectful about it, don't speak for someone else through translation (or their stories, because anything you include in a translation of their story reflects directly on them). And frankly, don't shit on the people who do take it seriously, because it says a lot about a person who thinks that relaying another person's words isn't important and does not see it as a responsibility in and of itself.
If you were to tell me accurate translation is "no big deal" or "not that serious" (the latter of which someone literally told me not too long ago), I would never, ever trust you to relay someone's words to another person. Ever. Not even in the same language. Because if you seriously can't understand why translating something accurately is important and why it reflects on someone who is not you, you do not understand why relaying another person's words to someone else accurately is important. If you can't understand why accurately relaying someone else's words is important, I cannot trust you.
In one's native language, they can pick up various cues in some cases to figure out if something is wrong. In a foreign language they don't understand, they not only can't pick up cues, but they also can't ask the original person for clarification... without going through another translator, and that assumes they can even get in contact with the original person to understand.
Translation isn't a fictional story. It's not fandom. Translators hold the responsibility of telling people something someone else said/wrote, and leaving people to form their impression on the original person/group/etc based on that translation. That includes real people. That includes gaming companies and manga writers among others, and how people perceive their content. How people perceive them for creating that content.
If you're someone who has ever thought translation accuracy doesn't matter or is not a big deal, I hope you change your stance on that. I hope you realize that translation is not just fiction, is not just fandom, and is not just a silly pastime.
And no, by accurate, I don't mean "word for word, literal translation". That is a whooole other can of worms and conversation.
Flynn really out here in Reve Unitia being like, "hold on, this isn't Kansas Terca Lumereis wherever I came from anymore. Instead of 'boku-- watashi' let me go with 'watashi-- iya, boku wa".
nah flynn rly tripping me up by switching his pronouns in reverse
but also, i have to translate this flynn, don't do your cute watashi and boku switch ups on me here.😂
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(context: watashi is a neutral pronoun and is used in professional situations, so Flynn uses watashi in Vesperia when on duty or in front of someone higher ranked than him. he switches to boku around Yuri (and nobody else until I think as late as arc 3, when he drops formalities with the rest of Yuri's group) because it's his normal, personal pronoun, i.e. his actual pronoun is boku, but he uses watashi to be professional.
sometimes in Vesp, he trips up and uses boku when Yuri's around instead of watashi. he corrects himself (usually it's just like, "watashi--... boku wa(...)", but it's always boku (accidental slip up on duty bc Yuri apparently makes him forget how to be professional ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) -> watashi (on duty pronoun).
...but in reve, he does the exact opposite and starts with watashi to be professional to strangers, but since those strangers just saved him, he switches to the more casual/relaxed/no-need-to-be-professional boku, which is his regular pronoun.
which wouldn't be so funny if he didn't slip up with watashi in Vesp and then have to correct himself. but now that he correctly uses it, he stops and decides nope, today I'm going in reverse. you could say his memory loss in this world is showing kek.)
