Zakogdo
@zakogdo
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Faithful translation advocate, censorship opponent, and vtuber fan.
Joined September 2019
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@CinderedSin2
If you think opposing censorship means only opposing the things that it's socially acceptable to oppose you've already lost.
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Unicorn Overlord had a free demo released. After playing it, I can say quite confidently that the localisation is abhorrent. Here begins a thread of numerous examples.
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What is localization?
Embark on a global adventure through the lens of game localization! Beyond mere translation, we're diving into the art of cultural adaptation, preserving context, and inclusive storytelling. Join us as we unravel the intricacies that make games resonate…
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Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes came out and is another victim of botched, disrespectful localisation. Here's a thread with a few examples. First off, everyone's favourite localisation meme!
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For those with short memories, here's a reminder of how Lab Zero "adjusted art assets" several years ago. This is yet another in the growing list of examples of how accepting censorship only encourages more censorship.
As part of a global Skullgirls content update, we have adjusted several art assets in Skullgirls Mobile, Skullgirls 2nd Encore, and the Digital Art Compendium on all platforms.
You can read the full details and rationale behind these changes here:
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You don't even need to have voice acting to see garbage like this and immediately know that it's a complete rewrite.
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Skullgirls gets a patch censoring characters both male and female, military iconography, police brutality, and outright removing a voice pack.
Censorship defenders pretend the only change was covering Filia's panties, which was done 8 years ago.
Does this remind you of anything?
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I'm pretty sure Brometheus is in there somewhere, this is just a small sample.
Localizer folx always say shit like “You wouldn’t know what they said without subtitles!” And then the subtitle reads “Wubba Lubba Dub-Dub, thanks for the grubhub, Brometheus.”
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One of the most persistent issues with the loc. is the endless attempts of the EN script to fancify dialogue, typically at the expense of accuracy.
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1. Have fans make the remake
2. Target it at fans of the original
3. Retain what people liked about the OG while seeking to polish & improve it, delivering a better version of the same game
4. Don't needlessly censor the shit out of it in the process
It really is that simple.
Star Ocean The Second Story R Reception Better than Expected, Says Director
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Hi
@IGN
. Thanks for going out of your way to misrepresent my arguments. Fancification is not, in and of itself, the problem. The problem is that in the process of fancification, the localisation has invented new comments and warped the meaning and characterisation in the process.
Final Fantasy Tactics creator Yasumi Matsuno has weighed in on a debate around Unicorn Overlord's localization.
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This reeks of localisers who think themselves better writers than the original Japanese authors. This is the source of many of the loc's problems.
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Of all people, Matsuno-san came across my UO loc. thread and recalled an anecdote regarding Final Fantasy Tactics' localisation.
Certain people are claiming he was calling me out, to the point that he had to clarify for them that this wasn't the case.
これを読んで思い出したのが、FFTのオリジナル版(PS版）だ。翻訳者が暴走云々ではなくて、単純に英訳のレベルが低かった。例えば固有名詞ひとつとっても「北天騎士団」が「Hokuten Knights」という具合🤣…
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Took a look at the Steam forums and found this example from the user tankanidis. Typical "punching up" of dialogue that localisers aren't content to leave unmolested.
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You know the people running localisation defence aren't coordinated when half the QRTs taking issue with my criticisms are "this guy is stupid it's exactly the same" and the other half are "this guy is stupid the new dialogue is way better"
The two sides are defeating each other.
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You'd think that after they took down the Fire Emblem Engage fan translation for nonsense reasons and got called out for it that they would've learnt their lesson, but they didn't, and now they're doing the same thing again.
Guys, just admit you don't like it, it's more honest.
@PC_Focus_
The mod violated our rules on indecent content because the character is known to be a minor (see specific rule in red). In the author's own words "This mod changes Yukari's body to make her look more... corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
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You hit the nail on the head.
@zakogdo
Who worked on this localization? Very likely we'll see some, ahem, "industry veterans" who have already given their Midas Touch to other works.
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A quick note to start with, they actually revised the difficulty screen. First pic is how it was shown in early previews, second is what it is in the demo. They made it less different to JP, but it seems "casual" is still a dirty word these days.
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In JP Alain is assuring Josef that his mother needs protection more than he does. In EN this is changed to Alain acting accusatory towards Josef and asking him why he isn't doing anything. This is one of the first lines in the game and immediately presents a different impression
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Meanwhile at MangaGamer
No company I've worked for is going to turn a blind eye to real, actual evidence of a translator rewriting things for a personal agenda. In my 10+ working in the VN industry across several companies, I've only seen one person, an editor, let go for taking liberties on a script.
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Thanks to BPDP asking the necessary question, we now have confirmation of more censorship in
#BlueProtocol
. The western version has removed jiggle from character creation, and the S body type option has been removed entirely. Amazon did not disclose the latter change.
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Every fucking time
No, AI Can't and Will Never Replace a Real Translator. And Here's Why
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Granblue Relink is censored. Party members are covered up like with their censored Versus outfits, but unlike Versus, there's no option to use the uncensored outfits. The games have the same age ratings, but with a matter of confusion to address.
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Absolutely not. 8-4 has been pulling this crap for years. They're one of the worst localisers in the business, not one of the best.
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This is the greatest localisation defence of all time
@123Argent
@aevanko
Chat i'm not going to get Tourist'd
Actual hunters dont read the fucking dialogues especially ESPECIALLY in generations that was infamous for having the most nothingburger story in the FRANCHISE
If you want to shittalk MH's translations go look at MHRise's which was horrendous
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In particular, the localisation loves allusions to animals, for some reason.
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This is a very funny thing to say when the two most memorable lines from FFT are those translated directly in the PSX version rather than the embellished PSP versions.
@zakogdo
localization exists because direct translations straight up cannot make for interesting or memorable dialogue, if you want accuracy then learn Japanese
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@linkasobi
I have this strange feeling that the western side is going to do everything they can to avoid reporting to the developers that people are unhappy with their localisation work.
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Are we getting somewhere?
Let me tell you what is actually most effective for these requests.
First of all, as explained earlier, online petitions are not very effective. Compared to that, a large number of documents hand-delivered by fans with handwritten signatures is still more effective.
But in any…
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I've been getting 20+ notifications a minute ever since I made the Skullgirls tweets so I don't think I'll be able to keep up with much for the next few days since the notifications tab was designed by an insane person.
But here's a summary of the helpful feedback I've gotten.
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of Alain, where in JP he's shown as considerate and understanding even as a child, whereas EN makes him sound spoilt and demanding. It's insane to have such a discrepancy right at the start of the game, and for no reason at that.
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Oh hey, I had no idea this retranslation was made. Echoes was one of the games I passed on back when it came out because of how bad the localisation was, so it's nice to have a patch for it. I'll need to take a look at it when I have time.
Since localisations are fresh on the mind I think it's appropriate to talk about a mod I found a few months ago that uh. Removes any character 8-4 put into translating Echoes and leaves you with a direct translation of the Japanese script. Here's a few of the shown examples:
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They do it again here. By the way, "open sesame" isn't a localisation choice of mine, it's literally what she's saying in Japanese here.
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"""legal issues"""
Fun fact: translators don't decide. That gets decided for us because what's fine in one country isn't necessarily fine in another. Legal issues n'at.
Learn Japanese if you want a zero-outside-bias experience.
But that's not what you want to hear, is it? 🙄
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From
@PoltFan69
's Valkyria Chronicles series.
It's been 15 years and this is still representative of the problem with localisations, where they "punch up" dialogue and don't think about how it affects perception of the characters, and how changing one line leads to changing more.
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Ilenia's dialogue is rewritten to insult Valmore whereas in JP she's shocked that things came to this, apparently having trusted him before.
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A localisation that can't grasp subtleties like this does not inspire confidence.
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Afterwards, Scarlett falls to the ground, and her line combined with her JP VA makes it clear she was shaken by this. The English version tries to downplay it instead, for some reason.
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The irony of various people bringing up Tolkien while being completely unaware of Tolkien absolutely loathing overbearing localisers:
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@moriyoshijon
@SEGA
@Cupofteaprod
Would you care to shed some light on what the thought process was behind choices like these in the English localisation?
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Another example from the same update. They defended these changes as being "improvements to the animation" rather than censorship, despite that the new animation frames made the characters' skirts artificially extend and no longer hang down naturally.
It's always disingenuous.
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Blue Protocol has instituted a ban wave largely targeting foreigners; if you had a foreign IP you got banned, if you used a VPN you got banned too. It's likely Bamco and Amazon don't want gaijin playing on JP.
This also seems to be catching actual Japanese players as well.
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Looking through responses to this, the primary criticism seems to boil down to "the changes don't change anything, the tone is the same". These are almost entirely focused on the first few posts before I moved on to the explained examples.
Unicorn Overlord had a free demo released. After playing it, I can say quite confidently that the localisation is abhorrent. Here begins a thread of numerous examples.
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More Unicorn Overlord rewrites, including another line from a previously shown conversation.
There are ways you could write these more eloquently without completely replacing the dialogue with fanciful dog metaphors or the single most overused phrase in western media.
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–Update notice–
We released more info about the next update planned for mid-December🌐
Please see below for details on the test versions of the sandbox game and avatar creation feature that will be implemented in the next update!
▼Details
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I saw this image before, but whoever made it was actually comparing the wrong line. Here's the actual line. It's even worse. It's absurd how verbose the localisation insists on making every line.
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Perrielle is made to sound needlessly pompous, and this exchange ends with that accursed line. In a later scene, Perrielle goes from being an ojou-san to a "yelly lady".
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Here are some comparisons of the new censorship. Don't worry, they didn't just censor the girls, they also censored some guys and tried to cover up the scene of police brutality against a black guy.
@Skullgirls
ITS SO HILARIOUS HOW MAD PEOPLE AT ARE AT THIS, THIS IS THE ONLY CUTSCENE DIFFERENCE LMAO
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Valmore's EN dialogue here is so needlessly purple that you'd be excused for not understanding that he was surprised that Ilenia duped him.
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@ViatorAmbulatio
The censorship was done in the second beta which was long before the PS5 version was even announced. So no.
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At the start of the game Scarlett is suddenly attacked by Zenoiran soldiers. She smacks one and jumps back, then Alain appears to get the other. This wasn't even a 速い！ moment in Japanese.
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I interact with one single tweet about the Sweet Baby thing and now my entire timeline instantly switches to being nothing but this.
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This is one of Alain's first battles. In this case Alain is rewritten to be more composed in EN, whereas in JP he's shocked. Consider not just his exclamation but also his command: The vague "we have to do something!" vs the specific "we have to dispatch the soldiers".
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Beaumont is one of the more extreme examples of fancification, having had his personality rewritten to constantly make absurd exclamations and allusions to avians. If I were an Atlus localiser I'd call this a cock up.
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@Escaflowne2001
@GachaMofo
Stellar Blade is published by Sony, so they get to do whatever they want. Just like TLOU2 having sex scenes in it with actual nudity while Sony simultaneously demanded censorship of games like Neptunia RPG or Aokana, which ended up getting its PS release cancelled.
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"Oh cool, that obscure JRPG got a fan translation, I can't wait to finally play it!"
The fan translation:
@PDakkadakka
"Man, I'm so glad that I can finally officially play this obscure JRPG I've been interested in!"
The localization team:
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Chloe's dialogue is rewritten to add in regular sarcastic comments and jabs at other characters when they weren't present in JP. She is somewhat rude in JP, but the EN script has played it up far more and makes her kind of obnoxious.
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They updated it again, now trying to push that Alear is an adult, despite being 17, and that the uncensored text would get the game banned by the ESRB, despite the uncensored Japanese text / dub already being present in the US release. Absolutely pathetic.
Update: They edited the post to try justify it, except it still fails to address their inconsistent handling. Also, despite being locked, meaning users can't react to it, it continues to get more positive reactions, while negative ones stay the same. 🤔
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In Japanese, Nowa here is just commenting on how significant a discovery it would be. In English, for some reason he's being accusatory towards Seign instead. Then they removed Hildi's line indicating why they aren't leaving to report back at this point.
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Adel wants to take out Gaston, a Zenoiran ruler who has been terrorising the people since taking control of the region. He tells them of this, and Clive responds by saying they're not there to make merry, which doesn't make the slightest bit of sense in context.
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I asked them through their support email and they confirmed that it's only the Steam trailer that's been changed and not the game itself.
The game is already censored for whatever reason on steam..
- Left: Japanese Youtube trailer
- Right: Western Steam page
Not even indies can't escape western puritanism
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@TheMulletBird
Now defend them doing the same thing to Cerebella, who is 18.
Also, consider that these are drawings of fictional characters with magical powers from a video game and not real people who need protection from real danger. Kind of the more important point.
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The localisation invents that Rolf is not used to good news, and also adds in Rolf denigrating the militia when speaking of it, which he doesn't do in JP.
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@Requis_Johnson4
The point, which went completely over your head, is that Fire Emblem Engage was massively censored across dozens of supports and topics, and people like you chose to pretend that romance with Anna was the only thing that was censored, because you know that it's hardest to defend.
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I'm not going to link it or add it to the main post to avoid brigading. But if you too are appalled by Eiyuden's localisation, the best thing you can do is go to the developer's Japanese website and use the contact form there to voice your complaints.
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FEE uncensor update: GB staff claimed they censored it to respect the decisions of the localisers, despite not contesting any other changes the mod makes. The staff cannot point to how the mod violates rules, or explain their inconsistent enforcement. The comments are now locked.
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Even more censorship: After trawling through several hours of a Japanese livestream of the PS5 version, I can confirm that the JP PS5 version uses Amazon's censored version of the top child NPC. We have Amazon's global censorship getting backported to Japan.
For those who missed it, here's the previously discovered censorship that Amazon did not disclose. This shows how utterly ridiculous their standards are and how they see completely innocuous costumes as sexual deviancy that must be covered up.
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In English she had her tone softed and her insults made comical and cringeworthy instead. I understand wearing is a problem with the ESRB but I'm sure they could've tried to handle this a bit better.
Also, they changed her title.
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There are people who say there aren't swears in Japanese. There's truth to that in a technical sense, but with politeness registers, a character that is speaking in an extremely rude and vulgar manner should have that conveyed. The loc here does not.
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Francesca's introduction is long, and has a lot to cover, so this is the last example and I've split it into parts. Francesca is a healer who normally speaks quite formally and politely, but is also extremely vulgar when angry.
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richter is literally 19 what else did you want him to say lol if anything it was perfectly executed and in character at this point for him
the castlevania hate on here is so forced
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...a certain website took them, ignored my friend asking them not to publish them, and replaced my translations with machine translations that are full of blatant errors, then they published the article without disclosing their theft. Ethical journalism in practice.
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Code of Princess is another game that censored dialogue in localisation and hoped no one will notice. Japanese voices being added in EX made it quite noticeable, however.
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This just makes me feel sorry that Matsuno-san got wrapped up in this. Hopefully that's enough that people leave him be instead of trying to pester him to give them ammo against me.
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Damn, I knew I forgot something in my haste.
This exchange also feels just plain mistranslated. Lines 1 and 4 are callbacks in JP which is missing in EN. Worse is that lines 2 and 3 are rewritten to the point of being completely out of context since she beats them up in between.
There are people who say there aren't swears in Japanese. There's truth to that in a technical sense, but with politeness registers, a character that is speaking in an extremely rude and vulgar manner should have that conveyed. The loc here does not.
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Fatal Frame 4's remaster is censored. Much like with 5 before it, they're selling various outfits as DLC, while at the same time covering up what existed in the original game.
New on the left, original on the right.
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I've heard of several other bad rewrites and I found some I couldn't find JP footage of to make comparisons for, but this is an insultingly bad localisation, all the more so for a Kickstarter project that should be respecting the fans and the work.
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Remember: Dozens of manually drawn frames of animation being reworked = fixing a bug
They existed this already but to bring up again. They were fixing a bug. Calm down for fuck sakes. This is like getting mad at Val's rework.
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Update: They edited the post to try justify it, except it still fails to address their inconsistent handling. Also, despite being locked, meaning users can't react to it, it continues to get more positive reactions, while negative ones stay the same. 🤔
FEE uncensor update: GB staff claimed they censored it to respect the decisions of the localisers, despite not contesting any other changes the mod makes. The staff cannot point to how the mod violates rules, or explain their inconsistent enforcement. The comments are now locked.
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Addendum 2: Matsuno-san is clearly aware of the issues surrounding localisation and encourages discussion of it, unlike the people who want to shut down all criticism as if that would ever result in higher quality translations being made.
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I know this says "refinement of localised text", but this is about the day 1 patch. I took a quick look at a recent stream and didn't see any changes.
The top review notes there are many errors with technical text, so it's probably about that.
Progression issues
Graphic display glitches
Game balance adjustments
Refinement of localised text
Updated backer content
Game system bug fixes
Overall optimisations
Improved stability
*The distribution of Ver 1.0.3 for Asian regions will be announced soon...
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@yokoyama_masa
「意図しない蔑称や差別的表現、宗教的な問題などがないかチェックしてもらい、その上でオリジナル脚本で直したりしてます。
つまり日本版と海外版で違いはない。」
…ってなのにこれがその結果である。そのローカライザーは日本を侮辱しているのに、横山さんは彼らを擁護している。
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There are multiple misleading comments if not outright lies in Amazon's statement. Now let's remember people, the censorship is never just one thing. They've already refrained from disclosing censorship twice, so what else have they censored that they aren't telling us about?
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@PricePartDeux
Do you think Skullgirls was a porn game before it was censored? Of course not, right? So why would you make this obviously false equivalence?
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Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is getting a new localisation. This is great news, as the OG localisation was notoriously bad, being full of rewrites and mistranslations.
Unfortunately, the new localisation is being handled by members of Geofront, notorious for rewrites and mistranslations.
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