Elyssa Xey Hexen
Broken!
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2008
- Messages
- 19,346
Well, I think we are all aware that in translation between two languages yields results which are not 100% accurate. A word might exist in a language that does not in another. This forces a translation using a phase or group of words which doesn't fully capture the meaning unless you immersed yourself in the language and understand the subtle meanings behind words.
Even in a direct translation this is still not correct as many languages have idioms or meanings that are very far apart from their literal interpretation. For example, "Don't **** with me" if taken literally in many contexts would simply be really awkward. Yet, every time we hear it, we know not to take it literally and instead interpret it something like "do not affect my life in some negative way".
To make it worse, there is the tone of voice which can completely change the meaning of a phase and how it is received. "Thanks" said with a pleasant tone is a good thing while the same word could be said in a sarcastic tone and change the meaning all together.
With this in mind, I wonder if the Zelda Franchise has lost some sort of meaning in its elements/characters or has been heavily influenced by the localization process over the years which is why the Zelda games are the way they are now.
In recent years, it seems obvious that there are two different markets when it comes to the US and Japan in terms of video game sales. I see it frequently commented upon how sales of RPGs are more prevalent in Japan rather than the US and how something like the Xbox 360 continually lags in sales behind compared to Sony and Nintendo while in the states things like FPS are booming.
Ever since the beginning of Zelda back when the NES was around, the sale date of the game into US was only ever a year behind the Japanese release. By the time the OoT comes around, that distance was reduced to only a couple of days at the shortest, but never falling behind by more than a couple of months. However, at the Skyward Sword you see the release date in the US ahead of the Japanese release date.
Nintendo seemed more focused on developing games for the country of origin rather than outside of it at first. In recent years you see a shift and the market seems more favorable overseas than in Japan. Its because of this I wonder how the series has changed and what elements were added to accommodate those shifts. And as a part of this I wonder what cultural elements are gained and lost between this shift.
The largest example I would like to point out is perhaps the ease of how the franchise is starting out each new zelda game. In the earlier renditions, you clearly see very little aide given out to a new player. You begin a new game and you are on the go without much time spent learning how to do stuff. In the newer additions, it seems they want to ease you into the game much more slowly and even spend forever teaching you very simple things. This I think stems in part from a possible sterotype against foreigners and their abilities. Within Fire Emblem, a series developed by a group within Nintendo itself (Intelligent Systems) has very clearly added these features to those games. With the advent of FE7, the first game introduced to the states, they finally added a series of chapters designed to introduce a player to the series which is Lyn's Mode. It was developed due to the localization. In FE9, they completely removed the maniac mode from the game when it was localized to the states with the reasoning they thought gamers overseas were not that good at solving these types of games.
Its these subtle changes during localizations that can affect our gameplay, and I can only imagine how much of a dramatic effect they tend to bring to our experiences and overall perceptions of the series as a whole.
Even in a direct translation this is still not correct as many languages have idioms or meanings that are very far apart from their literal interpretation. For example, "Don't **** with me" if taken literally in many contexts would simply be really awkward. Yet, every time we hear it, we know not to take it literally and instead interpret it something like "do not affect my life in some negative way".
To make it worse, there is the tone of voice which can completely change the meaning of a phase and how it is received. "Thanks" said with a pleasant tone is a good thing while the same word could be said in a sarcastic tone and change the meaning all together.
With this in mind, I wonder if the Zelda Franchise has lost some sort of meaning in its elements/characters or has been heavily influenced by the localization process over the years which is why the Zelda games are the way they are now.
In recent years, it seems obvious that there are two different markets when it comes to the US and Japan in terms of video game sales. I see it frequently commented upon how sales of RPGs are more prevalent in Japan rather than the US and how something like the Xbox 360 continually lags in sales behind compared to Sony and Nintendo while in the states things like FPS are booming.
Ever since the beginning of Zelda back when the NES was around, the sale date of the game into US was only ever a year behind the Japanese release. By the time the OoT comes around, that distance was reduced to only a couple of days at the shortest, but never falling behind by more than a couple of months. However, at the Skyward Sword you see the release date in the US ahead of the Japanese release date.
Nintendo seemed more focused on developing games for the country of origin rather than outside of it at first. In recent years you see a shift and the market seems more favorable overseas than in Japan. Its because of this I wonder how the series has changed and what elements were added to accommodate those shifts. And as a part of this I wonder what cultural elements are gained and lost between this shift.
The largest example I would like to point out is perhaps the ease of how the franchise is starting out each new zelda game. In the earlier renditions, you clearly see very little aide given out to a new player. You begin a new game and you are on the go without much time spent learning how to do stuff. In the newer additions, it seems they want to ease you into the game much more slowly and even spend forever teaching you very simple things. This I think stems in part from a possible sterotype against foreigners and their abilities. Within Fire Emblem, a series developed by a group within Nintendo itself (Intelligent Systems) has very clearly added these features to those games. With the advent of FE7, the first game introduced to the states, they finally added a series of chapters designed to introduce a player to the series which is Lyn's Mode. It was developed due to the localization. In FE9, they completely removed the maniac mode from the game when it was localized to the states with the reasoning they thought gamers overseas were not that good at solving these types of games.
Its these subtle changes during localizations that can affect our gameplay, and I can only imagine how much of a dramatic effect they tend to bring to our experiences and overall perceptions of the series as a whole.
