Author Topic: Skill name liberties  (Read 4551 times)

Offline Mille

  • Administrator
  • A Member group
  • *****
  • Posts: 177
    • View Profile
    • oh no its a website
Skill name liberties
« on: January 04, 2015, 08:38:56 PM »
We have roughly 19 characters to work with. Some of these do not translate elegantly to English. What I want to know is how strict/lenient you would like us to be with the translations: keep them as accurate to the original as possible, or take liberties when the move name wouldn't sound like an actual good move name?

For instance: 夜陰

This is an evasion boosting move, used by Sekibankis early in. The animation is the screen turning dark. Some translations available are "Night Shade" and "Dead of Night" but they're kind of ?????? considering it's basically double team. If we were to take liberties we could go with something like "Shadow Veil" as, mechanically, it fits the move - the screen darkens and the user gains a level in evasion. Literally however it carries a different meaning.

So yeah. Throw me some opinions before we get too far into this. I know that there's already skill translations available, but as it stands some of them are simply too long or too literal to look nice.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2015, 08:40:35 PM by Agastya »
[6:30:51] DoctorShanks: Is Star Sapphire actually good or do people just use her because she's cute? Or both?
[6:30:55] Irisorchid: both
[6:30:57] &Agastya: both
[6:30:59] PrinnyAce: BOTH

Offline DerxwnaKapsyla

  • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Administrator
  • A Member group
  • *****
  • Posts: 162
  • What is development and how do I game
    • View Profile
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2015, 08:41:54 PM »
I think we should take liberties when liberties need to be taken, such as when we can't properly translate/fit the translation into 19. Otherwise, remain as literal as possible. I was told that back during the demo translation project - "We aren't localizing it, we're translating it. Keep it to the point and simple to understand while remaining as accurate as possible".
I do the 2humons in RMXP

Offline Stuffman

  • A Member group
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2015, 08:45:25 PM »
tbh I would prefer as many liberties taken as possible

I want to be able to guess what a move does by looking at its name

I don't want to get confused by moves having similar names to pokemon moves but doing something different

etc etc

Offline Tyraxx

  • A Member group
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2015, 10:41:35 PM »
I disagree.

If it doesn't fit, weh should try to abbreviate if possible (like in all the Rockman Battle network/Ryuusei series)
especially when the names are derived from official spell cards and since the wiki spell card are more or less the official one, we should not to grant to much liberty.

I'm aware that sometimes it simply isn't possible, due to Kanji VS RomanLetters.
And please don't use pokemon-skill-names, first of all, they are bad translation, second then we would put focaslens in a different light, like they just simply copied pokemon moves.

Offline DoctorShanks

  • :coolguys:
  • A Member group
  • *****
  • Posts: 188
  • .
    • View Profile
    • dumblr
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2015, 10:50:32 PM »
I disagree.

If it doesn't fit, weh should try to abbreviate if possible (like in all the Rockman Battle network/Ryuusei series)
especially when the names are derived from official spell cards and since the wiki spell card are more or less the official one, we should not to grant to much liberty.

I'm aware that sometimes it simply isn't possible, due to Kanji VS RomanLetters.
And please don't use pokemon-skill-names, first of all, they are bad translation, second then we would put focaslens in a different light, like they just simply copied pokemon moves.

Rest assured we will not be using Pokemon move names in translation. I'm all for abbreviation when absolutely essential, like what you said regarding official spell cards. However, I agree with Stuffman in the sense that we should not use anything that will outright confuse even the average touhou/pokemon fan.

Offline Kinsei

  • A Member group
  • Posts: 25
  • The Softest
    • View Profile
    • ViVid Translations
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2015, 10:52:39 PM »
Define "confuse", with examples if you please. I agree with Tyraxx 100% on this point, I'd rather liberties be taken only if all other options for accurate translation are exhausted.

Offline DerxwnaKapsyla

  • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Administrator
  • A Member group
  • *****
  • Posts: 162
  • What is development and how do I game
    • View Profile
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2015, 11:02:49 PM »
I disagree.

If it doesn't fit, weh should try to abbreviate if possible (like in all the Rockman Battle network/Ryuusei series)
especially when the names are derived from official spell cards and since the wiki spell card are more or less the official one, we should not to grant to much liberty.

I'm aware that sometimes it simply isn't possible, due to Kanji VS RomanLetters.
And please don't use pokemon-skill-names, first of all, they are bad translation, second then we would put focaslens in a different light, like they just simply copied pokemon moves.
The game is literally a 1:1 Pokemon rebranding, I could point out every concept in items alone that crosses parallel with Pokemon (Life Orb, Weakness Policy, Choice Scarf, Rocky Helmet, just to name a few). Hemo kept true to the Pokemon roots - a little too true, if I say so myself, but opinions. We won't be using Pokemon's names for things unless Hemo used them himself, which thankfully I suppose he hasn't done much if any of.

Nevertheless, abbreviations would look really tacky on some of the larger names. We should stick to literals when we can, and probably take liberties when we need to. The player's comprehension of the game is most important, and having the player know exactly what a concept does is important. That being said, a lot of the skill names don't seem to be based of Spell Card names? Judging by what we've gone over in chat, a lot of them are just generic names.
I do the 2humons in RMXP

Offline Mille

  • Administrator
  • A Member group
  • *****
  • Posts: 177
    • View Profile
    • oh no its a website
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2015, 11:12:26 PM »
I think one of the biggest examples was renaming "Explosion" (which was literally just Explosion in kata) to "Detonation" for the express purpose of avoiding Pokemon move overlap. We are trying to keep things as separate from Pokemon moves as we can, but we are attempting accurate translation to the best of our ability. This is really just for very certain fringe cases, and it's not like fan translation projects haven't taken liberties in the past, so as long as we aren't taking the "life orb" of the game and literally just naming it "Life Orb" we're probably not going to rub too many people the wrong way.

We aren't going to just name a move "Double Team" because it boosts evasion because we can, and we aren't doing this just to be lazy. It's the simple fact that some of these just don't sound like an actual battle skill names when translated.

"The Ripper" sounds fine for a damaging steel move that involves throwing knives, and it has precedence from a spell name. However, "Dead of Night" does not sound like it's an evasion boosting move, it sounds like a passive ability or a weather effect. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, for the most part. Avoiding Pokemon parallels is another, as previously mentioned. I'm bad ad this posting stuff.

Once we have all the moves compiled any liberties taken will be compiled and likely posted here for debate, so they'll still be up for discussion. We'd like the vast majority of the userbase to be good with the translation.


(On a semi-related yet unrelated side note, the only thing I am going to adamantly stand by and will not be up for debate is Luize is going to be named Luize and that is final.)
[6:30:51] DoctorShanks: Is Star Sapphire actually good or do people just use her because she's cute? Or both?
[6:30:55] Irisorchid: both
[6:30:57] &Agastya: both
[6:30:59] PrinnyAce: BOTH

Offline Tyraxx

  • A Member group
  • Posts: 12
    • View Profile
Re: Skill name liberties
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2015, 06:44:30 PM »
I think we must not forgot that we are translating a doujin touhou game.
That means we're not trying to localize it, and seriously anyone who plays this game knows that 東方 is eastern culture and not western culture.
(Most people who play this game are either TH fans or/and Pokemon fans anways.)

I do understand your argumentation, but I just wanted to express my thought.

We still can throw any skill name (or other name) into debate.