Strange Metaphor ReFantazio Controversy Revealed...

Enter my Metaphor ReFantazio giveaway here:

0:00 New Metaphor ReFantazio Controversy
5:16 Giveaway details
7:52 My Favorite Aspect About Metaphor ReFantazio

[Huddy]

If ppl consider this a controversy then they're desperate to call anything a controversy.

[BuzzBee]

Piece of advise! finish the dungeon in 1 day. Rule of every Atlus Persona games applies here as well

[ForbiddenCatBelly]

I don’t think these are out of line. There is a lot of insinuation in Japanese that would simply be lost or come off weird in English. It’s one of the reasons Americans can be seen as too direct.

I remember watching a video by a Japanese guy talking about etiquette in Kyoto and he was giving an example of how indirect the language can be in the city. All this to say, the word for word translation might not carry the impact the Japanese has.

I have seen instances (not in Metaphor) where the translator clearly had an axe to grind though

[schimmelbrottitanson]

As a person in the field of japanese studies I am just happy that you can play this game in japanese text and audio. My native language is not english so I will mainly play it in german text, japanese audio and from time to time I will switch to japanese text to read some of the stuff in like the in-game lexikon.

Because I very much enjoyed the game I only played the very beginning because I like to play the game "from zero". So there actually was some stuff where I thought the translation was a little "off". But those things were very much like the typical translation interpretation stuff without any "message" one way or another. Like the narrator in the beginning of that meta-level in japanese is way less direct than in the translation. To me it feels more like a general kind of thought/prayer where he thinks that there is somebody but he straight up can't see you only hears "something". Also they took the original "幻想" (gensou) from the japanese as just simply "fantasy" which I just think is "too simple" for this term, because yes it can mean fantasy but it can also mean illusion, phantasm, feverdream even; maybe the translators thought that it was too spoilery for some great revelation at the end, I don't know, we will see.

Definitly nothing like the Tora "heart-to-heart" from Xenoblade 2 where the english translation team specificly turn a meta, japanese culture joke/reference of maid cafés and the "magic" of "moe" into "blushy crushy" which gets that weird sexual, fetishy kind of nuance out of nowhere. And that actually is just the english translation, because in the german text translation of that exact same scene the translators changed the original "moe" just into "moepon", which is way better.

[FAITERA]

I'm fine with this
so long as they don't start censoring things they find problematic.

[Zyndale]

People crying about translations should’ve played JRPGs back in the 90s, they barely made sense half the time

[zaythleon]

Tbh I kinda like the localization from what I've played. The line "when your corpse is plucked from the mud do try to look patriotic" I was great for instance and I thought that said a lot about his outlook and character

[Kimo-Cyrus]

This does bother me but I've been waiting too long for this to change my mind, I'll just have to put up with it *this* time.

One thing about the archetypes that I thought was cool is that if you look at the protagonist he has a unique passive for every archetype that the other party members don't have that relates to the action combat. Like mage on the MC Regens 1 MP every time you kill/stun an enemy on field or warrior making it so the enemy can't initiate a SQUAD battle when they hit you

[jmporkbob]

this is just another non-troversy to me

[kingdomheartsgamer]

Can people state their opinion? Is this a free country? Or do we get ridicule for liking trump. I for one like authentic translation no need to change it

[mmaxdragon]

This Localizer seems to do it with every Sega game they are in. i wouldn't be against getting rid of her as she isn't being faithful.

[rs]

What bothers me more is the anti aliasing, some low quality textures, and animation stutters on PS5. I hope they smooth that out in the final release.

[pusicer]

I am playing the demo in Japanese so I can’t if the translation is on point or not. But when I do translation (mostly Japanese variety shows), my way is always literal translation, even down to the sequence of information if possible.

[sillyhat]

Every time you say “Metaphor ReFantazio” i get more pumped to play it!!

[projectmessiah]

I saw that translation tweet, I sorta get it but some of those lines are basically the same and both old school and modern translators take much worse libertys than giving a game with a European style setting dialogue that suits said setting

[_sparrowhawk]

Using Google Translate and .. complaining about Localization is weird. There's more to the game than conveying meaning, they're also conveying personality.

[gamekiller]

At least with Gallica’s example it does seem unnecessary to add the extra fluff when it changes her characterization. Doesn’t seem like it was needed to get the point across from the original script and tone. I agree Haughty’s example was great. Even with the added fluff it kept the purpose and tone of the original script while keeping Haughty the same asshole we all love to hate

[ketthefox]

I feel like that people who are arguing about this are people who only speaks one language or they speak two languages which have similar grammar. You can't make 1:1 translation when grammar, way of speaking and idioms are totally different. In my country direct translations from english to my language is one branch of humor because it doesn't work at all.

[jonathansalazar]

Can't wait for this to release, I've been having that itch for another atlus game and this will definitely scratch it

[TheLando]

These translations aren't perfect but do they still convey the message and the attitude of the characters the same way? In my opinion yes they do. If anything the english voice and words of the Captain are more brutal IMO and that makes him just more of a POS. Which I believe to be the whole point of the character. Every line read I heard in the demo was fantastic and all the talent behind those characters sound believable and put good life into them. It made me look them up and figure out who the unfamiliar voices to me were to see what other roles they had in other projects.