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Other M: A localization gone wrong


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This is bizarre learning now about 10 years later, but whoever translated & dubbed Other M seems to be responsible for most of the discourse that came of the game. The original Japanese lines were much closer to Samus’ previous characterization like in Fusion and the manga, like this instance here with the latter, with the top part being the original Japanese line.
 

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None of that infamous shit like the Adam authorization is in the original Japanese script. What the hell. Obviously, this doesn’t absolve the game of all its flaws and faults, but NoA or some division failed everyone with the localization.

 

I wouldn’t bring up such a dead horse otherwise, but this is an important revelation. Had Other M been localized correctly, things might’ve been different. It probably would’ve still been divisive in the same vein that like Fusion and Prime 3 were, but it may have not been volatile enough to be the franchise killing/brand damaging game it became...

Edited by Ridley Prime
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I always knew the dialogue came off as stilted, so it's bizarre to see how much was changed tonally and in characterization. Maybe whoever in NoA thinks it might be too hard for their audience to recognize Adam as one of the antagonists at that level. The story would make a lot more sense in Japanese on that front. Though I still have to disagree on the game's structure.

Edited by avalonknight
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18 hours ago, Ridley Prime said:

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uhhhhhhh what? he completely made up the top line here.
the bottom one is exactly what it says
ブリーフィングへの絶対的な合意を表す仕草だった

a literal breakdown:
ブリーフィングへの: towards the briefing ("briefing" is just in english)
絶対的な: absolute
合意を表す: signify agreement
仕草: gesture
だった: it was

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okay, i watched parts of the video and he adds a disclaimer for this part... but then doesn't show the line where he got "stick Lady up your ass" from. don't think capping that out of context was a good idea for the thread lol. i agree somewhat with the tone shift making her sound too fond of Adam, but some of the things he criticizes are seriously pedantic and are very typical of localization, like using various different adjectives in place of child to make things less repetitive. i'm not sure i agree that this would have seriously affected perception that much.

 

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he does it again here, not properly showing the context from which he pulled his translation and lining them up with parts where the official text shown at the bottom matches correctly with the japanese text, but presenting it as wrong.
lit translation: "my heart, which holds a tragic past,"

Edited by Pichi
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Other M, with how much money it seemed Nintendo poured into the game, probably needed to be the next Super or Prime success within the franchise. Being at worse divisive by making dialogue changes here and there to have different plot and narrative spins would have still lead to a hiatus that I think damaged the series more than this game ever did.

 

Personally, narrative changes would have potentially made this game better; however, my opinion on Other M is very favorable already so there's not much shift for me. I would still have the game in my top 5 behind Prime, Federation Force, Super and Hunters. 

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Even the little things/changes can make all the difference in a scene. Context is important. Maybe at some point we could see a full Japanese playthrough of the game with english subtitles, to see the rest of the intended references to Fusion and stuff that we missed out on thanks to the changes in localization.

 

Japanese OM Samus from what I can gather is still consistently rebellious in her relationship with Adam as previously established, rather than subservient like what the english localization implied. Japanese Samus also certainly doesn't sound monotone in comparison with how she speaks.

Edited by Ridley Prime
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2 hours ago, Fuzzer1 said:

Looks like we got ourselves a textbook example of how not to do localization in video games.

Just another one in a list of example, not counting the ones that may have involved something like 4Kids. Got a feeling there is one or two other games in the past, Nintendo or non-Nintendo, on other other platforms. (I know the SNES/Genesis days has a fair amount of them, but that felt too easy a target.)

 

===

 

Just had a thought, if there is going to be port of this in the future, I would love to see them make the Japanese dub with re-translated script as an option. (Will doubt they'll get the money to redub it. Then again, why erase the history of the English dub and their script?) Though the fans might need to hammer their inbox to get it.

Edited by avalonknight
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I think I would've known if it was brought up before. This seems to be pretty new amongst the Metroid community. With how many Nintendo games in general that have had either like some character lines or content that had been altered in their localization (usually for censorship reasons with the latter), I wouldn't give NoA or whoever localized Other M the benefit of a doubt. We can't all have something as accurate as Capcom's localization team.

 

I personally take solace in that Samus was never ruined to the extent people thought just going by that video, at least far as what Sakamoto did judging from the Japanese version alone. The monotone subservient Samus in the english version is on the localizers, taking a certain good chunk of the blame off of Sakamoto.

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On 6/5/2020 at 1:24 AM, Eliwood8 said:

Not to call into question this translation, but surely if the official localization was that inaccurate this would have been brought up before, right? Or maybe it has, I admittedly have never looked into this before.

I'm sure someone has done it, either as a blog post or something, but it simply didn't get much traction. There has to be someone out there who is a big enough fan to play both the English and Japanese versions. Or maybe we've taken more accurate translations for granted in the past couple generations, barring some titles getting a 4Kids-esque treatment. I remember when we all first played it when it came out, I think the consensus was that it felt like a bad anime, with Samus being written like a bad waifu, so it sounds like it might be accurate. Nowadays, we've moved on from angry reviews to more long form analytical video essays over the past few years, so I guess it makes sense for this to pop up and get noticed.

 

Now I wonder if we'll see some followups to the video, like someone else breaking it down. Is the new translation from this reveal more accurate? A comparison vid. Etc.

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