Do you like accents in CC?

[mav]

Honestly, I'd prefer if they keep most Japanese names out. I have nothing against 'em. In fact there are quite a few pretty Japanese names, but like Onslaught just mentioned, it'd be off-putting and kinda weird. It's like how they kept the words "Hokuten" and "Nanten" in the original FFTactics release. I had no idea what those damn words meant, and it distracted me throughout the game. Harle's name fit (to me, at least). And you can thank Batman for that.

[Truthordeal]

Hokuten and Nanten? Are those contractions of Hokuto Shin Ken(Fist of the North Star) and Nanto Shin Sen(Fist of the South Star)?

You learn a lot from 80's anime.

BTW, V, it's my understanding that Tsukuyomi is the Boshidan Goddess of the Moon. That leaves a lot of spoiler potential for Harle in Japan, although, admittedly, not nearly as much in America, unless you happen to pick up on some of these phrases.

Besides, Harle is easier to pronounce.

[mav]

I think "Hokuten" and "Nanten" were replaced with "Order of the Northern Sky" and "Order of the Southern Sky", respectively. So, yeah, I think you got something there, man.

Back to Harle though, what was she like originally, in the Japanese release...or whatever you wanna call it? As annoying as her accent can be (really, it's just the way they used "moi" that pissed me off) and as strange as her name may be to some (I thought the name Harle made sense...), everything seemed to fit with her, in my opinion.

[V_Translanka]

Whether or not it makes sense in a different context is sort of the point...I mean, why is one name that comes from one culture more acceptable than one from another culture? Its her friggin name as given to her by her creator. I don't see how it is the right of the regional publishers or translators or whoever to change that...I think my feelings toward this sort of stem from part of The Crucible...

Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!...How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

It certainly would have spurned me into wondering what the name meant, which sure, might not have been the intended purpose...kids in Japan probably have a greater grasp of Shinto mythology (I guess...??)...but I would have looked it up and gotten myself cultured! I don't know how much of a spoiler it would have been though...I mean, you don't really learn a lot about the connections between the Dragons and the moons (& other heavenly bodies) for a while, and anyways, all of her Techs are moon-related...I don't see how the name "Harle" fits when her name is supposed to reflect her connections to the moon...Though I doubt I would be any more satisfied with the name Luna...>_>

[Truthordeal]

Here's another thing to take into account, V:

All of the names in CC, because of memory limitations, have to be seven or less characters. In CT it was five until Kajar Labs hacked it to make it 6.

Tsukuyomi is 4 characters when written in kanji: ツクヨミ, however, in romaji, its 9, so they couldn't exactly fit it in the NA release without using kanji, which they obviously cannot do.

So, they decided on Harle, because she's a harlequin. It has as much justification as "Luna" for the moon, and personally, I think it sounds better.

[CelestialPhantasm]

Yes, this kind of "localization" is in principle bad, because it prevents the new target audience from getting to learn more about the other culture and tries to force the cultural nuances of the product into a mold that's familiar and easy to take in for said audience so that it's easier to sell.  This leads to contradictions- the localisation of Gyakuten Saiban, "Phoenix Wright", takes place in America instead of Japan, and they change a bunch of names and characters who were overseas in America were instead overseas in Germany and so on... nonetheless, there are two cases in the series which revolve around japanese costumed action heroes (I don't even know what the right term is, because the localisation didn't tell me), which have nothing to do with american culture...  The worst part is that the american localisation was retained for the european edition, so if you play the game in German, you're playing a translation of a localisation- the worst is when one of the characters says "Verstehen Sie kein Englisch?"

While I enjoy some accents, for example Poshuls (Poshul is a dumb, fat, pink dog, therefore a ridiculous lisp is fitting and contributes to his comical effectiveness), the idea of a french accent doesn't really make too much sense.  Any accents that refer to different nations in our society aren't really logical because these nations don't exist in the world of Chrono.  Therefore, it would be more interesting when within the original japanese version and within each translation, more original/unique accents would be present for people from other regions/lands- a Porre accent for example.  Perhaps the Porres have another language altogether but speak the language of the inhabitants of El Nido (Japanese, English, French, etc.) with an accent, not a french, german, or italian accent, rather with a porrian accent.

On the other hand, I will admit that French is a snotty, arrogant sounding language and understand why they used the accent for Pierre...

[alfadorredux]

Another annoying thing about the accents is that most of them made little sense as accents. Kid's is self-consistent because it's based on a real-life accent, but the others are hopeless. Whoever wrote Pierre's and Harle's dialog had clearly never heard a real French accent and had only dubious familiarity with the French language (free clue:  "moi" is "me", not "I", which means that "moi is" would translate as "me is"--am I the only one who sees a problem with this?).  The other so-called accents are mostly either speech impediments or total nonsense.

[Truthordeal]

As I said before, they can't keep all of the longer names unless they wrote it in kanji or hiragana, something that would have turned away 99.99% of the NA Chrono fanbase that can't speak or read Japanese. Ken Narita(one of the visual developers and seiyuu for Sesshomaru) can't even read kanji, so Lord knows what kind of problems that would lead to.

And the Japanese Superhero thing is called Sentai, not to be confused with its better known and much uglier step brother....

In all fairness though, you can cry foul about changing a few names here and there, but this is stuff that has to be done for any profit seeking entity in the translating process. I'm sure if you looked at a German or Japanese version of the Lion King, someone's name got changed in the process.

But about the accents, I think they were running thin as they reached all 46 characters and started making things up.

[mav]

Whoever wrote Pierre's and Harle's dialog had clearly never heard a real French accent and had only dubious familiarity with the French language (free clue:  "moi" is "me", not "I", which means that "moi is" would translate as "me is"--am I the only one who sees a problem with this?).

Mmmhmmm.



Obviously certain accents shouldn't exist in the Chrono world, but how the hell would we know what a Porre accent sounds like? If they patterned Porre's supposed accent off of, I dunno, an Irish accent, that'd be fine, right? So each region in the Chrono world could have some kind of specific dialect and on top of that certain characters with weird jobs (like a pirate) would have job-specific accents ("argh matey, lemme see your booty"). Assuming what I just said made sense, it would be a sensible way to create an accent system in CC...in my opinion.

They tried something like that with some of the Guldove people, but it turned out annoying...don'tCHA know.

[CelestialPhantasm]

Whoever wrote Pierre's and Harle's dialog had clearly never heard a real French accent and had only dubious familiarity with the French language (free clue:  "moi" is "me", not "I", which means that "moi is" would translate as "me is"--am I the only one who sees a problem with this?).

Mmmhmmm.



Obviously certain accents shouldn't exist in the Chrono world, but how the hell would we know what a Porre accent sounds like? If they patterned Porre's supposed accent off of, I dunno, an Irish accent, that'd be fine, right? So each region in the Chrono world could have some kind of specific dialect and on top of that certain characters with weird jobs (like a pirate) would have job-specific accents ("argh matey, lemme see your booty"). Assuming what I just said made sense, it would be a sensible way to create an accent system in CC...in my opinion.

They tried something like that with some of the Guldove people, but it turned out annoying...don'tCHA know.

It's still not a very good solution, because then the one immediately associates said accent with Ireland rather than with Porre.

Anyway, I didn't say it would be easy, but Square-America could have given a bit more effort, don'tCHA think?

[V_Translanka]

I think Pierre's was supposed to be bad French because he's really kind of a faker himself, or at the very least he appears that way because of his whole attitude.

Anyways, the fact that names are changed due to space limitations, while true, doesn't change the fact that its DUMB. PSX games AT LEAST should've been beyond this. Changing it to something short is a lame, lazy thing to do.

[Truthordeal]

V, if it were me, I'd be able to name my characters "Kyoka Suigetsu." RAM only goes so far, dude.

[V_Translanka]

From what I recall they barely used the 2nd disk at all...and there were really only a handful of FMVs...I don't see the big deal at least in making it so that the regional ports can sustain the characters needed for the characters' actual names.

[Mr Bekkler]

This is one place I must disagree with you, V.

Japanese names are hard to pronounce, but harder to remember (For an english audience). Especially for the casual player who doesn't research Japan just to play a game that came from there. The english names were just supposed to "fit" rather than be exact literal translations of the meanings of their japanese names. You're not supposed to think about the names that much, you're just supposed to play.

The accents were counterproductive in this sense, in that they made you think of why these people were talking this way, and why there were so many dialects in such a small archipelago. It takes you out of the game. Especially some parts where there are grammatical errors BECAUSE of the automated dialogue system. Some things the characters say are hard to understand because there's so much bullshit between what they say and how they say it.

[V_Translanka]

That's just a lame cop-out/excuse to me...Japanese names are going to continue to be harder to pronounce & remember by English-speaking audiences if they're not exposed to them. Plus, it's not like the localized names' pronunciations aren't being debated as-is...