Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes Gets Localized
Do you want to see localization in action? There’s been a lot of talk lately about the practice, which should be simply translating a game from a foreign language into English but actually involves making it more in line with American culture – or what the localizers want American culture to be. Most gamers don’t like it, and many are celebrating the notion that AI could eliminate the need for localizers. (That awful Google AI should make it clear that the alternative could be just as disastrous.) But today, we have an example of what localization looks like compared to the original game, courtesy of an X user and “censorship opponent” (right on!) called Zakogdo. The game in question is Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes, a JRPG (or Japanese Role-Playing Game) that is a “spiritual successor to the Suikoden series” developed by Rabbit & Bear Studios. Eiyuden Chronicles will be released tomorrow, April 23, 2024, but today, screenshots of the changes made by localizers are causing people to have second thoughts:
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes came out and is another victim of botched, disrespectful localisation. Here's a thread with a few examples. First off, everyone's favourite localisation meme!
1/? pic.twitter.com/iIfcbGYshc— Zakogdo (@zakogdo) April 22, 2024
They do it again here. By the way, "open sesame" isn't a localisation choice of mine, it's literally what she's saying in Japanese here.
2/? pic.twitter.com/yUmesDInbP— Zakogdo (@zakogdo) April 22, 2024
Did you just assume the golem's gender?
4/? pic.twitter.com/3VaUKnTYdq— Zakogdo (@zakogdo) April 22, 2024
This is indefensible. There is no reason to change those phrases, even the ones that don’t have some sociopolitical bent. It smacks of ego, with the localizers putting their own stamp on the game they had nothing to do with creating. They’re giving that one character a catchphrase she didn’t previously have, effectively making her their own. If I were one of the developers or writers who worked for (I’m assuming) years on Eiyuden Chronicles, I’d be livid. And what’s with the cutesy nonsense like “ladies and gentlewolves”? Do they think that’s funny or clever? Probably, which is why they’re not creatives; but like many who aren’t, they’re turning themselves into creatives by vandalizing the work of actual creatives. And, of course, there’s the stupid gender stuff that is forced in for no reason other than to push their obnoxious message on a bunch of gamers trying to have fun because nothing can be fun when these nuts are involved. They took a situation that didn’t involve gender and made it about assuming someone or something’s gender; even people who don’t like the term have to admit that’s the definition of “woke.”
But one of the game’s localizers believes he’s doing the important work of “dealing with sexism, homophobia, and gender stereotypes,” according to an interview he did in 2012, again provided by Zakogdo:
— Zakogdo (@zakogdo) April 22, 2024
How are you fighting “gender stereotypes” (if that’s what this falls under; who the hell knows anymore?) by making a completely neutral scene about gender assumption? This is re-configuring a video game into a gender studies lecture because that’s what you think all media should be.
And, predictably, dissent will not be tolerated. According to an X user called Chríss, the Eiyuden Chronicles Discord server is banning people who criticize the game’s localization.
Yeah, it’s quite sad. Unfortunately the Eiyuden team is infested with this sort of nonsense. Indeed, I got banned from the Discord for saying the localisation is bad – a mod decided that’s ’bad faith’ and that they wouldn’t ’put up with it’. Bizarre stuff. pic.twitter.com/YX4Rika89r
— Chríss (@Chriss_m) April 22, 2024
You know what the result of this is going to be?
Thanks for the heads up! pic.twitter.com/8YWVtpB0b0
— John Anderson (@JohnnyboySP) April 22, 2024
I don’t know what the numbers are, but I’ll bet this guy is far from the only one, and I don’t blame anyone who cancels their order or tries to return it. Who would want to play this now?
