Anime Ys series

[Valestein]

left: falcom, right: nisa

Like with Ubisoft screwing up Tetris(!) on the PS4, certain companies have a unique brand of ineptitude.

 

[LESS T_T]

Some Ys fans decided to send petitions to Falcom over the NISA's localization: https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/74gurg/unhappy_with_the_localization_of_ys_viii/

Unhappy with the localization of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana? Join the email campaign!

After a long wait since the Ys VIII announcement back in 2014, the game has been finally released on the West for the PS Vita and the PS4. PC version has been indefinitely delayed by NISA until further notice. However, long-time fans and newcomers alike have been witnesses of huge issues with the translation, mostly a clear lack of editing (stiff and awkward dialogues, homogenization of character personalities, etc.). Needless to say, this entails that the game's excellent writing has been lost during the localization, harming its compelling plot quite a lot.

Which is why we are launching the Ys VIII email campaign! We consider that Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana deserved a better treatment, and NISA has not been up to the previous entries localization's mark. We'd like to directly tell Nihon Falcom about Ys VIII localization issues via email, while also explaining what we'd like to see in future Western releases. Sadly, the Japanese developer, Nihon Falcom, has stated in recent interviews that they don't know what it's needed when it comes to Western releases, and rely exclusively on the publishers. Emailing a Japanese company could be difficult because of the language barrier, but we know how to get over that barrier.

Japanese message to Falcom (+ English translation): https://pastebin.com/BdNdwV6f

Indeed, we have prepared a summary of our wishes translated into Japanese. We've put our best efforts into this text, so you can rest assured that the message won't get diluted along the way. Of course, you're free to include your own requests into the email, but remember to use a pretty basic English or they will have problems understanding your message. Lastly, don't forget to be respectful. And for the subject "Ys VIII English release" or "イースVIIIの英語の放出" should be good enough.

They may not have the time to read every single email, but if we all contribute to this campaign, the noise will be far too big for Falcom to ignore. We have the opportunity to be their Western feedback: let's seize that opportunity. We'd like to stress that this is NOT a boycott. We just want future Falcom releases to be as good as its Japanese counterparts, no matter which publisher releases their games.

Send your emails at nihon@falcom.co.jp

Hashtags #Ys8 #YsVIII

Spread the word about this campaign!

A few examples: https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

 

[Kruno]

I just sent them an email. A good game shouldn't have to suffer something like this.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Game is so good.

For those who were wondering about being able to play this game with just 1 character:
First you need to complete the game and then do a post game dungeon and after that you can select NG+ with no bonuses carried over.

( So if you want the authentic solo Ys experience wait for someone to upload a clear save file )

That's not really needed. You can set party member AI to attack enemies or evade, in which case they get invulnerability and don't do anything, so you're basically playing with a solo character anyway.

 

[80Maxwell08]

So NISA have now said they are going to try fixing the translation and have it out in a patch by the end of November.
https://www.rpgsite.net/news/6187-n...na-addressing-localization-and-editing-issues

 

[LESS T_T]

Some Ys fans decided to send petitions to Falcom over the NISA's localization: https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/74gurg/unhappy_with_the_localization_of_ys_viii/

http://gematsu.com/2017/10/nis-america-apologizes-quality-ys-viii-localization-fix-due-end-november

NIS America apologizes for quality of Ys VIII localization, fix due out by end of November
New translator and editor go over the entire localization.

NIS America president Takuro Yamashita has issued a statement apologizing for the quality of the Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, saying that it has not “reached an acceptable level by our own standards” and that a free patch fixing the quality issues is by the end of November.

Get the full message below.

To All Customers of Ys VIII,

Thank you for all the feedback and support we have received since the launch of Ys VIII. It has come to my attention that the quality of the Ys VIII localization has not reached an acceptable level by our own standards, but most importantly by yours. As president of NIS America, Inc. I want to apologize to you personally for this grave error. This situation should not have happened – especially to a game as wonderful as Ys VIII and by a company that strives to deliver the very best customer experience in each title. We have begun internally to investigate the causes of this situation as well as to implement steps to ensure that a similar situation does not occur again.

As for Ys VIII itself, we will have a new translator and editor go over the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations. For the script, where necessary, we will re-translate and re-edit the game including updating voicework to reflect these changes. We plan to have this work done by the end of November and will offer the updated localization free of charge for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions of the game via patch. The Steam version of the game will include this localization in its initial release.

We humbly request your patience in this process.

Again, as the president and CEO of NIS America, Inc, I deeply apologize and vow to you that we will bring the quality of the localization of Ys VIII up to the high standards that it and you deserve.

Please allow us this opportunity to restore your faith in NIS America, Inc.

Sincerely, Takuro Yamashita

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana launched fpr PlayStation 4 and PS Vita in North America on September 12 and in Europe on September 15. The PC version was originally planned to launch alongside the PlayStation versions, but was delayed to an unannounced date.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I wonder which poor bastard is committing sudoku over this.

 

[flyingjohn]

The only reason NISA is doing anything because word of their shit port reached Nippon:
http://jp.automaton.am/articles/newsjp/20171006-55650/
They don't care about gajins but they sure as hell care about what their public image is in Japan.
And this was only because of a e-mail campaign by Falcom fans.

 

[Endemic]

Two translators and FOUR editors. Another case of NISA thinking it can speed things up by throwing more people at it. For comparison, XSEED had one translator and one editor on Ys 7.

6 people for this? https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

Well, hopefully XSEED is on the case to fix this hokey translation...

 

[flyingjohn]

Two translators and FOUR editors. Another case of NISA thinking it can speed things up by throwing more people at it. For comparison, XSEED had one translator and one editor on Ys 7.

6 people for this? https://imgur.com/a/g6f8y

Well, hopefully XSEED is on the case to fix tis hokey translation...

 

[LESS T_T]

Update on the PC version: https://steamcommunity.com/app/579180/discussions/0/1488861734121405654

- It's coming in mid-December
- They're working with Durante

PC Version Release Update and Progress Report

It has been a while since our initial September 12th announcement, and we apologize for the delay in communication and would like to issue an update on progress for Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA on PC. We were taking our time to be absolutely sure we were delivering the most accurate and up-to-date information to you.

Since we last made an announcement, we have been working tirelessly on improvements and bug fixes. We considered the overall issues, obstacles that arose during debug, and the maximum resources we have to address them and concluded that it will take another two months for the Steam release to meet the expectations we set for ourselves and guarantee the quality that every Ys fan has come to expect. In addition, we will use this time to apply the updated localization to the game[nisamerica.com].

This means that we plan to release the PC version around mid-December. We were unfortunately unable to deliver a simultaneous release with the Steam and console versions and apologize for our delayed postponement announcement. We deeply and earnestly apologize for not upholding the promise of the original Steam release and not notifying the community about the delays sooner.

Despite our missteps, we remain committed to delivering the best possible quality experience. With that in mind, here are some details about what exactly we’ve been working on.

After we delayed the release of Ys VIII on Steam, we reached out to Peter "Durante" Thoman for his expertise, and we are happy to report that he could share some of his hours with our developers these past few weeks. We asked Durante for his help with the following for this title: GPU performance improvements, CPU performance improvements, and developing a system for improving and regulating framerate. We also received feedback from Durante about a shadow rendering issue that we are looking into.

The above work has resulted in significant improvements in performance. However, due to the fact that we are receiving such an overwhelming number of system issues from both our internal QA Team and our Beta testers, these issues will take considerable time to repair. As previously stated in our last announcement, fixes in one area can lead to something breaking in another, so we have to be methodical in our application of fixes and improvements. In addition to improvements in the game’s system, we are also updating, fixing, and improving the game text across the Japanese, English, and French versions. This also requires a significant amount of time, due to the size of the game and our commitment to localizing the text to both English and French.

After assessing all of these factors, we concluded that approximately two more months of development time is needed to reach the level of quality we and the fans want. We thank you for your constant feedback and again apologize for the inconsistent communication.

If you have made a pre-purchase on Steam and would like to get a refund, please use this link for information on how to refund a product on Steam. For any purchases or pre-orders made outside of the Steam platform, please contact the corresponding refund support for that platform.

We sincerely apologize for these delays and we humbly request your patience.
Best,
NISA Team

 

[spekkio]

Sheeet.
If something ever happens to Durante, devs will be left with no one in the entire world to fix their shit.
What a time to be alive - 9 bln people and only one who actually knows how to fucking code.

 

[flyingjohn]

I don't think Durante is this "pc coding god",but it is more like "here is a person willing to help for either free or a very low fee".
Hell if they really needed talent you could get any average European/American freelancer to help,but for a much bigger fee.
I remember the disgea port getting unofficial fixes from a random guy at steam forums who pretty much just said "It is not that i am good,but this is such a mess that anybody with a bit of experience could easily fix."

 

[RuySan]

I don't think Durante is this "pc coding god",but it is more like "here is a person willing to help for either free or a very low fee".
Hell if they really needed talent you could get any average European/American freelancer to help,but for a much bigger fee.
I remember the disgea port getting unofficial fixes from a random guy at steam forums who pretty much just said "It is not that i am good,but this is such a mess that anybody with a bit of experience could easily fix."

If it's that so then why do these games are released in such a mess state? Do the publishers hire retards on purpose?

 

[flyingjohn]

I don't think Durante is this "pc coding god",but it is more like "here is a person willing to help for either free or a very low fee".
Hell if they really needed talent you could get any average European/American freelancer to help,but for a much bigger fee.
I remember the disgea port getting unofficial fixes from a random guy at steam forums who pretty much just said "It is not that i am good,but this is such a mess that anybody with a bit of experience could easily fix."

If it's that so then why do these games are released in such a mess state? Do the publishers hire retards on purpose?

A couple of factors:
-A programming workforce not familiar with pc development
-Freelancing and student scene only offers cheap prices without any quality
-A culture specifiably designed for making you work long and not about efficiency,which translates badly to programming
-Companies not giving a rat's ass about the west

Edit:Remember that the bean counters only care about maximizing profut,so when they see a cheap programmer they take his offer regardless of quality.Also they don't have to be accountable for their actions since they can always blame the programmers and they can brag how they saved money.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Glad to hear about Durante and the re-localization.
I was one of the folks who sent mails to Falcom complaining about the original one. Wonder if that little campaign was what pushed the relocalization to start.

Hopefully, Falcom will be weary of NISA in the future. What a bunch of chumps! Joke of a localization studio!

 

[LESS T_T]

Localization update and PC release delayed to early 2018: http://nisamerica.com/blog/ys-viii-lacrimosa-dana-localization-update

YS VIII: LACRIMOSA OF DANA LOCALIZATION UPDATE

Hello everyone,

My name is Alan Costa and I’m a Senior Associate Producer here at NIS America.

I'm heading up the Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA revision project directly under our president, Mr. Takuro Yamashita.

I’ve started this blog series to keep you all apprised of our progress for the revision and plan to make this a weekly update.

So, what exactly are we doing with this revision? Well, as NISA President Mr. Yamashita mentioned in his message, we are addressing the localization of Ys VIII from the ground up including the below:

- Reviewing and revising the translation with a new translator
- A complete re-edit of the script (voiced and unvoiced) as well as corrections to item names and descriptions with a new editor
- Voice re-recording
- Debugging the new build

We also intend to incorporate external feedback and I’ll be sharing more details on what exactly that entails in a later update.

This is going to come as no surprise to many of you, but after beginning this revision, we have realized that due to the scope of this undertaking, we will unfortunately not be able to release by the end of this month as we had originally intended.

I don't want to throw out a hard date then have to backtrack again, but, barring any unforeseen issues, we are currently looking to get this out early next year.

On that note, as we want this version to be the definitive release of the title, we will be holding the PC version back to coincide this this release as well.

While this does constitute a further delay of the PC version, please rest assured that this time will be used to further optimize the game.

Thank you so much for reading and please look forward to another update next week! If you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to head on over to the Steam discussion page.


Best Regards,
Alan

 

[spekkio]

No prob, I'm currently playing Felghana, with Origin and SEVEN still to go, so ETA 2019 would've been acceptable too.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Good. My backlog is big enough as it is.

Now, I am a bit conflicted about this entire situation -
On one hand I'm glad NISA have listened to criticism and are making sure they'll get it right this time around..
On the other, I'm upset the initial release was such a shitshow to begin with. Wonder what Falcom will think of the entire situation.

 

[LESS T_T]

Regarding the PC release, I wonder if Nippon Ichi has "switched" the substantial portion of PC port effort into Switch port. Given the lack of PC release in recent announcements from NISA and that Disgaea 5 sold like hundreds of thousands on Switch. They sure want release more on that before the fad dies off.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

No prob, I'm currently playing Felghana, with Origin and SEVEN still to go, so ETA 2019 would've been acceptable too.

Man, I should replay Origin. It's definitely the best of the pre-Vita Ys games.

 

[Valestein]

After the buffoonery on display with Ys VIII, let's hope Falcom doesn't allow those goobers to handle Cold Steel 3's localization either.

 

[Abu Antar]

They'll go for the highest bidder, probably. Unless the highest bidder's work costs them money.

 

[IPFreely]

I picked up Ys Origins on Thursday (I live in HK and there's a physical edition here) and it looks dope.

 

[Jack Dandy]

It is, as a matter of fact, pretty dope.

Oath in Felghana's better , tho.

 

[LESS T_T]

In other news, XSEED (well, Sara) has been removing Steam DRM from their older titles including Ys games (except VII), making all platforms to use universal builds.