One of our very favourite underrated gems on Switch, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, got a surprise sequel last month with the arrival of The Mermaid's Curse. To celebrate the launch, Famitsu sat down with series director Takanari Ishiyama and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii (the former also worked on Dragon Quest X) for a good old natter about game writing.
While most of the chat was dedicated to Paranormasight and each writer's approach to narrative and game scenario, the sworded topic of localisation was also brought into the limelight after Ishiyama wondered whether his specific word choices in the Japanese release would have nearly as much impact when translated overseas.
After decades of Dragon Quest translations, Horii seems like precisely the kind of person to comment on such worries, and comment he did. "When it comes to English, the flavour tends to get lost in many ways," the legendary game designer said (translated by Automaton), "things inevitably end up sounding simplistic."
It all comes down to the foundational differences between the languages, according to Horii, and while voice acting has certainly helped with the players' understanding of tone, something is still lost along the way. "I've come to accept that English is a simple language, so there's no helping it," he said.
Ishiyama pointed to the wide range of Japanese first-person pronouns, compared to the English "I", as an example. As explained by Automaton, while the likes of 'ore', 'boku', 'washi' and 'watashi' might be used in Japanese to reflect the speaker's age, gender etc., everything is simplified down to "I" in English.
Of course, such changes haven't stopped us from enjoying these games in the English language — quite the opposite, in fact — but it's always interesting to hear about things that are lost in translation, especially from a pair of game designers as accomplished as these two!