So, the Orb Bangle ...

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So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar Eclipse »

It seems like this is missing from the game. The equivalent, which was the Stone Bracelet, was in the Grindery in the original, but I haven't found it there, nor is it listed in the guide's area treasure list as far as I recall. What is odd is that there are two Pleiades Bangles (one in the Blue Dragon Cave where the now Ghaleon-exclusive Jeweled Bangle used to be and one in the Lost Woods like it always was, as the Star Bracelet). I assume they meant to put the Pleiades Bangle where the Jeweled Bangle was and move the Orb Bangle to the Pleiades Bangle's spot, but it seems like they forgot. The same is somewhat true of the Charm Armlet. It's missing, and you find the Dragon Armlet in the Blue Dragon Shrine even though it can also be purchased in Tamur. I assume either the shop or the chest was meant to hold the Charm Armlet, but not both. I don't really mind since the Charm Armlet isn't one of the best and I like the name of the Pleiades Bangle better than the Orb anyway, but I just thought it was kind of weird. Have I skipped over these items or did no one find them?
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Shiva Indis »

I wouldn't be surprised... I've been flipping through guidebooks looking for differences in treasure chest contents, and I remember a Fire Bracelet(?) consistently not appearing in SSH. Seems like the changes are more frequent late in the game.

Semi-related note: the name 'Sealing Mace' is a big improvement over 'Dark Mace'.
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar Eclipse »

Fire or Hell? The old Hell Armlet is what's now the Charm Armlet, so we're probably talking about the same thing. The old Fire Armlet is now the Beam Armlet, which I think is still in there unless I got things mixed up.

Oh, but yeah, I like a lot of the new item names a lot better. Hero's Armlet is so much better than Spook Armlet (and retains a similar meaning by mentioning Einherjar), Radiant Tiara is nicer than Fire Tiara, Advent Armlet definitely bests Detonator Armlet, etc. The only thing I'm not entirely satisfied with is the Lacquer series for Kyle, if only because it sounds a bit mundane for an ultimate set. I would've preferred a color reference rather than a material name in this instance.
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

These new names are the original names from Japanese so that is why there is such a big change. WD just did whatever the heck they wanted for the names before. I'm glad that Xseed fixed these as well. They definitely sound a lot better in English too having the original names. It kind of makes me wonder why WD didn't just respect the original work from the beginning...

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar Eclipse »

Honestly, I don't care that much if they respect the original, though, as you said, it's not really necessary when the names are fine as they are. I just took issue with the way some of them were changed since I thought the naming choices just ... weren't good. I've always disliked anything with "spook" in front, for instance. Oh, and the Yellow Mace, though that's EB.
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Silver Phoenix »

The guide is not accurate in a lot of places, because in the Wind Shrine it showed a chest in the guide that didn't appear in the game where it was supposed to be.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Silver Phoenix wrote:The guide is not accurate in a lot of places, because in the Wind Shrine it showed a chest in the guide that didn't appear in the game where it was supposed to be.
Who made the guide?

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Alunissage »

Lunar Eclipse wrote:Detonator Armlet
That name isn't random, you know. It's a reference to the game WD released before EBC, whose working title was Detonator Gauntlet. However, the name ended up being changed to Vanguard Bandits, so the Detonator Armlet item name became an in-joke.

I haven't had time yet to go through all the item lists and compare them with my tables of names. But it's not like the Japanese names automatically make more sense or sound better when directly translated just because that's how they started originally. Is the name Crystal Cane really automatically better than Dream Cane for a cane that puts monsters to sleep? Is there really a problem with renaming Hellfire Cane to Ethereal Cane when there's already a Fire Cane in the game? Should the first armlet you buy in Burg really be simply called a Wrist? It would be, if directly translated. And its description, 手首を保護するリスト, would be along the lines of "Wrist to protect your wrist". Yeah, that flows well in English. Shame on XSEED for keeping WD's Iron Armlet and describing it as "Simple wrist-guard." Though they added the word "simple" to WD's description, so I suppose that shows ever so much greater respect for the original text than WD had. :roll:

Seriously, get some perspective.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Silver Phoenix »

Off-topic, but didn't you tell me that Alundra wasn't released by Working Designs, Alunissage? I was just curious because I saw a picture under someones Working Designs collection, and there is a hardbound Alundra guide with the Working Designs logo on it. Unless they just happened to release the guide and not the game?

The SSH Official Guide is published by Prima, and it was written by Howard Grossman.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Alunissage »

Nonono. Alundra was released by WD. Alundra 2 wasn't.

The WD Alundra guide is the same size and binding as the SSSC one, by the way; it's not hardcover. It was basically directly translated from the official Japanese guide, and has a lot less of the collective WD personality than their later guides have. Perhaps because it was based on someone else's guide, it's very hard to follow the maps in places. But at least it doesn't have hand-drawn maps without even the benefit of using a straightedge, like the Prima Alundra guide.

Edit: to get back on topic...
Lunar Eclipse wrote:It seems like this is missing from the game. The equivalent, which was the Stone Bracelet, was in the Grindery in the original, but I haven't found it there, nor is it listed in the guide's area treasure list as far as I recall. What is odd is that there are two Pleiades Bangles (one in the Blue Dragon Cave where the now Ghaleon-exclusive Jeweled Bangle used to be and one in the Lost Woods like it always was, as the Star Bracelet). I assume they meant to put the Pleiades Bangle where the Jeweled Bangle was and move the Orb Bangle to the Pleiades Bangle's spot, but it seems like they forgot. The same is somewhat true of the Charm Armlet. It's missing, and you find the Dragon Armlet in the Blue Dragon Shrine even though it can also be purchased in Tamur. I assume either the shop or the chest was meant to hold the Charm Armlet, but not both. I don't really mind since the Charm Armlet isn't one of the best and I like the name of the Pleiades Bangle better than the Orb anyway, but I just thought it was kind of weird. Have I skipped over these items or did no one find them?
It wasn't until after I had dug through the Japanese HSS guide and compared it to my lists of SSS equipment that I realized that you probably meant SSS when you said "the original", not HSS (as opposed to SSH). Anyway, it's not clear to me whether you checked the Japanese HSS for this or not, but it's certainly not in the Japanese guide. I expect that, like another infamous piece of equipment, it's in the game data but never placed anywhere. The Orb Bangle and Pleiades Bangle are adjacent in the data files, so it could even have been as simple an error as a typo.

XSEED would have been working from the data files WD made; I doubt the format changed much, if at all, from SSS to HSS. Prima, of course, has to get at least some data from the developer/publisher, so they may very well have also gotten item data from them as well instead of getting it from the game. The Japanese guide writer(s) probably didn't use data directly from the developer, or else was just more careful about checking to see what was actually in the game and what wasn't.

And yet another edit to get back to the other topic: As noted in the original post quoted above, WD called the item in question the Stone Bracelet, while XSEED called it Pleiades Bangle. Would any of the Japanese-enabled multilinguals here care to translate the original name 魔眼石の腕輪 ? Is the XSEED name indeed, as lunar3coming claims, "the original names from Japanese so that is why there is such a big change", and is the WD name just "whatever the heck they wanted for the name", without any connection to the original meaning? I won't inquire as to which sounds better since that's far more subjective.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Alunissage wrote:
Lunar Eclipse wrote:Detonator Armlet
That name isn't random, you know. It's a reference to the game WD released before EBC, whose working title was Detonator Gauntlet. However, the name ended up being changed to Vanguard Bandits, so the Detonator Armlet item name became an in-joke.

I haven't had time yet to go through all the item lists and compare them with my tables of names. But it's not like the Japanese names automatically make more sense or sound better when directly translated just because that's how they started originally. Is the name Crystal Cane really automatically better than Dream Cane for a cane that puts monsters to sleep? Is there really a problem with renaming Hellfire Cane to Ethereal Cane when there's already a Fire Cane in the game? Should the first armlet you buy in Burg really be simply called a Wrist? It would be, if directly translated. And its description, 手首を保護するリスト, would be along the lines of "Wrist to protect your wrist". Yeah, that flows well in English. Shame on XSEED for keeping WD's Iron Armlet and describing it as "Simple wrist-guard." Though they added the word "simple" to WD's description, so I suppose that shows ever so much greater respect for the original text than WD had. :roll:

Seriously, get some perspective.
The problem with your assumption here, is that a "wrist" is called an "armlet" in English and not a "wrist" so trying say that Xseed got it wrong here or just used what WD had, makes no sense at all. You'll also notice that in the Japanese it doesn't say "A wrist to protect a wrist" either.

And speaking of "in-jokes" if the majority of your audience can't get it then that's a huge problem. I'm not going to stand up for WD here because in SSSC, there were tons of jokes that the average gamer would never get.
Last edited by Lunar3coming on Sat Mar 20, 2010 10:49 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

And yet another edit to get back to the other topic: As noted in the original post quoted above, WD called the item in question the Stone Bracelet, while XSEED called it Pleiades Bangle. Would any of the Japanese-enabled multilinguals here care to translate the original name 魔眼石の腕輪 ? Is the XSEED name indeed, as lunar3coming claims, "the original names from Japanese so that is why there is such a big change", and is the WD name just "whatever the heck they wanted for the name", without any connection to the original meaning? I won't inquire as to which sounds better since that's far more subjective.


In answer to your question here, Xseed got it right with translating this as an "Orb Bangle" too. If you know anything about literature, I'm sure that you would have noted the fact that "eyes" are referred to as "orbs" in a poetic sense. I think this proves all the more that Xseed had a great localization team going on here.

Also, the Pleiades Bangle in question was translated right as well. In Japanese, the name is 七星の腕輪 and if you know anything about the constellation, it is made up of seven stars which are symbolic of the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione.

All of these points you bring up give further evidence that WD was way off track and Xseed got Lunar back on track.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Silver Phoenix »

Alun, thanks for clearing that up. I never played either Alundra game so I wouldn't have known otherwise. Here is the image, btw. He did state that the Lunar SSSC guide and the Alundra guide were the softcover versions, so that was my mistake on the Alundra guide.
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar Eclipse »

Alunissage wrote:But it's not like the Japanese names automatically make more sense or sound better when directly translated just because that's how they started originally. [Lots of comparisons]

Seriously, get some perspective.
Er, was this directed at me? Because seriously, I already said that I don't care whether or not they "respected" the original names. I just care about how the names sound, and I tend to favor some of the newer ones, though I did also point out that I didn't like a couple of them.
Alunissage wrote:And yet another edit to get back to the other topic: As noted in the original post quoted above, WD called the item in question the Stone Bracelet, while XSEED called it Pleiades Bangle. Would any of the Japanese-enabled multilinguals here care to translate the original name 魔眼石の腕輪 ? Is the XSEED name indeed, as lunar3coming claims, "the original names from Japanese so that is why there is such a big change", and is the WD name just "whatever the heck they wanted for the name", without any connection to the original meaning? I won't inquire as to which sounds better since that's far more subjective.

But the Stone Bracelet isn't the Pleiades Bangle. The Star Bracelet is the Pleiades Bangle, which means that whatever the equivalent was (which the game data tells us was actually the Orb Bangle) is missing from the game. Of course, we're only actually missing it in the sense that it existed in previous versions, and perhaps they meant to exclude it this time around, but it does seem odd that they included two chests with the same bangle that only one character can equip. I can't help but think they meant to swap some stuff around but got mixed up. And again, I don't really mind that much. I just thought it was interesting to note. ^.^;

Oh, as for my use of "original", I did mean SSSC rather than HSS. Sorry for the confusion that caused!
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Alunissage »

D'oh! No, the first comment of mine you quoted was not directed at you. I found your post interesting too; I'm always curious about stuff like that. And, like you, I like some versions of some names better than others, and it doesn't matter much to me who came up with what. I generally don't have much attachment to the item and equipment names, though I like that Kyle still gets Insane Armor as he did in the two WD games -- even if, oddly, his Insane Armor in SSH is his second-best armor instead of his best. The perspective I wish Lunar3coming would get is that a name isn't automatically faithful to and respectful of the original if it comes from XSEED and wildly off the mark if it comes from WD.

And yes, I slipped up with my last edit, confusing the Orb Bangle and the Pleiades Bangle. My point (directed at Lunar3coming) still stands, though: the WD names for those two items, Stone Bracelet and Star Bracelet, were not random or out of nowhere, just different. The name for the Stone Bracelet / Orb Bangle is 魔眼石の腕輪 -- is someone going to tell me that 魔眼石 has absolutely no connection to the concept of "stone"?

Pleiades is a reasonable name for the concept of seven stars, but oddly enough I also see 七星 rendered as an even better-known seven-star constellation, Ursa Major. Either way, WD's choice to just call the item the Star Bracelet is perfectly reasonable and not off-track at all. Again, localization involves choices.

Hey, I just got around to looking at Lunar Legend's item list. Guess what, the same item is in it: a bracelet for Nash, DEF+14, WIS+10. It's called... スターブレス. Good thing WD didn't translate that game, or they might have called it, oh, Star Bracelet? Fortunately, Ubisoft used StarBrac, which is much more respectful of the original.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Shiva Indis »

Okay, I sorted myself out now... SSSC Hell Armlet = SSH Charm Armlet (thanks, Lunar Eclipse ^_^). There is a Hell Armlet in SSSC Talon, while in HSS (according to the guide anyway) there is no Charm Armlet there.
Alunissage wrote:Would any of the Japanese-enabled multilinguals here care to translate the original name 魔眼石の腕輪 ? Is the XSEED name indeed, as lunar3coming claims, "the original names from Japanese so that is why there is such a big change", and is the WD name just "whatever the heck they wanted for the name", without any connection to the original meaning?

Oooh, research! :mrgreen: I've been looking up 魔眼石の指輪 (maganseki no yubiwa), though it also works for armlet 魔眼石の腕輪 (maganseki no udewa). Strictly literally it's magic/evil-eye-stone ring/bracelet. WD took the 'evil' part for the ring and the 'stone' part for the armlet; Xseed took the 'eye' part for both. Too bad neither went for the 'magic' part, considering their effects.

魔眼 is a variant but not unheard of Japanese version of 邪視 (jashi), or the evil eye, which caused those blue Turkish amulets to pop into my head right away. However, interpreting '魔' is tricky, especially for a fantasy property. 魔法 (magic) is good, but 魔族 (Vile Tribe in Lunar's case) is bad (unless Funato is involved).

BTW, forgot about Detonator Armlet until I pulled out my guidebooks. It still makes me smile. :mrgreen:
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Alunissage wrote:D'oh! No, the first comment of mine you quoted was not directed at you. I found your post interesting too; I'm always curious about stuff like that. And, like you, I like some versions of some names better than others, and it doesn't matter much to me who came up with what. I generally don't have much attachment to the item and equipment names, though I like that Kyle still gets Insane Armor as he did in the two WD games -- even if, oddly, his Insane Armor in SSH is his second-best armor instead of his best. The perspective I wish Lunar3coming would get is that a name isn't automatically faithful to and respectful of the original if it comes from XSEED and wildly off the mark if it comes from WD.

And yes, I slipped up with my last edit, confusing the Orb Bangle and the Pleiades Bangle. My point (directed at Lunar3coming) still stands, though: the WD names for those two items, Stone Bracelet and Star Bracelet, were not random or out of nowhere, just different. The name for the Stone Bracelet / Orb Bangle is 魔眼石の腕輪 -- is someone going to tell me that 魔眼石 has absolutely no connection to the concept of "stone"?

Pleiades is a reasonable name for the concept of seven stars, but oddly enough I also see 七星 rendered as an even better-known seven-star constellation, Ursa Major. Either way, WD's choice to just call the item the Star Bracelet is perfectly reasonable and not off-track at all. Again, localization involves choices.

Hey, I just got around to looking at Lunar Legend's item list. Guess what, the same item is in it: a bracelet for Nash, DEF+14, WIS+10. It's called... スターブレス. Good thing WD didn't translate that game, or they might have called it, oh, Star Bracelet? Fortunately, Ubisoft used StarBrac, which is much more respectful of the original.
Nice research but one thing that we need to point out is that 七星の腕輪 and スターブレス are not one and the same, hence the different names. Also, Lunar Legend was developed my Media Rings Corporation and not Game Arts so we can't expect that they are the same either. In fact, the story of Lunar Legend plays out more like the novels where Nash is in Burg from the beginning and you don't find him trapped under a basket by the Sea Hag's house but nobody's bringing up that HUGE difference in the story here.

Also, using the word "orb" for the translation of 魔眼石の腕輪 was pure genius because it cannot only mean "eye" but also spherical "rock/stone/crystal" etc. We don't necessarily need to attach the word "stone" to precious stone names either. We don't say "tiger eye stone /tigereye stone" we simply say "tiger eye/tigereye" and I haven't heard anyone call a "diamond" a "diamond stone" either, have you?

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Alunissage »

Lunar3coming wrote:Nice research but one thing that we need to point out is that 七星の腕輪 and スターブレス are not one and the same, hence the different names. Also, Lunar Legend was developed my Media Rings Corporation and not Game Arts so we can't expect that they are the same either. In fact, the story of Lunar Legend plays out more like the novels where Nash is in Burg from the beginning and you don't find him trapped under a basket by the Sea Hag's house but nobody's bringing up that HUGE difference in the story here.
No one's bringing it up because it's not relevant (though of course the same guy wrote the novels and the scenarios for the other Lunar games). The stats are the same, the details of who uses it are the same, it's in the same location... it's the same item. It's not like GA was the sole developer of SSS either. The point is, someone in Japan thought that スターブレス was a reasonable rendition of the item's name given the limitations of the system (very few items in that game use kanji), so it's not just some wild idea of WD's, as you claim it to be.
Lunar3coming wrote:Also, using the word "orb" for the translation of 魔眼石の腕輪 was pure genius because it cannot only mean "eye" but also spherical "rock/stone/crystal" etc. We don't necessarily need to attach the word "stone" to precious stone names either. We don't say "tiger eye stone /tigereye stone" we simply say "tiger eye/tigereye" and I haven't heard anyone call a "diamond" a "diamond stone" either, have you?
Actually, I have heard people say "tiger's eye stone". Evil eye beads are usually stone beads, banded agates cut to make a bull's-eye effect. And sure, "orb" is a very nice translation. But you're conveniently neglecting to address the full issue. You've said in nearly every post is that WD did a hack job and were way off the track. They weren't. They made some different choices under different conditions (keeping some of the names they used in TSS, for example). As Shiva noted, given a longish name with multiple adjectives -- magic-eye-stone bracelet -- WD used one part of the name and XS used another.

And, of course, in many places XS used WD's name even when a more exact version was available. The first boss in the game in both HSS and SSS is ゼィ・ウーズ, The Ooze. Yet XS kept Saline Slimer, even though they decided to drop Albino Baboon in favor of Snowsquatch for サスカッチ (Sasquatch). And both WD and XS used Mantle Rapper for マントラッパー, which is clearly Mantrapper, although XS did correct WD's Antorion to Ant Lion. アンモナー is Ammonia in SSSC and Nautilus in SSH. ザ・ディープ is The Deep in SSSC and Lurker in SSH. Which is more accurate? There are two similar enemies モノクロプス and キュクロプス, which WD called Monocrop and Kill Roller. XS called the first Cyclops, which is certainly reasonable as they do only have one eye, but then had to call the second one Evil Cyclops even though its name is clearly just Cyclops. (The NA release of Legend called these two Cyclops and Kyclops respectively.)

There are more examples, but flipping through all these books and files is time-consuming. I haven't had time to update my files yet, so I'm surrounded by 5 strategy guides. No, six.

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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by Lunar3coming »

Alunissage wrote:
Lunar3coming wrote:Nice research but one thing that we need to point out is that 七星の腕輪 and スターブレス are not one and the same, hence the different names. Also, Lunar Legend was developed my Media Rings Corporation and not Game Arts so we can't expect that they are the same either. In fact, the story of Lunar Legend plays out more like the novels where Nash is in Burg from the beginning and you don't find him trapped under a basket by the Sea Hag's house but nobody's bringing up that HUGE difference in the story here.
No one's bringing it up because it's not relevant (though of course the same guy wrote the novels and the scenarios for the other Lunar games). The stats are the same, the details of who uses it are the same, it's in the same location... it's the same item. It's not like GA was the sole developer of SSS either. The point is, someone in Japan thought that スターブレス was a reasonable rendition of the item's name given the limitations of the system (very few items in that game use kanji), so it's not just some wild idea of WD's, as you claim it to be.
Lunar3coming wrote:Also, using the word "orb" for the translation of 魔眼石の腕輪 was pure genius because it cannot only mean "eye" but also spherical "rock/stone/crystal" etc. We don't necessarily need to attach the word "stone" to precious stone names either. We don't say "tiger eye stone /tigereye stone" we simply say "tiger eye/tigereye" and I haven't heard anyone call a "diamond" a "diamond stone" either, have you?
Actually, I have heard people say "tiger's eye stone". Evil eye beads are usually stone beads, banded agates cut to make a bull's-eye effect. And sure, "orb" is a very nice translation. But you're conveniently neglecting to address the full issue. You've said in nearly every post is that WD did a hack job and were way off the track. They weren't. They made some different choices under different conditions (keeping some of the names they used in TSS, for example). As Shiva noted, given a longish name with multiple adjectives -- magic-eye-stone bracelet -- WD used one part of the name and XS used another.

And, of course, in many places XS used WD's name even when a more exact version was available. The first boss in the game in both HSS and SSS is ゼィ・ウーズ, The Ooze. Yet XS kept Saline Slimer, even though they decided to drop Albino Baboon in favor of Snowsquatch for サスカッチ (Sasquatch). And both WD and XS used Mantle Rapper for マントラッパー, which is clearly Mantrapper, although XS did correct WD's Antorion to Ant Lion. アンモナー is Ammonia in SSSC and Nautilus in SSH. ザ・ディープ is The Deep in SSSC and Lurker in SSH. Which is more accurate? There are two similar enemies モノクロプス and キュクロプス, which WD called Monocrop and Kill Roller. XS called the first Cyclops, which is certainly reasonable as they do only have one eye, but then had to call the second one Evil Cyclops even though its name is clearly just Cyclops. (The NA release of Legend called these two Cyclops and Kyclops respectively.)

There are more examples, but flipping through all these books and files is time-consuming. I haven't had time to update my files yet, so I'm surrounded by 5 strategy guides. No, six.
I think "snowsquatch" gives a much better feel than "albino baboon" considering that baboons don't live in cold climates and sasquatches (if you believe in them) do. And "ammonia" is a colorless gas while "nautilis" on the other hand is exactly what those enemies are and a much more correct translation. The same thing goes with "cyclops" over "monocrop" (what the heck is that???) and "evil cyclops" over "kyclops" (again, what the heck is that???). As far as I can see from the points you bring up, Xseed did a good job in making these changes and the entire experience is just better overall. I think this also goes to show that Xseed had good translator and excellent localization staff.

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Joined: Mon Jun 04, 2007 12:09 pm
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Re: So, the Orb Bangle ...

Post by MaroonChan »

I'll admit I like a lot of the translation in SSH better, but its not like WD did a bad job. Of course I don't know Japanese and can't compare, but meh. I think they deserve some credit. I mean they did bring Lunar out here and stuff. Personally I loved WD.

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