rubyr

Thanks for the good times, Cohost.

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Professional Communications, Print Media, Advertising, Writing.
I love Japanese Print Media.
Learning Japanese since 2019


rubyr
@rubyr

Dragon Quest is considered by many to be a forefather of turn-based RPGs. In the decades since its initial release the game has seen several remakes, remasters, and adaptations. In that time there have been just as many efforts to translate Dragon Quest into English.

I'm a hobbyist translator and student of communication. I love to think about the process of creating art and expression, particularly within text-based mediums. And I have a bit of an affection for the Dragon Quest series.

Since each translation of Dragon Quest was developed by different teams, I wanted to explore the philosophies driving these translations, and maybe to figure out if any one has produced a perfect translation (spoilers: probably not).

In order to research this article I played through or watched let's play content of every mainline remake of Dragon Quest (sorry, no Builders this time!). I also spoke with the talented Nob Ogasawara about his experience translating Dragon Quest for the GBC (more on that throughout the article!).

I’ll be examining the original NES Dragon Warrior, SFC Dragon Quest, Gameboy Color Dragon Warrior, and modern (post-DQVIII) Dragon Quest. The article will mostly focus on comparing translation decisions made in each game and providing context with relevant Japanese Dragon Quest releases.

Note: The SFC translation used is just one of many available. I chose it due to a combination of convenience and translation philosophy. If there's a version you prefer and you're disappointed it's not included here, feel free to share your favourite in the comments. Enjoy!

The journey ahead is quite long. Command?

ContinueSpell
RunItem

rubyr
@rubyr

Apologies to everyone who has been directed to this article and found a gallery of dead links m(_ _;)m
I have re-hosted the images. It may still only be temporary. Perhaps one day cohost will offer self-hosting systems for in-line images that doesn't involve having countless draft posts.

Thank you for your patience.


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in reply to @rubyr's post:

Ahh I love seeing localization writeups! Most of my interactions with Japanese are filling out name charts on wikis. Seeing out-of-the-way loanwords always throws me for a loop, and trying to research what this katakana rendering is can often send me down some interesting rabbitholes.

I have a friend who has been working on a fan-translation for a certain SNES Fire Emblem game, and this is reminding me of the amount of effort he goes through to track down the probable references this and that are. It's hard!

I've always really liked DQ's spell names, the onomatopoeia approach is memorable and concise.

...This is an aside, and honestly barely relevant, but I did come across an all language script dump of DQ Builders 2 recently, would that be to your interest? I've only been poking over it for unused stuff, but it could be a good reference for how they localized the dialogue.

Hey thanks for commenting and thanks for your thoughts :)
If you wanna link the script dump it could be interesting to read, although idk if I'd have the time for sift through it for anything super interesting.