Edelweiss’s “translation” renders the game unplayable.
By Moogy | July 16, 2008
Following up on the MangaGamer saga.
I have recently acquired Edelweiss, one of the first games available from MangaGamer. As the title of this entry should tell you, I am rather unimpressed with their efforts.
The English script is on par with the output of Atlas; though it may be a bit more coherent than machine translation, it is just as flat, lifeless, and difficult to follow. In fact, I would go so far to say that Edelweiss’s “translation” could be considered worse than machine translation, as the script is plagued with capitalization, punctuation, and spelling errors that only a very lazy translator could produce. And, well, the grammar can hardly be considered proper, either.
It’s not just the bad translation. I could live with awkward sentence structure and phrasing as long as the script were readable on the whole. However, Edelweiss’s “translation” is completely half-assed from top to bottom. The aforementioned horrendous spelling errors (“deffinately” is a great one) are the most obvious example of lack of effort, but the script is also riddled with instances of sound effects being translated as descriptive phrases (due to apathy toward localizing them, I’m sure), words and occasionally entire sentences being translated to a single question mark (just complete laziness), extremely strange and literal metaphors and turns of phrase, etc. etc.
Edelweiss actually seems like a pretty enjoyable game with a light-hearted atmosphere, lots of humor, and some cool girls. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that anyone will ever complete a playthrough of it in “English.” I use quotations here as MangaGamer’s translation of the game certainly cannot be considered an English script for anything in particular. One might be able to call it a literal transcription of a Japanese game into a language that vaguely approaches a simile of English, but that is about as far as one can go. So, congratulations, MangaGamer, on ruining what could have been a fun experience.
Also, as if it weren’t obvious enough already, this… thing is certainly not worth 40 fucking dollars. [ed. note: they were selling it for 50 EUR/80 USD initially] No fucking way. For you Europeans out there, that means this half-assed piece of shit that MangaGamer tried to pass off as a legitimate product isn’t fucking worth 25 euros, either. It’s not even worth 25 dollars. In fact, any sum of money is too great to be expended upon MangaGamer’s lack of effort. If you want to play Edelweiss in English, either download or buy the Japanese version, and run a chimerical assortment of translation tools on it. The English you’ll receive from that method won’t be pretty, but at least it won’t be insulting.
I’d also like to a give a pre-emptive note of appreciation to MangaGamer for ruining Da Capo, a game I have wanted to play for quite some time now. Thanks for caring so much about your customers and the quality of your products, guys! By the way, Da Capo is currently set to retail for 50 euros, or 80 USD.
…And I didn’t even mention the intrusive DRM! Not only are they selling this garbage for 40 dollars, but they’re nice enough to include some lovely DRM with it. Aw, thanks, guys, I really wanted a rootkit to go with my Engrish.
If I sound overly upset about this, it is because I am quite disappointed that a company with an apparently genuine interest in helping spread a unique bit of otaku culture to English speakers has proven to be a half-assed operation that apparently has no regard for its customers whatsoever. Sorry guys, but MangaGamer is not going to be the company to revolutionize the English eroge/visual novel market.
Oh, and one more thing, even though you’ve probably figured it out by now. Do not buy this game. Do not buy Da Capo or any other future MangaGamer product unless the translation has been proven to be at an acceptable level of quality. And, above all, do not support a company that would dick over its fanbase in such a ridiculous manner.
tl;dr version:
<Aerly> I gave up at “a guy throwing up”
<Moogy> rofl
<Moogy> it actually gets worse
<Aerly> I saw that
<Kefit> Aerly: I gave up around “Why are you having hard on? Still throwing up”
<Kefit> A couple of lines later was “When this big man talks, we can’t help to stand straight by conditional reflex”
<Kefit> Then I just closed it
Topics: Visual Novels | 17 Comments »
July 16th, 2008 at 5:25 am
[???]
“a guy throwing up”
July 16th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Thanks for dashing my hopes of remotely seeing a translated Da Capo game.
No sarcasm intended. Really, thank you.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:02 am
…this is really bad news. Isn’t it.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Oh wow. Maybe they did in fact a machine translation. I have no idea how long they took to translate all the games, but speaking of experience translating some visual novel requires dedication and a lot of skill. Given that the amount of text is quite large, there must be at least two editors (using a spellchecker is a must) and some other proofreaders. Otherwise the outcome is doomed to be something like Moogy rants above.
I think the company’s plan was to “monopolize” the (almost) competition less market with a scarce capital.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:14 am
It probably has a lot to do with the fact it’s a Dutch team translating Japanese to English. Although, that still can’t excuse just how utterly lazy the spellchecking (or lack of) is. I’ve read that the translation itself is actually quite accurate, though.
An update on the homepage explains that they have recieved many complaints and are looking into it. I’m really hoping they make an incredible improvement on it because I can honestly say I’m still interested.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Sure there are some weird translated parts. Sure there are spelling errors and dumb mistakes. But to compare it to a machine translation or worse is downright stupid and ignorant.
The mistakes will be more apparant to native English speakers I guess. They do not bother me that much though. I played plenty of games using Atlas + AGTH and while those attempts often result in riddled sentences and a story I am hardly able to follow, Edelweiss is very playable and easy to understand. Some sentences are puzzling, but they are rare and hardly hurt the game experience (for me at least).
Of course I’d urge mangagamer to do better quality checking. There are plenty of stupid and embarassing mistakes, but the way you portray them in your article is way too harsh. I’ll gladly pay 30-40 euro’s for some of the games they will release in the future. Too bad for Americans the company does prices in euro’s, since the dollar is doing so bad now.
Since the DRM has been cracked already, I hope they will remove it from future titles though.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
[...] localized by a new ero-game company from Europe, Manga Gamer. Now, I’m quite aware of the controversies surrounding the quality of their releases, though for this title it was noted that a patch was [...]
August 5th, 2008 at 3:23 am
I will state this first:
I am a word freak. I am proud of my vocabulary and am a perfectionist when it comes to grammar. I have played Edelweiss, and yes, the horrid “translation” does piss me off. However, I do not think it is impossible to play. Yes, their are some(OK, a lot) really bad spelling errors(one I saw multiple times was “Weired”(Weird). However, that does not mean that I approve of the level of the English translation used in Edelweiss. You should also take into account, however, that the people who translated it might have poor English skills. If that is the truth, then I think they should be forgiven, since they tried their best, I would assume. If it is, however, due to laziness, then “DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM TO HELL!”
August 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
It may interest you to know that MangaGamer have provided a patch to the early versions of Edelweiss, which apparently (I haven’t seen it myself) makes the English level much, much better.
It may also interest you to know that there are multiple native English speakers who’ve been brought in as proofreaders of Da Capo, and also that they’ve pushed back the Da Capo release date to allow time to fix the translation. I’ve been really looking forward to playing Da Capo, and I was thoroughly distressed when I heard about the level of English in MangaGamer’s initial games; however, I’ve been in contact with the guy in charge of the Da Capo release, and he’s really committed to getting a top quality English translation out.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Can someone upload the patch?
April 9th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I think it’s hilarious that ChaoScythe states that he is a perfectionist when it comes to grammar, yet he goes on to make multiple grammatical errors after that claim.
That is all.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Hmm I have to say one of the worst translation jobs .. period. I mean I doubt it was even proof read. I mean how can you not find an error, when 70% of your script is one massive… error – example “Rei Ende up doing the cleaning all by herself” Its Rin and End jesus.
I fear for Higurashi .. greatly
October 20th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Your post carries a hidden washed away, I just know it
March 20th, 2010 at 7:12 am
Why do you ewen bother writing this useless stuff? The game is realy interesting and romantic. The story line is great, and the english translation aint so bad. So what that there are spelling mistakes, hell, i bet i got mistakes too… So what?
Dont know about other people, but i realy enjoyed it!
June 27th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Yeah this review sums up my impression’s of the translation, I am still playing the game and like the setting but it’s not unfair as some claim above me that this is of similar quality to a machine translation. I am amazed at the shear variety of errors they made, here’s a few of my favorite:
Any words starting with App are capitalized, such as Appropriate or disAppeared, probably a time-saving method because of Appo.
They are discussing the “Students and Stuff”, then go to a store with lots of interesting “Staff.” Now I suppose they could need walking sticks, or magical staves but I somehow doubt that.
Also while my understanding of Japanese is limited, it does seem like frequently phrases are shortened from 6+ words to…one. Yes I know, languages are different but there were a few that I would recognize, such as “I’m glad you are ok” to “Yes.”
July 13th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
I know this is really an old article but I just played this game recently and I just wanted to quote this verbatim.
“I pull my dick out of her pussy. That moment, stinky cream pops out in great force.”
This line had me cracking up.
July 14th, 2010 at 12:47 am
another gem
“Ran sucks off my balls like an animal eating grass.”
wtf