A nice little article about localisation

Live Free or Don't Posts : 22124 Joined : 2008-08-01

Quote :: Generally everyone agreed on needing to create a parallel experience for the English-speaking player, but as Blaustein reiterated, "People mistakenly think if you translate the words or names directly, somehow you're going to be conveying more of the original essence." He explained how certain words have an exotic echo to the Japanese ear - to replicate this in English you need to change the sound, such as when Woolsey renamed Tina in Final Fantasy VI to Terra. Blaustein agreed, "I'd say Ted was right on the money with Terra. I had this exact conversation with Kojima on Metal Gear Solid. We were talking about characters, and I said, for a Japanese person it has a foreign quality. Decoy Octopus, however you slice it, sounds hokey in English. Looking back, it worked, but not for the same reason the Japanese worked - to them it comes across as impenetrable."

Translation needs to be seamless. Leaving some things unexplained would alienate those unfamiliar with the culture. Using kappa as an example, Swartz was critical of sometimes lazy localizations, "I would argue that if you were to just say kappa, then you haven't localized it. You've done a mish-mashed job which is going to be dependant on pre-existing knowledge. If it's there seamlessly for the Japanese because they have a knowledge of what kappa is, then it's incumbent upon you to either explain it or insert a word so that it's seamlessly apparent to the target audience."

My feelings exactly.