In an interview with Famitsu, Yuji Horii, the creator of the Dragon Quest series, and Takanari Ishiyama, the game director of Paranormasight, talked about their approach to writing game scripts and discussed the challenges of localization.
Ishiyama said he worries that his careful effort to choose the perfect words for Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse might lose its impact when translated. The game was released with English and Chinese language support.
According to Horii, much of the original “flavor” disappears when Japanese is translated into English, making the dialogue sound simpler.
Ishiyama explained this with an example from Japanese pronouns. In Japanese, there are many ways to say “I,” such as ore, boku, washi, and watashi. Each of these can show the speaker’s personality, gender, or age. However, in English, they are all translated simply as “I.”
Horii added that these issues happen because Japanese and English are very different languages. He said he has accepted that English tends to be simpler in comparison.
Still, he believes that voice acting helps solve part of the problem, since tone and speaking style can add extra meaning to the dialogue.
The visual novel Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse was released on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, iOS, and Android on February 19, and it received a score of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic.
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