ArcSys Localizaton Practices

[edscissor]

Hi, I'd like to ask a few question regarding ArcSys localizations from CSE onwards. As someone who cares a lot about localization quality, my interest was piqued when the subject came up recently (albeit briefly) in the CF news topic. In it, a company named "Strangely Compelling" was brought up. After some quick googling I discovered that company was responsible for vanilla CP's rather... questionable localization (that FMV where the spoken lines didn't match the subtitles immediately comes to mind). Reading a Dustloop thread about said localization made me inclined to ask some questions, as even though the numerous problems with SC's "works" weren't or won't be fixed, I'd like to at least familiarize myself with said issues so I could take note in the future:
 

1. SC's work on CSE is considered to be pretty terrible. I'd be happy if anyone could elaborate, as I don't recall anything particularly offensive (aside from Bang mentioning "Ice Cars" word-for-word outside of a gag reel. What is it with localizers thinking that memes are the pinnacle of human creation anyway?).

It should be noted that I haven't played the tutorial, and from what I heard a lot of SC's issues show up in those. I also can't speak Japanese so I can't tell if they made any unnecessary changes to some lines, or alternatively, translated the text TOO literally.
 

2. According to their website SC also worked on -SIGN-, GGAC+R and Battle Fantasia. Were these botched as well? From what I could gather -SIGN- has text/voice mismatches in the tutorial, and at least a few people - myself included - are less than impressed by the English voicework, especially when compared to BB's.
 

3. Did SC work on any other ASW-published games?
 

4. It seems that Aksys were the ones who localized BBCPE. Did they fix any of the issues (apart from bringing back Library mode)?
 

5. And most importantly - who's localizing Revelator? Because if Strangely Compelling touched it however slightly I'd like to know, so I could at least prepare myself mentally.

[NeoStrayCat]

I'll ask some of your questions, but be reminded that this reflects my own view of opinions, and have no relation to SC in general, I've met them at AX (Anime Expo) a couple of times over, but that's much it. They're really nice guys, but yeah, on the work of localization, that's another story.

1. I haven't got the brightest answer for that. Sorry, can't really help there. >.>

2. +R and Battle Fantasia were done previously in the late 2000's, I find no botches, so everything on the translation front worked rather fine on those 2 games. But yeah, Xrd however, in small spots kinda did, I dunno if update patches fixed some of the translation errors, but I guess that's something in the works, some people already mentioned a mistake on one move name of Raven in Revelator, so yeah, fans doing work to let the companies know to fix stuff.

3. I wish I knew, lol. All I remember is that they also worked on stuff with/from 5PB/Mages (Example: Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds), I also remembered they had Mighty No.9/Steins;Gate and etc. displayed at AX. (Maybe promotional work with Comcept/Inti and Rice Digital/P-Qube)

4. I can't be sure, cause I wish I knew, although if anyone else knows, feel free to reply.

5. Well, about that...>.> (Yes, this is in Revelator's credits, more presumably, the demo version. So that's much more of an answer there.)

[Suzaku]

Arc System Works started localizing their marquee titles "in-house" (I suppose in reality contracting Strangely Compelling) beginning with Continuum Shift Extend, I think it was. Which is a shame because Aksys Games really went the extra mile. Aksys does still work on the localizations to a degree, but they don't have nearly as much control over the product so issues have made it through to release. They've been doing their best to ensure that the localizations are as good as possible, at least.

[Hero19]

Did Strangely Compelling also do ChronoPhantasma Extend as well?

[edscissor]

Just now, Hero19 said:

Did Strangely Compelling also do ChronoPhantasma Extend as well?

Pretty sure it was Aksys, hence question No.4.

I also wonder if the issues in Xrd were ever fixed. Either way I'd still like to thank anyone who could provide information thus far, even if it's not a lot.

[Tokkan]

No, CPEX was also Strangely Compelling.

[Hero19]

3 hours ago, Tokkan said:

No, CPEX was also Strangely Compelling.

I don't understand why they keep using these people despite the complaints on their localization being half-baked or atrocious. They should give Blazblue back to Aksys since they are the ones who help build it up after all. Does Aksys only stick to publishing Blazblue now?

[Kitsoru]

This is all really interesting and answers a lot of my questions regarding the sudden dip in quality of GG's localizations. Thanks for bringing it up. So this company is also responsible for the English voicecasting, or is it the scripting only? Curious if they also worked on Overture.

[Tokkan]

1 hour ago, Kitsoru said:

This is all really interesting and answers a lot of my questions regarding the sudden dip in quality of GG's localizations. Thanks for bringing it up. So this company is also responsible for the English voicecasting, or is it the scripting only? Curious if they also worked on Overture.

Overture was Aksys. Strangely Compelling's only been doing things with ASW since BBCSEX.

Strangely Compelling is responsible for localization and PR management of ASW properties in the West. They run the ArcSystemWorksU twitter account and Arc System Works Universe website. With regards to voice casting, apparently Valerie Arem from PCB Productions had some say in casting decisions for Xrd if we're to believe some of the comments from a few of the VAs.

[Kitsoru]

I haven't really touched BB enough to see any of the english translations or changes in it, so I guess I wouldn't have noticed until now lol. But makes sense as well since Overture had a more literal translation than Xrd seems to. I'm going to assume SC was then also responsible for putting together the NA-exclusive boxset from Xrd-Sign? Since the booklet that came with it had some of the same kinds of dubious information that seems to be a hallmark of their work, from what I'm reading.

So PCB Productions handled the voicework/casting (I assume she was the voice director then? It's hard to tell since none of GG's english casting has ever been credited...), and SC handled the script for them?