Super Shell Monster Story (Daikaijyuu Monogatari) - Unpoliticized(?)

[bikeking8]

A few years ago, I was trying out translations and came across this game which had me hooked but it turned out a very few parts of the translation was polarizing. Only a handful of lines, but it was enough to have me drop the game. I have to suffer that uncle every holiday season, I'm not trying to read his commentary in my SNES game too. So I used a hex editor and only changed the dialog I could find for my personal use, seems to be working well.

I'm not taking credit for this, as I wasn't part of the team that did the work. Is this something that I should share or would this be frowned upon? I'd like to help others that left concerned comments for this translation enjoy a good game, but the last thing I want to do is cause a commotion.

 

[secreto7]

You should share it, all the people that feels like you will be forever grateful.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

It seems the translator Wildbill is known for inputting his politics into his work. I think most would be interested in a version that removes it. Whether you agree with them or not, nobody wants an intentionally inaccurate translation.

 

[MASH_]

@bikeking8 can you share with us the lines that you think are political?

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 4:26 AM

It seems the translator Wildbill is known for inputting his politics into his work.

for example?

 

[UnDubious]

Wildbill isn't even a translator, he's an editor who thinks he's an author - someone else does the actual translation in his group, and he literally credits himself as "English story writer" in their projects. He will throw in shitty jokes that he will then call attention to, generally make dialogue worse with his awful writing style, and, as you mentioned, throw in political garbage. He did this in a few different games, but Shell Monsters is the worst that I recall. Some of it is more subtle but definitely wasn't in the original game - rants about "incompatible cultures" that "hate us for our freedoms" IIRC, or the angry rant about neutrality in times of war in FEDA (he was mad about France not joining the war in Irak when he wrote that). But sometimes he'll straight up have NPCs talk about FEMA or some shit. There isn't that much of that stuff, all in all, but combined with the bad dialogue, it's enough that I've decided not to play Dynamic Designs translations anymore. There are tons of great fan translations, theirs are the only ones I will not play on principle (along with garbage AI stuff).

To answer your question, sure, share it. Who cares if they don't like it, they had no problem denaturing the games they translated, did they?

 

[TruxtonTatsujin]

for example?

idk this is the first I'm hearing about it. I just looked up the translation in question and the group that did it and found the same complaint multiple times by different people.

 

[gmatrg]

idk this is the first I'm hearing about it. I just looked up the translation in question and the group that did it and found the same complaint multiple times by different people.

@bikeking8 can you share with us the lines that you think are political?

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 4:26 AM

for example?

There's was a tweet that showcased the poor localization choices, but it no longer seems to be available [EDIT: It has been archived]. Thankfully, screenshots of the offending material made it into an article on Legend of Localization. I understand that "politics" has become a particularly contentious term to throw around in general, the world of video games at large, and has even seeped into the inner circle of fan translations, but this is just about the clearest example around of someone inserting their personal political views into something, and came at the expense of the original developer meaning and the game's tone. WildBill is credited with editing the script and did more than just rework jokes and references in the original script unlikely to land with a Western audience. He altered the game's setting and dialog to expound his own personal political ideology with little-to-no regard for the actual content he was dealing with. The setting was changed to be explicitly monotheistic, with the characters now worshiping what is implied to be the Christian God. NPC dialog was scrapped in favor of making frequent jokes about government run healthcare. Actual main story dialog was altered to have villains make references to the evils of communism and the ACLU. There are no parallels or hints of this stuff in the original game, it's a pure invention of WildBill, and if you go looking around certain forums you will find people complaining that this sort of thing was done to other games he worked on, this one is simply where he did it the most.

Somebody taking a look at the actual script and making a restoration patch would be a godsend for this game, and boon for many others.

 

[RageBurner]

I would like these heavily charged translations to be rinsed free of the nonsense with newer, better patches.

 

[jon2]

There isn't that much of that stuff, all in all, but combined with the bad dialogue, it's enough that I've decided not to play Dynamic Designs translations anymore.

Same here

@bikeking8 Thanks for the heads up

 

[freebie#47]

unfortunately....this is how that translation team rolls. They do it on other games too. I don't think they have released any games lately and several teams members have left, but if you contact them, maybe they can give you their tools and you can change it to how you like....but ask nicely. These people worked very hard on these projects.

 

[RageBurner]

If I remember right, the latest patches they had out were Aretha 1 and 2 and Hyper Iria. These didn't have Wildbill's involvement in the script, I believe, so there is that.

 

[UnDubious]

Yeah, you can check the readmes to see which games he worked on or not, there's a few where he didn't. IMO both Aretha games are very subpar unfortunately. I played the first for a good while and it constantly makes you backtrack through the same dungeons, plus both games feature the world's worst idea - multiple enemy parties per random encounter. They were made by the same dev that made Lunar: Dragon Song later (no, it wasn't Game Arts - they're called Japan Art Media).

 

[otogirisou]

Thankfully, screenshots of the offending material made it into an article on Legend of Localization.

After reading that article I'm not even mad, i'm worried. Like, what kind of trauma that make someone's mind to be like that?

 

[bikeking8]

@bikeking8 can you share with us the lines that you think are political?

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 4:26 AM

for example?

Sure - here's pretty much all the parts: https://legendsoflocalization.com/galleries/political-references/#daikaiju-monogatari-super-famicom

I started with those mentioned on that page and continued looking for more likely keywords in the text search, but those seemed to be the extent of it that I could find. For the most part I just replaced such verbiage with something along the lines of "*Continues to rant about nonsense*". Y'know. Because this is a videogame about talking monsters. haha

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 2:57 PM

"......The setting was changed to be explicitly monotheistic, with the characters now worshiping what is implied to be the Christian God......."

Completely forgot to look for such things. Yeah I'm seeing a bunch of that I'll have to edit out. Where should I post the file when it's scrubbed, though?