Hello again, everyone! Today I thought I would bore entertain you with an over 9000 word essay about localization. First off, congratulations to Life Bottle for releasing a port of the original Phantasian Productions fan translation of Tales of Phantasia PSX to the PSP remaster, Tales of Phantasia X (Cross Edition)!
As the translation portion of this project was largely a port of the Phantasian Productions translation, there were several translation/localization issues that needed to be addressed. The most obvious one, of course, would be new or revised dialogue related to the new character, Rondoline (ugh), which would have to be translated fresh or revised. However, there are other issues that one may find less obvious. For example, voice acting was added to much of the dialogue. Thus, there may be sections of the script where the original fan localization made changes to the flow of the dialogue, operating on the assumption that the dialogue would not be voiced, and those changes may no longer be appropriate given the new voice acting, its timing, the way they split the dialogue into text boxes, etc. That text would need some revision as well. Another issue is…
A Brief History of Demon Fang
You guessed it, Artes! Here we go again, you’re thinking, burying your head into your hands. To promote their upcoming release, Life Bottle had tweeted some comparison screenshots between the Japanese and fan translated versions, including a shot of the arte menu, highlighting Demon Fang’s description:
As you can easily see for yourself without even knowing any Japanese, the descriptions do not line up whatsoever. (Bold underlined is what has changed.)
| 剣圧を飛ばして敵を攻撃する | Fire off pressure [from your] sword to attack the enemy. | Base: Unleash a cutting shockwave along the ground. A base arte can be connected from a regular attack. |
| Phantasia X Japanese | Phantasia X Translated | Phantasia X Life Bottle |
|---|
There is nothing in there about “cutting”, “shockwaves”, “along the ground”, “connecting” base artes, nor the categorization about it being a “base” arte at all. Where did all that come from? It turns out because that’s what Phantasian Productions had written for the Demon Fang description, and they just reused that without any edits. One of the Life Bottle lead editors who messaged me about this after I tweeted criticizing it apparently wasn’t at all aware of this, and instead claimed:
We use the official bamco localizations and descriptions for artes and items so that people that are familiar with the terminologies and descriptions from the officially translated games won’t feel a disconnect or any confusion.
[…] if the official loc doesn’t create any issues, then it will stay. Cause it’s there by default for accessibility.
This is, of course, a silly explanation for this, for reasons I will go into in great detail, not least of which is that it’s not “the official loc” for this.
But why did Phantasian Productions write that for the Demon Fang description in the first place, despite it not matching the Japanese text? The answer is complicated, and involves the minutiae of today’s topic, localization. (If you find yourself already yawning in anticipation, you can Quick Jump to the next section.)
First, here’s the Aselia wiki page for Demon Fang. It has quite a comprehensive listing of the various Japanese descriptions for the arte across various Tales games, and official localizations and even fan translations for those descriptions. For example, the earliest official localization of Demon Fang’s description was from Tales of Destiny for the PSX (which called the arte “Missile Sword”):
| 剣圧の飛び道具。剣の間合いの外から攻撃できる | A projectile [formed from] pressure [from your] sword. [You] can attack from outside [your] sword’s range. | A projectile created by air pressure from a sword swing. |
| Destiny PSX Japanese | Destiny PSX Translated | Destiny PSX Official Localization |
|---|
They omitted the second sentence for some reason, but the first sentence was translated accurately and localized well.
Tales of Eternia had this (calling the arte “Sonic Blade”):
| 斬りの剣圧による、地を這う真空波。剣の間合いの外から攻撃できる特技 | A vacuum wave that travels along the ground, arising from the pressure from [your] sword slash. A [base] arte that can attack from outside [your] sword’s range. | Attack the enemy with sonic ripples. An effective skill for mid-range attack. |
| Eternia Japanese | Eternia Translated | Eternia Official Localization |
|---|
They decided to translate this vacuum wave/sword pressure stuff as “sonic ripples”, in line with the arte name. They did translate the second sentence this time, but they omitted the “along the ground” bit.
Tales of Symphonia had this (calling the arte “Demon Fang”, the (inaccurate) name it is known by to this day):
| 斬撃を飛ばして敵を攻撃する特技 特技は通常攻撃から連携が可能 |
A [base] arte that fires off a slash to attack the enemy. [Base] artes can be chained from normal attacks. | Lv. 1 Sp. Attack: attack with a powerful shockwave (attack is linkable). |
| Symphonia Japanese | Symphonia Translated | Symphonia Official Localization |
|---|
The first line of the Symphonia description is very similar to the Phantasia description. Instead of 剣圧 (sword pressure), they have written 斬撃 (slash/slashing strike). In English, they hadn’t yet codified the base/master/arcane/mystic classification system for artes, so it’s just a “Lv. 1 Sp. Attack”, and the translation seems heavily abbreviated. They have translated this thing about “firing off a slash” as “powerful shockwave”.
The GBA version of Tales of Phantasia has (almost) the same Japanese description as ToPX:
| 剣圧を飛ばして敵を攻撃する技 | Attack enemy by firing sword force. |
| Phantasia GBA Japanese | Phantasia GBA Official Localization |
|---|
Very awkward, but an accurate translation. And it is “the official loc”, if “accessibility” is such a concern.
Legendia has this:
| 地を這う衝撃波を放つ特技。 | Base: Unleash a powerful shockwave along the ground. |
| Legendia Japanese | Legendia Official Localization |
|---|
This is more or less an accurate translation, with “shockwave” actually being in the Japanese description. The only embellishment is the adjective “powerful” added in localization. Where did that come from? Hmmmm, I wonder…
In Tales of the Abyss, we see:
| 斬撃を飛ばして敵を攻撃する特技。 | A [base] arte that fires off a slash to attack the enemy. | Base: Unleash a powerful shockwave along the ground. |
| Abyss Japanese | Abyss Translated | Abyss Official Localization |
|---|
The Abyss description in Japanese is identical to the first line of the Symphonia description, with none of the “along the ground” stuff from Eternia, Narikiri Dungeon 2/3, or Legendia. So where did “along the ground” come from? Hmmmmmmmm.
Clearly, around this time, Bamco’s English localization team had decided that they were going to normalize and reuse arte descriptions instead of actually translating them, and simply reused Legendia’s, even though the Japanese text was completely different. This trend continues in Tales of Vesperia and Symphonia 2:
| 斬撃を飛ばして敵を攻撃する特技。 | A [base] arte that fires off a slash to attack the enemy. | Base: Release a cutting shockwave along the ground. |
| Vesperia Japanese | Vesperia Translated | Vesperia Official Localization |
|---|
Here they have at least edited “powerful” to “cutting” to reflect the “slashing” part.
| 斬撃を飛ばして敵を攻撃する特技。特技は通常攻撃から連携が可能 | A [base] arte that fires off a slash to attack the enemy. [Base] artes can be chained from normal attacks. | Base: Release a cutting shockwave along the ground. Base arte can be connected from a regular attack. |
| Symphonia 2 Japanese | Symphonia 2 Translated | Symphonia 2 Official Localization |
|---|
And here, the official localization faithfully translates the second line about chaining artes, yet continues to inappropriately randomly reuse the same Legendia translation for the first line.
Chronologically, these released by the end of 2008. It is in this context that Phantasian Productions decided to more or less copy this Symphonia 2 Demon Fang description for their fan translation of Tales of Phantasia PSX. They made a conscious decision to be consistent with the trend set by the official localizations of the time, and reused the same description text regardless of whether it matched the original Japanese text. After several delays, the translation patch was finally released at the end of 2012.
However, in the meantime, time marched on. Here’s Tales of Graces f, which actually released earlier in 2012 than the Phantasian Productions translation:
| 剣圧による衝撃波を放ち 離れた敵にもダメージを与える。 | Emit a shockwave [created] by sword pressure that can deal damage even to distant foes. | A wave of crushing force released from Asbel’s blade that can damage even distant foes. |
| Graces Japanese | Graces Translated | Graces Official Localization |
|---|
The Japanese phrasing is a return to Phantasia’s “sword pressure” thing. Other than inserting Asbel’s name into the description, the translation is accurate. It is very well-localized.
Here’s Tales of Xillia, 2013:
| 地を這う斬撃をとばして攻撃する。チャージ時は敵を叩きつける剛・魔神剣に変化 | Attack by firing off a slash that travels along the ground. When charged, changes to Fierce Demon Fang, which slams enemies hard. | A pulsating shock wave that rushes across the field. When charged, becomes the enemy-pounding Fierce Demon Fang arte. |
| Xillia Japanese | Xillia Translated | Xillia Official Localization |
|---|
Here, they’ve added back in the “along the ground” thing in Japanese, but the English phrasing was not reused from the earlier official localizations and was instead somewhat mistranslated as “across the field” (which could easily imply not along the ground). Not sure where “pulsating” came from, either.
Here’s Tales of Zestiria, 2015:
| 剣圧による飛び道具を放つ。本来剣での技だが 才能があれば槍で繰り出すことも可能。 | Fires off a projectile with the force of the lance’s blade. Though traditionally a sword arte, a lance-wielder with enough talent can invoke it as well. |
| Zestiria Japanese | Zestiria Official Localization |
|---|
In addition to the “sword pressure” thing, they’ve also revived the “projectile” phrasing from Destiny PSX/Destiny R. Other than inserting a mention of Alisha’s “lance”, this is accurate. It is very well-localized.
Here’s Tales of the Rays, 2017:
| 剣圧による飛び道具を放つ | A projectile attack unleashed by the force of a sword. |
| Rays Japanese | Rays Official Localization |
|---|
Also accurate.
I think you get the picture by now. Bamco official localizations no longer make a habit of blindly copying and pasting previous arte descriptions without regard for what the Japanese description actually is. Therefore, even fan translations that are trying to be consistent with the official localizations should no longer be doing that, nowadays. And yet, in 2026, we have a fan translation that blindly copied what a 2012 fan translation did, which in turn had copied what a 2008 official localization did, which in turn had copied what a 2006 official localization did (with completely different source Japanese text).
And then when this was pointed out, one of the lead editors reached out to defend their work with the excuse that it’s because they “use official Bamco localizations” for “accessibility”. As you saw above, there are myriad official localizations to choose from, if that is the constraint, some of which would certainly be more accurate to the actual Japanese description in Tales of Phantasia X. There is no metric by which the description they showed could be construed as the one true “official loc” that must be used. That wasn’t the actual reason. The reason was that they had simply reused the Phantasian Productions translation without giving it further thought. And that would have been a perfectly fine reason! Something like, “We reused Phantasian Productions as-is, if there are any issues, we’ll look into adjusting it”, for example.
But that wasn’t the reason given, because he didn’t know or bother to find out what the actual reason was, or what the project aims and scope were, before rushing to play defense. (Indeed, he expressed doubt that there was any issue here at all despite how obvious the mismatch was, and was reluctant to ask his translators to check the Japanese and English text because he didn’t want to “waste their time unnecessarily”.) Instead, the reason so confidently provided was merely a rationalization that didn’t comport with the actual facts. Which segues us into the actual topic for today…
Localization Staff Are Often Overconfident and Clueless
Unfortunately, the above behavior is not limited to fan translations. Official localizations can suffer from the same issue, born of overconfidence, lack of integrity, lack of care, or lack of respect for the Japanese source material. Many such examples abound, such as Tales of Hearts R, Unicorn Overlord, or a very big example which I’ll probably save for a future post, but for now I want to focus on one specific example from a specific game.
Neil Broadley is the localization director at Square-Enix for the SaGa series, and he has been active on Twitter as of late discussing his translation philosophy and giving examples of his localization style. I get the impression that he earnestly loves the SaGa series and has worked very hard to promote it and bring it into English for overseas fans to enjoy. Unlike certain other members of the J > E localization industry, I don’t get the feeling that he is overtly malicious or conversing or acting in bad faith. He seems to genuinely want to do a good job and genuinely want to explain his thoughts on Twitter and discuss localization with fans and even critics. However, even then, he is not immune to this mindset.
Recently, he had this to say:
The games I work on are very much my games. They belong to everyone who worked on them, including the producer, director, artists, sound team, localizers, QA staff, programmers, voice actors, and everyone else who brought you the final product. I’m sorry if that bothers you.
The implication here, in the context of the discourse (see previous relevant exchange), is that localization staff are as much part of the original developer team as the original directors, writers, etc., and thus, the localized versions of the game are just as valid as the original source Japanese version. Therefore, what some may perceive to be unnecessary deviations from the Japanese version introduced during localization are not errors, but valid alternative interpretations of the story.
This is, of course, absolute nonsense. Unless localization staff are talking with development team members and actively contributing to the Japanese version of the game, they are not part of the Japanese version’s development. When they then localize the Japanese version into English, their job is not to help make the game, but to make the existing game intelligible to the English-speaking audience. Any mistakes, or worse, intentional unnecessary changes, they make during that process, are then a distortion of the original Japanese work. In order to respect and do right by the original work, you must first fully understand it from all angles, translate it faithfully, and then, if in your informed judgment, something needs changing, you should then carefully make the decision to change it. Or in other words, When in Doubt, If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It.
The Japanese development team has writers, composers, sound designers, artists, cutscene programmers, etc. etc. all coming together to work in unison to ensure a coherent story is being told and a coherent experience is being delivered to the player. Everything can be in flux and incomplete during development, but everyone builds off each other’s work until they reach completion. If the localization staff really wants to claim to be a part of this process, they should be coming together in unison, too, and working in lockstep with the Japanese development team to deliver a coherent experience to the overseas audience. But it is very clear that this is not what is happening.
Neil wrote a Twitter thread explaining his localization philosophy and showing off an example of his work. Remember, this is an example he chose to highlight to the world, without prompting:
Since I’ve talked a lot in general terms about my approach to localization, I’d like to do a deep dive into some localization aspects of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, so you could see my approach in practice. Long thread, please share! (1/X)
If you don’t want to be spoiled about this game, now is your chance to bail (press to Quick Jump past this section). Still here? Very well, then. He explains the context of the scene in question:
I will be discussing one of the Memories of the Seven Heroes, new content explaining the Seven Heroes’ past. Spoilers abound, so be aware. In this scene, Sagzaar regrets his role in banishing the heroes and Orieve consoles him.
Here are some video links for the Japanese and English scenes, so you can view them for yourself. Sagzaar and Orieve are conversing in a dark room. A picture to set the stage:
In Japanese, the way the grammar works, they can easily have Orieve list all the events that happened, then at the end, say those were all things her father did, i.e., were not Sagzaar’s fault. In English, you could easily do this too, but Neil for some reason decided you can’t, and instead wove in the blame shifting throughout the lines, reducing the impact at the end:
| ワグナスに国王様暗殺の濡れ衣をきせたのも、 | Falsely accusing Wagnas of assassinating His Majesty… | You did not falsely accuse Wagnas of slaying His Majesty… |
| ワグナス救出を企てる七英雄を | luring the Seven Heroes to Alabakhan Hill | Nor were you the one who tied Wagnas to that stake… |
| アラバカンの丘におびき出したのも… | so that they could attempt to rescue Wagnas… | …and lured the Heroes to Alabakhan. |
| そして、あなたを力ずくで從わせて | and forcing you to obey his command | Yes, you did indeed help banish them to another dimension… |
| 七英雄を別の次元に追放させたのも、 全て父上が為したこと。 |
in order to banish the Seven Heroes to another dimension… were all acts perpetrated by my father. | …but not of your own volition—only because the true culprit—my father—had you firmly under his thumb. |
| Japanese | Translated | Official Localization |
|---|
It’s still more or less okay as a localization, and one could even make some sort of rationalization about it subjectively being more natural in English to not leave Sagzaar hanging all the way until the end of the sentence as to whether Orieve blames him or not. But Neil didn’t attempt any such rationalization, but rather, a bizarre explanation:
In the JP, Orieve states cold facts to counter his emotional plea, ending with 全て父上が為したこと。(lit. “All of it my dear father did.”), linguistically absolving him of his sins. In EN, I chose “firmly under his thumb” to convey the same feeling of absolution.
What!? What do you mean by “firmly under his thumb” conveying “the same feeling of absolution”??? No it doesn’t. The “firmly under his thumb” part conveys the part where her father forced him to obey his command. The “absolution” comes from her straight up saying up front (in English) that he was not the one to do the first two things and did the last “not of [his] own volition”. (Also, as an aside, if he’s going to provide literal translations… 父上 is not “dear father”, but rather “revered father” (lit. “father above [me]”), a very respectful term suggesting formality, tradition, etc.)
Again, remember, he freely chose to bring up this example and explain it as if he were the one translating and making the decisions here. Was he actually? If so, how did he goof up his explanation of what he did this badly? Or is he just telling the story on Twitter this way as a conceit, when in reality it was his team doing the actual work? Either way, his explanation for what his thought process supposedly was in localizing this scene makes absolutely no sense. Keep this in mind for the next section.
They talk about the impending calamity and Orieve says she intends to wait for the Heroes’ return, despite the danger and the possibility that they might never come back. Sagzaar is incredulous at this, and in response, Orieve narrates an anecdote from the time she got lost in the mountains as a child:
| 私は洞穴で雨露をしのいで、わずかな食料と水だけで過ごした。 | I took shelter from the rain in a cave, and made do with what little food and water [I had/could find]. | I took shelter in a cave, and made do with whatever modicum of food and water I could cobble together. |
| Japanese | Translated | Official Localization |
|---|
Neil had this to say about this line:
The two continue on, and Orieve shares a moment when their dear friend Noel saved her from fiends. In JP, the line about “cobbling together a modicum of food” is not a one-for-one, but the JP line is quite long. so I had to add some color that fits Orieve to match timing.
It is very weird that he had to scrounge around for some “color” to add to the line when he left color out from the Japanese line, about taking shelter “from the rain” (this will be important shortly). The choice of color also reads very oddly. A child “cobbled together” some food and water while alone and lost in the mountains? This phrase, “cobbled together”, typically refers to actually producing something, like a makeshift device, or a crudely-cooked meal. The Japanese doesn’t specify if she already had the food and water on her, or she gathered it from a nearby stream or berry bushes or whatever, but unless she is “cobbling together” a stir-fry, or grilled fish, or something, it’s not a very appropriate turn of phrase for the situation.
Orieve continues her story:
| 夜になると、獣の遠吠えが暗闇に響き渡り、 | As night fell, the distant howls of beasts echoed in the dark, | And when the howling of ravenous beasts echoed off the walls… |
| 怖くてたまらなかった。 | and I couldn’t help but be frightened. | …I wanted to run away. |
| でも、私は洞穴を動かなかった。私は信じて待っていたの。 | But I did not move from that cave. I believed, and kept waiting. | But I stood my ground. I stayed right there in that cave, all the while holding fast to my faith. |
| 必ず、ノエルが見つけてくれると信じていた。 | I believed that surely, Noel would come find me. | Faith that without fail, Noel would come and rescue me. |
| そしてそれはすぐに現実になったわ。 目覚めると、 |
And that swiftly came to pass. When I awoke, | And that he did. When I came to, and my eyes opened at last… |
| Japanese | Translated | Official Localization |
|---|
For some reason, Neil deleted all mention of night falling and it turning dark (again, this will be important shortly). At this point, the scene fades to white, to a still image of Orieve’s perspective of Noel finding her:
| 洞穴に射し込む朝日の中に…彼は立っていた。 | There he stood, bathed in the morning sun streaming into the cave. | He was standing over me, brushing the sweat from my brow. |
| Japanese | Translated | Official Localization |
|---|
What!? So the whole theme of the dark, stormy night, into the savior bathed in the sun come morning, was erased entirely, in favor of some random invented “add[ed] color” about brushing sweat that doesn’t comport with the actual events depicted in the game. He’s obviously reaching his hand out to her from the entrance of the cave after finding her, not “brushing sweat from [her] brow”. I will circle back to this in a moment.
The scene fades back to Orieve and Sagzaar in the dark room, as Orieve approaches the window to open the curtain and let in the light:
Here’s what Neil has to say about this scene:
Orieve uses the tale about the dark cave scaring her as an excuse to open the closed curtain, which sets Sagzaar spiralling. In JP, she says 一日こんな暗い部屋に閉じこもっていたら、体に障るわ。 (lit. “If you stay holed up in this dark room all day, it’s not good for your body.”)
| 一日中こんな暗い部屋に閉じこもっていたら、 | If you shut yourself away in a dark room like this all day, | I have sat cowering in the dark once before. |
| 体に障るわ。 | it will be bad for your health. | And that was enough. |
| Japanese | Translated | Official Localization |
|---|
Obviously, this is entirely fabricated in the English localization. Why? Neil explains:
In EN, I reworked this for a stronger transition, as she is just coming off her long story, and the 180 turn of pace felt too abrupt. Emotionally, it also fits because in both JP and EN, she wants to metaphorically bring the light to her younger self and the despairing Sagzaar.
“Too abrupt”!? The parallels between her story, complete with a picture of the hero Noel literally silhouetted in light reaching out a hand to save her, and her attempt to metaphorically reach out to save Sagzaar by reassuring him he isn’t to blame and literally reaching with her hand to let light into the room, couldn’t be more obvious. Scroll up and read the text again, and look at that picture of Noel in the light. Was that picture included in Neil’s tweet thread about this scene, or that line mentioned? Nope! Even though it’s the key to the entire scene!
It was only too abrupt because he didn’t bother to actually translate the important thematic elements of the story (the dark, stormy night, the morning sun)! And, more than likely, he didn’t even have any idea how the scene unfolded. He legit didn’t know there was going to be that image of Noel in the light. If he did, he should have known better than to erase the entire point of the story from the story.
This is what I mean when I point out that localization staff are not actually in tune with the Japanese development staff and are overconfident and clueless. Somehow, the Japanese writers, cutscene programmers, artists, voice actors, etc. all were working together and knew what was up… everyone except him. There was nothing wrong with the story as written in Japanese. If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It. And yet he felt he knew better. It was “too abrupt” of a shift, in his uninformed opinion, based on how the scene flowed according to his existing mistranslations. Therefore, he felt he had free license to arbitrarily change things further. I bring it up often, but it’s like a game of Telephone, where one unnecessary, unjustified localization change leads to another.
Conclusion
Remember, in both of these cases, the Tales of Phantasia X fan translation team and Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven official localization team felt proud to show off their work, with presumably curated examples that would show them in the best… light. Unfortunately, they chose examples that had… glaring… issues, and then their spokespersons felt very comfortable completely making up reasons to justify what they did that weren’t actually true. Now imagine what they get up to in other areas of their work that aren’t in the… spotlight.
What can we take away from this? I didn’t actually give my opinion of what the circa 2008 Bamco official Tales localization team did regarding arte descriptions. In my opinion, they absolutely should not have done that. Taking weird shortcuts like that creates inaccuracies that can create a divide in the experience gamers have of the same game across languages. Just do it correctly. They themselves generally appear to agree, since they stopped doing it. Unfortunately, Phantasian Productions got caught in the crossfire of their poor decisions, and as a result, what seemed like the right fan localization choice at the time has now become weird and unnatural, without the text itself actually changing. And now Life Bottle is delivering the fruits of those decisions to a new generation of gamers.
As for Square-Enix, they should get their heads on straight and try to actually deliver an equivalent experience to what the Japanese audience got. If the English localization team has such amazing input, by all means, get in there and work with the Japanese development team, and let the Japanese audience experience it too. If the English team’s ideas aren’t vibing with the original Japanese writers, then they’ll push back and reject their suggestions. But that’s not what’s happening. For all the bellyaching on Twitter about how 1:1 translations are undesirable and faithful translation is exceedingly difficult, there was literally nothing in that SaGa scene that didn’t translate directly into English and have the same impact. There were no cultural barriers that warranted making changes. And yet the English localization team went and unilaterally changed the dialogue anyway. Why mess with it when It Ain’t Broke? Do the Japanese writers even know about the changes that were made?
Remember how Phantasian Productions made some changes to the dialogue flow that ultimately had to be revised when the Japanese development team eventually changed the underlying game in a future release? It’s just like that, except it was an in-house localization team that made changes to the dialogue flow during simultaneous localization that ultimately had to be revised… and then the localization team never actually revised it! Why does the localization team seem to not know what is going on?
Personally, I think it is their mindset. The J > E localization industry as a whole appears to be raised on the “common sense” that the original Japanese text can be dry and needs to be elevated to a new level via one’s creative writing talents in order to create a work that will please overseas audiences. I am going to hazard a guess that it is expected for even junior-level localization staff to regularly engage in this practice. They then think their English writing skills are up to this task, not realizing that very few are actually skilled enough to create something arguably better than the Japanese work. (Never mind that even then, many would prefer the Japanese work and not some creative reimagining of it.) Some obvious notable examples of this would be Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions/Ivalice Chronicles, or Unicorn Overlord, where they mess up basic characterization, nuance, and plot details in their haste to cram clumsy renaissance faire affectations into every other line. It’s very cringe, as they say. They think they are Final Fantasy XII, but—and this may be a bitter pill to swallow—they are not.
They would be much better off just Don’t Fixing It and trying to be as faithful as possible. They should be proactively trying to seek information to this end, like requesting context, script notes, art, scenes, etc. from the Japanese writers to make sure they get it right. Doubly so if they are an in-house team that should be able to work closely with the development team.
Anyway, I will probably go into further detail on that topic another time, but this is plenty enough for now. I hope you found this article… enlightening, or at the very least, a good sleep aid. Until next time, and enjoy the holiday!





February 15, 2026 at 12:01 pm | Permalink
I gotta say this was an interesting read. I think the SaGa example is kinda lost on me though, since I never played nor intend to play those so my eyes kinda glazed over because I wasn’t fully understanding what you were saying.
Either way, it’s interesting to find out Tales of games change arte descriptions despite them being the same in a sense.
I think the Phantasian Productions translation is my favorite of the Phantasia translations (I’m not crapping on Absolute Zero or the official, either) and the artes having “Base” or “Arcane” is nice to see, but I do think the arte descriptions should at least have been redone like you said.
Either way, this has been my favorite and imo the best version of Phantasia yet so I’m gonna keep enjoying it, but seriously thanks fer yer thoughts on it. I do enjoy these localization posts ya do, and hope ya keep doin’ ’em!