Fortissimo FA to be "Translated" to English by SakuraGame

[Yoxall]

*Inserts sad Vader noises* Yep, my worst fears as a Fortissimo fan has come true. Why didn't they just stick to their dirt cheap nukiges? Normally I wouldn't give a shit about SakuraGame, but I just happened to browse Fortissimo's VNDB page earlier this week and saw that it had both a Chinese and English release coming soon. Checked who was working on it and it just had to be the worst company in existence.

To make things worse, they already set up a Steam page for it with the synopsis being heavily machine translated (even getting the main heroine's name wrong). And for some reason, they suddenly decided to create another group called Yamayuri Games to "translate" any Circus (or any of its subsidiaries like La'cryma) visual novels Mangagamer hasn't taken yet. So far, Fortissimo and Eternal Fantasy have been hit with the plague. Thoughts?

I had a good laugh at their response though. Idk what an 'acquate' English translation looks like, but it's definitely far from accurate.

Apparently, they made their announcement on Twitter last week: 

 

[Infernoplex]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! NOOO
NOOOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAa
FFFUUUUCKKKK!!!!!
WHYYYYY???!!!!

[Makotodidnothingwrong]

Can't wait. Hopefully they do a decent job like always. 

[MeguminBlast]

>because we want to take more time to optimize the English script.

Gotta edit that MTL to be readable 

Edited May 26, 2018 by MeguminBlast

[Plk_Lesiak]

If SakuraGame is really going to expand towards serious titles like this we'll soon start missing the times when MoeNovel was the worst company around. 

Edited May 26, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Xander]

GG for all of us gg 

[VirginSmasher]

Things like this are why I'm studying Japanese this year in school.

[Yuuko]

Tell me when they will actually get to the good games

[Huang Ling Yin]

one of our friend @Kratosirving made an english translation of fortissimo series on his youtube channel
fortissimo exa part 1
fortissimo exa part 2
fortissimo exs
kadenz fermata akkord fortissimo magi side
kadenz fermata akkord fortissimo sevent code side
if only we have someone who able to put his translation to a working game patch that would be great though

[Makotodidnothingwrong]

18 minutes ago, Huang Ling Yin said:

one of our friend @Kratosirving made an english translation of fortissimo series on his youtube channel
fortissimo exa part 1
fortissimo exa part 2
fortissimo exs
kadenz fermata akkord fortissimo magi side
kadenz fermata akkord fortissimo sevent code side
if only we have someone who able to put his translation to a working game patch that would be great though

I'll willingly take up this daunting task. I'll need some tools though and some mountain dew. The mountain dew I can buy myself though. 

[Dreamysyu]

Well, shit happens. Now this basically means that this is just another VN that will never see a "real" localization.

[Shinoa]

VNs also sell a lot less then those HRPGs SakuraGames is used to so hope after this one fails they finally give up on VNs

[ShinRaikdou]

If they add lines like

Quote

"I clear away the contaminated tissues with certain loneliness" - Otaku's Fantasy vn

, tl would be already a pure gold.

Edited May 26, 2018 by ShinRaikdou

[Narcosis]

>optimize the english script

>more time

[Zander]

"you can see our improvement in Fox Hime Zero"

As a man of God, I believe in forgiveness and second chances for all, and thus I have purchased Fox Hime Zero. I will report back in 1.99 hours to evaluate their claim

EDIT: Well, I can confirm they have improved, but that's not really saying much.

Even the first line of the VN has a goof

Spoiler

Apparently, our dear protagonist Yan has some cannabis-related aspirations

Spoiler

Additionally, 35 yuan is about 5 USD / EUR. I'm pretty sure this dude would barely be able to afford instant noodles let alone "live high"

Here we have the first conversation in the game, where Yan comes across some "scholarly looking people" travelling to town. Also Yan's first conversation with a heroine, which was baffling to say the least

Spoiler

Spoiler

I'm not sure why these scholarly looking people talk like middle-aged New Yorkers in a mid-life crisis. "I believe this is your tire..." "YO, there's our tire! What are you doing here, man?!" ??? 

Then there is garbled sentences that are just difficult to wrap your head around, or quasi-philosophical mumbo jumbo out of nowhere (which would be a ding against the VN, and not the translation to be fair, but it could definitely be more natural)

Spoiler

Spoiler

So true! LOL! 

To be fair, this IS an improvement from their previous releases. It is often comprehensible. It is not, however, enjoyable nor easy to read. There's grammatical errors every other line and conversations are extremely unnatural. It's a shame, too, because even though I'm not interested in this furry stuff it seems like it could be a relaxing read. The art is pleasant to look at, the heroines have quality sprites with a range of animations, and the setting is serviceable. All this really needs is a proper editor.

In any case, to return to topic at hand...

 Considering that SakuraGame is incapable of handling 10 minutes of a 6-hour long fluffy story where the protagonist hasn't even spoken to anyone yet without making a mockery of the English language, and that this is the VN they pointed to as proof of their improvement... I doubt Fortissimo FA will be any better

Edited May 26, 2018 by Zander

[sanahtlig]

My favorite is this "helpful" comment in the chain linked in the OP:

Quote

There's an app called Grammarly on chrome, i would suggest use it to help when doing the English translation of the game, many errors will appears in red lines and you can fixed them quite easily

Making too much of a fuss over this could actually backfire: SakuraGame will get more attention and it'll increase their sales.  For those wanting to fight this, the Japanese are sensitive to attacks on their pride and reputation: a shame campaign on the licensors could be effective.  For such shame tactics to succeed, the Japanese media and blogosphere needs to be engaged.  Japanese companies don't follow English communities, so English coverage won't reach or affect them.  And obviously, such tactics won't work on SakuraGame.  They clearly don't care about their reputation.

Edited May 26, 2018 by sanahtlig

[bakauchuujin]

Seems like Nekonyansoft really wanted to get the title. Here is the reaction from one of the people working there on their forums.

"As big fans of the series we tried. We really did. 

Sadly we never even got a response from them."

 

Quite a pity that they ended up choosing SakuraGame rather than Nekonyan.

Edited May 26, 2018 by bakauchuujin
Fixed broken text on white backgrounds

[Funyarinpa]

Big Japanese industry has obviously stuck a deal with sakuragame to make people learn Japanese in desparation to not have their most anticipated VN releases ruined

[ArgentstR]

1 hour ago, Zander said:

 

  Hide contents

 

I tire of the word tire.

[bakauchuujin]

Honestly I expect this translation to be even worse than the one for Fox Hime Zero. I don't really think SakuraGame is going to bother actually using time on a project and this VN is 30-50 hours long, so I doubt they will put the same amount of effort into each line as they did for Fox Hime Zero (which itself seems to have had no effort put into it). I expect to see even worse examples from Fortissimo Fa on a later thread than what Zander showed from Fox Hime Zero.

Edited May 26, 2018 by bakauchuujin

[Infernoplex]

1 hour ago, bakauchuujin said:

Seems like Nekonyansoft really wanted to get the title. Here is the reaction from one of the people working there on their forums.

"As big fans of the series we tried. We really did. 

Sadly we never even got a response from them."

 

Quite a pity that they ended up choosing SakuraGame rather than Nekonyan.

I have a question though.

Say a localizer A gets a license for VN X. Does that mean that no other localizer can ever pick up the same VN X again? Is there no way for a proper localizer to officially pick up later the same VN? I know it's a stupid question, but I really have no clue in these matters as I don't know much about legal stuff.

[sanahtlig]

4 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Say a localizer A gets a license for VN X. Does that mean that no other localizer can ever pick up the same VN X again? Is there no way for a proper localizer to officially pick up later the same VN? I know it's a stupid question, but I really have no clue in these matters as I don't know much about legal stuff.

It depends on the contract.  For example, Degica clearly no longer has the right to sell MuvLuv on Steam.  Their contract likely had a time limitation and might've needed regular renewal.

Edited May 26, 2018 by sanahtlig

[Infernoplex]

2 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

It depends on the contract.  For example, Degica clearly no longer has the right to sell MuvLuv on Steam.  Their contract likely had a time limitation and might've needed regular renewal.

So there still could be hope for Fortissimo then? What would happen in case SakuraGame got out of business, say got bankrupt. Does it only take someone to buy their company and acquire all their licenses? Or how does it go?

[bakauchuujin]

Btw didn't SakuraGame lose Hemoimo? Is that suituation special or could it happen in this case aswell?

[sanahtlig]

The license rights may or may not be transferable.  If SakuraGame were to dissolve, their license rights could very well just vanish.  It depends on the contract.  You'd have to ask someone who's worked at multiple localization companies and been involved in licensing.

Edited May 26, 2018 by sanahtlig