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For the record, I’m going to make a public confession: I’m a sucker for role-playing games (RPG). So this project was one of the best professional experiences I’ve ever had.
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Shadow Dragon is the eleventh installment of the long-established Fire Emblem franchise, although it’s actually a remake of the original game for NES. Game mechanics combine the classical elements of Japanese role-playing with combat strategy.
It was the first Fire Emblem for Nintendo DS, so the game system had to be adapted for touch screen controls.
Challenges
The Fire Emblem universe is extremely rich and varied. That smorgasbord of information you have at your fingertips can turn into a bit of a nightmare because the terminology is already established, so you have to stay on your toes when it comes to maintaining consistency.
Add a character who’s a prince from a Middle Ages-looking world into the mix and you’ll be working with a whole lot of inconveniences: you’re going to need to get the register the characters use to speak to each other in just right.
Things get even more complicated when you’re dealing with placing a great deal of information on a small screen. Creating short, coherent texts that read well as they told a grandiose tale of battles and betrayal was a genuine adventure.
Creating short, coherent texts that read well as they told a grandiose tale of battles and betrayal was a genuine adventure
Ejemplo de diálogos en castellano
Solutions
My experience translating classical Japanese RPGs as a teenager on amateur tools came in really handy when I started working on this project. I felt quite at home working with all the system variables and tags.
I scoured forums, message boards, fansites, specialized pages and the wonderful terminological database the client (Nintendo) entrusted me with to ensure fidelity in the new texts for the franchise.
In addition, I was also given the chance to test the whole game, building up my skills as a genuine localization tester alongside my coworkers. Testing the game allowed me to ensure the tone worked throughout all the dialogues.
I spent hours on end trying out all the different paths. Some people might have gone mad, but I had a blast. Shouldn’t that give me 5000 extra experience points?
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