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Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana is one of our best-reviewed role-playing games of the year, but publisher NIS America admits that the Western release has one big flaw. In an open apology to players, company president and CEO Takuro Yamashita said called the quality of the English-language localization “a grave error.”
“It has come to my attention that the quality of the Ys 8 localization has not reached an acceptable level by our own standards, but most importantly by yours,” wrote Yamashita. “As president of NIS America, Inc. I want to apologize to you personally for this grave error. This situation should not have happened — especially to a game as wonderful as Ys 8 and by a company that strives to deliver the very best customer experience in each title.”
Reviews criticized the game’s translation for having numerous typos and grammar errors. We called Ys 8’s writing our “biggest concern” in our otherwise highly positive review.
“It feels like at least some of its occasional inanity may stem from the translation,” we said of the storyline, noting that this is the first Ys game published and localized by NIS America.
Overall, the script was regarded as a mixture of inconsistent language and odd phrasing.
How the fuck do you turn english into engrish in your localisation? What the hell is NISA smoking? pic.twitter.com/q7SFsDzXtH
— Hannes (@Rucean) September 17, 2017
The original Ys VIII localization will go down in history as one of the worst translations, but it's still fun to look back pic.twitter.com/ashhPLAYnc
— Spooky Pixel (@PixelMatt64) October 10, 2017
Players called out particular portions of the localization on Twitter and Reddit, and some fans even organized a letter-writing campaign to voice their frustrations directly to the game’s developer, Falcom.
NIS America plans to address the problem for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions with a free patch, which should arrive at the end of November.
“As for Ys 8 itself, we will have a new translator and editor go over the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations,” wrote Yamashita of the company’s plans to fix the localization. “For the script, where necessary, we will re-translate and re-edit the game including updating voicework to reflect these changes.”
The game has yet to launch on Windows PC, but when it does, it will already have the new localization. Anyone who’s still sinking their teeth into this lengthy RPG can look forward to an updated script soon enough.
