#008 The Prisoner And The Champ

Finally back at it. Life's been kind of a rollercoaster recently with a new job, moving to a new house outside of (but still close to) Tokyo, and the loss of a family member, so I wasn't able to work on the script at the same pace as I normally would. The good news is I was still able to get about 20 pages of script translated as opposed to the normal ten page increments I would normally update with. That said, in this update I've basically gotten from where we left off just arriving in Kislev to the end of the Redrum fight in the sewers. Go ahead and download the updated script from the menu up top and have a look.

A couple things to note right off the bat, but the Japanese translation almost never mentions the name of the Kislev capital Nortune, opting often to call it just the 'Kislev imperial capital' (though they do mention the name once later on in the segment). Another slight difference apparent as we're introduced to Rico almost immediately as Fei wakes up is the translation difference between Rico's English nickname "Champ" and the Japanese "King."

There's not too many changes to note other than the typical rewording and aizuchi changes until the Gazel Ministry come back onto the scene. This is the first reference we here of the Lesser Goetia Key, or Gaetia Key as the original English translation names it. The Japanese words say "Lesser Goetia Key," ゲーティアの小鍵 a reference to the Lesser Key of Solomon, an anonymous 17th-century grimoire, which is also known as The Goetia. The Latin term goetia refers to the evocation of demons or evil spirits. Seems very fitting knowing what function the key serves in the context of the game's story so I've changed it from Gaetia to Goetia to fit this reference better.

In this same scene, the Ministry is discussing purging the Lambs using a reactor in Nortune. A line in the scene reads "The fall-out's half life would be 1000 years. Nothing will be able to live within 300 kelts of the blast. Same as before. And still, man survived. Man, our flesh...It will not be destroyed by such a thing." The English translation removes the "Our flesh" line which reads as 我らの肉 in the Japanese. It's referring to man as a tool to revive Deus once the Goetia Key is activated as man is absorbed by Deus, making man in essence its "meat."

After this scene, there's actually very little to note of much interest because of the heavy gameplay elements. A lot of time is dedicated in this segment to the Battling Arena and sewer exploration/clearing Fei's name of the Battler murders. Since all of the exposition here is fairly straight-forward, there's not much in the way of interesting localization choices being made, but as I mentioned, I've gone ahead and cleaned up a lot of the dialogue to make it sound natural. Fei and Citan have met up with Hammer, Rico joins to investigate the Battler murders, and the three of them search the sewers with a fight with the monster Redrum to cap it off. Despite there not being much in the way of interesting localization choices to fix in this segment, it was actually a hefty portion of script so I'm glad I was able to get through it. We're now another step closer to getting to the real meat of the story. Keep you all posted with more in the coming weeks, and thanks for sticking by while there were delays on updates.

Later nerds.

-Nino