Post subject: New naming system for multiregional and non-English titles
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I propose the new naming system to avoid inconsistency that has taken place. Goals: 1) always listing original titles; 2) making the titles recognizable by both Western and Asian audiences. For games released outside of Japan: • use official English title; • • if there are several English titles (Europe & NA releases), use the one that appeared chronologically earlier (we have Wikipedia for release dates), or, if there is no such information, give priority to the NA title. For games released only in Japan: • use English name (see below) together with original name written with kanji/kana in parentheses; • • if a game is an official part of a series (Adventure Island 4 case), use the most commonly accepted English title as the English name; • • if a game is not a part of a series, use romanization of the Japanese title (Hi no Tori case). This way we will always have original name written in original language, AND the most common English name to ease searching. The only disadvantage is that it will very rarely be equal to the ROM name (but that's what we have submission pages for). Here is the list of games that need their titles changed in accordance with the system proposed. Btw, some of the entries will have to be fixed regardless of the system adopted. Y/N.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Post subject: Re: New naming system for multiregional and non-English titles
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moozooh wrote:
For games released only in Japan: ...
I am wondering what to do if we have a movie of a game that has only been released in non-Japanese/English regions without an English title.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
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If the game has an official NA release, but the movie uses a foreign version by a different title, I agree that the NA title should be used to categorize the movie while stating the version difference in the description. However, I disagree in cases like 'Adventure Island 4' where the game is being referred to by a name that it was never officially given. In all other cases, the name of the game should mirror the name of the ROM.
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Need to mention that in the recent cases where whe had to "choose" for titles the rom are cd, witch mean theres no "official" rom name, unless you have a romset for the whole psx&pcengine library, tought that pretty meaningless, for one i rip my own cd so i cant get the "rom name"
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According to my knowledge, there are a few mis-named ROMs. Some are using unofficial names while there're official ones available, some others are just using misspelt or mistranslated names.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
Post subject: Re: New naming system for multiregional and non-English titles
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moozooh wrote:
• • if there are several English titles (Europe & NA releases), use the one that appeared earlier (we have wikipedia for release dates), or, if there is no such information, give priority to NA title.
Why not just use the one most widely used?
Post subject: Re: New naming system for multiregional and non-English titles
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roxahris wrote:
Why not just use the one most widely used?
Agreed. And I prefer romaji in multilingual contexts.
Post subject: Re: New naming system for multiregional and non-English titles
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klmz wrote:
I am wondering what to do if we have a movie of a game that has only been released in non-Japanese/English regions without an English title.
The original name will be used as in case with Japanese titles, the rest will depend on the alphabet used for it (i.e., there's no need to transcribe Latin letters, but there may be a need to transcribe, say, Cyrillic).
roxahris wrote:
Why not just use the one most widely used?
Stop and consider for a minute how you are going to determine which one is more "widely" used. There's no definitive answer. Arguably, we could always give priority to European titles simply because there are more countries and more general population in PAL regions compared to NTSC-U. Using release dates or de-facto prioritizing USA titles are the only solutions that seem feasible to me.
Kuwaga wrote:
And I prefer romaji in multilingual contexts.
This is more difficult than it seems because there are multiple ways to romanize kanji/kana (think l/r, o/oh/ou, silent "u", etc.), and little to ne means to determine which is correct/closer to intended pronunciation.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I thought there was a pretty established system using "ou" for long "o"s, doubling a consonant for tsu, and so forth. I come across notations such as "ō" only very seldom. The difference between r and l doesn't really matter except for when you transcribe katakana, doesn't it? I have to admit I'm no expert on this case, but when looking up song lyrics f.e. there seems to be a pretty much standardised way of transcribing to romaji. Anyway, if it's hard to decide on what kind of transcription to pick what's the problem with just going with the most common one then? The correct kana could still be used for tags so there'll be no problem googling for this site.
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There are about 3 common systems for transcription. I'm not sure what the arguments are for each. I personally dislike seeing 'ou'/o-macron, I always use 'r' unless it's obviously some kind of english name like Larry, and I always write -u or -i whether it's silent or not. Also again 'most common' is not easy to find. Also, sometimes most common is most stupid. I know I run into this situation everyday.
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Most common may be sometimes be most stupid, but if a mistake is common it can slowly become the new standard. I see 'ou' being used almost exclusively, but it may be due to the narrow selection of text types that I look at. What's most common is of course hard to find out, but in cases of doubt I don't see a problem with just picking one version at random. I understand that that's just me though. The idea of a standardized naming system isn't bad at all, but I would miss the romaji. There may be a few others who feel the same way.
arflech
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I know that the use of "ou" leads many Westerners to make a hyper-foreign reading, like reading the last word in the Japanese name of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Bouken) as "BU-ken" instead of "BOW-ken" (as if it were a French word); then again ō isn't easy to type and "o" is inaccurate... Anyway I think the main reason to prefer English names is that most users of this site understand English but not Japanese, even among those not fluent in either.
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The other reason I suggest using kanji instead of romaji is that we — Westerners — don't really need either, but Asian audience prefers that over both romaji and English translations of the titles.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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I'd prefer to have the title be the romanization with the foreign text alongside it. And does the potentially perceived pronunciation really matter? You're not going to stop hundreds of thousands of ignorant people from pronouncing 'Ninja Gaiden' as 'ninnja gayden', and that's an official English title.
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moozooh wrote:
— "Castlevania - Nocturne In The Moonlight" (English translation of a Japanese name while an English counterpart is available).
Ok i totaly forgot it but you can watch the TAS, at the end, the credits say "Dracula X Nocturne In The Moonlight", in english So i guess that one is fine like it is now :p (Unless someone feel like a rip off to substitute Dracula X for Castlevania)
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Somehow I got unsubscribed from this topic, and it's the gazillionth time it has happened to me on this forum, RAWHGRHG.
arukAdo wrote:
Ok i totaly forgot it but you can watch the TAS, at the end, the credits say "Dracula X Nocturne In The Moonlight", in english So i guess that one is fine like it is now :p (Unless someone feel like a rip off to substitute Dracula X for Castlevania)
Well, this might indeed be a borderline case… But I would still suggest "Castlevania – Symphony of the Night" for consistency. And definitely not "Castlevania – Nocturne in the Moonlight", because it's quite literally a mishmash of either name.
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Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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The Saturn version was never released here, though. In that instance, I'd rather it keep the Japanese title. Though yes, 'Castlevania - Nocturne in the Moonlight' would be a horrible name to keep, I agree.
Kirby said so, so it must be true. ( >'.')>