ARM Backup/Ar tonelico 2 retranslation/Style Guide

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Style Guide

The purpose of this page is to help our translators and editors maintain consistency in the naming of characters, game terminology, and other such major decisions. Things listed on this page are considered final: please don't change them without discussion on the forums, and think hard about whether it really matters before you raise the issue again (some things like Jacqli/Jakuri have already been beaten to death.)

Goals are to:

• Remain consistent with the AT1 localization.
• Correct the spelling of Hymmnos language names and terms.
• Restore the original Japanese romanization of names which were written in kanji.
• Keep other changes to a minimum, so as not to confuse players and create unnecessary work for project staff, especially for the graphics editors.

Names to Change

• Luca Trulyworth to Luca Trulywaath: Hymmnos surname. Luca is written in kanji, but is also the official romanization. Also, keeping "truly" since it's the correct English spelling.
• Reisha Trulyworth to Reisha Trulywaath
• Batz Trulyworth to Batz Trulywaath
• Leyka Trulyworth to Reika Trulywaath: Reika is written in kanji.
• Cloche Leythal Pastalia to Cloche Leythal Pastalie: Surname was arbitrary changed by NISA. However, her first name won't be changed for the same reason as Croix's, and I think her middle name is unimportant.
• Jacqli to Jakuri: Jakuri is written in kanji. In addition, staff comments and in-game conversations make it clear that the name was intended to sound strange and unfeminine, which Jacqli is not particularly; as well as also being originally the name of a type of mythological Metalfassian demon.
• Goro to Gengoro: Only if it can be dealt with via a simple dialogue tweak in her introduction- i.e. "I'm Gengoro, but you can call me Goro."
• Moira to Leila: Inconsistent with AT1.
• Halvastasha to Harvestasha: Hymmnos name.
• Miwa Togasaki to Miu Togasaki: In Jakuri's Cosmosphere, originally 美羽. The translator messed up.
• Reish Ryokuya to Reisu Midorino: Another kanji name changed for no apparent reason.
• Lady Momoyo to Lady Byakuya: Again, a kanji name changed without any reason (the JP voice actors pronounce her name as "Byakuya-jou").
• Fuglycool to Coolame, thank goodness.
• Honorific suffixes: try to make the address sound as natural as possible in English. Sometimes this means "Miss Reisu" for "Reisu-san", "Little Reika" for "Reika-chan", and so on. Sometimes it means dropping the honorific altogether, if an English speaker wouldn't use one (like when students address each other).
• Laude to Dr. Loude: attempting to preserve the "loudness" aspect of his name, and the contrast it has to a character related to him who appears in Ar tonelico 3. The Dr. is to not leave his rank forgotten.
• The names of the Song Magic characters, whenever they need to be reverted back to their originals, while adding an explanation of what their names mean in English in the dialogue where they are introduced. Examples:
  • Smiley Girl -> Emiko
  • Loveydov -> Renren
  • Bandeid -> Bandaid
  • Crylady -> Nakime

Names that Won't be Changed

• Croix Bartel: NISA's rationale for this change (the name was derived from the French word) is reasonable, and the last name is unimportant.
• Cocona Bartel
• Leglius Branchesca: Trivial spelling change, unimportant.
• Amarie Gelade
• Soope
• Cynthia: Not so trivial spelling change, but Cynthia is a more proper name than Sincere, and may have been the intent of the creators.
• Sasha
• Skycat: While technically written in kanji, the forum consensus seemed to be that a nonsensical pun (Skycat/Seacat) was better than a pun left in Japanese (Soraneko/Umineko.) Lelina can also stay as is.
• Raki, Reki
• Miros
• Souffle
• Lakra: Also the name of a location, and perhaps the meaning of a homophone word in Spanish ("lacra") is fitting after all.

Terms to Change

• Infel Pira to Infel Phira
• Pastalia to Pastalie when referring to the Hymmnos dialect
• Solfege to Sol Fage: The original name of the hymn, and the "Sol" part is important due to being the main means of communication with Frelia/Sol Marta.
• Replakia to Replekia: Arbitrary change by NISA.
• Spheria to Sphilia
• Tune to Note: Refers to the Hymmnos dialects, used in Terminology section.
• Al Ciel to Ar Ciel: Arbitrary change by NISA, inconsistent with AT1 and the plot summary that was revealed before and during AT2's release.
• Fuero to Homura, Aqua to Mio: Change these back to the Japanese terms, as they are more easily relatable thanks to the Hymmnos Concerts and the image songs with the same titles as these terms.
• Guardian of the Mind / Mind Guardian (enemy): Mind Avatar. The original 心の守護神 expresses a divine protector, and is separate from 心の護, which is what Infel and Gengorou are.
• Gaea to Deathlandia, the name for Cloche's spell that summons the continent; Luca's corresponding spell is called 魔大陸, suggesting that they are synonyms.
• Spiritual World to Soulspace: Since there were instances were Soulspace was mistranslated as "Spiritual World", breaking up the consistency in the translation of this game itself and it's consistency with At1's localization.
• Implanter to Implanta, given it's a proper Hymmnos word and a term describing an important part of Rhaplanca's tale.
• Veena to Viena, since the word seems derived from the Spanish and Italian words for "coming", and because the name of the song seems to be linked more to the capital of classical music, Vienna, than to the veena instrument.
• Magic to song magic, if the original text is 詩魔法. 魔法 by itself can be translated as "magic".
• Ponbertan to Bon Beltan. According to Ayulsa, this is closest to the real restaurant being parodied.
• Pippen to Pepen
• Acquiring (in reference to song magic) to crafting; more poetic, closer to AT1 localization, and somewhat closer to 紡ぐ.
  • Phrasing example for the message when you get a new song magic: You crafted the Red Magic [Moody Girl: Lv 2] Gazing Eye!
• Standardize party change message to "<Color: Yellow>X<Color: Normal> has left/joined the party"
• Call Cosmosphere levels stratum (plural strata) if the original is 階層; keep as level if the original is レベル.
• Consider persona (plural personas) to describe the incarnation of a Reyvateil on a particular level of her Cosmosphere, especially if the original is 人格.
• Conductive/Conductor waves and standing waves to Dynamic Waves and Static Waves: to keep consistency with their official English names from the Settei Book, and because the names used in NISA's version don't seem like terms that would be used in physics, not to mention that these names lost the implied explanation about the nature of the waves.
• Sea of Nam to Sea of Num: given that it's supposed to be the Sea of Nothingness from where the universe is born, according to Wave Theory, and num is a Emotion Sound meaning nothing/ness in Hymmnos.
• Travel Basket (in Cloche's Cosmosphere) to inn.
• Ending ceremony (in Cosmospheres) to completion ceremony. A little more positive and meaningful.
• Cocona's characteristic ぷー consistently to boo and ぷーだよぷー to boo to that.
• Cloche's characteristic ごきげんよう to how do you do.
• Nuclear Triangular Loop and Core Triangle Ring to Nuclear Triangular Loop.
• Fourth-Dimensional Core Square Ring and 4D Conformal Nucleus Loop to Autostabilizing Nuclear Tesseractal Loop.
• B-Neu and B-Villa to B-Nnoi (B1) and B-Vira (B5), which are sectors of the Rim.
• Standardize on Maiden, capitalized, for 御子.

Terms that Won't be Changed

• Hymnos: Needs to stay consistent with AT1. Unfortunately.
• Hibernation: AT1 changed Linca to Linker and Paja to Purger, so this is reasonable.
• All place names: Mostly trivial changes, and would be an excessive amount of work for graphics editors.
• Dive Therapy: No reason to change it.

Punctuation

• … and all combinations/repetitions of become ...
• …。 by itself becomes ．．．
• Consider - rather than ... at the end of a sentence if the speaker is cut off abruptly, rather than tailing off
• I.P.D.: IPD
• One space between sentences
• One space between ... and next word
• Does our font have proper left and right quotation marks? If so, we should use them. (Void: this is now handled automatically by the repacker, provided the standard quote is used in all files.)
• Remove emphatic quotation marks ("Tower of Life") and use square brackets instead ([Tower of Life]).

Other Things

• Milady for Skycat's "sempai"

A lot of the characters' original voices are lost in the official localization. The prim, haughty Lady Cloche blurts out lines like "Whoa, what's the matter!?" and Croix's respectful, humble responses have changed to junk like "Thanks, but no thanks". We should try to restore the decorum to that relationship. Meanwhile, Luca and Croix are long-time friends, so it's natural for their conversation to be relaxed.