TheRyusui
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Location: The Velvet Room
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Poetry and Video Games
It's amazing what you can do with the right inspiration. ^_^
The Sylvanian Families games - and, in fact, most of the media based on the franchise in Japan - have this little monologue attached to them. Midori no yama wo ikutsu mo koete soko he to itta koto ga arimasu ka and so forth (roughly "In all the times you've crossed the green mountains, have you ever been there?"). When I fan translated the first one, I was stuck with a puzzle: here was something important, and I was baffled at first as to the best way to go about things. It was certainly too central to the franchise for a straight translation. I searched for an official English version of some sort, to no avail. Then, inspired by the opening monologue of Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, of all things, I decided to give it a crack myself...with a poetic twist.
And the end result, as you've glimpsed in my signature, was this:
quote:
In all your journeys, have you seen
The land beyond the mountains green?
Go where the trees hide sun and sky.
Follow your heart, and you will find...
Sylvania Village.
A world of dreams the woods obscure,
where kindness lives and love endures.
So if you're lonely, listen clear.
The wind tells stories, far and near...
It's fun to realize that more poetic and dramatic translations have begun to sweep the English localization scene since then. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for PSP is a shining example, replacing the awkward (and often just plain bad) translation of the original PS1 version with something downright Shakespearean. The major villains of FFXII are notable for speaking in iambic pentameter (with the rebel among them having a different poetic speech pattern), and I think one of the shining examples I need to hold up - one that makes my own work seem like doggerel in comparison - is the Mysidian prophecy in the DS version of Final Fantasy IV. Before now, it's typically translated straight, and the end result is a stodgy boilerplate "fill-in-the-names" bit of text the actual meaning of which has been hotly contested, possibly because it's actually missing a few words. But the DS version? Pure poetry, and despite fudging the actual words slightly, it better captures the original version's meaning. Behold:
quote:
Birthed from womb of dragon's maw
And borne unto the stars
By light and darkness cast aloft
Are dreamtide oaths resworn
Moon is swathed in ever-light
Ne'er again to know eclipse
Earth, with hallowed bounty reconciled
Simply...beautiful. When I read those words in the manual, I knew I was in for an awesome new localization. Best of all, all the games to reference FFIV or feature its characters and locations since then have used the DS version's terminology and nomenclature - I have yet to play the full version of Dissidia for PSP, but in the demo, Cecil even quotes it for his super move ("Light and darkness cast aloft!").
Right now, I'm in the middle of a DS game called The Dark Spire: it's something of a throwback to old-school dungeon crawlers, i.e. "relentless difficulty as selling point." XD But there's also something of a literary quality to the work, perhaps because the creators were thinking of old D&D sourcebooks when they wrote the flavor text for everything. There's even a nice touch where a quote from a fictional book - "Chronicles of the Dark Sword" - is sometimes displayed when you enter the tower. All in all, it rather hearkens back to some of the really old-time Interactive Fiction, although less about storytelling per se than making you tear your hair out. ^_^;
Which brings us full circle: The Dark Spire's translation was done by Atlus, the same fine people who brought the Shin Megami Tensei series to the United States, and it's only fair that I finally divulge just what it was that inspired me to write my own poetic take on that signature Sylvanian monologue:
quote:
Call it what you will - a revelation from God, or a curse of the demon king.
The fact remains that our world came to an end.
A heretic called upon an unearthly light, and devastation ensued.
Chaos crawled up out of the ocean, from the black abyss.
Death upon death...nothing but death in this barren land.
Who can we pray to? There are only demons and fiends here.
A voice in the darkness beguiles me,
"Truth is a mystery, unraveled by the candles' flames."
From "The Journal of a Man Who Wandered Into Another World"
Dark, moody, somewhat sinister...and yet eloquent enough to inspire. Funny how things work, huh?
--- In all your journeys, have you seen the land beyond the mountains green?
俺を誰だと思ってやがる？ |
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8/29/2009, 12:16 am
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SnowmanF
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Registered: 07-2009
Posts: 80
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Re: Poetry and Video Games
If I recall correctly most of the poetry I wrote was too full of angst, lol.
Haven't written any in a while.
I guess I should!
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8/30/2009, 3:09 pm
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Board's time is: 11/23/2009, 3:22 am
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Poetry can be found in so many things in life, if only we take the time to relax and become part of the poetry. There is poetry in a summer breeze, in a quiet moment with a loved one, while observing strangers when waiting for a bus home after a long day at work. Poetry is pretty much everywhere 