{"id":62569,"date":"2026-03-11T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=62569"},"modified":"2026-03-10T18:14:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:14:31","slug":"dragon-quest-creator-yuji-horii-says-english-translations-inevitably-strip-away-a-lot-of-a-games-flavor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/dragon-quest-creator-yuji-horii-says-english-translations-inevitably-strip-away-a-lot-of-a-games-flavor\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragon Quest creator\u00a0Yuji\u00a0Horii\u00a0says English translations\u00a0inevitably\u00a0strip\u00a0away a lot of a game&#8217;s &#8220;flavor&#8221;\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In a recent interview with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.famitsu.com\/article\/202603\/67038\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Famitsu<\/a>,&nbsp;<strong>Dragon Quest<\/strong>&nbsp;series creator Yuji Horii and&nbsp;<strong>Paranormasight<\/strong>&nbsp;series&nbsp;director&nbsp;Takanari&nbsp;Ishiyama&nbsp;(who also worked on DQX) had a \u201cmaster and disciple\u201d discussion&nbsp;to&nbsp;commemorate&nbsp;the launch&nbsp;of&nbsp;<strong>Paranormasight: The Mermaid\u2019s Curse<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With both creators being prolific storytellers and writers, much of the discussion was dedicated to&nbsp;their&nbsp;know-how&nbsp;and peculiarities when approaching a game scenario, like Horii\u2019s manga-inspired technique of&nbsp;almost completely&nbsp;abandoning narration in favor of dialogue.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, the&nbsp;topic of localization also cropped up, with&nbsp;Ishiyama expressing&nbsp;concern that&nbsp;his obsessive&nbsp;pursuit&nbsp;of&nbsp;the perfect&nbsp;word choices&nbsp;and phrasing in The Mermaid\u2019s Curse&nbsp;may&nbsp;end up&nbsp;being&nbsp;for naught&nbsp;when translated into other languages&nbsp;(the game released with&nbsp;day one&nbsp;English and Chinese language support).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1366\" height=\"851\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260310-62569-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260310-62569-001.jpg 1366w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260310-62569-001-380x237.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20260310-62569-001-768x478.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In response, Horii commented, \u201cWhen it comes to English, the flavor tends to&nbsp;get lost in many ways.&nbsp;Things&nbsp;inevitably end up sounding simplistic.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As&nbsp;one&nbsp;example, Ishiyama brings up the variety of first-person pronouns&nbsp;available&nbsp;in Japanese&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;like&nbsp;<em>ore,&nbsp;boku, washi,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>watashi,<\/em>&nbsp;etc.&nbsp;While each of these&nbsp;can reflect the speaker\u2019s gender, age and even personality&nbsp;traits, in English, they all become simply \u201cI.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Horii&nbsp;seems to consider&nbsp;the shortcomings of Japanese-to-English localizations a result of inherent differences between the two languages, commenting, \u201cI&#8217;ve come to accept that English is a&nbsp;simple language, so there&#8217;s no helping it.\u201d On the other hand, he feels that this issue has been&nbsp;somewhat improved&nbsp;with&nbsp;the introduction of voice acting in games, given that voiced lines create extra room to convey a&nbsp;character&#8217;s&nbsp;traits through tone and delivery.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paranormasight: The Mermaid\u2019s Curse is out now for PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/2701440\/PARANORMASIGHT_The_Mermaids_Curse\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>),&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendo.com\/en-gb\/Games\/Nintendo-Switch-download-software\/PARANORMASIGHT-The-Mermaid-s-Curse-3016608.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nintendo Switch 2<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/paranormasight-tmc\/id6474289326\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iOS<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.square_enix.android_googleplay.paranoma38\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Android<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/id-play-if-it-werent-for-the-jump-scares-paranormasight-devs-consciously-toned-down-the-horror-in-new-sequel-in-response-to\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>\u201cI\u2019d play if it weren\u2019t for the jump scares.\u201d Paranormasight devs consciously toned down the horror in new sequel in response to feedback from the first game<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/dragon-quest-creator-yuji-horii-finally-reveals-why-you-lose-half-your-money-when-you-die-in-the-games\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii finally reveals why you lose half your money when you die in the games<\/strong><\/a><strong><\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yuji Horii and\u00a0Paranormasight\u00a0series\u00a0director\u00a0Takanari\u00a0Ishiyama\u00a0talk about localization from the perspective of scenario writers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":62575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-62569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Dragon Quest creator\u00a0Yuji\u00a0Horii\u00a0says English translations\u00a0inevitably\u00a0strip\u00a0away a lot of a game&#039;s &quot;flavor&quot;\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yuji Horii and\u00a0Paranormasight\u00a0series\u00a0director\u00a0Takanari\u00a0Ishiyama\u00a0talk about localization from the perspective of scenario writers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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