Long-time Trails fan here. After experiencing the two Daybreak games, I've never been so fatigued by a localization. NISA's activism being injected into these games is already well documented in this forum, but even if I manage to overlook that, what they're doing goes far beyond the scope of a reasonable localization. It frequently crosses into heavy rewriting / co-authorship, replacing Falcom's original tone, character voices, and world consistency with modern 2024–2025 American internet/corporate slang, meta commentary, and personality overhauls that simply don't exist in the Japanese script or voice acting.
Kyoto Xanadu was recently announced in a recent Nintendo Direct in English with no named publisher. Here's how bad it could get if NISA managed to outbid everyone else again:
This isn't exaggeration. It's exactly what NISA has been doing in recent Trails titles because I've analyzed a large bulk of the Daybreak II JP script, comparing it with NISA's and the superior, more official-looking English fan patch.
A real failings of the editor Andrew Wallace is not only the overuse of flowery/archaic punched up words, these Californian/corporate speak are also littered everywhere. NISA doesn't just translate, they consistently paraphrase almost every line into a narrow palette of modern American idioms, corporate buzzwords, and Gen-Z/internet phrasing that has no place in these games. They're repeated patterns that make the entire script feel like it's spoken between 2025 theater kids of America. There are a lot of non-natives playing this game in English, people from places like Sweden, Brazil, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, etc. that doesn't have their preferred #1 language, I'd imagine they have to have an American thesaurus open for paraphrasings like circle back / circling back, put a pin in it, doin' me a solid, came in clutch, to a T, etc. These aren't needed for comprehension or cultural bridging. They're regional, dated, constantly breaks immersion. Even in Ys X: Nordics (Viking-era setting), the doctor character drops "circle back", a modern office phrase in a pre-industrial world. Same pattern.
As someone who always use JP VO players, voiced lines and English text are mismatched line after line after line. The spoken Japanese stays grounded while the English text keeps injecting our real world cultural baggage. This editor can't comprehend the beauty and simplicity of literal English. What's sad is, these rabid localizer defenders, as you already know, will always deflect with the same: it's boring/bland, learn japanese etc.
GungHo's/Acttil's Sky 1st Chapter remake showed a better way: natural, readable English that respects the original intent without slang bloat. It works. These remakes are the only Trails games I can enjoy moving forward as long as they're at the helm. It keeps the world and script feeling like Falcom's.
If Kyoto Xanadu gets NISA, expect these alternate universe Kyoto teens to talk like they're TikTokers from LA.
Kyoto Xanadu was recently announced in a recent Nintendo Direct in English with no named publisher. Here's how bad it could get if NISA managed to outbid everyone else again:
This isn't exaggeration. It's exactly what NISA has been doing in recent Trails titles because I've analyzed a large bulk of the Daybreak II JP script, comparing it with NISA's and the superior, more official-looking English fan patch.
A real failings of the editor Andrew Wallace is not only the overuse of flowery/archaic punched up words, these Californian/corporate speak are also littered everywhere. NISA doesn't just translate, they consistently paraphrase almost every line into a narrow palette of modern American idioms, corporate buzzwords, and Gen-Z/internet phrasing that has no place in these games. They're repeated patterns that make the entire script feel like it's spoken between 2025 theater kids of America. There are a lot of non-natives playing this game in English, people from places like Sweden, Brazil, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, etc. that doesn't have their preferred #1 language, I'd imagine they have to have an American thesaurus open for paraphrasings like circle back / circling back, put a pin in it, doin' me a solid, came in clutch, to a T, etc. These aren't needed for comprehension or cultural bridging. They're regional, dated, constantly breaks immersion. Even in Ys X: Nordics (Viking-era setting), the doctor character drops "circle back", a modern office phrase in a pre-industrial world. Same pattern.
As someone who always use JP VO players, voiced lines and English text are mismatched line after line after line. The spoken Japanese stays grounded while the English text keeps injecting our real world cultural baggage. This editor can't comprehend the beauty and simplicity of literal English. What's sad is, these rabid localizer defenders, as you already know, will always deflect with the same: it's boring/bland, learn japanese etc.
GungHo's/Acttil's Sky 1st Chapter remake showed a better way: natural, readable English that respects the original intent without slang bloat. It works. These remakes are the only Trails games I can enjoy moving forward as long as they're at the helm. It keeps the world and script feeling like Falcom's.
If Kyoto Xanadu gets NISA, expect these alternate universe Kyoto teens to talk like they're TikTokers from LA.
