Japanese RPG Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana was released earlier this year for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, and with many high reviews the game seemed to be doing well. A PC version for Ys VIII was also planned, but its release has been pushed back due to issues of poor translation quality; Ys VIII’s localized version has been plagued with many grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and typos of certain in-game areas and character.
Ys VIII fans applaud the game for having striking visuals, high-quality gameplay, and a unique story but could not overlook the translation errors. Fans have taken to twitter to post screenshots and express concern over the game’s issues, with one user calling it “one of the worst translations.”
Fans have also expressed concern via Reddit, calling some of the dialog stiff, jumped, and less expressive in comparison to the original. Users created a thread listing out translation errors and a campaign to send emails to Ys VIII’s developer about the issues.
NIS America President and CEO Takuro Yamashita has issued an official apology on the localization errors, and says Ys VIII’s team has begun to ” internally investigate the causes of this situation as well as implement steps to ensure that a similar situation does not occur again.” Ys VIII will also have new editors and translators review “the entire localization to fix grammatical errors, typos, inconsistencies, and also to take a fresh look at the dialog and characterizations.” The script will be “re-translated and re-edited, including updating voicework to reflect these changes.”
The changes should take place for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions by the end of November in a game patch. PC versions will have these updated changes as well, but an official release date has not yet been announced.