text: localization of square enix video games the japanese video game developer and publisher square enix ( formally two companies called square and enix prior to 2003 ) has been translating its games for north america and the pal region since the late 1980s . it has not always released all of its games in all major regions , and continues to selectively release games even today depending on multiple factors such as the viability of platforms or the condition of the game itself . the process of localization has changed during that time from having a one - person team with a short time and tight memory capacities to having a team of translators preparing simultaneous launches in multiple languages . the companies ' first major projects were dragon quest and final fantasy , which each proved successful enough to launch video game franchises . since then , the majority of the games produced by the companies have been localized for western audiences , although the process was not given a high priority at square until the international success of final fantasy vii . richard honeywood was recruited to start a dedicated localization department at the company . enix remained without a translation department until its merger with square . in some cases , such as alexander o. smith , teams or individuals became attached to particular subseries . in recent years , the process of localization has undergone changes , mainly due to difficult experiences with various titles , and square enix has sometimes developed the titles in localized form first in order to appeal to the western market . staff the localization staff at square enix works mainly from japanese to english and the other way around , and from american english to british english , french , italian , german , and spanish . prior to the merger of square and enix in 2003 , enix did not initially have a localization department and outsourced its western releases to translators who had no close contact with the original development teams . square also did not initially have a localization department , though kaoru moriyama and ted woolsey worked with them regularly on a contractual basis . following the massive international success of final fantasy vii , the company looked into improving the quality of its translated products — the game was widely criticized for its rushed translation , which had been handled entirely by michael baskett , the company 's only in - house translator at the time . to that end , square tasked richard honeywood , originally a programmer , with creating a dedicated localization team . his first major project was xenogears . while there were only two members at first , including honeywood , the staff grew to include more than 40 employees by 2007 , four years after the merger between square and enix . by the late 2000s , for self - contained series or games linked by story events or similar elements , square enix can use the same localization team , as in the case of titles set in the fictional world of ivalice . the translator most associated with the ivalice games is alexander o. smith . another noted translator is tom slattery , who has worked the localizations of the nintendo ds remake of final fantasy iv , the game boy advance port of final fantasy vi , and final fantasy xiii and its sequels . approach before a translation is greenlit and translators are allocated , the localization , quality assurance ( qa ) and marketing staff play through a build of the game and sometimes do a focus group study . the localization team 's playthrough can sometimes take over 100 hours of gameplay . once the company a localization project , a period of brainstorming starts in which glossary , style , naming schemes and fonts are chosen . during the translation phase , voiced sections are translated first . text files are cross - checked by multiple translators and editors . the text is then integrated along with any graphic and sound changes , and the game goes to quality assurance . during a period of several weeks to up to three months , japanese qa teams look for bugs while western qa teams check linguistic issues . the localization team often re - plays the game during this phase , translates the manuals and help out on the guidebooks if these are made . finally , the game is sent to the hardware manufacturers to be approved . challenges for the localization teams include space limitation ( due to data storage and / or on - screen space ) , achieving a natural dialogue flow despite multiple plot branches and script lines being stored out of order , and , when voiced footage is not re - recorded for lip movement , dealing with file length and lip - synch limitations . when the same team works on different games in a series such as final fantasy , they often need to adopt different writing styles depending on the setting of their games . another point to consider is humorous elements that do not translate properly into english , and different cultural expectations about character interactions . the localization process depends on factors such as the development teams ' wishes , as well as budget and schedule . translation usually starts late in development , although some titles , like final fantasy xi , are translated from japanese to english during initial development , making the translators appear more like additional planners than actual translators . a few titles , like the bouncer , have actually been developed in english first and only then translated to japanese . the last remnant also adopted this approach , featuring motion - capture and dialogue synched to english rather than japanese actors . this was done due to the company 's wish to create a title for the international market . many early localizations , like other rpgs both then and in more recent years , made heavy use of antiquated speech patterns and archaic nouns such as " thee " and " thou " . square was not greatly focused on their localizations before the worldwide commercial success of final fantasy vii . in later years , the original translators were joined by editors to catch grammar and spelling errors . prior to the development of final fantasy xiii - 2 , the standard localization process for a title involved dual development between the company 's sound and localization departments , which meant that difficulties could arise because of constant changes to dialogue . for xiii - 2 and future large - scale titles , an in - house development tool called moomle was developed to ensure all parts of the process were properly synchronized and centralized . the development of moomle was initialized due to the troubled localization of final fantasy xiii , and spearheaded by the game 's translator slattery and his japanese counterpart teruaki sugawara . in recent years , localization teams have tended to adopt two different approaches to translation and localization : either they remain quite faithful to the original japanese , or they can make large changes as long as the story outline remains the same . the former method was adopted for final fantasy xiii and its sequels , although some alterations were made in order to make the english dialogue sound natural . in choosing voice actors , the company prefers to avoid well - known film and television actors , citing ellen page 's casting in beyond : two souls as a counterexample . experiences honeywood described xenogears , his first translation project at square and the first to be handled internally by the company , as " pure hell " . he stated that he started to change the company 's approach to localization after that game , moving booths to always work very closely with the original development teams , improving communication with them , and introducing full - time editors . woolsey also had a troublesome time while localizing secret of mana , which he said " nearly killed [ him ] " . the translation was completed within a month of the japanese release as square wanted to catch the 1993 holiday season . final fantasy xiii 's localization , handled by slattery and sugawara , was also quite chaotic . according to slattery , the lack of deadlines , poor communication and synchronization between the various departments , and continuing changes to the script and to cutscenes led to a turbulent development . due to the script changes , large sections of dialogue needed to be re - translated by slattery and re - recorded by the english actors due to lack of necessary emotional drive for the scenes . in contrast , smith had a good working relationship with yasumi matsuno during the localization of titles like vagrant story , final fantasy xii and the 2010 re - release of tactics ogre : let us cling together . the two worked closely to ensure that the western versions were faithful to matsuno 's vision . a challenging localization was final fantasy x , the first final fantasy title to feature voice acting . there , the team faced problems in both making the dialogue more compatible with an english - speaking audience and lip - synching it roughly with in - game characters , whose lip - movement was still for the original japanese dialogue . changes when translating its video games , square enix tries to take into account the cultural differences between japan and western territories . this sometimes involves rewriting dialogue or altering graphics , animations , and sounds . for instance , in chocobo racing , visual references to the japanese folk heroes momotarō and were changed to depict hansel and gretel , since the game was designed mainly for children , and hansel and gretel are better known in the west than momotarō and . according to honeywood , trying to explain to the original development teams why some changes are needed can range from " frustrating to downright hilarious " . generally , older development teams trust the translators with making changes while newer teams can be more reluctant , though they usually build up trust gradually . the localization team for the world ends with you chose to preserve the japanese elements to ensure the game 's cultural aspect remained intact . while localizing final fantasy xii , smith worked to preserve the original script 's meaning while using english dialects to reproduce the japanese dialects found in the original version . he and translator joseph reeder also ended up using different accents to identify factions within the game . final fantasy vii 's script was done by a small team , resulting in a rough script and inconsistencies . one of the more famous of these was the name of aerith gainsborough : the name was originally meant to be a merging of " air " and " earth " , but her name in the original game was translated as " aeris " . during his localization of secret of mana , woolsey was forced to trim down vast amounts of character dialogue due to an awkward fixed text font , later stating that he was satisfied with the result . vagrant story has been recognized as a high - quality localization : whereas the original japanese text was rather bland , the english version made use of archaic medieval and old english words and dialogue . with ports and remakes of older games , dialogue can be changed or added by the team , as in the case of final fantasy vi . the title can also be altered for various reasons . final fantasy iv and vi were released in western regions as final fantasy ii and iii . this was due to the fact that the original ii and iii had not received a western release . the final fantasy legend was originally to be called the great warrior saga , but changed it to its current title to tie in with the final fantasy series , which was well - known and popular in the west . dragon quest , one of the earliest successful japanese role - playing games , had its title changed to dragon warrior so as not to confuse it with the similarly - titled tabletop role - playing game dragonquest . the dragonquest title was discontinued in 1987 , and square enix registered the dragon quest trademark for their use in 2003 . also due to copyright issues , the world ends with you could not be released under its original japanese title it 's a wonderful world . gameplay may be altered when it is felt that a game might be too easy or difficult for the western audience . some of the older final fantasy titles , such as final fantasy iv , were altered to be more easy to play in the west than in japan , though their remakes and ports have generally restored the difficulty . einhänder 's gameplay also received notable cuts for its north american release . on the other hand , final fantasy xii : revenant wings was made more difficult in localized versions because the western market was judged " more familiar " with the real - time strategy genre than the japanese market . for the western release of dissidia final fantasy , the game was changed to suit western players , including removing several rpg elements to make it more akin to an action game . censorship can also affect the localized versions of the games and require obscuring mature themes , rewriting risque remarks or phrases , altering graphics or removing parts of some scenes . this was common in the nes and snes eras but less drastic later on once video game content rating systems were established . original western releases of early games in the final fantasy and dragon quest featured multiple occurrences of this form of censorship . final fantasy viii also received some censorship for its european release , including the removal of a nazi - like uniform . less commonly , this also goes the other way , for instance with final fantasy xii , in which a sequence involving violence against a female character was censored in the japanese version but restored in the american and european releases . references to religion can also be removed , as in final fantasy iv and vi . such references in xenogears caused square to consider not releasing it in north america . releases in 2008 , square enix expressed willingness to make worldwide " simultaneous releases the norm " . concerning final fantasy xi , at the time of the original english - only european release in 2004 , producer hiromichi tanaka had stated that while japanese / north american / australian simultaneous releases are possible due to translating only japanese to english , it was not possible for european countries due to the difficulty of finding good japanese - to - european - languages translators , and the fact that second - hand translations from the english would be akin to " chinese whispers " . however , the team later integrated full - fledged french and german localization teams , achieving simultaneous release from the japanese for three different languages from 2007 on . another example of synchronized localization is final fantasy xiii : the company started the localization process alongside the game 's development to lessen the delay between the local and international releases . final fantasy xiv : a realm reborn was localized in - house by square enix under supervision by naoki yoshida and koji fox . compared to its predecessor , which featured english - only voice - overs , a realm reborn featured english , japanese , german and french similar to final fantasy xi . the game featured voice work in a low number of cutscenes : this was explained by the fact that the team did not want new voice recording to dominate the creation of new content after the initial release . the western release of lightning returns : final fantasy xiii was delayed by over two months because of the large amount of dialogue , which changes due to the game 's time mechanic , that needed to be translated and recorded . the viability of a game 's platform can also affect both the localization and the release , as in the case of the playstation portable - exclusive final fantasy type - 0 , which would eventually come west as a high definition port for playstation 4 and xbox one , and seiken densetsu 3 , which was not localized due to undefined technical problems . the company has also recently started releasing japanese voice tracks as downloadable content , as in the case of lightning returns : final fantasy xiii and one of the titles it has published , the access games - developed drakengard 3 . another aspect of square enix 's policy concerning the western release of games was to make games that appealed to both western and japanese audiences , but the worldwide success of the japan - aimed bravely default caused them to rethink their strategy . additional content the localized versions sometimes expand on the original games . for example , when honeywood found contradictions in the story of chrono cross , he worked with masato kato , the director and scenario writer of the game , to rewrite sections and add explanatory dialogue which was not in the original version . for dragon quest viii : journey of the cursed king , voice - overs and orchestral music were recorded for the western releases , while the original japanese version did not have them . generally , gameplay content left out of the original game due to time constraints may be completed and added in the localized versions . sometimes , the expanded localized versions of games from series like kingdom hearts and final fantasy are re - released in japan . the re - releases are usually based on a direct port of the north american releases , with only text translated back in japanese and japanese subtitles to english dialogue . they can also include features and tweaks previously only available in the western version alongside other additions . reception 1up.com 's wesley fenlon praised square enix for the high quality of its translations , especially as space allocated for text and dialogue had been expanded with new and re - released versions of games . jeremy parish , writing for the same site , said that the quality of square enix 's localizations had " gone from laughable [ ... ] to some of the best around . " both praise and criticism has been given to individual games for the quality of their localizations . xenogears , the company 's first game to feature voice acting , drew criticism in regard to its audio presentation , while the bouncer received a fairly positive response . final fantasy x received praise , although poor lip - synching and some aspects of the actors ' performances were criticized . the english release of x - 2 ended up receiving the seventh annual academy of interactive arts & sciences award in 2004 for outstanding achievement in character performance . final fantasy xii and vagrant story were both highly praised for the qualities of their localizations .