You've got to do some tinkering for sure, but there's a happy medium between translating something completely literally and just making something up.
Though in fairness to WD, it's a task that becomes substantially more difficult when you're trying to fit your new lyrics to an existing tune instead of just slapping subtitles in.
You have to remember that the vast majority of people working in videogame localisation nowadays are professionals who are pretty good at what they do. When I started learning Japanese, I used to try and pick holes in commercial translations too, but it's doubtful that you'll be able to spot mistakes without quite a high level of Japanese, and nine times out of ten the 'errors' you perceive will just be your ears playing tricks on you, a lack of understanding on your part, or a conscious choice made by the translator to change something for the better. There are times where it's just an honest mistake too, especially during early gaming eras where you had people working on games who weren't necessarily fluent in Japanese (nor English, for that matter... :'D), but actual translation errors tend to be a lot rarer than some people want them to be. Without meaning to sound like a jerk, most people who'll tell you otherwise don't speak Japanese well enough to provide any more than anecdotal evidence, and aren't in a position to critique how good or bad any translation is.
<3~
Haven't played any N1 translations myself, but it seems like they have a bad reputation founded mostly on the admittedly disastrous Ar Tonelico 2. The rest of their translations seem to get relatively good press, and I remember them being highly praised for their translation of Sakura Taisen, which is impressive considering how text heavy that series is.
The odd bug sneaks into their work, but you've got to remember that they're working with lower budget games, which aren't necessarily that stable or well-programmed to begin with. Example? Amidst all the fuss about Ar Tonelico 2's bugs, people seem to forget that the Japanese version of Ar Tonelico 1 had a game-breaking bug too. It was really,
really easy to trigger it, and really,
really easy to overlook the fact that you had triggered it, and if you saved your data afterward you were permanently stuck. It's easy to lay the blame at NISA's feet, and in Ar Tonelico 2 it sounds like they did make a mess of things, but the original developers aren't always infallible either.
Originally Posted by Mimori
Not saying that the AT2 fiasco was acceptable, mind. Just that I think people probably only made such a big deal out of it because the bar is set that much higher nowadays.
