Ys VIII To Get English Translation Fix, Hilarious And Harmful Errors To Be Addressed

Back when the western market for video games was just taking off, seeing badly translated Japanese titles to English was quite common. “All your base are belong to us” anyone? Post-2010, however, there really shouldn’t be an excuse for publishers and distributors to mess up localization, and yet it still happened with the JRPG Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Fortunately, a fix has since been promised to address some of the game’s most glaring errors and mistranslations.

For those who are not familiar with the game, Ys VIII is a JRPG that launched in Japan back in 2016. Last month, it was finally brought to the European and North American markets. A few days later, posts started circulating with regards to numerous translation issues, Gamespot reports. The game’s Western publisher, NIS America has since promised to provide a fix, with president and CEO Takuro Yamashita apologizing for the errors.

"It has come to my attention that the quality of the Ys VIII localization has not reached an acceptable level by our own standards, but most importantly by yours," Yamashita said. "As president of NIS America, Inc. I want to apologize to you personally for this grave error. This situation should not have happened-- especially to a game as wonderful as Ys VIII and by a company that strives to deliver the very best customer experience in each title."

While not exactly a juggernaut series like Final Fantasy, the game still has a sizable fan base in the US. These fans have pointed out many localization problems in the JRPG, including a place that is literally called Archeozoic Big Hole. Hilarious as some of these errors might be, the issue actually extends to item names, which has led to much confusion among gamers.

The game is apparently set to launch on the PC as well, Polygon reports. Once it does, the localization issue will have been patched.