DA2 but make everyone Orlesian
Jul. 23rd, 2021 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alaterdateI've been playing Dragon Age 2 in French for the last month and just finished it up yesterday. I am still learning French and this year I really wanted to ramp my studying up and I thought playing my favorite game in French would be fun. It most decidedly was.
I was perfectly comfortable with the UI; I already had to change my entire Origin account to French to be able to load the game in French in the first place lol. The beginning of the game was more difficult though. I probably spent more time poring over the sentences than actually playing the game. I was also taking handwritten notes at first, so I had to stop to write things down in my notebook.
Knowing most of the game by heart proved to be a saving grace in the beginning concerning dialogue. Lots of "Oh yeah, this is where she says 'We can't just wander aimlessly!'" and bam «Nous ne pouvons nous contenter de errer sans but!» Lit. We can not be satisfied to wander without a goal = We can't just wander aimlessly. Yes, it's true! Even though I think this is kind of a difficult translation considering how «contenter» gets translated to "just" a lot despite being "to satisfy," "make do," "settle for." There's an entire rabbit hole here regarding "just" in itself nevermind brining «contenter» into it.
Anyway most of the game was a pretty straightforward translation with very little changes. It kind of felt odd too, to be reading (I focused a lot on the subtitles, I cannot hear, not even in English) sort of the exact same lines I recalled. That's what a translation is though! But to me it felt like such a different experience from translating from Japanese. Maybe because the Subject-Verb-Object order is the same in English so that made it feel really 1-to-1 even though it's actually literally not the case every time. It was quite a weird experience that I think was mostly colored by my memory of specific sentences being too good (no one should remember non-iconic lines this well).
But it was also this memory that helped me notice one of the only glaringly French expressions I saw in the game. «Prendre des vessies pour des lanternes» [Lit. Take bladders for lanterns > Mistake bladders for lanterns > "pull the wool over one's eyes" equivalently > essentially to trick someone by making something seem better than it is > talking something up] which was substituted for what Meeran said in English "blowing smoke out of his ass." Interesting.
As I got more into playing it I stopped handwriting in my notebook and instead just quickly typed phrases up in my notes app. So I have pretty long list of nice phrases. I just have to go through and write the translations out (I'm thinking of putting it all into a table/spreadsheet? A long unordered list is annoying to look at).
Now onto some juicy, juicy, traductions.
- For some, unholy, reason they changed Starkhaven to Osterburg. Which unfortunately sounds like two other cities in the Free Marches: Ansburg and Ostwick. Osterburg? Sebastian, prince d'Osterburg. Why this?
- The Grey Wardens are «La Garde des ombres». Like "The Shadowguards" which is extremely weird to me. And even weirder because Shades are Ombres and those are demons not Darkspawn.
- And speaking of Darkspawn, those are «Engeances» or Spawn. This one is rational and I like it because you can call Darkspawn " 'spawn" in English too. Oh, one of the darkspawn types is called «grognard hurlock» which is very funny. "Grumpy hurlock" lmfao.
- The Deep Roads are of course «Les Tréfonds» "The Depths."
- Hightown > Hauteville > Hightown. Lowtown > Basseville > Lowtown. Darktown > Sombrerue > Darkstreet. The Bone Pit > Mine d'os > Bone mine. 😂 Really makes you notice how silly some of these are in the first place.
- Sundermount > Terres brisées > Broken lands. Wounded Coast > Côte escarpée > Craggy coast. Haha.
- The Black Emporium > Le Palais des perles noires > The Palace of black pearls.
- The Keeper > L'archiviste. Dalish > Dalatiens.
- And very interestingly! "The Champion" is «le Héraut» The Herald. SUSPICIOUS.
- Everyone also keeps calling Magisters «Les inquisiteurs» Inquisitors. HRMMM. 🤔
- Orlais (or-lay) is Orlaïs (or-lie-eece).
- Andraste is referred to as Notre Dame (our lady).
- They say "hell (devil)" «que diable? etc.» a lot! I swear I heard someone in DA2 say hell, but I could never find it again, and French DA2 letting people say "what the hell? how in the hell" just makes me believe this MORE.
- Anything else... I forgot, désolé.
Overall the French dub was okay, but I could see why people who played it don't particularly enjoy it. There was a bit of: audio drop, rushed lines, and characters talking over each other. I thought the voice picks for everyone were pretty good though. They all seemed to have a hint of their English counterparts with some caveats. Merrill sounded light and airy even though she was missing her Welsh accent. Sebastian suffered the most from losing his accent and just sounded like some dude. For a bit while walking around with them I could not tell Seb, Anders, and Fenris apart when they were talking behind me lmao. I would guess and then turn around and be wrong lol. And speaking of... Fenris....
The rest of this is probably only going to be about Fenris.
When he appeared I just about perdu la tête. I hadn't expected such a light voice based on the equal surprise Gideon Emery gave everyone by voicing Fenris. I mean, idk, hearing it now it's not that light, but it was a huge initial shock.
Karp: I don’t know how you can listen to any other Fenris that isn’t voiced by Emery
Moi: it was REALLY weird, but then i got used to it lol
I like Emery's inflections more most of the time. Jérémy Prévost is a little more subtle, with a smaller range of tones. Emery really pulls off a sarcastic bitchiness that I adore in Fenris. Prévost I think unfortunately doesn't have the room to do a lot with the character; sometimes it seems like he's just trying to get a super long sentence out in time and then he can go back to acting. Prévost does great with the quieter lines though. I really like when he tells Hadriana «Oui. Vous avez ma parole.» in A Bitter Pill! I enjoy both versions of Fenris for different reasons and it kind of splits my impression of him in two, lol.
I have videos :^) (Don't mind my mods.)
Dragon Age II - Embuscade de chasseur d'esclaves
Dragon Age II - Une Pilule Amère
Dragon Age II - Une Pilule Amère: Scène romantique [Rivalité]
Dragon Age II - Phase finale de la romance de Fenris [Rivalité]
Now I gush about the greatest line change of all time. It occurs in the Endphase scene of the romance where Hawke and Fenris get back together. (The last video up there.)
In English Fenris' final line is "If there's a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side." Which is very cute. Iconic of him.
In French it is changed to «Si je peux envisager un avenir, ce n'est qu'avec vous, main dans la main.» Which is SUPER cute. I tell you I just about died.
"If I can envision a future, it is only with you, hand in hand." 🥺🥺🥺
Idk it's just more tragically romantic than the English line. 🙈
Playing Dragon Age 2 in French was almost like playing it again for the first time. Having to pay more attention to lines and then having them click in my brain made it fresh. And I also got to adore my favorite character all over again. I'm still reeling from poring over all his lines lmao. I even did a quest I had never done before (surprising I know) and that was the true exercise in "do I understand what's going on and not just resting on my prior knowledge?"
I think I learned a lot to be honest! Being confronted with a word or phrase I had written down earlier and going "ah, yes, I know this one now" is awesome. It's honestly a little suprising just how often the same few words are used (that's frequency, babes!).
This is actually the first time I've been able to complete DA2 on PC as well. I always just gave up and went to play on Xbox for the billionth time instead lmao. Can't play it in French on console though! Now... I want to replay in English of course!
