Richard Honeywood

Last updated
Richard Honeywood
Alma mater University of Sydney
OccupationTranslator
Years active1993–present
Notable work Xenogears , Final Fantasy XI , Dragon Quest

Richard Mark Honeywood is a video game localization director and professional English/Japanese translator. He grew up in Australia and moved to Japan after graduating with degrees in computer science and Japanese from the University of Sydney. Honeywood initially worked for several Japanese video game developers as a programmer, but transitioned to localization after joining Square in 1997. He is credited with founding the localization department at the company which has been praised for its high-quality translations. During his tenure at Square (later Square Enix), Honeywood expanded the team's role from text translation to becoming a partner of the development team, creating localized text and graphics and ensuring that the video game code supported multiple languages easily. In 2007, Honeywood left Square Enix for Blizzard Entertainment, where he served as the global localization manager for World of Warcraft until November 2010. He then moved to be the translation director for Level-5.

Contents

Biography

Honeywood grew up in Australia and spent time in Japan as a foreign exchange student in high school. [1] He earned degrees in computer science and Japanese at University of Sydney and spent his fourth year at its sister school, Hosei University. [2] He began his career as a game programmer at Rise Corporation, a subsidiary of Seibu Kaihatsu. [3] [4] Honeywood and some members of this development team left Rise to form Digital Eden, a new company that worked on a number of Nintendo 64DD games in collaboration with HAL Laboratory. When it became clear that the 64DD's protracted development would render their efforts meaningless, Digital Eden agreed to disband without releasing a single game. Satoru Iwata, then-president of HAL Laboratory, personally offered Honeywood the opportunity to work on an early Pokémon game but he declined, instead joining Square in 1997. [3] [4] Originally, he was to work as a programmer on Final Fantasy VII under Ken Narita. [3] However, the impressive sales of Final Fantasy VII in Western markets prompted Square to look into improving the quality of its translated products—Final Fantasy VII 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. [4] Compounding this critical staff shortage, text in the game could only be input in Shift JIS, a standard Japanese character encoding format, which was incompatible with spelling and grammar correction software. Honeywood and Aiko Ito were brought on as localization producers to recruit for a dedicated localization team within the company, which later included Alexander O. Smith. [4] This team established best practices with respect to code preservation—localization efforts for Chocobo no Fushigi na Dungeon and Tobal 2 were halted at the gate when a complete copy of the source code could not be pieced together from the disbanded development team's computers. [4] For Final Fantasy VIII , Honeywood had written a text parser that would automatically convert text from English ASCII to the Shift JIS format required by the game engine's compiler, streamlining the translation process dramatically. [4]

Honeywood described Xenogears , his first translation project at Square and the first to be handled internally by the company, as "pure hell". [5] [6] This difficult experience catalyzed many of the changes to the company's approach to localization, moving translators' workspaces closer to the original development teams, improving communication with them, and introducing full-time editors. [7] [8] Another key change was adding a familiarization and glossary creation period to the schedule, in which the team develops a consistent style and characterization guide for the project. [4] For Honeywood, a good localization takes 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 Kiji 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 Kiji. [7] 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. [7]

During the development of Final Fantasy IX , Honeywood's team had expanded to allow translation from Japanese directly to French, Italian, German, and Spanish without English as an intermediate. [4] He also convinced the planning team to switch to ASCII characters. It was the last main Final Fantasy title in which translation began after the game was finished. Starting with Final Fantasy X , the localization team would get involved much earlier, collaborating to create the game script. As the first main series title to feature voice acting, the team faced problems in both making the dialogue more compatible with an English-speaking audience and lip-synching it to match the in-game characters, whose lip movements were matched to the original Japanese dialogue. [9] Honeywood spent four years working as localization director of Final Fantasy XI , translating new content concurrently with the Japanese version. [1] For this title, he was responsible for the auto-translation feature, which allows Japanese and English speaking players of the game to communicate quickly. He also established naming conventions for the playable races and coded an automated name generator for new players. [1] After Square merged with Enix to become Square Enix, he was tasked with managing localization for the Dragon Quest series. [3] In order to differentiate the series from Final Fantasy, Honeywood decided to localize Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King and future titles in the series in British English. As part of this work, he wrote a comprehensive style guide to standardize names across the entire series, which has been maintained and updated by other teams since. [3]

He moved to Blizzard Entertainment in 2007, serving as global localization manager for World of Warcraft from 2007 to 2010. [10] He is the localization director for Level-5 as of 2011. For Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch , Honeywood adapted the different Japanese accents of the original script into various British accents. [11] He pointed to a stand-up comedy routine midway through the game as a particular challenge for that project. [12]

Works

TitleYear [lower-alpha 1] Platform(s)Notes [lower-alpha 2] Ref.
Raiden II 1993Arcade, PlayStationProgramming [7]
Viper Phase 1 1995ArcadeProgramming [7]
Senkyu 1995Arcade, PlayStationProgramming [7]
The Raiden Project 1995PlayStationDemo programming [7]
SaGa Frontier 1998PlayStation [7]
Einhänder 1998PlayStation [7]
Parasite Eve 1998PlayStationSpecial Thanks
Xenogears 1998PlayStation [7]
Ehrgeiz 1999PlayStationSpecial Thanks
Chocobo Racing 1999PlayStation [7]
Final Fantasy VIII 1999PlayStation [5]
Chrono Cross 2000PlayStation [7]
Final Fantasy IX 2000PlayStation
The Bouncer 2001PlayStation 2 [7]
Final Fantasy X 2001PlayStation 2 [2]
Final Fantasy XI 2003PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 [7]
Sword of Mana 2003Game Boy Advance
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 2004Nintendo GameCube
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King 2005PlayStation 2 [7]
Dawn of Mana 2007PlayStation 2
Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2007Nintendo DS
Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors 2008Wii
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen 2008Nintendo DS
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2008PC
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty 2010PC
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm 2010PC
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation 2011Nintendo DSSpecial Thanks
Inazuma Eleven Strikers 2012Wii
Crimson Shroud 2012Nintendo 3DSSpecial Thanks
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch 2013PlayStation 3 [11]
Layton Brothers: Mystery Room 2013iOS
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 2017iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS [13]
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom 2018PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows [14]
Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold2020Nintendo SwitchEnglish localization [15]
  1. ↑ Sorted by year of English language release
  2. ↑ Credited as translator or localization specialist unless noted

See also

Related Research Articles

Square Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game development studio and publisher. It was founded in 1986 by Masafumi Miyamoto, who spun off part of his father's electronics company Den-Yu-Sha. Among its early employees were designers Hironobu Sakaguchi, Hiromichi Tanaka, Akitoshi Kawazu and Koichi Ishii, artist Kazuko Shibuya, programmer Nasir Gebelli, and composer Nobuo Uematsu. Initially focusing on action games, the team saw popular success with Final Fantasy in 1987. A role-playing video game, it became the first in a franchise of the same name. Later notable staff included directors Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita, designer and writer Yasumi Matsuno, artists Tetsuya Nomura and Yusuke Naora, and composers Yoko Shimomura and Masashi Hamauzu.

<i>Xenogears</i> 1998 video game

Xenogears is a 1998 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation video game console. It is the debut entry in the larger Xeno franchise. The gameplay of Xenogears revolves around navigating 3D environments both on-foot and using humanoid mecha dubbed "Gears". Combat is governed by a version of the turn-based "Active Time Battle" system. The story follows protagonist Fei Fong Wong and several others as they journey across the world to overthrow the all-powerful rule of Solaris and uncover mysteries concerning their world. The story incorporates Jungian psychology, Freudian thought, and religious symbolism.

<i>Final Fantasy VII</i> 1997 video game

Final Fantasy VII is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console and the seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Square published the game in Japan, and it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertainment, becoming the first game in the main series to have a PAL release. The game's story follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. Events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth, a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power to be reborn as a god. During their journey, Cloud bonds with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough, who holds the secret to saving their world.

<i>Final Fantasy VIII</i> 1999 video game

Final Fantasy VIII is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the eighth main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Set on an unnamed fantasy world with science fiction elements, the game follows a group of young mercenaries, led by Squall Leonhart, as they are drawn into a conflict sparked by a sorceress named Edea Kramer who seized control of a powerful military state. During the quest to defeat the sorceress and the forces manipulating her, Squall struggles with his role as leader and develops a romance with one of his comrades, Rinoa Heartilly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chocobo</span> Fictional species of bird

The Chocobo is a fictional species created for the Final Fantasy franchise by Square Enix. A galliform bird commonly having yellow feathers, they were first introduced in Final Fantasy II (1988), and have since featured in some capacity in nearly every Final Fantasy title, usually as a means of transport. Chocobos or chocobo-themed characters have played story roles in multiple titles, notably in Final Fantasy V and XIII. A recurring Chocobo also acts as protagonist of the Chocobo spin-off series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Square Enix</span> Japanese entertainment company

Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing game franchises, such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, among numerous others. Outside of video game publishing and development, it is also in the business of merchandise, arcade facilities, and manga publication under its Gangan Comics brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fan translation of video games</span> Unofficially translated media

In video gaming, a fan translation is an unofficial translation of a video game made by fans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cactuar</span> Fictional characters in the Final Fantasy video game series

The Cactuar, known in Japan as Sabotender is a fictional species of plant-like beings from the Final Fantasy video game franchise. They are usually depicted as anthropomorphic cacti with haniwa-like faces in a running or dashing pose. One of the recurring elements of the series, it initially appeared as an enemy in Final Fantasy VI. By the 2010s, the Cactuar has attained widespread popularity with Final Fantasy fans, and is considered one of the established mascots of the long-running series alongside the Moogle and the Chocobo. While the Cactuar still appear as recurring enemies in modern titles, they are also depicted as summoned allies as well as friendly non-player characters.

Chrono Break is a cancelled third mainline entry in the Chrono series of video games by Square. While never officially announced by the company, commentary from Chrono series developers Masato Kato, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Takashi Tokita have confirmed early plans for the game, alongside a number of trademarks filed in the game's name. However, the game would ultimately go unproduced, with many members of the internal development team either moving on to Final Fantasy XI or leaving the company in favor of freelance work. The game elicited much commentary from the company and the video game press in the following years, though as of 2021, all trademarks had expired, with no announced plans to work on the game.

Spira (<i>Final Fantasy</i>) Fictional world in Final Fantasy games

Spira is the fictional world of the Square role-playing video games Final Fantasy X and X-2. Spira is the first Final Fantasy world to feature consistent, all-encompassing spiritual and mythological influences within the planet's civilizations and their inhabitants' daily lives. The world of Spira itself is very different from the mainly European-style worlds found in previous Final Fantasy games, being much more closely modeled on a setting influenced by the South Pacific, Thailand and Japan, most notably with respect to its vegetation, topography and architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander O. Smith</span> American translator and author

Alexander O. Smith is a professional Japanese to English translator and author. While his output covers many areas such as adaptation of Japanese novels, manga, song lyrics, anime scripts, and various academic works, he is best known for his software localizations of Japanese video games including Vagrant Story, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and Final Fantasy XII. He currently resides in Kamakura, Japan, where he operates his own contract localization business, Kajiya Productions, and is co-founder of a translation and publishing company, Bento Books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Woolsey</span> American video game translator

Ted Woolsey is an American video game translator and producer. He had the primary role in the North American production and localization of Square's role-playing video games released for the Super NES between 1991 and 1996. He is best known for translating Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger during his time at Square. Limitations on text length and strict content guidelines forced Woolsey to make many script changes in his translation work, which became known as "Woolseyisms" in popular culture and were both praised and criticized.

<i>Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobos Dungeon</i> 2007 video game

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon is a 2007 role-playing video game published by Square Enix for the Wii. It is an installment in the Chocobo series that focuses on Chocobo and his quest to free a town lost in time from eternal forgetfulness. It is a loose sequel to Chocobo's Dungeon 2 on the PlayStation.

The Chocobo video game series is a spin-off series composed of over a dozen games developed by Square Co. and later by Square Enix featuring a super deformed version of the Chocobo, a Final Fantasy series mascot and fictional bird, as the protagonist. Several of the titles have received separate album releases of music from the game. The music of the Chocobo series includes soundtrack albums for the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon sub-series—comprising Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, and Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon—and soundtrack albums of music from Chocobo Racing, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales, and Chocobo and the Magic Picture Book: The Witch, The Maiden, and the Five Heroes, as well as an album of arranged music from Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon and a single entitled Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon Toki Wasure No Meikyuu: Door Crawl for the theme song of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon.

The Japanese video game developer and publisher Square Enix has been translating its games for North America since the late 1980s, and the PAL region and Asia since the late 1990s. 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.

<i>Final Fantasy Type-0 HD</i> 2015 video game

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and HexaDrive, and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and later for Windows via Steam. It was released worldwide in March 2015, while the Steam port was released in August. Type-0 HD is a high-definition remaster of the Japan-exclusive PlayStation Portable game Final Fantasy Type-0, a spin-off from the main Final Fantasy series and part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis subseries, a set of games sharing a common mythos. The story focuses on Class Zero, a group of fourteen students from the Dominion of Rubrum who must fight the neighboring Militesi Empire when they launch an assault on the other Crystal States of Orience. In doing so, the group become entangled in both the efforts to push back and defeat the forces of Militesi, and the secret behind the war and the existence of the crystals.

Characters of <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>

Final Fantasy XV, an action role-playing video game released in November 2016, is the fifteenth main installment in the Final Fantasy series, and is thematically connected to Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy, a subseries of games linked by a common mythos which includes Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0. The world and main characters were created by Tetsuya Nomura, the game's original director. Nomura also designed the main characters, with later revisions and additional characters being designed by Yusuke Naora: other character designers involved with the game included Roberto Ferrari and Yusaku Nakaaki.

Prompto Argentum is a character from Square Enix's Final Fantasy series. He first appears in the anime web series Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV as a schoolmate of the crown prince of the Kingdom of Lucis, Noctis Lucis Caelum. In the 2016 mainline title Final Fantasy XV, Prompto accompanies Noctis on his journey by road to meet and marry a noblewoman from another nation, and fights alongside him as they oppose the Niflheim empire. He is the title character of the post-launch downloadable content (DLC) pack Episode Prompto, which delves into the character's backstory and origin as a pawn of Niflheim.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Orner, Daniel. "Interview with Richard Honeywood about Final Fantasy XI". Final Fantasy Compendium. Archived from the original on 13 February 2009. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 Orner, Daniel. "Interview with Richard Honeywood". Final Fantasy Compendium. Archived from the original on 28 February 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "8-4 Play 4/22/2011: PROJECT CAFÉ OLÉ « 8-4". 8-4. 23 April 2011. Archived from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fenlon, Wesley (28 April 2011). "The Rise of Squaresoft Localization". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 2015-06-10. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
  5. 1 2 Parish, Jeremy (11 March 2007). "GDC 2007: The Square-Enix Approach to Localization". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 15 October 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  6. ↑ Cidolfas (30 May 2004). "Interview with Richard Honeywood". FFCompendium. Archived from the original on 2 June 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2008.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 "Q&A – Square Enix's Richard Honeywood". Edge Online. February 2006. Archived from the original on 17 May 2006. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  8. ↑ Jeriaska (27 April 2007). "Localization Tactics: A Conversation with Alexander O. Smith". Square Haven. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  9. ↑ Birlew, Dan (2001). Final Fantasy X Official Strategy Guide. BradyGames. p. 268. ISBN   0-7440-0140-4.
  10. ↑ Honeywood, Richard (2016). "Richard Honeywood LinkedIn profile". LinkedIn. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
  11. 1 2 "Spirited Away Animators Breathe Life Into Astonishing New Game". WIRED . 22 January 2013. Archived from the original on 7 January 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  12. ↑ "Ni no Kuni: the language of magic". Wired UK . Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  13. ↑ Kohler, Chris (July 21, 2017). "5 Hours With The New Layton: Great Writing, Weak Puzzles". Kotaku. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  14. ↑ Schreier, Jason (March 23, 2018). "Ni no Kuni II: The Kotaku Review". Kotaku. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  15. ↑ Musgrave, Shaun (February 24, 2020). "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews of 'Snack World', 'Darksiders Genesis', and 'SEGA AGES Sonic 2', Today's New Releases and the Latest Sales". Touch Arcade. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.