KMCA-20~1: Vandal Hearts II ~Gates of Heaven~ Original Soundtrack

[NukaCola]

What a fantastic, woefully underrated soundtrack! Makes me wish Konami would bring VH1 & 2 to PSN so more people can witness this incredible music.

If you don't mind me self-promoting here, I recently celebrated the game's music with Brett over at VGMpire. You can listen in here: http://www.vgmpire.com/2015/03/18/vg...ts-validation/

[DanteLectro]

What does "Tenjou no Mon" (天上の門) mean?
I checked on Google Translate: "天上の門" (displayed as "Tenjō no mon" in romaji), translated to "Gate of heavenly gates" or "heavenly gate" or "Gates of Tenchi".
On GameFAQs, there's no English subtitle for either Vandal Hearts 1 or 2, only for the Japanese titles, in romaji.

[Phonograph]

don't check google translate, Heaven's Gate is an ok translation

[DanteLectro]

Originally Posted by Phonograph

don't check google translate, Heaven's Gate is an ok translation

Thanks. I asked because I couldn't find an English translation. "Heaven's Gate" is not on the album page.

[Jormungand]

As a post-90s reply to an evergreen soundtrack (which feels 100 years after the fact), the translations here (and I am assuming Konami generally) leave a lot to be desired. How and who do we seek to pursue (relatively) accurate English translations?

I feel like you almost need bilingual EN/JP speakers who grew up as simultaneous bilinguals, who also somehow have general experience with the gestalt of the game's scenario. How do you even approach such task, and are you basically searching for a unicorn? Obviously people like this exist, but are they frequenting enthusiast VGM forums where their natural skill is somehow this magical skeleton key?

The frustrating part is that even an educated, well-read, reasonably bilingual person that DOESN'T read or speak Japanese (but does speak English and something else) could examine the kanji 狂気 and know with 100% certainty that the most genuine and meaning-sustaining translation wouldn't be "Madness People".

[zierts]

As horrible as they might be, they're official as per the album scans. Titles such as "Warfare on a Constructions" confirm that these were done by someone Japanese with a very limited grasp of the English language (add to that the fact that online dictionaries and grammar guides were not as common in the late 90s/early 2000s as they are now). Still, I'll take an official Engrish track list over five different fan translations any day.

As far as translating track titles, even bilingual people will have problems finding an English equivalent in some cases. As you already mentioned, not only do you have to be proficient in both languages but you'd better know the game inside-out as well. What's worse, the brevity of titles means you're working with very limited context. So a decent amount of general education and even some expert knowledge in a certain field is paramount.

Speaking for myself only, I'd say that the track titles of Koei's Nobunaga no yabô and Konami's Castlevania series are a total pain to translate or even just to understand what their creator is referring to. The former as it requires a keen knowledge of the period the games are set in along with some proficiency in classical Japanese (it's always fun seeing someone fail at those because it shows they're basically relying on online dictionaries of modern Japanese only), the latter for its punning tendencies.

For Vandal Hearts II, we don't even have scans confirming the Japanese track titles to be legit. You can find them in some reputable sources, though, so I guess there's a booklet that has them.

[Crash]

Inside the booklet, they have the track listings in both English and Japanese, side by side. Thankfully, the font is much easier to read than on the back case. From skimming the Japanese track list, it looks to be right, but the characters are pretty small in the booklet and my eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be.