Artem Permyakov

Game production goblin with a fire extinguisher. Fueled by zombies, game OSTs and meme spam. This feed is personal. Be kind to each other!

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

Full interview: https://t.co/9pfEf0dcPG

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

Amazing read: @timeextension64 has published a fantastic interview with Richard Honeywood, the localization lead behind Squaresoft's JRPGs in the 1990s. Absolute unfiltered gold

Interesting bits:

• Localization at Square in the late 1990s barely existed as a discipline: no specific roles, no pipelines, no shared terminology. Honeywood and a handful of others were inventing the process practically on the fly.

• FF7's overseas success completely changed Square's attitude to localization. Before that, foreign versions were treated as "petty cash"; after FFVII, teams actively pushed to get their games localized.

• Early localization efforts were chaotic and fragmented, with multiple teams producing inconsistent translations - even monster names like Ahriman had several spellings within the same franchise.

• Xenogears became a breaking point: dense philosophy, religious themes, limited reference materials, no real internet access, and cultural sensitivity concerns all collided.

"So I was even having to go to the development team before the Japanese version launched, and I was telling them, 'Please tone down some of this stuff.'"

• All of this work happened with almost no infrastructure: obviously, no Wikipedia, barely any internet. QA bugs were sent by fax.

• The Xenogears project nearly destroyed him physically - sleeping in the office, barely going home; but it also earned him long-term trust inside Square, proving localization wasn't something to outsource lightly.

• A major Xenogears mistranslation couldn't be fixed technically. In the anime opening, dialogue implies an external attack instead of Deus hijacking the ship. Since the voice line couldn't be changed, Honeywood patched the story later in the script to restore clarity.

• Chrono Cross exposed how fragile the tech side was all over the place at that time:

"It's the scene where glam rocker Nikki is talking to the pirate Fargo, who is smoking on the deck. It's supposed to be like they're talking to each other and solving life's issues. But because we missed this dot in the international version, it just stops, and it's just Fargo smoking forever. I've seen some people even think that it's a hidden ending, when it's actually just a bug."

• Translators had to manually insert line breaks and invisible characters to avoid crashes; Honeywood wrote custom tools just to make English text workable.

• Some games were literally impossible to localise. On Chocobo Dungeon, the "final" source code didn't compile and was missing large sections because developers had left and their PCs were wiped. Honeywood had to tell management the game couldn't ship overseas at all.

• Spell names and lore logic often lived only in developers' heads - even localization leads had to chase creators down to ask what things actually meant years later.

"I actually had to ask what the word 'Dia' in Japanese meant. [...] Ishii-san said, 'I didn't name it. Kawazu-san, the guy who leads the Saga team, was the one who actually thought that spell originally.' So I went over to him and asked, 'What does Dia actually mean?' He goes, 'Dispel Undead.'"

• Final Fantasy XI forced Square to finally standardize terminology globally, because players across regions needed to communicate using auto-translate.

• The Square Enix merger was culturally rough, with Enix treating Square as the bought-out side and hierarchy becoming painfully visible.

• Yuji Horii, father of Dragon Quest series, only came to the office once a week - and smoked heavily, meaning meetings happened in clouds of cigarette smoke despite otherwise smoke-free offices.

• Dragon Quest’s Western identity was deliberately reshaped using British English to contrast Final Fantasy’s American tone, causing constant friction with the US office. “British English lite” rules led to absurd compromises, like avoiding words such as “colour” entirely to dodge spelling arguments.

• Smaller projects like Chocobo Racing were used as training grounds for translators; and paid accordingly. Honeywood’s bonus for that was 11 yen.

• Many localization successes and failures came down to individual people, not systems - who happened to be in the room mattered more than process.

• Localization quietly influenced game design itself: code changes, scheduling gaps, voice acting decisions, character tone, and tooling pipelines.

• Honeywood's relationship with Horii was "odd": sometimes Honeywood was asked to follow Hori on vacations to serve as a translator; professional praise from Horii arrived years after Honeywood had already left SE.

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@SailToArchipel @yokotaro Double backed immediately. Can't wait!

[Sam Lambert @samlambert]

back in my day this was our vercel

[Daily RPG Music @dailyrpgsongs]

Metaphor: ReFantazio - Wings of Freedom

Composer: Shoji Meguro
Vocals: Maiko Katagiri

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@XboxP3 @PlanetofLana Would be great to poke Windows team to optimise Win 11 for Steam Deck use or be able to launch PC Game Pass titles on Deck / Proton 🥲

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

STILL, "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" is one of the spookiest tracks https://t.co/nBrRxdRijO

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

I love all the recent #ResidentEvil releases to death (sorry), but one thing that has been quite disappointing for me is the decline in soundtrack memorabilia.

The remakes OST serve as background music well, but they don't contribute to the games feel as much as the older OSTs

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

Theme songs are good exceptions, but you hear them rarely - only through credits mostly.

"Saudade" from RE:2 is great, and "Yearning of Dark Shadows" from REV is not too bad, but it's still not the whole soundtrack which supports the game's mood

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

I've been researching game UI/HUDs for the past two weeks, and goddamn it's a tough task.

The limitations of mobile screens are one thing, but when you have to plan out the layout for the PC version as well (hello, ultrawide displays), it turns into a minefield.

Really thankful that https://t.co/iKVkzLoRU8 exists lol

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@tomwarren I'm super glad that the team is listening. I haven't gotten the new dashboard yet, but I do love my themes. The Dead Space one is top-notch 🤌

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

I pretty much dislike what Sony has been doing in the last few years, so I switched to the Xbox Series X two years ago. While I understand the potential value of the ABK acquisition to the Xbox brand, I think it's the wrong direction to take, and I'd prefer to see those $68B reinvested in third-party relations.

I own all platforms, but my PS5 has been collecting dust for the last six months because I'm pretty satisfied with the selection on Xbox.

I do want Xbox to boost its performance and get stronger, but I don't think ABK will help with that. Success is measured by MAU and a good catalogue, and I hope that in the next 12 months, things will improve once the acquisition is over, and attention is switched elsewhere.

[Ryan Corniel @DukeGunston]

I'm sure sticky hair has some sort of purpose 🤷‍♂️
#UE5 #Puppets #RealTime

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@johnjohanas YESSSSSSSSS

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@_yusuketsutsumi Absolutely beautiful! Soundtrack for the weekend was found

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@Housemarque Pure beauty!

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@bethesda @hifiRush oh I'm gonna break that share button for 808 alone alright

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

@RagnarRoxShow Brilliant essay as always. Can't wait for what you do next. Thank you for your tremendous effort!

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

"Weight of Life" is one of many themes I enjoyed a lot from #XenobladeChronicles3. Of course, it's still far from greatness of Xenoblade 1 soundtrack, but this insane combination of instruments and the melody of hope gives me chills to this day #kotFM

https://t.co/yqYU0AYYXC

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

Still can't get over the fact how good OST is in Sonic Frontiers. The combination of classic and modern elements creates an unforgettable experience #kotFM

https://t.co/kLrSWymB8r

[Artem Permyakov @permyakot]

I'm still yet to get into Kingdom Hearts fully, but Forza Finale got me right away. Such a powerful song! #kotFM

https://t.co/Vp9BANiNm7