The Russian-language adaptation of Resident Evil Village in a certain sense became an important milestone in the history of localizations of games in the series. Why? Let’s figure it out. In order to fully talk about the Russian adaptation, I propose to delve into the history of localizations of games in this series:

Up to a certain point, such a feature as "Russian translation" Not all games in the series were awarded. Oldfags remember the localization attempts of early residents and can easily quote pearls from those very pirated translations, especially those that have already become cult Zakrukaz or Frozen asshole.

So you need to be able to distort gaming terminology

So you need to be able to distort gaming terminology

But as the series developed, the situation constantly changed. Somewhere gamers were able to enjoy an official and competent translation with full voice acting (Resident Evil 5), somewhere only subtitles (Resident Evil Revelations 2), and, to be honest, some parts still do not have official localization (Resident Evil Zero, Resident Evil Remake, Resident Evil: Code Veronica). Thanks to the fans who fussed over and produced very worthy amateur translations, many of them are not inferior to the official ones, and sometimes they are made at a higher level.

Of course, there were cases when the level of official localizations was, let’s say, below average.

Pearls of the official Resident Evil Revelations

Pearls of the official Resident Evil Revelations

With Russian versions Resident Evil 4 And Resident Evil 5 everything is somewhat different, since the PC boyars received their official and more or less high-quality translations (and for the top five, let me remind you, they also brought in voice acting), but the owners of the console versions only had to improve their English skills: listening, reading and understanding information. Is it good or bad, let everyone decide for themselves. As for me, the opportunity to once again practice my knowledge of overseas languages ​​is quite good.

With the release Resident Evil 6 the new era has not yet arrived, but progress has not happened. From now on, all subsequent games in the series were accompanied by a full official translation on all platforms. The quality of localization of the same six was quite good, except for the controversial translation of abbreviations, which caused confusion among hardcore fans of the series. The most iconic organization for modern residents B.S.A.A. in Russian localization turned into APBT (Alliance Against BioTerrorism), which is essentially a quality adaptation, just sounded unusual.

The Alliance wandered from one localization to another, but by eight, the localizers finally gave up and did not use the Russian version of the abbreviation. Everything is back to normal:

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil Revelations 2 and even a failure Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City also came with a good translation in the form of subtitles. Of course, amateur voiceovers exist, but that’s a completely different story.

And finally, Resident Evil Village became a pioneer and an important milestone in history, since for the first time in eight numbered parts, localization was not only a completely translated text, but also a complete and, importantly,, professional Russian voice acting, and on all platforms. This fact has pleased many fans who are eager to immerse themselves in the gaming environment and listen to cues from the great and mighty, without being distracted by subtitles. At the same time, no one bothers you to play with the original voice acting and subtitles; the game supports many languages, which is also a separate plus. Is it possible to assume that in the future all games in the series will be localized in a similar way?? Time will tell.

Thank you for checking out my short tour. Now let’s move on to the main part.

A small note: I know that the game series Biohazard originally from Japan, but since I compared the Russian version with the English one, further original I will name the last one.

Most often, I give preference to the original voice acting, and quite rarely the Russian dubbing catches me, although such cases do slip through; for example, I am extremely pleased with the Russian version Heavy Rain.

If I briefly characterize the domestic localization of the Village, then it definitely did not disappoint, although I still think that it was not possible to surpass the original. You are unlikely to be satisfied with such a capacious formulation, so let’s dig deeper.

Does Russian voice acting interfere with immersion in the world of the game?? No.

Are there epic fails that ruin cutscenes and have a detrimental effect on emotional perception?? No either.

The translation is sometimes literal, sometimes free. Sometimes the Russian version allows itself certain discrepancies with the original source (that is, the English version), which, for the most part, are justified by Lip sync, that is, some of the lines are deliberately changed, some are shortened or removed altogether, just so that the scene looks and sounds organic. The above-mentioned discrepancies due to lip sync do not greatly detract from the gaming experience. Of course, there are distortions of a different kind, and what exactly they were motivated by is not entirely clear to me personally, but more on that later.

I propose to break down the analysis of localization into two segments: Voice acting and directly Translation. In some places they will intersect, which is quite natural.

If you were expecting to read a huge article in which I cut into ribbons, hang on hooks and bite off the fingers of Russian localization, then I have to upset you, because there are not so many mistakes in it.

Also, there will be no quibbles in style: "Why does everyone in the Romanian village speak in common English??", and especially let’s not be distracted by how well the developers played with the name of this part and its number. I think this is already clear.

Russian voice acting

My assessment of the voice acting of the Village is, of course, subjective, and in no way is the ultimate truth. The perception of voices, in particular, timbre settings, intonations in plot and combat scenes, pronunciation features and other aspects – all this depends solely on the characteristics of your perception. Some people prefer the original voices, others prefer the voices from the dubbing, as they say, all Ethans are different in taste and color.

When it comes to the quality standard of Russian voice acting, the catch is that we simply have nothing to compare with, since official Russian dubbing, as I already said, is a rarity. But as part of the debut, I can safely say that both the translation and the voice acting were performed at a fairly high level; I can’t even call the latter a passer-by.

To begin with, I would like to praise the general level of voice acting. She perfectly adapts both simple human remarks and radio conversations, strange prayers of villagers, life-saving radio messages and the voices of mutated adversaries.

Eight turned out to be https://bonniebingocasino.co.uk/ one of the most plot-driven and, to a certain extent, dramatic numbered parts of the series, which means that the localizers were faced with the task of not losing the information contained in the original, not distorting its meaning and, if possible, not introducing ad-libs. The context of plot and game situations must be taken into account, and what is happening must evoke certain emotions – maintain seriousness, tension in those scenes where it is necessary and convey notes of humor where intended.

The above tasks in general completed.

There is one big plus in Russian voice acting, which, for obvious reasons, significantly increases the level of positive perception and involvement of the gamer. You all understand what we’re talking about.

Of course oh MATYUKAKH. There are very, very many of them. The video version even has a clip for a general idea.

The introduction of sparkling and extremely realistic swear words gives what is happening a touch of something familiar, dear, familiar and takes empathy for the character to a new level. Even the ambiance of the game itself encourages this. An outback in which everyone recognizes certain attributes of places from childhood, a typical village drunk, some strange eccentrics starting with the letter M, and so on. You simply believe the Russian-speaking Ethan; his reaction to what is happening is sometimes shocking with its realism.

In general, special thanks for the introduction of localization carte blanche for translation and voice acting, thanks to which this became possible. But not so long ago, the appearance of swear words in Russian subtitles was something outstanding, let alone the presence of sparkling Russian obscenities in the voice acting, as in the same Far Cry 3.

The splendor of Konstantin Karasik

And here we step into the territory of contradictions – in comparison with the original, the Russian version allows itself much more obscene language in terms of the total number of lines. This can be easily seen during the passage, when instead of Goddamnit sounds "bitch" or "Fuck", A messed up place turns into "*bad place".

Sometimes this affects the overall impression of the game and leads to humorous component to the fore. Personally, this really threw me off the mood when playing through it with Russian voice acting – the scene in Louise’s house still makes me laugh wildly, I can’t help it.

Let’s start analyzing the votes with Ethan Winters. I suggest turning a blind eye to the moments when our mushroom catches flashbacks from the previous part and demonstrates an acting performance at the level of Kristen Stewart, for example, when he practically does not react to how operatives turn his wife into a sieve. Ethan, let’s just say, even since his debut in Seven, he hasn’t given the impression of being a multi-faceted character, he hasn’t captured the imagination with his charisma or other character traits. Personally, I didn’t really want to sympathize with him (especially after the scenes of divine healing from brilliant green), and the emotional range was like that of a toothpick.

However, we can safely say that Winters in the eight is perceived completely different, both from the point of view of dramaturgy and emotional perception. The level of empathy for him has become higher, although for many players the impression may be spoiled, especially after a certain point (those who do not understand will understand).

Partly, the level of empathy has increased due to the fact that the main character has to not sweet. This village reveals all the dimensions of Ethan Winters’ pain and suffering. Falls, injuries and biting off fingers in the Russian dubbing sound very realistic. Believe me, I listened to the character’s suffering in all available languages, and I got the feeling that the dubbing actors took courses at the School of Suffering and Torture (just kidding). It wasn’t without replaying, of course, but you frankly believe that the main character is experiencing far from the most pleasant feelings “not very good”. Well, winter Ethan will suffer a lot of torment (even incompatible with life): there will be numerous injuries to the arms, legs, periodic piercings, blood sucking, lycan bites, insect bites, severed limbs, acid rain, falls from heights and other, other, other misfortunes. Somewhere the Cenobites are salivating..

But not only through suffering, as they say. In Eight, Ethan simply has more screen time, and, accordingly, more replicas. Precisely replicas, and not interjections and statements of captain-obvious facts and exclamations like MIA STUPPED BITCH, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! IT WAS MY HAND. The character constantly reacts to something: to ram heads hanging around the village, to creepy phenomena that make you doubt your own psyche, and to strange creatures in jars. The emotional range has become much wider: in places Ethan expresses indignation, disgust, fear, confusion and other feelings. Straight out from 50 Shades of Ethan.

The character is definitely no longer perceived as a resident version of Gordon Freeman, and this is definitely pleasing. The localization has been re-voiced all sounds, made by the character – sighs, groans, efforts when trying to open or run something, puffing sounds when climbing stairs, and so on. For the most part it looks very natural and to some extent justified. The sounds of going down the stairs are perhaps a little annoying, but this is a minus of both versions.

To sum it up, I think Ethan’s Russian voice successful adaptation.

We can talk about the rest of the dubbing voices for a long time. Personally, I highlight a few successful hits for myself:

His role went to Sergei Chikhachev, who, by the way, has a very rich filmography. He managed to voice the Terminator, and Ultron, and the Bloody Baron. And he coped with the task quite well. Features preserved mystery and at the same time energy character, sometimes his voice sounds alluring, there are notes of humor and the way he makes fun of the main character in a peculiar way. Every breath, every witty remark – everything fits perfectly into the image. What can we say, the localizers got confused and even re-sounded the sounds of sleep. As for me, Duke’s voice acting is a solid A.

Lady Dimitrescu

Elena Kharitonova’s voice emphasizes well majesty character, and also reflects her imposing And imperiousness. Decent work done. But still it seems to me that before Maggie Robertson failed to make it

Oddly enough, I consider this another dubbing discovery, Kargu. She has the same squeaky voice with hints of madness. And the laughter is probably not at all inferior to the original.

I also liked the sound Mother Miranda and matured Rose

We cannot ignore the work of dubbing luminaries, who, alas, only got episodic roles: for example, Alexander Hotchenkov (voice of Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob) voiced the villager who gave Ethan the gun and then fell victim to the Lycan; Ilya Bledny voiced the Dog (+ agent in the epilogue), and Valery Storozhik – Elena’s father Leonardo. I think many people are pleased to hear familiar voices in the Russian version.

And finally, I personally consider dubbing to be a nugget Alexey Myasnikov, who played the role of Heisenberg. What’s curious is that he is equally good at playing the most diverse characters, like Jack Shepard in Lost or Bruce Banner in The Avengers. Now in his arsenal he also has Boyarsky, who with his charisma attracts anything but the weapon of the protagonist. He managed to play a very real, albeit charismatic asshole, and also convey threat, arrogance And madness character, as well as his hatred to Mother Miranda and other Lords.

The voices of the other characters do not cause wild dissonance and in their own way suit the original ones, but there are a couple of moments that hurt my ears:

— The voice actors of some characters openly overact (for example, Angie)

— Evelina, which, to be honest, even in the original of the seventh part managed to irritate, in the Russian version it’s even more annoying and sounds something like Balloon Boy in Five Nights At Freddy’s, who was forcibly brought to your ear and forced to listen

— Anton Eldarov voiced by Chris Redfield. And, by God, I don’t hear in him a seasoned operative who has already seen all sorts of crap. There is no tension in his voice in connection with the events taking place in the game; on the contrary, it seems too ordinary. But this is again subjective.

The emotional coloring of some scenes is inadvertently distorted in the dubbing. For example, at a meeting, mutual antipathy and I would even say contempt are clearly visible Alsina And Heisenberg, which will later be reflected in various aspects of the game, but in the Russian dubbing this is not so noticeable.

Problems with the original voice acting

So, we’re done with the Russian dubbing. You’re probably thinking that I think the original voice acting is perfect? This is far from true, there are some downsides.

Problem with the original voice acting #1 — If you have gained experience playing with English voice acting, then many voices will be painfully familiar to you.

For example, Neil Newbon (Neil Newbon), voiced Nicholas in the Remake of the third resident, Elijah Kamsky in Detroit: Become Human and other characters. He is generally a talented and sought after actor. And now he has appeared in his arsenal Heisenberg.

Nicole Tompkins, gave voice Jill Valentine in the third Remake, voiced one of Dimitrescu’s daughters, and also Elena.

Paula Rhodes, which many fans of the original sound have already attached to the image of Evelina from the seven, in this part it is broadcast from the lips of the doll Angie.

Jeff Schine, recently given voice Carlos in the remake of the third part he now voiced Chris Redfield. This is such an unexpected combination.

Sara Coates, Margarita voiced from Seven Louise.

For some, the effect of recognizing voices can be a cruel joke, and the images of some characters may simply not fit into your head. Well, yes, Nikolai-Kamski cosplaying as Magneto may cause some confusion. It is possible that this is due to the peculiarities of the perception of voices, but nevertheless.

With voice acting by Ethan and Mia (Todd Soley And Katie O’Hagan, accordingly) such an effect does not occur, since the images of the characters were already assigned to them.

And to the voice acting of the Duke (Aaron LaPlante), Alsina Dimitrescu (Maggie Robertson) and Miranda (Michelle Lukes) attracted new actors who have not yet appeared in the franchise, as far as I know.

AND the second problem of the original voice acting – the way they sound mutated characters. If the characters in their human forms give out voiced, articulate and completely understandable replicas, then after the next transformations the voice is sometimes so distorted, which is very difficult to understand without subtitles. In Russian dubbing, for the most part, there is no such problem.

There are also moments (this is more of a question controversial game design, and not localization), when it is not possible to make out what the character is saying due to the fact that the real thing is happening on the screen mash. Let me explain with the example of a boss fight with Heisenberg.

First, the scene overloaded high-volume sound effects: the endless ringing of bullets, the sounds of bending metal, groans of characters, explosions, and so on. Secondly, it is extremely undesirable to stop shooting and be distracted by anything if you want to survive this meeting. The result is simple: you simply won’t pay attention to your opponent’s remarks, because Always you need to be in motion, maintain concentration, constantly maintain pressure and not drop your weapon for a second. The higher the difficulty level, the less the gamer is able to listen to Karl. Without subtitles this scene feels real cacophony.

Of course, this depends on your listening skills and sound settings, but in dubbing it is much easier to understand what the mutated characters are saying. This is also a kind of plus.

In a boss fight with Miranda the situation is similar, although there will be another distraction added in the form of epic music.

I would like to start analyzing the translation with the adaptation into Russian of the names of some characters. With Miranda, Donna and Morro everything is more or less clear, there’s nothing to say here. And here is the character Heisenberg in the Russian version it became "Heisenberg".

This fact caused misunderstanding and confusion among some players, and some even considered this interpretation to be error localization, although this is actually not an error, but liberty translators. The thing is that in this case the method was used transliterations, that is, when letters were simply transferred from one language to another. But I’m ready to support the localization authors, because remember who became one of the prototypes of the game character.

Namely, the German theoretical physicist Werner Carl Heisenberg. He is considered one of the creators of quantum mechanics, as well as a researcher of ferromagnetism. The characteristics of the game character are extremely closely related to the latter phenomenon. So, adaptation is quite appropriate.

In addition, a number of contradictions brought about the character’s name Alsina Dimitrescu.

Romanian surnames ending with -escu, having mainly patronymic origins, until the beginning of the 19th century were characteristic almost exclusively of representatives boyar nobility, which fits best into the setting and context of the game.

The official presentation of Sars, at which the name was pronounced as "Dimitrisk", while in the English voice acting already in the final version of the game the option sounds "Dimitresk". However, the most correct pronunciation is "Dimitrascu", however, other options also have a right to exist, since they are associated with the next liberties of localizers.

Translation quality

All documents And cards fully translated, and the quality does not cause any complaints. The only exception is this treasure map, which the player can find in Dimitrescu Castle.

There is no commentary attached to it Russian language, simply because textures the games have not been translated. However, nothing prevents a gamer from simply finding his way around on the map or, as a last resort, googling the words Dungeon And Kitchen.

Another criticism is that at one point you can notice slightly clumsy formatting, but these are minor things.

A big plus is the fact that the game documents take into account personal characteristics of the characters and even their literacy. Moreau’s documents, as expected, reflect him immaturity And lack of education, Dimitrescu – arrogance And high syllable, and Heisenberg – madness And hatred to Mother Miranda.