Challenges and Puns in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town Localization

Lori Snyder, the assistant localization lead for Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, penned a blog post detailing her experience translating the game for a western audience. This is the first entry in the blog series. Aside from describing her work flow, Snyder also went into detail about the team’s creative choices and challenges.

Tidbits featured in the blog post include:

• The North American release date is only a month after the Japanese one. This means the localization team had to translate Japanese text while it is written and edited.
• Lovett’s original name was Daisukii, which is a pun on the phrase, “I love (it).” To keep the same pun, the localization team named him ‘Lovett.’
• The Japanese version of Lovett’s requests were a simple “I want to eat it!” With approval from the developers, the localization team added in Lovett’s personal opinion on dishes, as well as fun facts, to fill in the extra space and further characterize him.
• Pioneers of Olive Town will have new text tags for the genders of the protagonist, their partner, and their child. As a result, the experience will be more personalized as you go about your daily life and routine. 
• The idea of “pioneers” captures the developers’ original vision of the protagonist’s grandfather being the first pioneer of Olive Town and the protagonist picking up where he left off. The producers also wished to have Olive Town in the title of the game, in a similar vein to Friends of Mineral Town.

  

  

  

  
  

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town will be released on March 23, 2021 through XSEED’s official website and in the Nintendo eShop. There is also an expansion pass you can pick up for new love interests, locations, and more.