GSW: What made you decide to take on the task of translating games into Dutch?

OK Impala: Back in 2000 I stumbled upon the translation scene. It was amazing! Fans translating wonderful Japanese RPGs that were never released in English. That way I could finally play Final Fantasy II, III and V, but also the Y's series, Tales of Phantasia and many others.

I had - and still have - a deep respect for the translators of those games. I longed for translating games myself. Though since I don't understand anything of Japanese, translating those games wasn't an option.

At that time there were already a lot of foreign translation groups, especially German, French, Spanish and Greek (of the famous Greekroms.com) translators. Dutch translations were almost non-existent. Therefore I started translating games myself.

GSW: Are there other Dutch translation groups now?

OK: No, not that I know of. It's really a shame since so many countries have several groups, even for small languages. I guess we aren't proud enough on our language.

GSW: Were the smaller NES games you started with a way of getting the hang of the translation process?

OK: Yup, I started with Super Mario Bros. since I found a translation program for it. It was a nice tool which displayed all text of the game and you could easily change them. The first Dutch translation by Ok Impala! was born. After that I started experimenting with other games to get the hang of hexediting. I translated Tetris, Ice Hockey and Duck Hunt. I released all four games when my website was founded.

GSW: How did you do the translations in the beginning, and at what point did you start working with hex? What was the difference?

OK: Super Mario Bros., the first translation, was done with a translation tool. Later on I mostly used hexeditors for translations. But I also used Nesticle for small graphical changes. When my translations got better and the games more complex I used Tile Molestor and insert/extraction tools.

GSW: Were those games really not released in Dutch previously? Is that the case with many games from that era?

OK: Nope, none of my translations were released in Dutch previously. In the Netherlands, almost no games were translated in the past. One of the few Dutch translations was Lufia II - Rise of the Sinistrials. Lately it gets more common, especially on DS and Wii that games are translated to Dutch. Even the menu of the Wii is in Dutch now!

GSW: Are there a lot of games that still aren't released in Dutch?

OK: Yes, most of them. But with the "casual gaming" audience trend, you see many games translated on DS and Wii.

GSW: Does this affect many people, or would you say that most Dutch gamers are bi-lingual?

OK: Opposed to what "gamers" in the Netherlands believe, it really does make a lot of difference for people to understand a game. Many Dutch people think that we all understand English and want our games in English too. I really don't believe the majority of the Dutch people really understand what's happening when a game is in English.

GSW: That's interesting. Why do you think that is?

OK: The problem is that when you know a language "good", it will help you understand the basics of a dialogue. However, the deeper meaning of things will pass you by. Another problem is that many "gamers" think a game sounds more "cool" in English and it doesn't sound well when you translate it to Dutch. In most of the cases that's caused by the English translation of the game itself - which is pretty bad - not by our language. I think a good Dutch translation can really add to a game and show more details of the script.

Another important point is that many people don't want to play games with a lot of English text. It's like reading an English book; most people in the Netherlands read Dutch books although they watch English programs - with Dutch subtitles - listen to English music, etc.

When it gets more complex, like in books and many games, it's just more comfortable to read something in your native language. And I'm not even starting to talk about children who don't understand English at all and still would like to play games.

GSW: How have you selected the games that you've worked on during that time?

OK: Mostly I selected the games I enjoyed playing when I was younger. And I tried to work on a translation that I could actually finish. Translating Chrono Trigger would be great, but is simply impossible if I'd work on it alone.

GSW: You've worked with teams before, right? Is it easy to find people to help out?

OK: Actually it's pretty hard. There are always people that are enthusiastic and want to help out. Though often they disappear when it really gets down to "getting things done". Another problem with translating is that you must be able to formulate nice sentences in Dutch; it's very hard to find those people too.

GSW: I assume you were mostly a SNES and NES gamer? Did you ever consider doing a Mega Drive or Master System game at any point?

OK: Yeah, I considered it but could never think of a game really worth translating. To be honest, I think the NES and SNES games, especially RPGs, were way ahead of what was available on the Sega systems at the time. Many Sega games didn't age that well either. Many old NES/SNES games are still very enjoyable by people now.

I'm a Nintendo fan: you can tell, can't you?

GSW: Sacrilege! You should check out the Phantasy Star series.

OK: I did, I did...but I couldn't shake the feeling that it would've been a very nice 8-bit RPG at the time. The games just can't match RPGs like Final Fantasy VI, Lufia - Rise of Sinistrials or Chrono Trigger, for example.

GSW: Why did you retranslate Lufia II?

OK: I didn't. The only thing I did was ripping the Dutch ROM and creating a patch so you could use the US ROM for playing Lufia in Dutch. Mainly because the Dutch Lufia II ROM is pretty hard to find.

GSW: What were the problems you encountered with the first Zelda game?

OK: Well, as always: limited space for my Dutch sentences. The English in that game isn't that great either. So I added as much to the Dutch translation as possible, I think the dialogue in the game is much better now opposed to what a literary translation would give. Another problem that put this project on hold for some time was the colors used in the opening text. Took me some time to find out how to change them, but the end result turned out nice!

GSW: What other problems exist with translating into Dutch?

OK: Space problems, all the time. We use a lot of words to describe something, while English tends to use words with more meaning. So, I had to use abbreviations from time to time. I tried to use them as less as possible, since they are ugly. Another problem, sometimes the English translation itself is pretty terrible. Than you basically have to spice up the translation, to make it sound right in Dutch.

GSW: That's cool. You're effectively localising the games, then.

OK: Indeed, a literal translation is worthless most of the time. However, I tend to keep all original names and such.

GSW: What project are you most proud of?

OK: The last project I released, Zelda: A Link to the Past. Since it was the largest game I ever translated. I worked on it with several other translators and it took years to finish. All things I learned in the past translation projects I could use for this game. It's still a terrific game and playing it in Dutch just gives me a smile.

It really fits to the cartoon style of the game, gives it some extra charm. I feel it's a nice tribute to a game many of us played when we were young.

GSW: Why do you think it adds to the charm?

OK: Well, the game has some strange kind of humor, also found in Link's Awakening. It's a serious story, but still it isn't taking itself too seriously. In Dutch it really fits the mood, like you're watching some kind of high quality child cartoon. Would've been great if I could have played this game in Dutch when I was young, I would've understood the humor a lot better!

GSW: Are there projects still in the works?

OK: Currently on the translation part only Faxanadu. Besides I'm working with Stifu on Epic Racers - a complete hack of Super Mario Kart with new drivers, courses, graphics and so on. And Ancient Tales: Prophecy of Sadness - my own RPG, which has been in the works since 1999.

But real life takes more and more time. I have a great job in which I can accomplish many things I like, but that also means I have less time for the Impala. I still try to work on my projects from time to time. All my projects got finished somewhere in time, so there will be more Ok Impala! releases in the future. Though it will take some time.

I still have dreams like translating Lufia: The Fortress of Doom, Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI or maybe one day creating my own Lufia game. So who knows what time might bring...

One thing is for sure, OKImpala.com will be there for some time to come!