News ► Petition asks Square Enix to include German, French and Spanish dubs in Kingdom Hearts 3

[Chaser]

Kingdom Hearts 3 is the biggest entry in the series ever since Kingdom Hearts 2 launched on the PlayStation 2 in 2005 (Japan) / 2006 (Worldwide). That was also the last time that the series was dubbed into other languages outside of Japanese and English.

Jorge and Matthias from Disney Central have kindly asked us to shed some light onto one thing they really hope for with Kingdom Hearts 3: the chance to experience the game in their native language. They hope with Kingdom Hearts 3 being an AAA title with a bigger budget that localised dubs in other countries would be considered by Square Enix. They are wanting to approach Square Enix with a petition to highlight the amount of people who support the decision to dub the game into various languages, specifically German, French and Spanish dubs.

The petition was launched a few years ago, but with Kingdom Hearts 3 launching in 2018 on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it is now more important than ever to share this around to the Global community, to show Square Enix that there are people in European countries who would love for the series to go back to being dubbed in their language.

They made contact with Square Enix Germany who released this statement:

“Unfortunately, we can’t make this decision alone and are bound to coordination from other territories as well as economic parameters. […] This is partly also because, right now, we are entirely focusing on the upcoming AAA-titles and are therefore trying to deliver in a quality the fans know and love. We will also try to realize all our customers’ wishes and requests for Kingdom Hearts 3, including a German dubbing. Of course, I can’t make any promises right now as it is still too early. But I think that things aren’t looking too bad.” 

In 2012, Square Enix only released Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance on the 3DS with text support for English, French, and German translations. The game itself wasn't even distributed by Nintendo in Spain, however select retailers were able to get a hold of some copies for sale but the game was only available in English. It wasn't until the PlayStation 4 release of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue did the game get Spanish and Italian language support.

Text support outside of English and Japanese has not yet been confirmed for Kingdom Hearts 3, however it is almost a certainty that this will be the case as shown by this years earlier releases. Given this chance, we would like to urge everyone to support Jorge and Matthias and show support for dubbing Kingdom Hearts 3 into many languages, just like how it was back with Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2. 

You can sign the petition here and read the letter that will be sent to Square Enix here.

 

[VoidGear.]

If I may add, as someone who played the "german" version of 3D on the 3DS: It was absolute utter trash. Whoever worked on it clearly had no idea about Kingdom Hearts, they renamed keyblades like the Kingdom Key and Way to the Dawn, which obviously already had german names. The worst part though was the fact that every third word was shortened because they didn't even want to take the time to just write something in the journal that FITS the space. It went kinda like "th. game is real. good for new playe. and fans of the franch." It was HORRIBLE.
So yes, SE, pls give KH the focus it deserves again.

 

[Silver_Soul]

A Latin American Spanish version would be dream come true for me.

 

[Chaser]

If I may add, as someone who played the "german" version of 3D on the 3DS: It was absolute utter trash. Whoever worked on it clearly had no idea about Kingdom Hearts, they renamed keyblades like the Kingdom Key and Way to the Dawn, which obviously already had german names. The worst part though was the fact that every third word was shortened because they didn't even want to take the time to just write something in the journal that FITS the space. It went kinda like "th. game is real. good for new playe. and fans of the franch." It was HORRIBLE.
So yes, SE, pls give KH the focus it deserves again.

(Nvm it has language buttons on desktop. xD)

That sounds absolutely awful, I'm sorry that you had to experience that version of the game. How was it and 0.2 on PS4? Did they fix the translations and provide an adequate experience?

 

[Grizzly]

Accessibility is important, especially when it's a language barrier. Whether it affects someone's ability to play at all or just their ability to enjoy the game, it's essential. I'm all for this, even if it would delay the release past whatever they have in mind.

 

[VoidGear.]

That sounds absolutely awful, I'm sorry that you had to experience that version of the game. How was it and 0.2 on PS4? Did they fix the translations and provide an adequate experience?

Yes and no. They definitely improved the journal and menues, although I must admit I did not scroll through all of it again. But since the screen offered more space, they didn't shorten the words anymore and it actually had proper sentences.
As far as the translations go though; Kingdom Key is still a mess of a "half translation" (they left the "Kingdom" and translated the "Key", resulting in "Kingdom-Schlüssel"...which is double weird because it was originally called Königsanhänger (King's Pendant) and the word Schlüssel never existed in its name in the first place) and Way to the Dawn still has its...well, shortened? name.
It's just disappointing because not only did the people translating it obviously either not care or never see a KH game before, but things like "Kingdom-Schlüssel" also prove that they were lazy, not only clueless. I was always very fond of the translations for KH, because I felt that if they changed stuff, they did it so that it would sound better or make more sense, cause some words are just hard to literally translate to german.
But 3D...it's just pain.

Oh, 0.2 was fine again btw. They properly went with "Ars Magica" for example, the name Spellweaver had already had over here in BBS and BBS FM.

 

[Chuman]

like grizzly bear said, accessibility is incredibly important. if a publisher as big as square puts the time in to release a version in that country so they can make a few extra dollars, the least they can do is translate and dub it properly so everyone can enjoy it.

 

[Chaser]

There have been comments from people thinking this would delay the game but like... English VA hasn't even started yet. If they have plans to do it, or they understand fan demand, then surely they can get those who were involved before signed on or hire new people (Square should have a database, after all they do dub other games like FFXV) and get that work underway without it hurting any release date?

 

[raccoonscity]

There have been comments from people thinking this would delay the game but like... English VA hasn't even started yet. If they have plans to do it, or they understand fan demand, then surely they can get those who were involved before signed on or hire new people (Square should have a database, after all they do dub other games like FFXV) and get that work underway without it hurting any release date?

I would personally be OK with them pushing back the release date a bit should it come to that -- I'm not an expert but I don't think it would. If they're going for an international release date, they should have decent dubs considering how anticipated this game is and how long people have been waiting. I know many people in the US hate when Japan gets a game weeks early and they have to rely on sloppy translations/avoid spoilers. And I don't really want that for anyone else.

 

[Muke]

I can confirm that the German version of DDD was simply awful. “Kingsom-Schlüssel” is just the worst. And because almost every 3rd word was shortened, I had to resd through some stuff a few times to get what it’s supposed to mean.

KH2 wasn’t perfect either. They sped up A LOT of lines that the vas had recorded, like, a lot of them. I guess it’s so they fit the lip flaps, but it was really stupid and jarring. In the end some lines just sound like a mix of letters instead of regular sentences

Anyways, I adore the German dub, so I’d be happy if there was one again. But I hope they give us an option to change the language, like in FFXV for example

 

[Romy Akari 350]

A Latin American Spanish version would be dream come true for me.

It would be, just as the FFXV has the Spanish version of Spain and Latin America subtitles, it would be good to give us a treatment like that at the very least on the subtitles. The reason, why I don't trust the subtitles in Spanish, is also that the meaning of the translation sometimes is kind of far from what the character says, I have even found big mistakes on the reports of the 0.2 that I still doubt that those are fixed... because I feel that someone that isn't really familiar with the series did the translation, the feeling or the way a character says something sometimes keeps missing...

I would love to see that if they end doing the doub of KH3 on Spanish, even just for Spain Spanish, it would stick more to what it's on English at least, maybe it just looks strange to me since the word used on Spain are unfamiliar to me but we have to be clear, Latin America has a lot more people that talks on Spanish than on Spain, another thing is that also SE doesn't give Latin America many chances as Spain, just so unfair ...

 

[DarkosOverlord]

Oh, so no place for Italy, huh? I guess we're not cool enough for this european treehouse.
No, no, that's fine. We'll make our OWN petition, with DLCs and character doujins! Actually forget about the DLCs. And the petition.

Jokes aside (we never got a dub for the series in the first place, I'd want one but it's our battle to fight) I'd really like hearing more official dubs for Kingdom Hearts, mainly because it's part of my area of work and because... c'mon, the series is big enough. And I hope giving the dub more focus will also improve the translation sector, which has always been pretty bad in italian (2.8 was awful, it introduced and changed a plethora of names that were 1) out of place 2) most of the times even semantically incorrect)

Oh, and for the sake of information I just want to shed some light to whoever didn't know and was wondering about why 3DS DDD never got languiage support in Italy and Spain and wasn't even available in the latter: Italy and Spain had an unbelievable number of people who downloaded KH games illegally. The missed translation and sale of DDD was conceived as a "punishment" for these smartasses.

 

[Veevee]

Well, that would be nice. I love the English dub but German dub would make it more accessible to more people. The dub for FF15 was wonderful in German. In the German dub of FF15 there's some dialogue between Prompto and Noctis that goes along the lines of "You also hate bugs, don't you, Noct?" and Noctis answer "yes, I hate them ... EUGH, bah" and the way his VA words his disgust is just too good. If it stays on a similar level, I'd love to have German dub, for Xemnas' wonderful voice alone. xD

 

[Chaser]

The French VA for Sora, Donald Reignoux, knows of this petition and seems like he would be up for returning as Sora so that’s pretty cool

 

[Matze33]

I want to thank you, Chaser, for your help in getting the word about the petition around the globe. I'm one of the runners of the petition. We got round about 100 signatures since you published the news from everywhere. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the US, Australia. Those are just a few that I saw skipping the new entries.

We saw so much love for Kingdom Hearts and the existing dubs in the reactions from people which is a huge motivation for us. So we'll continue to fight until we close the petition and send it to Square Enix in the near future.
If anyone has some more ways to let others know about the petition feel free to do so. And for any questions or concerns you can contact me here or use the petition website or Facebook to do so

Thanks again, everyone!

Matthias

 

[Chaser]

You're more than welcome, I hope Square Enix takes notice of your work. I've seen many people excited at the idea of hearing the games in their own languages so the petition is certainly reaching people out there

 

[Alja]

But I hope they give us an option to change the language, like in FFXV for example

This. I'd be fine with a multiple languages version for Europe but ONLY if I can choose the language. I'm totally willing to try out the German and French versions just to listen to it/improve my French again, but I'm so deeply in love with the English voices that I'm not willing to miss them (and I don't see why I should have to import a UK game to play this version if all the other PS4 games come with the English dub).

So yeah, make it so that I can still choose to listen to the English dub and I'm totally cool with multiple languages on the disc. It would be kinda cool to mix dub and sub in whichever way somebody wants to.
But then again, if the dub would slow down the release, don't you dare. Make a patch or whatever.