NESpeak
Created | Updated Oct 20, 2010
<dl><dt><font size= +1>A winner is you!</font></dt><dd>-Ending screen, <I>Pro Wrestling</I>, Nintendo</dl>
First and foremost, if a company was going to attempt to translate a piece of work from one language to another, one would imagine they would at least hire someone fluent, or at least vaguely familiar, with both languages. This, sadly, is not the case with many video game companies. Apparently due to a lack of English-speaking Japanese, such companies were forced to get the equivalent of grade schoolers to do the majority of the translation, and it shows in many games. The ambiguity between the letters L and R rears its ugly head, as well, and many games end with a hearty "CONGRATURATION!" to the player.
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<dl><dt><font size= +1>Get a Silk Bag from the Graveyard Duck to live longer.</font></dt><dd>-A Townsperson, <I>Castlevania II: Simon's Quest</I>, Konami</dd></dl>
On the same note, missing punctuation is a common problem, embodied best in the above quote. One little period would have changed the townsperson's advice to something quite close to coherency: There is an item to be received from a wizard in the graveyard, and you can make yourself a smaller target to avoid taking damage. But instead, the player goes off in search of a mallard with a tombstone to receive the item, standing tall all the way.
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<dl><dt><font size= +1>Buy somethin' will ya!</font></dt><dd>-Shopkeeper, <I>The Legend of Zelda</I>, Nintendo</dd></dl>
When translating a game from Japanese to English, it apparently hadn't occurred to anyone that one character in Japanese could be the equivalent of several characters (or words) in English. Thus, no extra space is given to text in English, abridging several important clues into a mish-mash of meaningless drivel.
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<dl><dt><font size= +1>Get the heck out of here, you nerd!</font></dt><dd>-A soldier, <I>Bionic Commando</I>, Capcom</dd></dl>
Nintendo's censors were heavy-handed. Very few games passed their scrutiny unharmed. Any references to dying became "falling down", blessed objects to destroy vampires were simply "magical" (Castlevania's bottle of Holy Water becomes a "Firebomb"), And The Next Life forbid there be any references to any specific religion or religious figure. In the worst days, graphic gore was toned down, as well, although several old games got away with spatters of blood and guts (<I>Fist of the North Star</I>, out in 1987, involved people graphically exploding, entrails splattering everywhere, with every death). The major turning point came with Midway's <I>Mortal Kombat</I>, in which any splatters of blood were turned into grey sprays of sweat. The Sega Genesis port, with blood that could be accessed through a not-quite-secret code, sold rather better than the SNES port, and Nintendo has been a little less conservative since.
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Nintendo is not the only system infected with NESpeak, simply the worst infected. And, for the most part, while recent translations of games have gotten <I>better</I>, very few are flawless. The Sony Playstation, more powerful than the NES several times over and considered the console of choice for RPGs, still sports some of the worst translations:
<dl><dt><font size= +1>Select the Job command that bundles up Action Ability by the Job in the unit's sub-command.</font></dt><dd>-Professor Daravon, <I>Final Fantasy Tactics</I>, Squaresoft</dd></dl>
Huh? Squaresoft's <I>Final Fantasy Tactics</I> is a complex game, thus, it was programmed with a built-in (hour-long) tutorial, narrated by Professor Daravon. However, the translation is so horrible, the convoluted speech leaves the player scratching his head trying to figure out just what the Professor is babbling about. FF Tactics is a great game, but it would probably have been easier to figure out how to play by starting the game and guesswork than actually sitting through the tutorial. This has lead to another nickname for NESpeak: "Daravonese".
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<dl><dt><font size= +1>"We reeived a letter from the highland army!!!!"</font></dt><dd>-Castle Guard, <I>Suikoden II</I>, Konami</dd></dl>
Somewhere out there, there is a company that is trying to serve the masses with video games that are worth playing, on time. If any of you know which company that is, please let me know. Rushed translations are one of the worst problems video game translations suffer from these days, the best (worst?) example being Suikoden II; it was delayed for the better part of a year, yet still contains a horrible translation. <a href= "http://www.toastyfrog.com">ToastyFrog</a> said it best: "...the translation was apparently written as a collective effort by members of an AOL forum. The poor grammar, spelling and overuse of exclamation points - as well as Sheena's habit of hitting on underage girls - give's it away!!!!!"
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<dl><dt><font size= +1>I hate violence. Meat!</font></dt><dd>-Charlotte,<I>Samurai Showdown IV</I>, SNK</dd></dl>
A noteworthy subset of NESpeak, "SNKglish", is named after the company SNK, famous for their one-on-one fighter games such as <I>Samurai Showdown</I> and <I>King of Fighters</I>. Each character gets a short speech after a fight is won, but these make little or no sense whatsoever and appear to be written not by world-class fighters gloating over their victory, but outpatients of a mental ward. Or maybe they do, given the tendency these people have to get hit in the head.
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There are online archives of mistranslated video games. Those looking for a good laugh may wish to visit the text-based <a href= "http://www.classicgaming.com/whazzat">Whazzat?!</a> or the rarely-updated [Broken Link removed by Moderator]
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And remember, Secret is where the fairies don't live!