Japanese to English is an art, not a science. Which is why we have the following:
1. “All your base are belong to us.” – Zero Wing
2. “I am Error.” – Zelda II: The Adventures of Link
3. “Jill, why don’t you, the master of unlocking, take this lock pick.” – Resident Evil
4. “You were doomed as soon as you lost the ability to love.” – Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
5. “Yo gangsta! Get ready to gang bang!” – Bust-a-Groove
6. “I feel asleep.” – Metal Gear
7. “You can’t give it up! Triumph or die!” – Street Fighter Alpha 3
8. The DK Rap – Donkey Kong 64, Super Smash Bros Melee
9. “A Winner is You!” – Pro Wrestling
10. “Shine Get!” – Super Mario Sunshine
That said, my Japanese is appalling. I can ask for drinks in a bar, but that’s about it. Still, it’s enough to get by. You can live on alcohol, right?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Game Localization // Oct 25, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Generally, game localization improved a lot over the last decade, it has become something much more professional.
That said, the recent boom of mobile games and these kinds of applications from small developers with a small budget mean that we start seeing such big mistranslations again.
I can see that very clearly at my work (I’m a French proofreader), we sometimes get to proofread games which were translated by automatic dictionaries…
Well, the worst is that actually some of these developers release their “localized” games without any proofreading…
2 Engrish Christmas Cards! « The Hypernation // Dec 23, 2007 at 8:02 PM
[...] odd stir-fried Wikipedia goes down beautifully. Here’s a blog with the ten worst (ie: best) Game Engrish of translation [...]
3 Torchico // Dec 18, 2007 at 1:41 PM
DK RAP original language is english.. Rare developed the game, remember?? And that Castlevania one wasnt so bad imo.
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