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Worst translation in a game you've played
- Thread starter cj_iwakura
- Start date
TeamLeftMatch
Member
After reading the word bloody my mind went into a British accent reading it.
The funnier part is that there were some phrases that just didn't make sense. Fighting sonic as shadow in the last fight for the villains team was just hearing Sonic say "I'll show upp-chaos control!". I'm pretty sure he was to supposed to say "I'll use your technique, chaos control!" But because the couldn't change the cutscene length they just left it with the characters interrupting each other. Also the music would sometimes get so loud that you couldn't hear what the characters are saying.
Breath of Fire 4 has a really inspired localization. A lot of care was put into it, including giving the western continent a Korean flair, which was totally absent in the Japanese version. It was really successful at making the two seem like different worlds, which was the intention.
I'm not fluent enough in Spanish to judge the quality of the translation proper, but one thing I noticed is that in Fatal Fury 3, the English and Japanese script have unique win quotes for each fighters vs every opponents, while in Spanish, fighters only have 2 generic win quotes (and really boring one at that).
lucebuce12
Member
What game is this?
Lol, was that translated from French? Looks like it...
Don't forget about how the person doing the localization (and I'm convinced it was a single person because I can't imagine a whole team agreeing to and getting away with this) deciding to rename all of the bosses to be Guns n Roses references.
You know, instead of doing their jobs and localizing the actual names of the bosses.
Fbh
Member
Remember how people allways bring up the fact FF7 had a crappy translation/localization?
Well the spanish version is crappy translation of that crappy translation.
Just as an example, here they translated "cool" as "frío"...which means cold
So instead of saying "cool, right?" the character is saying "it's cold, right?"
Also Aerith is called a "he" half of the time
Well the spanish version is crappy translation of that crappy translation.
Just as an example, here they translated "cool" as "frío"...which means cold
So instead of saying "cool, right?" the character is saying "it's cold, right?"
Also Aerith is called a "he" half of the time
I really loved the change from Master to Ershin once I understood the context.
The Wii version of Muramasa was so literal that it translated a haiku without bothering to keep the format.
It was supposed to be "You must defeat my Shoryuken to stand a chance", but it used the Chinese reading of the characters for some reason and ended up with "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance."
It's EYE Divine Cybermancy.
It's weird. And I'd say it's sort of like Pathologic in that the weird ass translation really adds to the otherworld feeling.
zerokoolpsx
Member
Omg hahaha.This isn't a "worst" translation, as it's pretty damn funny. More like a localization thing, but it definitely made me laugh in-game (which is strange, considering how damn depressing the events were).
Corpse Party:
Yeah I'm not sure EYE counts because if you've ever played the game the uh, "otherworldy" (I'd say extradimensional, lol >.>) nature of fucking EVERYTHING in that game definitely including the language and the way its presented is kind of part of the experience.
When playing it I never considered that it had been translated from anything. I just took it that it was part of the game's twisted and insane presentation. Also, (it's been years since I last played it) isn't the screwed up language part of the plot in some way? Like the culture in the game is the result of a ton of cultures clashing and melding resulting the language we see? I always thought it was a commentary on how cross culture diplomacy and contact can easily be misinterpreted to disastrous results, and what you get out of the metaphorical style of conversation is part of that.
Not the worst overall translation, but i was musing and chuckling earlier over the LatAm localization of Bloodborne translating the description of the trophy for the true ending textually so it reads "you became a big boy" instead of
, which is hilarious.
You became a child great one
Oh wow, I didn't even know that.
I thought they were localized on GBA as well.
I stand corrected.
Was that even released outside of japan? I think you played a fan translation :V
-Mutsukki-
Member
Nothing will ever get close to Breath of Fire 2 I think, only Robotrek comes barely to that level. Boy, was it a ride to play through all of BoF2 without understanding directions properly
AppleSeason
Member
I have never gotten in such depth. I will try it once for a laugh, then go back to english.
Waku Waku 7 takes the cake. I probably have posted this before, but...
I wonder if they have corrected this for the Switch release.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
I guess Wii Muramasa? I haven't really played any extremely badly translated games.
From the same game:
... Krauser where are you going with this
Oh huh you're right lol.
I didn't play it myself, I watched a co-worker play it like two weeks ago haha
Psyrgery ES
Member
Remember how people allways bring up the fact FF7 had a crappy translation/localization?
Well the spanish version is crappy translation of that crappy translation.
Just as an example, here they translated "cool" as "frío"...which means cold
So instead of saying "cool, right?" the character is saying "it's cold, right?"
Also Aerith is called a "he" half of the time
Allévoy!
I have never gotten in such depth. I will try it once for a laugh, then go back to english.
Waku Waku 7 takes the cake. I probably have posted this before, but...
I wonder if they have corrected this for the Switch release.
Holy shit! I never saw that one.
It translates Fairy as "Maricón", which is the literal translation for "Faggot"
GAF I am disappoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
The original classic of bad translations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
The original classic of bad translations.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
At least BoF2 is supposed to be a fairly serious RPG. Robotrek is supposed to be a comedy so the horrible translation hurts it even more.
themaskedndi
Member
It says something like "let's confirm the origin of fire" when you check your stove. I replayed it recently and was taken aback; I didn't remember that stuff at all.
Lux Pain is probably the worst localization I've seen for a game I bought at retail. Pathologic's original translation is also terrible. There is so much text, and sometimes it doesn't make sense at all.
SatoAilDarko
Member
I remember Lux Pain having a bunch of typos:
AppleSeason
Member
Actually, they pulled something similar with Wild Arms. Its not as bad, but you can notice that it is a direct translation from English with a lot of weird phrases. Not to mention that every time they say "Ártica" the A is a big white square.
And speaking of worse: Witcher 3 US character names. If I ever play it again, I will use a spoken language that uses Jaskier instead of Dandelion.
Dark_3nergy
Member
Also the 'Swoon' status effect on a fallen party member never really made sense to me as a kid.
Fbh
Member
hahah yeah.
And my personal favorite:
"they say that neither herbs nor flowers grow in Midgar, but that for some reason flowers do"
malboroking
Banned
The two crocodiles or whatever in that game were like an acid trip fever dream. Total nonsense.
tokenflipguy
Member
No sure who did the loc but it's not on par with even MGS2.. That clearly gives the ideas across without the zest MGS1 had.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
GAF I am disappoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
The original classic of bad translations.
-_-
gcncontroller
Member
Dark Cloud's english localization is pretty abysmal, it's verly clearly just translated directly with very little attempt to make it sound less stilted. The general tone of the game gets across but it's impossible to take seriously with the awful writing quality.
There's several flat-out errors as well, like the game ignoring your player character's custom name a couple times and just using the default "Toan" and the text being unable to decide whether to refer to a certain town as "Muska Lacka" or "Muska Racka"
There's several flat-out errors as well, like the game ignoring your player character's custom name a couple times and just using the default "Toan" and the text being unable to decide whether to refer to a certain town as "Muska Lacka" or "Muska Racka"
Palom
Member
I just recently played through Dark Cloud, too, and thought it was a pretty bad translation. Can't forget the actual usage of "alot", and the tutorials giving the wrong instructions (swapping O and X).
Even though it's already been mentioned, I would reiterate that I think Legend of the Dragoon has the worst translation in a PS1 RPG that I've played; even worse than Wild Arms 2. It was clearly done by someone that wasn't a native English speaker. The constant "random" words in "quotations", the excessive!!! usage of exclamation points!!!, and the random, comma out of nowhere made it obnoxious to read. The dry, stilted conversations, coupled with the slow text crawl, made everyone sound like monotone robots to me, and scenes that were supposed to be serious fell way flat or became comical due to their absurdity. Most of what was written was technically correct, but the way it was written was just unnatural and borderline incomprehensible. Additionally, they didn't bother to modify the character limits so that text fit neatly within the dialogue boxes. Instead, you get crap like this:
Code:
+--------------------------------------+
| Oh hey look, there's |
| all this space on |
| the right, but we'll |
+--------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------+
| make you scroll down |
| to read instead of |
| fitting it on one page. |
+--------------------------------------+I might have considered the game to be okay if the translation was decent, but christ, what an awful experience.