I’ve had a strong interest for a while in how Nintendo localizes their games into various languages. How does Nintendo’s translations into your language fair? Is it good? Could it use work?
Here’s a good example of how varied the localizations can get:
[See the comments for localizations into languages that aren’t English](http://legendsoflocalization.com/what-are-the-japanese-boxing-ring-aliases-in-smash-bros-wii-u/)
by razorbeamz
14 Comments
They do a good work, for example I believe the Splatoon puns work even better in italian than they do in english.
Like Stella and Marina (Callie and Marie), wich is [this](https://www.google.it/search?q=stella+marina&newwindow=1&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JM91VeG8Ber4ywO-gIHoCg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1238&bih=848), always say “in gambero!” wich is a mix of crayfish (gambero) and something like “doing good” (in gamba); it’s a good pun.
As someone who plays games in both Japanese and English, I think Nintendo games tend to fare better for a couple of reasons:
–they tend to have less voice acting, so you don’t have to awkwardly fit phrases in a time limit or match characters speaking
–there’s just less dialogue in general
Sometimes, they have a tendency to try to be…inconsistent with how they are on the literal/liberal scale of translations– Dual Destinies had this, where they had to transplant the very obviously Japanese locale into…LA. Still, Fire Emblem has always had a pretty good localization (even 6, which was a fan translation held up pretty well IMO).
I prefer all my games in English. I’m from Belgium & Dutch translations are very awkward & weird.
Luckily there’s only a few games that get translated into Dutch.
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well, i’m from Brazil, and nintendo doesn’t deal with us anymore, however i can say that from other companies that do translations, i hate them, but i think most other people like them since not everyone speaks english.
however what i hate the most is when they translate everything and don’t give you an option of choosing english, and then claim it’s a feature.
Dutch is pretty great when they have it, really most of the time. I also speak German, and that has never been flawed. I don’t see the lack of Dutch in games as a problem as it isn’t a very common language, and having German as a standard is always good.
French canadian was pretty horrible a few years ago. They were using Joual instead of neutral french for some characters and and it was pretty grating. Now they mostly use the same translation as for France, but since they tend to change some names I’ve put my wii U and 3ds in english. I just couldn’t tolerate seeing greninja changed to amphinobi or king dedede to roi dadidou.
ごめんなさい、私は英語を話すことはありません
german here. I usually don’t touch our translations even with a 10 foot pole. The last time a German translation had been legit better than the English version was in Zelda Skyward Sword though.
Nintendo has just given up on Brazil, so now I have to pretend to be Canadian to play online and buy e-shop games. It sucks.
The Spanish localization for Animal Crossing: New Leaf is great! But the Sm4sh announcer is atrocious. I can’t stand him, so that’s why I play games in English now.
I am from Quebec, Canada. My main language is French. When I grew up, all the available games were in English. Now that I am older and the games are widely available in French, I always avoid like plague the French translation. The game vocabulary translated to French sounds redicoulous, not badass, weird and often their humor sucks. Keep in mind that the French we speak is very different than the French French, so it might also add to the whole weirdness of it. Since I learned English with games, any word sound badass in my mind, but once the word is translated to French, it is sounds akward ; ring of power = bague de puissance. While it might be as akward in English for native speakers, to me it sounds just fine, I dont put a second though, but in French it really remove from the experience.
Lets also add the fact that I cant speak about the games characters/items/weapons/quests with my friends because their name is different. Pokemon for example, they changed all their names when they localizated the game in France. If I speak with French about pokemon, we dont understand each other. Same goes when I speak with my Japanese students about it.
All in all, French localisation is a no no for me.
I don’t dislike the Portuguese translations, but sometimes they translate certain technical terms that won’t sound as good like they did in english! o.0′
I still play most of my games in English when I can though.
One thing that pisses me off is the translation of certain characters’ names in Smash while leaving the announcer in English. They should just have left the english names and translated the rest…
I’m dutch and i hate reading my own language in video games it feels weird and wrong
Games are the reason I know English not school I hope kids nowadays will too