What game has so badly translated that it had to get retranslated by fans?

[Gabi]

Since i saw yesterday a site talking about them (but they were mostly nes games) i would actually wanna know what more games were badly translated

 

[DrakeDarkHunter]

Off the top of my head,

Breath of Fire 2 and the Spanish translation of Final Fantasy 7 were both infamously terrible. Both have also been retranslated since.

 

[RustySK]

I never played that version, but apparently the original western release of Ys VIII: Lacrimose of Dana was bad enough that the fan outcry forced NISA to re-do it.
I vaguely remember something similiar happening with the original release of Persona 5?

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin / Dark Conflict is also worth taking a look at:
This one really makes for a good case study of how much of a difference your basic approach to localization can make - where the US version (Days of Ruin) took small liberties here and there and adapted the script to the English language, the EU version (Dark Conflict) stuck as close to the Japanese script as reasonably possible.

Neither is necessarily bad, but I personally I found the EU version incredibly dry and offputting. There's wiggle room of course, but since Japanese and English are two incredibly different languages that function in incredibly different ways, sticking too closely to the source material can be counterproductive.

Localization is fun!

(I just realized I didn't exactly stick to the thread's premise... apologies, I got lost rambling, feel encouraged to ignore me)

 

[yomers]

Simon's Quest. The hints where to go and how to do things are straight up misleading, heavily influencing game's perception as another one of those cryptic nes games where you have no idea what you even supposed to do

 

[Jakkaraius]

Zero Wing always comes to mind. "All your base are belong to us"

 

[TotzOnGaming]

Simon's Quest. The hints where to go and how to do things are straight up misleading, heavily influencing game's perception as another one of those cryptic nes games where you have no idea what you even supposed to do

This one off the top of my head. It was really good even the Fuckin' Nerd loved it.

 

[fake-kun]

Mega Man X6.

 

[freebie#47]

Bad english and a couple mistranslations are ok, and even the occasional spelling error as well. NOW how about an official game release overseas that literally uses Google Translate for the English language setting.(and a few game crashing bugs cause of it)

If you want to play it, it's called Xuan Yuan Sword: Gate of Firmament. I bought it with the bundle of intial stage 2, and also bought 7 and Sword and Fairy, which are better translated. I actually do like the game.

 

[HikaruKitsune]

I'm sure others may have said it already, but Breath of Fire 2 is probably the go-to example.

 

[Xdqwerty]

I'm sure others may have said it already, but Breath of Fire 2 is probably the go-to example.

The only part of breath of fire 2 that wasnt badly translated was the opening text

 

[Jon-Patrick-S]

I don't know if the official translations are actually bad per se or just like kinda subpar but there's a whole group dedicated to re-translating the Science Adventure franchise of visual novels, best known for the Steins;Gate sub-series.

 

[otogirisou]

Localization is fun!

No it's not. It's like changing mona lisa's eyes to be bigger to make it not look dry for japanese market.

On topic: Code of Princess EX. They add unnecessary lines here and there, changing some dialogues and names, etc.

 

[CardcaptorEd2019]

I don't know if the official translations are actually bad per se or just like kinda subpar but there's a whole group dedicated to re-translating the Science Adventure franchise of visual novels, best known for the Steins;Gate sub-series.

I think the official Steins;Gate translation was good, but yeah the other Science Adventure games don't have an as good translation. I saw some of the officiaI translation of Chaos;Head Noah online and I personally feel that the fan translation improves on the official for the most part.

 

[MontaHunta]

Yakuza for the PS2 comes to mind, had a hilarious English dub that has been shitposted to death. Still fun to look back on, too. It not-too-recently got a full overhaul by a fan that gave it the original JP dub, retranslated for good measure. Some cool QoL stuff, too.

Good times.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

the Spanish translation of Final Fantasy 7

I can't believe junk of that quality was allowed to be released... It wasn't just oddly-worded, it threw special characters and completely nonsensical stuff in there.

And someone HAD to insert it into the game, so it can't even be chalked up to some machine compiling it on its own.

 

[Gabi]

Off the top of my head,

Breath of Fire 2 and the Spanish translation of Final Fantasy 7 were both infamously terrible. Both have also been retranslated since.

Lol on that site showed the eng translation ff7 too being bad "this guy are sick" a dude in the game said

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

I never played that version, but apparently the original western release of Ys VIII: Lacrimose of Dana was bad enough that the fan outcry forced NISA to re-do it.
I vaguely remember something similiar happening with the original release of Persona 5?

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin / Dark Conflict is also worth taking a look at:
This one really makes for a good case study of how much of a difference your basic approach to localization can make - where the US version (Days of Ruin) took small liberties here and there and adapted the script to the English language, the EU version (Dark Conflict) stuck as close to the Japanese script as reasonably possible.

Neither is necessarily bad, but I personally I found the EU version incredibly dry and offputting. There's wiggle room of course, but since Japanese and English are two incredibly different languages that function in incredibly different ways, sticking too closely to the source material can be counterproductive.

Localization is fun!

(I just realized I didn't exactly stick to the thread's premise... apologies, I got lost rambling, feel encouraged to ignore me)

Dont needa apologize brother

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

Simon's Quest. The hints where to go and how to do things are straight up misleading, heavily influencing game's perception as another one of those cryptic nes games where you have no idea what you even supposed to do

Thank God games do tell u wat to do now lol but still how bad was it?

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

Zero Wing always comes to mind. "All your base are belong to us"

Lmao

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

This one off the top of my head. It was really good even the Fuckin' Nerd loved it.

Thas wild

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

Mega Man X6.

Thx God it was not dubbed then

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

Bad english and a couple mistranslations are ok, and even the occasional spelling error as well. NOW how about an official game release overseas that literally uses Google Translate for the English language setting.(and a few game crashing bugs cause of it)

If you want to play it, it's called Xuan Yuan Sword: Gate of Firmament. I bought it with the bundle of intial stage 2, and also bought 7 and Sword and Fairy, which are better translated. I actually do like the game.

Kewl

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

Yakuza for the PS2 comes to mind, had a hilarious English dub that has been shitposted to death. Still fun to look back on, too. It not-too-recently got a full overhaul by a fan that gave it the original JP dub, retranslated for good measure. Some cool QoL stuff, too.

Good times.

Really i can say that game has more swear words then the gta games

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

I can't believe junk of that quality was allowed to be released... It wasn't just oddly-worded, it threw special characters and completely nonsensical stuff in there.

And someone HAD to insert it into the game, so it can't even be chalked up to some machine compiling it on its own.

Geez thas stoopid