History LostInTranslation / VideoGames

** The Japanese name of Sneasel, Nyula, serves as a triple pun - one of ''sennyū'' (sneaking in) and ''yū'' (an alternate reading of itachi) to reflect its kamaitachi origin, one of ''new'' and ''nora'' (stray, as in a stray cat) to reflect it being a violent cat, and one of Nyu being a combination of ''nya'' (the Japanese equivalent for meow) and ''yū'' to reflect it being a kamaitachi-inspired cat. However, the English and other western localizations would completely drop all feline connotations from its name, causing debates within the western fandom on if Sneasel is a cat or a weasel, and causing bewilderment from some western fans when official sources group Sneasel with other cat-like Pokémon and when Pokémon media depicts the Sneasel line with cat-like behaviors. This localization snafu was likely the result of the Generation 2 localization being finished early while Sneasel was [[https://twitter.com/Asmoranomardic/status/1459949706700890118 one of the last finalized Pokémon with several design revisions]], with it notably looking like a plain old weasel for much of its development, only gaining its cat-like characteristics at the last minute and likely after its localized name was already decided.
*** This issue gets muddled farther in the French localization, where its name got localized as "Farfuret", dropping both the feline ''and'' weasel connotations, while Sneasel obviously has no ferret inspiration whatsoever.

* Large portions of the original SNES release of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' were mistranslated, with bizarre and confusing results. Characters apparently growl in their sleep instead of snoring. A uvula is misidentified as an Adam's apple, and boars are referred to as bears. An important hint near the end of the game incorrectly directs the player to the town of [=HomeTown=] rather than the town ''south'' of [=HomeTown=]. The game even manages to get [[https://legendsoflocalization.com/why-hai-doesnt-always-mean-yes-in-japanese/ "yes" and "no" backwards]] due to slight nuance differences between those English words and the Japanese "hai" and "iie" which the localizers didn't factor in. The GBA port is less infamous, but not much better.

*** At the start of the final battle against Dark Beast Ganon, Zelda states that Ganon "Has given up on reincarnation and assumed his pure, enraged form." In the original Japanese, this line is better translated as "This form is born from Ganon's obsessive ''refusal'' to give up on reincarnation."

* ''VideoGame/TrioThePunch'': "WEEBLES FALL DOWN!" is the translation of "Daruma-san ga koronda." [[labelnote:Translation]]"The Daruma doll fell over!"[[/labelnote]] The game briefly pauses when the phrase finishes writing out in full; this is a reference to a children's game, but there also happens to be a Daruma doll jumping around in the stage. Replacing "Daruma" with "Weeble" seems to have been a localization attempt, since a Weeble was a roly-poly toy that behaves somewhat like a Daruma doll does("Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!" their commerical slogan went)

** The English translation calls the Demon Cleric the first demon, which is contradicted by the existence of Ceaseless Discharge, who was also born from the Chaos Flame but "while it was still unstable", causing his grotesque form. The Demon Cleric is perfectly stable, so it couldn't have been created before Ceaseless. The Japanese text is more vague about the Demon Cleric's origin, implying that it was actually one of many early demons.

** Difficult-to-translate wordplay in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' made many fans think that Blaze remembers Sonic when that wasn't the intention. Silver and Blaze make mention of a "blue hedgehog" more than once. In Japan, "blue" can refer to color but also be slang for being naive or inexperienced (similar to how "green" has that connotation in English). Silver thinks of Sonic when he says "blue hedgehog", while Blaze thinks of Silver. This is why Blaze says that she needs to find Silver after realizing what "blue hedgehog" means.

** The Blue/Green Version oddity led to some oddities with the eighth Gym Badge. It's called the Green Badge in Japan, because it's the badge of Viridian City ("viridian" is a type of green pigment). In the English translation, this was changed to the Earth Badge, since it's Giovanni's badge, and he's a Ground-type specialist. Makes sense. But then Blue took over in ''Gold and Silver'', and he has only one Ground-type on his team--so why does he give out the Earth Badge? ("Green Badge" doesn't fit his team all that well either, but [[{{Egopolis}} it at least fits his name]].)

** Red's rival in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' is named "Ookido Green" in Japan. Due to countries outside of Japan getting ''Pokémon Blue'' instead of ''Pokémon Green'' for complicated reasons[[note]]the Japanese Blue had several improvements over Red and Green, which the localizations also have; they became Red and Blue in reference to this[[/note]], he is [[DubNameChange called]] "Blue Oak" internationally. Red and green are opposite colors on the Color Wheel but people often think of blue as red's opposite, so this change worked fine originally. [[TheArtifact The problem comes in future games]]: In the remakes to ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' his bedroom is completely ''green''. Renaming him "Blue" messes with the FamilyThemeNaming (his grandfather is Professor Oak and his sister is Daisy Oak) as well. In ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'', Red wears a red shirt and hat, while ''Blue'' wears... green shorts and shoes. Oddly, the remakes for ''Red and Blue'' were known internationally as ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'', giving the translators an opportunity to [[SuddenNameChange rename]] Blue to "Green", however his original name was still kept.

** As mentioned above, Wobbuffet was inspired by a Japanese comedian. In ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonRescueTeam'' a Wobbuffet speaks in PokemonSpeak (unlike the others, who use AnimalTalk) and is paired with Wynaut. In the Japanese version its PokemonSpeak makes sense but in translations it's just a random sounding {{Catchphrase}}. For extra points, Wynaut's translated name does retain a conversational pun value (why not?); the original, Sonano, is a pun on ''sō na no?'' = "is that right?". In [[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers the sequel]], the localization does pick up on this and peppers their dialogue with "Is it not?" and "That's right!"

** During the flashback cutscene showing how Laurance left the Byrgenwerth scholars, Provost Willem brings up another former student who also left the school, who is implied to be the one who provided Cainhurst with their "corrupt" blood. The English translation leaves out the mention of the previous rogue student and the lore connections it was attached too, which actually caused considerable confusion among some lorefans as to whether Laurence was the founder/leader of the Healing Church, Cainhurst, or both.

** The translation team worked to preserve tone and meaning in a lot of dialogue, rather than translating everything literally. But unbeknownst to the localization team, the Japanese text contained ArcWords and very subtle bits and pieces from ChekhovsArmoury that wouldn't come to full fruition until later games. As a result, some of the {{Foreshadowing}} was gone, and the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series growing [[KudzuPlot a massively intertwined and complex plot]] came much more unexpectedly to Anglophones. It's an excellent translation for a stand-alone game, but unfortunately for them, this ''wasn't'' a stand-alone game.
*** A lot of this revolves around the word "hearts". The word in Japanese translates to the effect of "what makes you, you." Which an English speaker might translate as "soul". However, "heart" is valid enough translation, and with the game already containing various heart-shaped symbols, it was kept. All well and good... until the Nobodies came in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', since they lacked hearts. But were not the Heartless, who lacked bodies. And there is consistent questions in the English fanbase if Nobodies had cardiological hearts (the kind that pump blood), a question that is unlikely to come up in Japanese.

** The game has fairly few and minor hiccups, but the effect of the distorted language is made exponentially worse due to the StoryBreadcrumbs style narrative and deliberately obtuse backstory making every world count for a lot. Ironically the biggest lost reference by far is one that isn't concretely written or spoken. "Kegare" is a Shinto concept that describes spiritual uncleanliness that is derived from earthly filth and bodily waste, particularly bloodshed and childbirth, which adds an entire layer of implications to Blood Ministration and the Great One surrogate pregnancies that flies over the heads of non-Japanese audiences. Now among the lost lore due directly to bad translating:

*** The Chestnut King mentioned in Luigi's tale is meant to be the Goomba King/Gooomboss. This is due to the fact that the Japanese name of Goombas is "Kuribo" (chestnut people, owning to their original sprite in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' looking more like the edible nut than a mushroom). As such, the joke that Luigi went into a epic quest to defeat the WarmUpBoss from the [[VideoGame/PaperMario64 previous game]] was lost.

* Large portions of the original SNES release of ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'' were mistranslated, to the point that ''every'' line of text in the FishingMinigame has at least one translation error. The game even manages to get "yes" and "no" backwards due to slight nuance differences between those English words and the Japanese "hai" and "iie" which the localizers didn't factor in. The GBA port is less infamous, but not much better.

* Large portions of the original SNES release of VideoGame/BreathOfFireII were mistranslated, to the point that ''every'' line of text in the FishingMinigame has at least one translation error. The game even manages to get "yes" and "no" backwards due to slight nuance differences between those English words and the Japanese "hai" and "iie" which the localizers didn't factor in. The GBA port is less infamous, but not much better.

** The Japanese Pokémon name Togechick was translated overseas as "Toge'''tic'''." This would appear to be a case of someone using a popular but less precise romanization system and then not bothering to pay attention to what they were doing; トゲチック can be written in romaji either as "togetikku" or "togechikku", with "togechikku" being phonetically correct and "togetikku" matching the syllable group the 'chi' kana actually belongs to.
** The Japanese name of Krookodile, Waruvial (a combination of the Japanese word ''warui'', meaning bad, and gavial), properly described what animal the Pokémon was actually based on, as it has the long, narrow snout that's typical of a gavial.

** The Dark type is called the Evil type in Japan. This mistranslation actually makes more sense in some ways; Pokémon belonging to that type are more often than not good, but it left many people wondering why there is no Light type to complement it. Also, the majority of moves that involve CastingAShadow are actually given to the Ghost type, rather than Dark, which tends toward CombatPragmatism.

** Glalie's entire existence is a pun: its Japanese name is Onigohri, a portmanteau of "oni" (a mythical monster) and "kohri" (ice), but which sounds a lot like "onigiri" (rice ball). It's an ice monster that looks like a rice ball. This was obviously not possible to translate, so they went with a rather clumsy portmanteau ("glacier/goalie") that most people didn't really catch, as there's not much of a hockey theme in the design aside from its face vaguely looking like a hockey mask, and its relatives are clearly unrelated to hockey. This also made the line as a whole seem pretty random, as its members are based on and named after Japanese snow creatures (the zashiki-warashi, the oni, and the yuki-onna), but received the names Snorunt, Glalie, and Froslass in English.
** Red's rival in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' is named "Ookido Green" in Japan. Due to countries outside of Japan getting ''Pokémon Blue'' instead of ''Pokémon Green'', he is [[DubNameChange called]] "Blue Oak" internationally. Red and green are opposite colors on the Color Wheel but people often think of blue as red's opposite, so this change worked fine originally. [[TheArtifact The problem comes in future games]]: In the remakes to ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' his bedroom is completely ''green''. Renaming him "Blue" messes with the FamilyThemeNaming (his grandfather is Professor Oak and his sister is Daisy Oak) as well. In ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'', Red wears a red shirt and hat, while ''Blue'' wears... green shorts and shoes. Oddly, the remakes for ''Red and Blue'' were known internationally as ''[=FireRed=] and [=LeafGreen=]'', giving the translators an opportunity to [[SuddenNameChange rename]] Blue to "Green", however his original name was still kept.
** This also led to some oddities with the eighth Gym Badge. It's called the Green Badge in Japan, because it's the badge of Viridian City ("viridian" is a type of green pigment). In the English translation, this was changed to the Earth Badge, since it's Giovanni's badge, and he's a Ground-type specialist. Makes sense. But then Blue took over in ''Gold and Silver'', and he has all of one Ground-type on his team--so why does he give out the Earth Badge? (Well, "Green Badge" doesn't fit his team all that well either, but [[{{Egopolis}} it at least fits his name]].)

** [[spoiler:Green]] in ''VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndLetsGoEevee'' has blue on her clothes. This is because her Japanese name is "Blue". The English version already ''has'' a character named that, so her name was changed [[spoiler:to Blue's Japanese name]].

** Certain moves and Abilities have properties, or lack them, that might not make sense unless one knows what their original Japanese names were:
*** When Dracovish with Strong Jaw uses Fishious Rend, it gets the damage boost from Strong Jaw. This is because Fishious Rend's Japanese name translates roughly as "Gill Bite," so it would be obvious to a Japanese player.
*** Inversely, though some Pokémon with Iron Fist can learn Sucker Punch, that move is not counted as a punching move and thus won't get the damage bonus from Iron Fist, as its original Japanese name translates as "Ambush" or "Surprise Attack," with punching having nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, Meteor Mash gets that damage boost because its Japanese name is literally "Comet Punch," which had to be changed to something else in English because, by coincidence, that name was taken two generations prior.

* The ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series (and first game in particular) suffers from some of this, perversely not due to [[{{Macekre}} bad]] or [[BlindIdiotTranslation uncreative]] translation--indeed, it's actually really good--but due to {{Woolseyism}}.
** The translation team worked to preserve tone and meaning in a lot of dialogue, rather than literalism, and successfully turned "conversations with friends in Japanese" into "conversations with friends in English." Good! Except for the fact that the Japanese dialogue, unbeknownst to the localization team, contained ArcWords and very subtle bits and pieces from ChekhovsArmoury that wouldn't come to full fruition until later games in the series. As a result, some of the {{Foreshadowing}} was gone, and the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series' growing a massively intertwined and complex plot came much more unexpectedly to Anglophones. It's an excellent translation for a stand-alone game, but unfortunately it ''wasn't'' a stand-alone game.
*** A lot of this revolves around the word "hearts". The word in Japanese translates to the effect of "What makes you, you." Which an English speaker might translate as "souls". However Heart is valid enough translation and with the various heart symbols it was kept. Which was well and good... until the Nobodies came. Who "Lacked Hearts". But were not the Heartless, who lacked bodies. And there is consistent questions in the English fanbase if Nobodies had cardiological hearts, a question that is unlikely to come up in Japanese.
** Sora's Awakening in the beginning of the first game is guided by a mysterious voice. In Japanese, it was obvious that this voice belonged to Mickey Mouse -- ''nobody'' else talks the way the voice talks. In English, there's a lot less room for identifying features in a speaking pattern, and the English-speaking side of the fanbase was left wondering [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse when it'd get explained]] until Ultimania confirmed what Japanese fans had known all along.

** The ''Kingdom Hearts'' translation team is usually rather good at catching ArcWords, but in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' they seemed to have missed [[spoiler:Young Xehanort]] saying "We'll go together.", translating it as "Come with me." instead.
** The first game created a WhatHappenedToTheMouse situation due to an awkward translation. When Donald is leaving on his mission to find Sora and King Mickey, he says to Daisy "Can you take care of the-?" and she replies "Of course". Take care of the what, exactly? Whatever it is, it's never mentioned or brought up again. This is because in Japanese, he starts to say "We'll find the king", which in Japanese word order would be "The king, we will find". Donald starts "The king-" and Daisy cuts him off with "Of course (you will)". However, this would be impossible to translate into English while preserving the meaning, since the only way you could preserve the word order would be to have it as "The king will be found by us", which sounds nothing like the way Donald (or most English speakers, for that matter) usually talks, and having him start with "We'll find-" wouldn't make it obvious that he was talking about finding the king, so the line had to be changed.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series producer Yoshio Sakamoto, despite barely speaking English, insisted on overseeing the English localization of ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'''s script. So in addition to the English version being ''littered'' with badly-rewritten artifacts of the original Japanese, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTuMfsWwd0E several ideas were lost in translation]] due to oversimplification, exaggeration, and even just plain mistranslation of character motivations and behavior. One example is Adam calling Samus "Lady" back during her military days. In Japanese, Samus goes into detail about how she hated the nickname, even after she grew to respect Adam's leadership, since it felt like it was a veiled insult concerning her womanhood. Meanwhile, the English translation goes in the opposite direction, with her loving the nickname precisely because it meant Adam acknowledged her as a woman. In fact, the English script as a whole seems to portray Samus as a schoolgirl with a crush, muddling a character arc centered on her going through a quarter-life crisis following the events of ''Super'', all of which only worsened perception of what would have already been a divisive game in the West.

* ''VideoGame/TakeshisChallenge'' has an unofficial English localization (popularized by internet personalities like {{WebVideo/JonTron}}) which rather infamously includes a restaurant [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext inexplicably named "Grilled Mormons"]]. This is actually a perfectly accurate, but very literal translation of an otherwise simple joke -- in Japan, "horumon" is a type of cuisine made out of beef or pork offal, with the original Japanese version of the game changing the "h" to an "m" to read "morumon", or "Mormon". It's effectively the same play as naming a hot dog stand as a ''rot'' dog stand, and no actual ill intent towards Mormons were intended (that we know of).