History Main / GoodBadTranslation

* The ''VideoGame/XMen1992'' arcade game is so famous for its poorly translated dialogue that original lines like "X-Men, welcome... to DIE!" were preserved when the dialogue was re-recorded for a later Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 release.

* The English word "alligator" came from the Spanish "el lagarto" which actually translates to "the lizard". The Spanish word for alligator is caimán, which, in turn, is the English name [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiman for another type of crocodilian]].

*** It [[TropeNamers named]] a [[SpoonyBard trope]] on Website/ThisVeryWiki.

* Among many other examples in ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'', one of the gangsters' anguished cries of pain, "Gehh!"[[https://legendsoflocalization.com/whats-up-with-river-city-ransom-and-barf/ was translated]] as "BARF!" For the translation of ''River City Ransom EX'', Creator/{{Atlus}} not only kept this in, but they even made a '' wallpaper'' bearing the phrase.

* The ''VideoGame/XMen'' arcade game is so famous for its poorly translated dialogue that original lines like "X-Men, welcome... to DIE!" were preserved when the dialogue was re-recorded for a later Xbox 360 release.

* In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', if you get [[MultipleEndings the bad ending]] in the final case, you are treated with the line "The miracle never happen..." in the cutscene that follows.

* The English Sega UsefulNotes/MegaDrive version of ''VideoGame/ZeroWing'' famously gave us [[MemeticMutation "All your base are belong to us."]] It's so iconic that even though the Steam version features a new intro with an improved translation, "All your base are belong to us" is still preserved in all its Engrish-y glory.

* Among many other examples in ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'', one of the gangsters' anguished cries of pain was translated as "BARF!" For the translation of ''River City Ransom EX'', Creator/{{Atlus}} not only kept this in, but they even made a '' wallpaper'' bearing the phrase.

*** There are a few moments where unnatural construction gives the dialogue a sort of poetry. One example is when Sephiroth attempts to explain that Jenova is a shapeshifter, instead phrasing it as "The power to change one's looks, voice and words; that is the power of Jenova."

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed'' was a gold mine of SpellMyNameWithAnS, both because many of the characters' names were completely fictional and had no real-world language equivalent (when official spellings for the names were revealed, some people found them so outlandish they refused to use them for a while; big offenders included Fllay and Cagalli), and because it was such a popular show it had close to a dozen different fansub groups working on it, and each of these groups used different spellings for the names. Everybody had their own favorites, though. One memorable topic that cropped up on the Animesuki forums was called "Battle of the Names", where people more or less voted on which fansub spellings they liked the best. One poster's hilarious response to spelling Le Creuset's name went as follows: "We should just call this guy "Cruise", like Creator/TomCruise."
* Most ''Franchise/DragonBall'' fans prefer the [[SpellMyNameWithAnS more literal transliterations]] of names based on their Japanese pronunciation, which work better as names than the intended meanings, which are often just English words. Examples include Frieza/Freeza, whose name was intended to be Freezer, and Shenron, who is meant to be named after the legendary Chinese dragon Shenlong (and is called this in the English manga).

* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' gave us a number of mistranslations that became popular among the fans, including the name "Grasstown" (originally something like "Bushlands"), and the nonsensical "Litagano motscoud", which translator Aeon Genesis didn't notice was supposed to be a [[SdrawkcabName backwards]] TitleDrop (the Japanese title being 'Doukutsu Monogatari'). Nicalis's translation changed some of these to be more accurate.

* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' gave us a number of mistranslations that became popular among the fans, including the name "Grasstown" (originally something like "Bushlands"), and the nonsensical "Litagano motscoud", which translator Aeon Genesis didn't notice was supposed to be a [[SdrawkcabName backwards]] TitleDrop. Nicalis's translation changed some of these to be more accurate.

* ''[[VideoGame/ContraIIITheAlienWars'' begins with one of the heroes suggesting, "[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Let's Attack Aggressively!"]] It's not even a direct translation; the Japanese line is "Let's greet them with style!" As a ShoutOut, Pliskin uses this line in ''VideoGame/ContraRebirth'', and the line is also voice-acted in [[spoiler:''Contra IV'', when the heroes of ''Contra III'' are unlocked]].

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Contra}} Contra III]]'' begins with one of the heroes suggesting, "[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Let's Attack Aggressively!"]] It's not even a direct translation; the Japanese line is "Let's greet them with style!" As a ShoutOut, Pliskin uses this line in ''Contra Rebirth'', and the line is also voice-acted in [[spoiler:''Contra IV'', when the heroes of ''Contra III'' are unlocked]].

* ''WebVideo/BackstrokeOfTheWest'', a Chinese BlindIdiotTranslation of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', is an excellent example. "Do Not Want!"[[note]]Darth Vader's infamous BigNo upon learning of Padme's death[[/note]] indeed.

* In the original French version of Cinderella, the slipper was ''vair'' (fur from squirrels). When the tale got translated to English, this was mistaken as ''verre'' (glass). But, as no less than Creator/PhilipPullman has pointed out, the idea of a "glass" slipper is inherently absurd and magical, and therefore perfect for a fairytale.

** ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' has a character who says, "I am Error." It's often thought to be an example of this trope, and it is -- but not for the reasons most people think. Most people believed it was an awkward rendering of an actual error message; in fact, the character's name actually is "Error". A man in Mido will even reference him by name ([[NintendoHard if you manage to get that far]]). The translation mistake comes from another character being called "Bagu"; his name was supposed to be "Bug", which would have given us [[ThemeNaming Bug and Error]]. Nintendo themselves had to confirm this was the case, and they weren't above referencing it later; a robot boss in ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' says the phrase after his systems are attacked.

* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' gave us a number of mistranslations that became popular among the fans, including the name "Grasstown" (originally something like "Bushlands"), and the nonsensical "Litagano motscoud", which translator Aeon Genesis didn't notice was supposed to be a [[SdrawkcabName backwards]] TitleDrop. Nicalis' translation changed some of these to be more accurate.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', one of Zell's attacks is called "Meteor Barret". It's likely they meant "bullet" (and not the giant black man from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''). Flavor text in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' gives this a ShoutOut (presuming they didn't just make the same mistake twice) when it describes Squall's gunblade as shooting "barrets".

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' gave us Ryu's boast: "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!" This gave rise to a persistent UrbanLegendOfZelda (and AprilFoolsDay joke) that there was a secret boss character named "Sheng Long". In fact, "Sheng Long" is the Chinese name for Ryu's ''Shōryūken''; more accurately, the quote should have been, "Until you can overcome my ''Shōryūken'', you cannot win!" The SNES port fixed this translation, but it further muddied the waters by claiming [[AllThereInTheManual in the manual]] that both Ryu and Ken were disciples of a "Master Sheng Long". It even inspired Akuma's appearance in ''Super Street Fighter II Turbo''. It came to a head in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'', where Capcom announced that Gouken was "really" Sheng Long, and one of his win quotes was "You must defeat me to stand a chance!"

* A famous (or rather notorious) [[Rule34 doujin]] HGame for ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'', called ''Phoenix Drive'', was translated from Japanese into English by someone who didn't seem to be fluent in either language. The game was laughable enough as it was, but turned into [[SoBadItsGood outright hilarity and unintentional brilliance]] with such lines as "I will beat a rod till... a tank empties", "Does sperm collect to your lower part of the body in large quantities?" and "Hey, Ni-ick. Your [Penix Wright]". Even the worksafe scenes are [[NarmCharm wonderfully Narmful]].

* ''VideoGame/BattleCatsRangers'' had a hilariously terrible translation when it was first released. The most notable example would be the name of a powerup that causes a Viking Cat to attack the opponent from behind, which ended up being called "Butt Warrior". Fans considered this the best part of an otherwise SoOkayItsAverage game, and weren't pleased when updates to the game eventually fixed some of the poor translations.

* The Sega UsefulNotes/MegaDrive English version of ''VideoGame/ZeroWing'' famously gave us [[MemeticMutation "All your base are belong to us."]]

->''I think there are a number of factors that combine to make [[AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs All Your Base]] a fairly virulent meme. First, the incongruity of "engrish" in a reasonably nicely produced game is funny, much like professionally printed signs that happen to contain typos. Second ... it works well as a catchphrase and slogan and fits easily into many different contexts. And, as any 12-year-old or online gamer knows, anything that was funny once is funnier when you repeat it 100 times.''

* The English word "alligator" allegedly came from the Spanish "el lagarto" which actually translates to "the lizard". The Spanish word for alligator is caimán, which, in turn, is the English name [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiman for another type of crocodilian]].

* In ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfile'', a single vowel misheard led the incantation of the heroine's main attack being changed from the original "I shall annihilate your soul!" to "It shall be engraved upon your soul!" This translation proved so popular that ''four'' different characters say a variant of it in the prequel, ''Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria'', and in ''VideoGame/RadiataStories'', she repeats it as a SecretCharacter.

* Mahir Cagri and his lovable homepage [[http://www.ikissyou.org/ "I Kiss You"]]. He was like the Web 1.0 Turkish Borat, before the domain name expired.

* The ''VideoGame/SamuraiShodown'' series is famous for absolutely ridiculous translations ("don't forget it, dweebenheimer!"). The fourth game in that series gave us the phrase [[http://www.engrish.com/2002/10/samurai-showdown/ "VICTOLY!"]] Even the title isn't spelled right (apparently an artifact of when the game was to be called ''Shogun Shodown''). Knowing Creator/{{SNK}}, whether this was intentional (at least from the second game onwards) is anyone's guess.

*** It [[TropeNamers named]] a [[SpoonyBard trope]] on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki.

* The PAL Sega UsefulNotes/MegaDrive version of ''VideoGame/ZeroWing'' famously gave us [[MemeticMutation "All your base are belong to us."]]

* It looks like ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' characters [[http://xkcd.com/414/ found some good example]].

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