Japanese only characters in Brawl: Your thoughts

[Smashchu]

parrothead1983 said:

In SSB64, there were zero Japan-Only characters. In SSBM, there were two. In SSBB, there's probably going to be two or three. Four is slightly too many.

Tacking numbers would not be a wise decision. With Sakurai taking a (somewhat) worldwide approach, there may be no more then Lucas or Marth. And even if we get any, it's probably Takamaru and that's it.

[parrothead]

capnwalrus said:

Looks fine to me in the Melee opening video. He's not nearly as big as he is in Super Metroid. Most of his size in the Melee video is in Ridley's wingspan.

JoshCube said that he looks small in that part of the SSBM opening, because he is far from Samus Aran.

In my opinion, Ridley would make me picture him as the Big Bad Wolf or something like that.

[Da Robot]

This article from 1up.com have info on TOSE.

and here is the interesting Starfy realease in the USA part of the article (It at the very bottom of it).

There is one game where you will find Tose's name on the box, and that's the Legend of Starfy, a Kirby-esque platformer series that's thus far only been released in Japan. Interestingly, Tose actually shares the Starfy IP with Nintendo, so it gets to show its joint ownership of the game and character. Will Starfy ever come to the U.S.? "It's entirely up to Nintendo if they want to publish it in North America," said Satou. "If Nintendo decides they want to bring it to the U.S., we'll happily help."

[parrothead]

If it were spelt with "Star", it would have a dash after the "ta" in Japanese and look like this "スターフィー", which means it does not. In Japanese and English the confirmed romanization is Stafy.

If anyone wants to call Skapon "Sukapon", then why not call Stafy "Sutafy"?

[Smashchu]

parrothead1983 said:

If anyone wants to call Skapon "Sukapon", then why not call Stafy "Sutafy"?

Because translations are never (or rarely) 100%. Starfy or Sutafy, it's all the same thing.

[parrothead]

smashchu2 said:

parrothead1983 said:

If anyone wants to call Skapon "Sukapon", then why not call Stafy "Sutafy"?

Because translations are never (or rarely) 100%. Starfy or Sutafy, it's all the same thing.

Even if it was like this?

[Deleted]

capnwalrus said:

fliptroopa said:

...except for Ridley. Make him a boss. He's too big

Will someone please explain to me why he's "too big" to be a playable character? I keep hearing this argument. Charizard is pretty big too. Smash Bros is not exactly to scale.

The size issue is a bunk argument. I'll use everyone's favorite Koopa as a prime example here: Bowser.

CLICK TO VIEW, DOODS.

One thing to keep in mind is that Ridley is also a very frequent size-changer. What I'm saying here, in sum, is that the "Ridley is too big to be playable" argument is a load of crap. ;D

EDIT: I moved the image onto a LiveJournal account because it was stretching the screen here. Sorry.

[8bitretroshit]

Size doesn't matter shit in Smash Bros. nor does the whole staying 100% true to the series thing, with Twilight Link going all tornado warpin' with his entrance.

[Flip]

8bitretroshit said:

Size doesn't matter hobo in Smash Bros. nor does the whole staying 100% true to the series thing, with Twilight Link going all tornado warpin' with his entrance.

Dude, where the hell is that image from? It looks like it could potentially be awesome.

[8bitretroshit]

NEW FAMICOM DA

I like how pissed Wart looks being in the back

[parrothead]

Sometimes size does matter. Wouldn't you want everyone to be equally sized? If size doesn't matter, then wouldn't you like to see Ridley about as small as an onion? That would be more awkward than watching Rocky Balboa fighting Pikachu in M.U.G.E.N.

[Dances in Undergarments]

Smash Bros has always been about relative size - as long as say, Kirby is smaller than say, Bowser, it seems to work. So as long as Ridley is towards the top end of character sizes, it will work.

[Fryguy64]

parrothead1983 said:

If anyone wants to call Skapon "Sukapon", then why not call Stafy "Sutafy"?

Translation between English and Japanese is always going to be problematic, as the Japanese alphabet is very different to ours. What we have to do is work out the romanization of the word and see if it makes sense.

So for sutafii, as you point out, Stafy is the translation. Although Starfi makes more sense to me, as he is a star, and mistaken for a starfish. I pronounce it Star-Fee, not Stah-Fee. The spelling should reflect that, and I truly believe if the games had been released here, he would be Starfi or Starfy, and not Stafy.

Sukapon is the opposite. The name actually MEANS something with the U in place. In this case "Sucker Punch". So I would pronounce his name Suk-uh-Pon, and not Skah-Pon, which is what your spelling would sound like. To be fair though... I actually pronounce it Sook-ah-Pon, but nobody's perfect, right?

Videogames can't even decide on the pronunciation of Mario. Listen to Galaxy. Mario says Mah-ri-oh (or Mah-li-oh, with that crazy pseudo-European accent!), but most other characters (Peach and Rosalina are guilty) call him Maar-ee-oh. That makes my ears bleed.

It's all about working out what the name means, and adapting it to the language. It's weird that so many Japanese games have English-derived names, but it makes it easy for us.

Maybe I should be stubborn and stick with Starfi and start using Suckerpon

[parrothead]

The "U" in Japanese is silent, which is why people pronounce the name of the Naruto character, Sasuke, as "saus-kay" instead of "sa-su-kee". When I translated Skapon's Japanese name using Excite.co.jp's JPN-to-ENG translator, it came out as "Scapon", which is close. The same translator is the best on the Internet for translating between Japanese and English. Calling him "Sukapon" because of "Sucker Punch" doesn't make any since. Sounds like something you made up yourself. Skapon is better, because that's the closest a human and/or electronic translator could get. Also, it's simpler to say and spell.

For Stafy, I believe Nintendo and TOSE called and spelled his name that way, because they slightly cut the words "star" and "fish" in half and put them together. "Sta" is short for "star", while "fy" is short for "fish". They are both short. Doesn't that make any sense?

[Fryguy64]

"Sucker punch" is not a phrase I made up. It is a well known phrase. And Suckerpon would be a much more accurate translation (not romanization) than Scapon or Skapon, both of which ignore the origin of the name entirely.

I am well aware of the silent "U" thing when reading Japanese. I am in fact quite good at my Japanese pronunciation. But I'm not interested in trying to achieve the closest literal romanization of the names - I am interested in translating the names into something that doesn't look awkward when written in English.

What do you do when a name requires the U. I mean, do you romanize "Kuppa" as Kppa, because the U isn't pronounced?

I mean, I don't say Kaa-bee, I say Kur-bee. I don't say Yo-ssee, but Yoh-shee or Yo-shee. If you literally translated all the names, they would sound too weird in English, and nobody would know how to pronounce them. This isn't a problem for the Japanese, as their language doesn't allow for ambiguity of pronunciation, but ours does, and when translating, you have to be aware of that.

I know exactly how Stafy's name came about, but to use Stafy is another case of literally translating the name while ignoring the origin. Stafi would make more sense using your description, and Starfi or Starfy are both better looking and more easily read in English.

Suckerpon for Brawl ;D