Interesting little Nintendo tidbits

[kirbychu]

I'm going to assume it's Sonic, based on the context.

[The Qu]

I'm quite happy the joke went over someone's head. It kinda proves itself.

[nocturnal YL]

Can't say I've played anything in the series after SA2B.


Well, here are somehting I thought of (and I hate to type it all again after my computer got a memory error):

Nintencalization

Localization should be generally hated, since this means some regions get something while others don't. They range from text changes, bugs to features. A huge list of examples are:

Super Mario World - No L+R to replay beaten castle in JP version.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - In Beat Block Galaxy, the music in the star "Silver Stars in Double Time" was 4 times as fast. Apparently the translators couldn't count beats.

Super Paper Mario - English version has more references to Mario-related stuff.

Fire Emblem 7 - NA version has the special ending (about how the story of FE6 started) unlocked by defualy while JP has to connect to FE6 or beat the game 11 times, and it is not there in the EU version at all.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - JP version has the Maniac version and the 255-crit custom weapon bug.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Non-JP version has 16:9 support, character illustration galery, preview videos for each part of the story and personal weapon for Edward, Leonardo and Nolan. On the other hand, Non-JP version also has much story inconsistencies (like the spelling of Sephiran's title, Duke or Persis, and the Guiding Tower is now the Tower of Guidance), the cannot-load-FE9-save-with-Easy-record bug (version 1.0 only, fixed in 1.1) and the fac tthat 16:9 is supported led to some graphical issue (see top right of this video). The voice acting in the English version is also weird, especially the part child Ike has a grown-up voice.

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Non-JP version has 6 battle maps instead of 1. The Japanese FE12 has 6 battle maps.

WarioWare Twisted! - Censorship. The few microgames that take place on a bar table has the cocktail-like liquid changed into milk, but with the background music unchanged, which is kind of weird. 9-Volt's stage was changed (pixel-like graphics in an already low-res system is strange to me). I personally prefer "Speed Up" to "Faster" too, since the latter doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

Luigi's Mansion 1 - European Hidden Mansion.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Navi Trackers is only present in the JP version.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - In the JP version, Broque Monsieur would mix Engrish in his lines. In the English version, he would have a stereotypical French accent (complete with grammatically incorrect French in some lines). In the NOA French/Spanish versions? Nay, he doesn't speak English. What a bummer.

Yoshi's Story - JP version lacks the language select feature and the interrupt save feature. This means that you need to beat the game in one go (high score is saved, not progress). I still want to have my 1000 Wii Points back.

Donkey Kong Country Returns, Excitebike: World Rally and other made-outside-Japan games: The font in the original game is lost in the Japanese version, and is replaced with a much more boring Arial Rounded MT Bold-like font.

Kirby Air Ride: City Trial has its own ending music in the overseas version. In the JP version, the ending movie uses the Hidden City music.

Much of these rants are actually quite trivial, but they still mean games should not be drawn with an equal mark across versions.



Games that are similar on way or another

This is nothing special at all, but it is still interesting to see which games share codebase with or is otherwise similar to each other. Showing examples here would explain it more clearly, I guess.

Games that are essentially level packs with new features
- Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros: Lost Levels
- Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2
- Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and Kirby: Squeak Squad
- Fire Emlbem 6, 7, 8, Advance Wars 1 and 2
- Advance Wars: Days of Ruins, Fire Emblem 11 and 12
- Link's Awakening, For the Frog the Bell Tolls (and the Oracles too?)
- Metroid 1 and Kid Icarus 1

Games that share certain mechanics
- Super Smash Bros Melee and Kirby Air Ride (certain 3D models of Kirby's abilities, Kirby's jumping physics)
- WarioWare series and Rhythm Heaven series (look and feel, being rhythm-based)

Containing elements from other games
- What NinDB has been covering all the time, cameos, are everywhere in different games
- Rhythm Heaven (Wii) has an endless game with the "Speed Up" notice from WarioWare
- F-ZERO series and Star Fox series have one common thing called the G-diffuser; this is pointed in the Japanese Melee trophy of the Arwing too
- The Japanese font of the in-game text of Fire Emblem 11 and 12 are from WarioWare Mega Microgame$, Twisted! and Touched!; they made a seperate set of letters for the latin alphabets, which is used in the overseas version of FE11 (instead of using the full-width version like they did in WarioWare)

[kirbychu]

Jul 30, 2011 10:13:02 GMT -5 nocturnal YL said:

Localization should be generally hated, since this means some regions get something while others don't. They range from text changes, bugs to features.

But... without localization, I wouldn't get to play any games!

To be honest, that list of things doesn't sound bad to me. Most of them are pretty minor. But then, I happen to live in Europe, so if they add improvements after the Japan release, I get to enjoy all of them.

And I never cared about Navi Trackers.

[nocturnal YL]

Ah, I should rephrase that a bit... it's localization changes (besides translation and making the game available in the first place) that I don't like.

Most of those stuff are minor, yeah, but it still annoys me that I can only get one set of the JP-only, non-JP only or EU-only features without having to buy another version of the same system. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is particularly annoying in this aspect; given that it is otherwise one of my favourite games, it is a ashame.

[Fryguy64]

I consider myself someone who wishes localised games were closer to their original Japanese versions, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a minute...

Generally speaking, game programmers don't consider bugs "features". They are programming errors that shouldn't be there. Of course, in some cases bugs make it through and then are looked on fondly later (the Ocarina of Time 3D Iwata Asks proves this - the developer had to put the bugs back in!) I don't mind if bugs are removed between the Japanese and EU release, but unless it's game-breaking, I'd prefer it's there. It's worse when Nintendo Europe somehow manages to put game breaking bugs INTO their releases *glares at Super Paper Mario again*

As for translation, it's not a direct 1-to-1 task. A joke that would work in Japan wouldn't work outside of Japan, and so a joke of equal value needs to be put in its place. Then you have issues where the Japanese language has a very different sentence structure to English, and many words have multiple meanings depending on context. The fact a character can be discussed without gender specific pronouns is no doubt a headache for translators.

The job of the translator isn't just to translate the story directly, but to make it read well in the new language. Otherwise it's just jarring.

I personally hate the overuse of 1-to-1 translated swear words in fan translations. Sure, in Japan they may be saying "bastard" or "shit", but do these words have the same connotations over there as they do here? You have to balance it. A word of equal value to what they use "shit" for might simply be "damn" or "crap", which are both less harsh to the listener, but equally harsh to what the Japanese player read.

As for other features removed from one version or another, these can be annoying. Hardware issues are the worst. No e-Reader for the UK meant my Super Mario Advance 4 was a direct port of the All-Stars version of SMB3. No cards to make cool stuff happen and no extra levels. Crap.

So yeah, I generally agree that ports shouldn't go too far to make it different, but they have to be done well. And hell, sometimes those changes are for the best.

[nocturnal YL]

Agreed. I'd say that, when localizing stuff,

- If bugs don't break the game, leave it as is (Nintendo is actually pretty good at this). Also, don't put in new bugs (like FE Radiant Dawn did, so bad that NOA had to ask players to replace the game physically).

- There's always the language issue; but I'd normally want to see the overall direction of the text kept intact. Good example: Mario & Luigi series (the original game had lots of Japanese puns and other jokes, but you don't see anything weird in English - but then, NOA French/Spanish are offenders in this aspect; why can't they just ask Nintendo Europe for translation?). Bad Example: Fire Emblem series (removal of FE10 Hard/Maniac-only dialogs, inconsistent naming between NA and EU FE11 (Europe had it more consistent with the JP version and the older games in the West), and FE12 doesn't even exist outside of Japan in the first place).

- If the overseas version has something new to add, can't the original be changed as well? This won't be easy to do with physical game media, but with today's world of online connection and downloadable contents, it shouldn't be that difficult. For example, they can make a Wii channel to read from a certain disc and render its contents with the newly-added stuff. (A lot of what I listed had the JP version being the inferior one.)

- If possible (but not neccessary at all), keep the original language version as well. Good examples include non-JP Yoshi's Story (they retrospectively added Japanese text to the overseas-only features too), Super Smash Bros Melee and Pokédex 3D.

[kirbychu]

Wait, did Melee have a Japanese option? I'm pretty sure mine didn't...

[nocturnal YL]

It's only in the Japanese and NA versions.

[Da Robot]

Iwata Asks: Star Fox 64 3D, has revealed info on the development of the original Star Fox and Star Fox 64. (check the 3rd page)

Most of the sci-fi in Japan featured robot anime, superheroes and monsters and it was decided to do something different, so animals were used.

Foxes were used because of the nearby shrine (already knew this) and arches can be flown through in the games because of there (arch) gates at these shrines known as "torii."

Japanese folk tales are the origin of using Peppy (hare) and Falco (pheasant)

Yes, Falco is a pheasant . . . (MIND BLOWN! )

The japanese expression "fighting like dogs and monkeys" led to the creation of General Pepper and Andross.

Slippy Toad was inspried by a (unknown/unnamed) member of EAD who used a toad as a personal mascot and left "ribbit, ribbit" on memos.



The reason for using puppets for the original Starfox's boxart is because Miyamoto likes Thunderbirds. (Iwata does as well)

The mouth animation (popping open/closed) for character speech was also inspired by puppets and purposly cut down on animation to make the effect.

Miyamoto:I always loved English puppet drama, like the Thunderbirds.

Iwata:I loved that, too! (laughs)

Miyamoto: Back when we released it, I imagined Star Fox selling a lot and the company that produced Thunderbirds coming all the way from England for negotiations to adapt it into a puppet drama.

Iwata:Uh-huh. (laughs)

Miyamoto: And then I would say, "To be honest, I've always loved Thunderbirds." Licensing it out by saying so was a dream of mine. And that's all it ever was! (laughs)

Someone contact Gerry Anderson!

[Manspeed]

Miyamoto: Back when we released it, I imagined Star Fox selling a lot and the company that produced Thunderbirds coming all the way from England for negotiations to adapt it into a puppet drama.

Seriously, I've been saying this for years man. Why has this not been done?

[8bitretroshit]

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