Localizations (the best and worst)

[daemoth]

Well..
"Son of a submariner" from FF6
As a kid, i was like: so Kefka knew Edgar's father and he was a submariner...... uhhh....
Ted Woolsey.... just, no....

[NICKtendo DS]

AVGN does have a point that the ship in the original picture looks phallic.

Phalanx
Phallic

[miyabi95_]

I kinda get the feeling that these weird/bad localizations were done as a joke. Like with Gunbird, for example. Some of the characters were literally named after some of the people who worked for the company that localized it. It was either a joke that was condoned by Psikyo or maybe they just didn't care.

If it's something from the early days of gaming (post-video game crash) like Mega Man and Sonic, I understand, because games from Japan were still pretty new for people. But I can't see those same "bad boxart" trends continuing on into the late 90s and even 2000s. You'd think gamers would have adjusted enough by then that they'd be more accepting and curious about the many games in Japan that never got localized, and therefore would want direct access to those games without any "cultural modifications" other than translations.

I just think it's funny how huge phenomenons like Touhou Project have gained a world-wide following that's still growing to this day, and yet way back a game like Kiki Kaikai (which I assume Touhou Project was very loosely based on) barely saw the light of day in the west.

[Dolphman]

Nintendo of America, until the Gamecube and Wii, had a bad "family friendly" policy where anything got butchered for censorship.
The first Mortal Kombat for SNES is considered the most inferior version of all the ports because they censored the crap out of it.
Sega one the other hand, had the right idea by having a parental lock system on the MegaDrive version, via a cheat code.

It was this policy that lead to a lot of companies stop making games on their systems, and moved onto supporting the PlayStation more.
And this is still in affect to this day as they don't even port some of their new games on Wii U. Mostly due to compatibility issues.
This will probably change once the next gen consoles come around, which will be a while as the current ones are still young.

As for "cultural modifications". I think Awkward Zombie said it best with this comic mocking Ace Attorney's English version.

It's lucky Yo-Kai Watch is still set in Japan, but it's still jarring with a few things. Like Komasan and Komajiro's hillbilly accents.

[Kriven]

Not a video game, but Dolphman's last post reminded me of how the Code Lyoko dub would do everything in its power to convince the audience that the show took place in the United States, despite it several times showing where on a map in France the school is situated (and that in addition to all of the French etiquette and culture, foods and such). This always seemed particularly Odd (heh) since the show's dub was done entirely in-house by the French production team.

[Koh]

Well, actually, Code Lyoko did get a video game, on the DS, lol.

But if we're going to talk shows, that goes for just about any anime dub ever. It's really dumb how they completely change what the characters say. I don't mean giving us literal translations, but rather, changing the meaning of what was said.

For example, Dragon Ball (Z) is littered with this everywhere. If we take a scene as an example...the Buu Saga, where Goku is talking to Vegeta, trying to convince him to use the Potara Earring. In the original Japanese dub, he's just saying that they aren't strong enough to face him now, and the earrings will make them stronger, to save their friends. But in the English dub, they made him talk about building a new Saiyan Race, one that can be just as proud. What?

Also, how about dubbed names that make no sense?

Street Fighter 2. Vega became M. Bison. How? It doesn't even have any of the same letters! And this makes it even more confusing, because later in the series, another character came, Balrog, who was then dubbed as Vega. That's not going to cause problems at all...

[Zero Kirby]

But if we're going to talk shows, that goes for just about any anime dub ever.  It's really dumb how they completely change what the characters say.  I don't mean giving us literal translations, but rather, changing the meaning of what was said.

For example, Dragon Ball (Z) is littered with this everywhere.  If we take a scene as an example...the Buu Saga, where Goku is talking to Vegeta, trying to convince him to use the Potara Earring.  In the original Japanese dub, he's just saying that they aren't strong enough to face him now, and the earrings will make them stronger, to save their friends.  But in the English dub, they made him talk about building a new Saiyan Race, one that can be just as proud.  What?

I give the localization credit for two things:

One, every single theme Vegeta has throughout the whole show. Say what you will about the American soundtrack, everything Vegeta-related was excellent.

Two, renaming Hell to the Home For Infinite Losers. That's a superior name.

There were a couple other changes I didn't mind - explaining more clearly that Gero's Android project was directly inspired by Goku packing all the power of an army into a singular being, for example. But I think a lot of the problems with the dub were because of the way it started. It definitely got... more faithful around the Android saga but by then, it's not like you can change everything they already wrote for the localization.

[miyabi95_]

It's just kinda weird to me how these companies thought that gamers (of all ages) would be taken aback when coming across references to cultures that aren't theirs (namely, references to Japanese culture). If I were a child and you gave me Phoenix Wright that was only localized via translated text (nothing else changed but the text, like actual Japanese cuisine instead of burgers and shit), I don't think I would be disappointed. I would more likely be curious. I've loved Japanese culture for many years and would have been delighted to learn more about it by playing an unbiased localization of a video game from Japan.

In terms of anime, Kirby's probably had one of the worst experiences with localization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby:_Rig...adaptation

While some of the changes for it were pretty appropriate for the western audiences, the rest were really...Not needed. If an anime were localized like this today, shit would definitely hit the fan thanks to the vast population of rebellious anime enthusiasts on the internet.

[Dolphman]

King Dedede's voice being an imitation of Foghorn Leghorn. Escargoon's sounding like Paul Lynde, all because he was ambiguously gay.
And Meta Knight only having a Spanish accent due to the guitar that played when he appeared. Yay, stereotypes!

I guess you could say Sonic X was just as bad. Including how everyone reacted when the cast replaced the originals for the games in 2005.
Pretty much everyone agrees Mike Pollock was the only good voice actor out of all of them, which is probably why he's still voicing Dr. Eggman.
Dan Green, as cool as he his, didn't work as Knuckles. All I could hear was an angry Yami Yugi trying to sound like Knux's previous voice actor.
Amy was bad as well due to how Lisa Oritz uses the same voice for every character she's been.

One oddity was localizations made later with everything completely redrawn. Such as that Jetsons game for SNES.
The Japanese version replaced everything with characters from an obscure manga called Youkai Buster Ruka.
Crazy Castle is another example. The Japanese version had Roger Rabbit characters while the English versions had Looney Tunes.
And believe it or not. Decap Attack is actually a redrawn version of a licensed game based on the anime Magical Hat.

There's also a mediocre Game Boy game that was modified in all three regions. Only changing the playable character sprites and nothing else.
US - The Real Ghostbusters, with Peter Venkman as the playable character. Has little to do with Ghostbusters at all.
PAL - Garfield Labyrinth. Fortunately, Sega made a better Garfield game in 1995 for both MegaDrive and Windows.
JPN - Mickey Mouse.

[miyabi95_]

While I admit some of those 4kids anime voices were pulled off pretty decently, I also admit that there's like 5% motivation in them as well - the other 95% is pure imitation. [off-topic] With that said, Jason Griffith started giving Sonic more uniqueness and personality in later years like in Brawl (to me, at least) and Unleashed. I'm not sure what he's doing nowadays (the wiki doesn't look very up-to-date but maybe he moved onto something different).

I try my best for the most part to not get worked up over voices, but I'm gonna go all out and say the localized voice for Klonoa for the Wii remake in 2009 is one of the worst localized voices I've heard in my life. I think it's worse than Sonic's. "They just didn't care at all," is what that choice of voice says to me. It's not even close to the cutesy anime catgirl (very similar to Taokaka to be honest with all the feline vocalizations he does) voice that Klonoa has in every game that he appeared in. For Sonic, yes, that kind of voice works, because it gives the impression of a friendly, competitive, and sometimes cocky personality. Klonoa is very androgynous, young-looking and is pretty much an adorable fusion of a cat and a rabbit - the voice they gave him for the remake gives off the impression of a male teen protagonist from an 80s anime.

[/avgn rippoff rant]

*At least they give you the option to switch his voice to Kumiko Watanabe

[Koh]

-le post-

Here's the case for me when it comes to most dubs.

I prefer the english VOICES, but prefer the Japanese SCRIPT.  If we could have a version that had the best of both worlds, I'd be happy.  Give us the untainted script (as in, the meaning isn't ever lost. Obviously we can't have an exact 1:1 translation), and the, often, more fitting english voices, and I'd call that the definitive version, lol. The soundtracks...should be consistent across all versions, like 90% of video games. There's no reason to change the soundtrack. Now, I'm not going to say that good soundtracks never come from these changes, but rather, there wouldn't be a split over it if it wasn't changed in the first place. There'd be only one, definitive soundtrack.

[miyabi95_]

If I'm truly invested in an anime, I'll watch it with subs and do nothing but watch it. But if it has a well-produced dub, I'll keep it running while I draw and stuff.

Galaxy Angel was adapted from the sci fi visual novels for the PS2 (and I think PC also?) to a comedy anime for young teens. Then it was dubbed and broadcasted internationally by regional networks of Animax and Bandai. If you want an anime with really professional-sounding english voices and opportunities to learn a little bit about Japanese culture through a humorous and charming medium, Galaxy Angel probably fits the mold perfectly - it's very impressive, considering the "Better Voice Acting Studios for Dubbed Anime Boom" didn't come into play until the mid-2000s. I guess some companies were starting to realize that since more people in the US were watching anime, they should dish out some anime with not-shitty voice acting.

Azumanga Daioh fits just as well. There are definitely a few gems like it from the early-2000s that have great dubs. As for Japanese subs, I wouldn't know...

---

Here's one that makes me giggle:

Here's one of Nakoruru's victory quotes (or more appropriately: VICTOLY quotes) for Samurai Shodown IV.



...When did Samurai Shodown become Samurai Surfer Dudes? xD

[Deathbringer]

Also, how about dubbed names that make no sense?

Street Fighter 2.  Vega became M. Bison.  How?  It doesn't even have any of the same letters!  And this makes it even more confusing, because later in the series, another character came, Balrog, who was then dubbed as Vega.  That's not going to cause problems at all...

Vega, M. Bison, and Balrog all came from the game. And all they did was switch the names around because Capcom was afraid of being sued for having a black boxer with a name similar to Mike Tyson.

[psychospacecow]

That, and the whole controversy around Tyson at the time.

[miyabi95_]

Apparently this monstrosity is actually an localization of a tribute to one of the most influential franchises from Japan. Ouch.