Fatal Fury

Terry Bogard

You know this guy. It's weird how his shirt is blue in cutscenes but white in-game.

Crack Shoot

Everyone knows this already, but in the interest of completeness: Crack Shoot changed inputs between Japan and America. As you can see, it's a roll from down to up-back in Japan, while the American version changes it to charge down-back, up-forward motion. Why? No idea. They never did it again.

It's called the Supershot Kick in the SNES and Genesis manuals because without voice samples, who's gonna know? And that's not even the good one, the good one is Rising Tackle becoming Slam Attack.

After round 1

My translation	Official translation
That guy seems pretty strong.	He looks very strong.

So I was saying how Fatal Fury's translation is straightforward...? Yeah.

After round 2

My translation	Official translation	SNES/Genesis translation
That kid's doing pretty well. But the next match will be the end of him!	That guy seems to be in a good condition! But that will end on the next match!!	That guy seems to be in good condition! But that will end after the next match!!

The official English makes Geese a bit more excitable, which will be a theme. It's also a bit stilted, but doesn't really lose any meaning.

I'll be adding the SNES and Genesis lines in where they're different. The scripts are about 95% the same, but the home ports had a few editing passes done. You can see here that a minor grammar mistake ("on the next match") was fixed.

Incidentally, this is the first Geese line in the Genesis version. The port cuts Hwa Jai and Billy entirely (replacing them with fights between the other PCs) and so requires some shuffling of the story parts to fit the smaller number of rounds. ...I'm not sure why Geese doesn't just comment after a fight with a different PC, but whatever.

After round 3

My translation	Official translation	Genesis translation	SNES translation
...hey! Dig up all the info on that guy!	Hey! get the information from him!	Hey! Get more information on him!	Hey! get the information on him!

"Get the information from him" sounds like they're going out to ask Terry what his deal is, which is not really what happens. But, you know, close enough.

SNES version fixes that mistake, but not the capitalization. Huh. Meanwhile the Genesis version is completely cleaned up and sounds pretty good. This would suggest that the Genesis script is a cleaned-up version of the SNES script, but sometimes the Genesis has problems the SNES version doesn't. I suspect that both scripts were worked on at the same time and if anything, the Genesis version was completed first.

After round 4

My translation	Official translation	Genesis translation
Did you say Terry Bogard? Bogard had a son?!	Terry Bogard!! I didn't know Bogard had a son!!	Terry Bogard!! I did't know Bogard had a son!!

There's a little stutter on the first Bogard, like Geese can't believe that came back to haunt him. (Terry Bo-Bogard?!) It looked really weird in English, so I dropped it, but it's there in the screenshot.

It's also kind of weird that Geese is calling Jeff "Bogard", given that they trained together and all that. You'd think they'd be on first-name basis but I guess not. (read: all of that was retconned in later)

Genesis version cuts the 'n' in "didn't". This appears to be for character limit reasons and is fixed in the SNES version. As that brings the SNES version fully in line with the Neo Geo version, it is not reproduced here.

After round 5

My translation	Official translation	Genesis translation	SNES translation
"Nnnngggh- Who's up next?!" "Raiden, sir."	"Wow, who will fight against him next?" "Yeah, Riden will!"	"Wow, who will fight against him next?" "Yeah, Raiden will. "	"Wow, who will fight against him next?" "Yeah, Raiden will. "
"He absolutely must not lose!!" "Yes sir!"	"I will never lose!!" "Yes sir!!"	"I will never lose!!"	"I will never lose!!" "Yes, sir!!"

Here we go, it's an actual mistranslation!

It's honestly kind of amazing how rarely I see those...comparatively, I mean.

First things first, you've probably noticed by now the Japanese has little square marks around the lines. Those are Japanese quotation marks, which are frequently used in video game dialog. You'll also notice how the English version doesn't have them. They often get dropped in translation, which most of the time is fine, but sometimes causes problems. It's all right here, since context is enough to tell you this is a conversation, but that's not always the case. I added English quotation marks for clarity.

Secondly, I have no goddamn idea how to translate Geese's むむむっ in the first line and I don't think the official translator did either. I assumed it was a noise of frustration. The translator went with "wow", which sounds a bit off for Geese. (proto-Ripper's reply is also a bit off. That is not a question you answer with "yeah!") The typo in Raiden stands out, but it's not particularly interesting on its own. Shows a lack of proofreading...but so does a lot of the punctuation.

And finally, the actual mistranslation...well, you probably picked it out already. A really literal translation might be "(absolutely) (loss) is (not allowed)", which you can sort of see turning into "I will never lose!" if someone was going quickly and didn't have context. Context in translation is a big thing better people that me have gone on about at length, so I'll drop a link and summarize with: Japanese relies on unspoken implication more than English and video game translators are frequently working off text dumps where the lines are all jumbled up and out of order. This causes problems.

"I will never lose!" is the sort of thing Geese would say. Just not here.

SNES version fixes the typo in Raiden's name, as well as adding in the vocative comma in the goon's "Yes, sir", but does not fix the mistranslation. Huh. Genesis version is identical to the SNES version, but cuts the final "yes, sir!!". No idea why.

Raiden is the final match before Geese in the Genesis version.

After round 6

My translation	Official translation	Genesis translation	SNES translation
Aaaaaaargh! I won't have it! You interrupted my games!	I will never forgive you!! You disrupt my plan of attack.	I will never forgive you!! You disrupted my plan of attack.	I will never forgive you!! you disrupted my plan of attack.
I'll send you to hell just like I did your father 10 years ago!	I'll beat you like your father 10 years ago!	I will destroy you like I did to your father ten years ago!!	I will destroy you like I did your father 10 years ago!!

The literal kanji in the first line's "how dare you get in my way/you disrupt my plan of attack" is 遊び, or "to play, to enjoy one's self". The official translator dropped it, but I think it's an interesting bit of nuance that Geese is just running these tournaments for his own amusement. I mean we all knew that, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

"I will never forgive you" is one of those tricky phrases that gets overused when translating literally. It's a legit translation and can work here, but I thought "I won't have it" felt a bit more natural. But it's not a mistranslation, just a different choice.

There's a minor grammar error with "you disrupt my plan of attack" that's fixed in the SNES version. As usual, the script got a minor amount of polish for the port. Genesis retains that, and oddly capitalizes "you" properly when the SNES version doesn't.

But this line has a secret. It has an infamous typo Japanese fans and even SNK have been using to make fun of Geese for years. The right way to write the word for "I won't forgive you/I won't have it" here is 許さん, which is pronouced yurusan. But what's written here is 許るさん, or yururusan. That's a bit like writing forforgive. Kind of.

A quick Google search shows that 許るさん is heavily associated with Geese in Japanese, like PREDICTABO or YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FROM DESSSS in English. Even SNK got into it, as shown by that time Kim called Geese a weeaboo who doesn't even really know Japanese in Neo Geo Freak.

This line was fixed in the Super Famicom/Megadrive versions. Too bad.

Moving on, I probably got a little too literal with the second line, but I wanted to show off all the different parts. A more revised translation might be "I'll kill you just like your father 10 years ago!" or similar. "Beat you" feels soft to me, though I guess the "kill you" is implied there. The rest of the game establishes that pretty well. The SNES and Genesis versions change it to "destroy", which is weirdly more violent.

The Genesis version has an extra "to" that makes no grammatical sense and is dropped in the SNES version. It might be do to character line limits, or it might be a deliberate fix. It's hard to tell. If it's a fix, it's evidence of the SNES script being a cleaned-up version of the Genesis'.

Win/kidnapped

My translation	Official translation	SNES/Genesis translation
Yeah! I finally did it! I won! The long battle is over!!	Yeah! I made it! I am the champion! The battle was so long!	I've done it! I've finally done it! I won! The long battle is finally over!
Kid! Mr. Geese is summoning you! Come with us!	Dude! Geese is calling you! Come with us!!	Dude! Geese is calling you! Come with us!!
"What? Did you say Geese-?!" "Mm-hm..."	What? Geese?!! HUMM....	"What?! Geese?!!" "Humm..."

The word I translated as "kid" is the same as Geese uses earlier, after battle 2. The dictionary meaning is "greenhorn, neophyte", but that's not really something you yell at someone you're kidnapping. "Dude" is a reasonable translation if you're just looking at a dictionary, it just doesn't have the correct connotation at all. Makes proto-Ripper/Hopper sound like surfers.

And then the last line has some confusion from the lack of quotation marks. In the Japanese game, the "Hm-mm" seems like it's meant to be the goons. The English dropping the quote marks make it sound more like Terry, but it's unclear. But then All About SNK Fighting Games 1991-2000 has a script where the second pair of quotes isn't there, making it clearly Terry. Then the SNES and Genesis versions have every line on a separate screen and make it sound like the goons again. Given it's kind of a grunting noise, I'm guessing it's meant to be Terry and there was a typo in the Japanese script, but I have no idea. I doubt anyone knows at this point, a lot of information about FF1 is lost to the mists of time.

Given the confusion I left the translation as it exists in the game itself.

The Genesis and SNES scripts are identical here, and are both rather nicely cleaned up. The first line in particular shows a good amount of editing.

Since Raiden is the last fight in the Genesis version, the previous cutscene is put right after the first screen of this one. I actually like the change since it feels like it flows a bit better, but it's a minor detail.

In another bit of trivia, the Genesis version actually adds in some kanji. In the Neo Geo version the "calling" in "Geese is calling you" is written in just hiragana, but the Genesis version uses kanji instead. It's a one-character substitution either way, so I can't say for sure why this one kanji got slipped in, but there you are.

Geese pre-fight

My translation	Official translation	Genesis translation	SNES translation
"Ngh...G-Geese!!!" "How dare you ruin my fun!"	Holy cow! You disturbed my plan again!	"Holy Geese!!" "You disrupted my plan again!"	"Geese!!" "You disrupted my plan again!"
You sonova-! I've been looking for you! Now my father will be avenged!	Damn it, I've been looking for you! I'll now take revenge for my father's death!	I've been looking for you for ten years! I'll now take revenge for my father's death!	I've been looking for you for 10 years! I'll now take revenge for my father's death!
Impudent brat! Then let's have a one-on-one fight to the death. After all, it's not as if I can lose.	Stupid boy! How about a man to man fight to the death! I cannot lose.	Stupid boy! How about a man to man fight to the death! I cannot lose.	Stupid boy! How about a man to man fight to the death! I cannot lose.

Here the English version's lack of quotation marks gets everyone in trouble. It's supposed to be Terry yelling "Holy cow!!" there, but it sounds like it's Geese's line. (it's a hell of a thing to say for either of them) The SNES version corrects this again, both in displaying each line one at a time and rewriting to match the Japanese. Someone put a bit more effort than just copy-pasting the Neo Geo script in there.

Meanwhile the Genesis version goes all out with Terry yelling "Holy Geese!!". I love it.

We see the same thing with 遊び here as after round five, where both the official translator wrote around it. "You disturbed my plan again" is slightly off, since it makes it sound like Terry has disrupted Geese's plans in the past and is doing so now, when it's more like he intends to disrupt them. By killing Geese. As you do.

SNES version cuts out a minor swear but is totally cool with both explicitly talking about Jeff's death and a one-on-one fight to the death. Sure, the Nintendo rules were always against excessive death and violence and I guess a few text references are fine (none of the home ports portray Geese falling to his presumed death) but it still stands out.

Speaking of, the "one-on-one fight to the death" line is interesting because it's actually a gameplay hint. In Fatal Fury, if your friend drops a quarter in, first you team up to beat whatever CPU opponent you were fighting before you get to fight your friend. This works all the way up to Billy, but not on Geese. Because he declared it to be one-on-one, you see.

Geese is a bit more casual and assured of his inability to lose in Japanese, when the shorter English feels more curt.

Minor note: The Super Famicom version consistently renders the word for "revenge", 仇 (kataki), in hiragana　instead of kanji like the arcade version. Hiragana is often used for words kids aren't expected to know yet, so maybe this kanji was considered too advanced. The internet is not being helpful in finding out when kids are supposed to know this one. It's the only kanji given this treatment. The Genesis version sticks with kanji.

Ending

My translation	Official translation	SNES translation
8/13/1992: Geese Howard dies in the hospital three hours after falling off a skyscraper.	August 13th, 1992, Geese Howard dies in the hospital 3hours after falling from a high rise.	Geese Howard fell from a high rise building. He died in a hospital 3 hours later.
The prologue to a new legend...	The prologue of the newborn legend....	A prelude to a new legend...

The ending is pretty straight. (spoilers Geese isn't dead) The Japanese does specify that this is a "prologue". It feels like SNK intended to move on from Geese, but then the Bogard-Howard soap opera took over the entire series.

The date is not fixed, but is determined by the internal date of the Neo Geo. If you've seen pictures of the ending saying things like "1915" or "1917", it's literally because of the Y2K bug. Remember that? The date is stored with just two numerals for the year with an assumed prefix of "19", so when the new millennium came rolling in they all turned into early 20th century dates. Because who would want to play a game ten years in the future, right?

Then according to All About SNK Fighting Games 1991-2000, they locked the date for the home release, which is why my screenshots don't show the issue. I'm going to say that means 8/13/1992 is the canonical date for Fatal Fury 1.

The SNES version, meanwhile, just cuts the date entirely. It also changes "prologue" to "prelude", which I rather like.

The Genesis version does not have the line about Geese dying at all. It came out before Fatal Fury Special in all regions, otherwise I'd suspect Takara saw it and decided to not bother, since Geese was obviously not dead. As it is, I dunno. Memory limitations?

Win quotes

My translation	Official translation
There's no way I'm going to lose until I can get revenge for my father!	I won't lose until I avenge my father's death.
Despite his face, he wasn't a big problem at all!	He was not much of a fighter despite his ugly face.
Did you think you could beat me? Go home and try again!	Did you think you could beat me? Go home!
Beating Geese will be easy with my special moves!	I'll beat Geese easily with my skill and technique!

These are mostly straight (and boring), so I'm going to skip individual commentary for most of them. The same win quotes are used for co-op and vs mode, thank heaven.

The last one is the real interesting one.

The Japanese word here is 必殺技 or "hissatsu waza", which means...well, special move (ultra-literally: sure kill technique). Its not a phrase that was really common in English until fighting games, so translating it as "skill and technique" isn't actually a bad idea.

However, this is another gameplay hint line. It's telling you to use Power Wave, Rising Tackle, etc to win. Since Fatal Fury is a really early fighting game, players might have needed this advice!

(The fact that Geese can counter you out of every single goddamn one of those moves is unmentioned.)

In that sense, it would've been better to translate it consistently with the gameplay hints between rounds, where 必殺技 became "fatal blow". "I'll easily beat Geese with my fatal blows!"...also sounds pretty goofy in English. If I were doing this, I might translate 必殺技 as "fatal arts", which should cover both cases.

SNES winquotes are on their own page, because things got weird. Same with Genesis winquotes.

Continue quotes

In Japanese, all of these appear slowly, timed so that it both seems like the character is panting them out after a hard fight and so that the line finishes right as the Continue timer reaches zero. (why yes, these were annoying to capture thank you for asking) This is taken out of the English version, so the lines just appear all at once. It's possible they just didn't have the time to retime everything for English. The SNES version adds the effect back in, but as far as I can tell also cuts out three of the four lines. Huh!

More generally, it's kind of weird to have a character break the fourth wall to ask the player to continue. Your character being in danger on the continue screen was a thing in that era of arcade games, but I can't think of any others where they'd straight up beg for another quarter.

My translation	Official translation	SNES translation
W...watch your opponent's moves very carefully. If...if you do...you'll find...their weak point....	Watch your opponent's technique very carefully... and you will find his weak point...
I...I want to beat him... If you don't hurry....urk!	I want to beat him... Hurry up!	I... I want to beat him... Hurry up... No...
I...beg you... Please...continue! Or...it's over....	Please continue!
Shoot... Just...a bit more...I would've had him...damnit...	Shoot... I could have beat him...

Like the win quotes, I'll do these all at once.

I tried to match up the Japanese ellipses and English ones, more or less. Even if you can generally cut half of them, I think it's all right in this case since Terry's supposed to be barely able to get the words out.

The first quote is more gameplay advice. And it's still applicable today!

The third one sure got shortened! All the Japanese continue quotes are longer than the English. I'm willing to bet they were all low-priority...for all players would see them over and over again. The SNES version lengthens it a bit.

The other two are pretty straight. Not a lot to say there.

Genesis version does not have any form of continue quotes, just a countdown. Boring.