Geese Howard
If you have more than one Geese, do you have Geeses?
Fighter title
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The Resurrected Ruler of Southtown | Don of the Dark Organization! |
English manual scans from Rage Quitter 87. Thank you!
Good alliteration, as usual. It does drop that Geese has been resurrected, and that he rules Southtown. The first part is important, but everyone knew the second already.
I wonder why he gets an exclamation mark with Bob and Mary.
Manual blurb
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hmhmhm, aren't you happy to see me? Sorry, but I'm quite alive. It seems that in my absence a few rats have infested Southtown. Don't worry, I'll exterminate them all right away. I'll take control of this city once again, and after that, the whole world has it's appeal.... | Heh, heh, heh. I know all of you are happy to hear from me again. I'm okay, in the pink and ready to kick some good-guy can. It looks like a few rats have crawled out of the cracks during my absence, but I'll do away with them in no time. Then, those Bogards and that underwear-clad kick boxer are mine. Well, I have to take a little trip to see my Hong Kong connection. Later, scum. |
Here we see the delightful return of "in the pink", which I remind you is an entirely real phrase that means exactly what Geese is using it for. It's a heckuva a way to translate "Sorry, but I'm quite alive", but very memorable!
It's interesting that in English the FF1 boys are not considered to be part of the rats that are infesting Southtown. They're just not brought up in Japanese, though I would assume Geese primarily means Yamazaki and the Jins there. What's extra interesting is that Geese says he has a "Hong Kong connection", making it sound almost like Yamazaki is working for him! I believe the intention was to show Geese has interests in Hong Kong, which is how he knew about the warehouse incident (and he does, because that was Ripper and Hopper that got beat), but it's sort of ambiguous if you don't already know what's going on.
"Later, scum" is a wonderfully Geesey line.
Intro vs Bob
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| So you're Geese Howard, huh. I'll erase your bad name for you. | So you're Geese Howard? I'll do you the favor of erasing your evil name -- and you with it! |
Yeah, the official version is way better than mine, and it's not weird or went off in its own direction or anything. I dig it!
Win vs Bob
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| This town is nothing without the name of Geese Howard. | This town is nothing without the presence of yours truly. |
The English drops a bit of the name play, but it's still fine. I guess they decided to play off Bob erasing Geese instead of the name thing. Whatever.
Intro vs Franco
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You don't look like a ghost. Are you the guy pulling Yamazaki's strings? | Hmm. You don't look like a ghost. Are you the one who put Yamazaki on the loose? |
Geese intimidated SNK into handling his route well. That's the only explanation.
Win vs Franco
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Yamazaki? Whoever that is, this is Southtown. I won't let them do as they please here. | Yamazaki. Don't ever enter my town again without my express written permission! |
NEVERMIND.
An actual mistranslation! Yamazaki's nowhere around ingame, making this an obvious goof-up. There's also the slight thing where Japanese Geese doesn't want Yamazaki doing as he likes in Southtown, and English Geese wants him gone. But it's Geese so the distinction is pretty academic.
Intro vs Joe
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You! You lived?! This time, the great Joe will personally escort you to hell! | What? Still alive? Well, once I get cooking, you won't have much life left. |
The English feels like it's trying to make a joke, but what joke it's trying to make is beyond me.
The two lines are roughly the same in intent, but Japanese Joe's threat makes more sense even in English. Joe is also really angry/contemptuous to Geese in Japanese, which doesn't come across in English. (either English. I tried.)
Win vs Joe
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're out of your league. | Oooh, you were as strong as my pain reliever . Oh, my sinuses are killing me. |
I don't think I need to explain this one. It's FF3, let's move on.
Intro vs Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| So you're alive after all. I thought it was strange when my company took your name off the blacklist. | I knew you were alive. Well, not for long, gramps! |
Talking about her freelance agency, I guess. I think the implication is that her company was only willing to blacklist Geese as long as they thought he was gone for good? Also worth noting that Japanese Mary didn't know Geese was alive, she just had some suspicions.
The English kind of goes off and does its own thing. Like it does.
Win vs Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Just put me right back on top of the blacklist. | Don't call my a pansy again, bimbo! Now leave my town! |
Japanese Geese doesn't care if he's blacklisted or not. English Geese...is very confused about how he got insulted. I can't even explain this one like Terry's win against Mai, no one ever called Geese a pansy. Just picked that up somewhere I guess.
Accident Intro
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Heh heh... I knew you'd come back here. My intuition's as sharp as ever. | Heh, heh. So you're back. |
| Now, I was just thinkin' that you know what we're lookin' for, and I don't know what I might hear outta you. | I thought there were too many "accidents" here recently. |
Translation help from Kishi! Thank you!
The first line cuts out Yamazaki's faith in his intuition, and has a slight change in nuance: Japanese Yamazaki knew Geese wasn't really dead, English Yamazaki just isn't surprised.
I don't know what happened with the second line. In Japanese, Yamazaki has an idea that Geese knows what's up with the scrolls (and probably suspects he has them) and they're fighting so Yamazaki can beat the information out of Geese. In English...I have no idea what he's getting at. I feel like it's some sort of awkward reference to the Accident! Yamazaki encounter, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Accident Postfight
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Yamazaki: As strong as ever... Well, it doesn't look like you've finished your revival anyway. I'll come back later. | Yamazaki: It's just like you, Geese. Never one to be truly out of the picture. |
| Geese: Hmph! | Geese: Shut up and get back here, pansy! |
| Geese: That rat... I never should've let him live! | Geese: That weasel. I'm gonna decorate my study with his hide! |
SASUGA GEESE
Yes yes I'm very sorry.
Anyway. "Revival" here seems to specifically refer to using the scrolls to achieve the perfect, immortal body that Chonshu keeps ranting about. This is, admittedly, a guess after spending way too much time thinking about this, but it's one that fits. Yamazaki knows Geese has the scrolls, figures he's not going to be able to use them, and fucks off. The English drops, uh...all of that.
Geese's lines are generally expanded. It's a bit notable that English Geese yells at Yamazaki to come back, Japanese Geese doesn't bother. (I also like how every other character pulls out a shocked sprite for that line. Not Geese.) The official English also goes for weasel over rat/mouse for some reason. It's not like they're the same word in Japanese or anything, it just got changed. I don't know why, but they're consistent about it.
Intro vs Mai
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're Geese Howard? Geez! Those guys were really half-assing it. | You're Geese Howard? Those three guys are in for trouble after this little bout. |
I'm not 100% on all the nuances of Mai's last line, but pretty sure she's saying the FF1 heroes were half-assing it (because Geese came back).
The English obscures this aspect a bit, though you can pull it out if you think about it. It makes it sound like Mai's going to beat up Terry/Andy/Joe instead of just being annoyed she has to clean up their mess, though.
Win vs Mai
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It seems you're an acquaintance of Bogard and his friends. No matter how much you lot struggle, it's useless. | Tell the Bogards and their brief-wearing friend that Geese is here to stay! |
It's kind of annoying that English doesn't have the nice pluralizing suffixes Japanese has. The official translator and I both tried to handle Bogard-tachi in our own ways. I guess I can't really disapprove of adding on extra insults to Joe...
The second part...sure is changed, huh.
Intro vs Andy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Y-you're alive?! Damn... Are you going to gobble up this town again?! | Oh my G...How did you manage to survive? Well, prepare to die again, old guy. |
The real difference here is dropping Andy's concern over Southtown and replacing it with confidence. Gotta admit, "old guy" is weak even for the Bogards in the 90s.
I wonder how many other games of this period (1995) would get that close to religion/swearing. That's arcade freedom for you!
Win vs Andy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It seems you've gotten a bit stronger, but just a bit isn't enough to defeat someone like me. | You've gotten strong, but you're still no match for me, Andy. Hang it up! |
I'm not sure if I can call this "good" but it isn't completely off, which puts it over a lot of this game.
Lose vs Andy
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese, rest in peace... | Geese! |
Wait what?
That's right, Andy (and Terry, of course) get special win quotes if Geese loses to them on his route. These are, as far as I know, the only special win quotes in the game. YEAH, SORRY JOE.
Anyway, as a translation this is...not good. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's just Terry's line reused. I guess if you're going to cut corners, you might as well cut them where realistically no one will notice. I'm still fascinated by the actual character implications in Andy's Japanese line and I can't believe I just said that Andy has an actual character.
Intro vs Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese? The master criminal? You're not a ghost, right? | Geese? The world famous master criminal? You're not a ghost, are you? Naaah! |
I think this is pretty straight but I'm also really guessing about Hon Fu's accent again.
The one big difference is that English Hon Fu specifies Geese is world famous. The Japanese is just "huge/powerful villain", no fame mentioned. But I can see how they'd get there, and if Hon Fu knows about Geese he might well be world famous, so.
Win vs Hon Fu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| What the hell is a Hong Kong detective doing in my town? If you just run around doing whatever you want, I'll rub you right out. | No two-bit Hong Kong cop is going to ruin my plans! |
Out, not off. Very important difference.
The main difference is that Japanese Geese has no idea why Hon Fu is there (makes sense, Hon Fu is after Yamazaki) and just tells Hon Fu to not make trouble. English Geese is more direct in a way that implies Hon Fu actually has something to do with Geese when he really doesn't.
Intro vs Sokaku
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I feel an overwhelming bloodlust. Your power will be sealed! | I can't waste my time with you, Geese. I gotta date with a real master criminal. |
"Gotta" is a contraction of "got to" not "got a"! HOW DARE YOU. I will never forgive this grave error of English slang grammar!
Unless Sokaku is looking for a master criminal to love...hm. Hmm. Hmmmmm.
Anyway. As usual, take my Sokaku translations with an even bigger grain of salt than the rest, but I'm pretty sure about the main points. The English throws out pretty much everything, you can see that, let's move on.
Win vs Sokaku
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hmph, this is all the Mochizukis have? The rumours were terrifying, but... | So this is the level of the Mochizuki's? Sad, so very, very sad. |
Hey, not bad. The English drops the game trying to sell the Mochizukis a bit and includes a common apostrophe mistake, but everything's there. Nice.
Intro vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese! I knew you were still alive! This time, my fists are gonna finish you off once and for all! | Geese! I knew you were still alive! This time you won't be so lucky, you rapscallion! |
....rapscallion?
Other than that, this is straight to the point where I accidentally translated something in the exact same way as the official translator. Usually I expect that shit out of AoF1.
Win vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I missed you too. How about after my perfect revival, my fist will...? | Hey, I've been waiting to meet up with you. Just wait until I regenerate. See ya! |
Kishi and I put our heads together for this one.
This does the annoying "we can just leave off the verb, it's cool" thing Japanese does, so it ended up pretty ultra-literal because I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it without a lot of guesses I don't feel confident making. Sorry.
But anyway! Here we see "revival" show up again to mean Geese using the scrolls and getting that shiny new immortal body. The official translator didn't drop that this time, and translated the same term as "regenerate". This term will be consistently used through the end of the game.
The one difference from post-Yamazaki is Geese specifying a "perfect revival". How is that different? No idea.
So the English is the same as the Japanese in meaning. In tone...
We don't talk about tone.
Lose vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese... | Geese! |
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!
I think they just used this one for Terry and Andy in English, but who knows.
Intro vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ha...you fool... | Ha...what is this bozo? |
I feel like that "what" should be a "who" in the official translation.
"Bozo" is another distinctively SNK-ish term, but I don't think we've seen it before in this project. I'll keep an eye out for it in the future.
Win vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Get out. Southtown only needs one ruler. | There's only room for one power-mad maniac in this town, melonhead! |
Again: meaning on point, tone went out to lunch.
We've previously seen "melonhead" used by Duck King in FFS.
I just really like Geese calling himself a power-mad maniac. He's very self-aware.
Intro vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're really planning on revival? But it's better for old soldiers to just fade away, you know... | You don't plan to regenerate, do you? I thought old soldiers just fade away. |
You have no idea how surprised I was to translate this and find out that yes, Yamazaki said literally that in Japanese. I always thought of it as a very American saying.
Revival, regenerate, same thing. There is a slight difference in nuance where Japanese Yamazaki is more telling Geese what he should do, while English Yamazaki is more making an observation, but it ends up being about the same.
Ending A
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| I-I knew you'd win... But even your power won't get you past here. You're no match for him...give it up.... | I thought you were tough... But go home now, before it's too late for you too crawl back. |
Kishi got the pics. Thank you.
Since only the first line of the ending is unique, I put the other parts over here.
Once again Yamazaki drops the gameplay hint part of his line. In this case, though, it really changes what the line seems to be saying. In Japanese, Yamazaki says that he expected Geese to win, but not even Geese can beat who's coming next. In English, the first sentence is ambiguous enough that it can be read as Yamazaki being disappointed Geese isn't as strong as expected, which makes the second more confusing. It's not technically wrong, just...ambiguous.
The second sentence is pretty good, all told.
Win vs Yamazaki
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Geese: What, is that it? All you can do is talk big. | Geese: What? Over so soon? I'm not even warmed up. What a joke! |
| Yamazaki: Urk...I- I knew it... | Yamazaki: Delta Park! There in Delta P,P,Park. But give it up, Mochizuki, you can't win! |
| Chonshu: The ruler of Southtown, Geese Howard... I've been looking for you. | Chonshu: The Sultan of Southtown, Geese Howard. Back from the dead, huh? |
| Geese: W-What...? | Geese: W-What...? |
| Geese: Haha...it seems the real rat is finally making his appearance... | Geese: Why if it isn't the king of the weasels. And just the right size, too. |
...Mochizuki?
Yep, it looks like someone screwed up and duplicated Yamazaki's line against Sokaku on Geese's route. I wonder if the intended line is in the code somewhere, or if's a case of pointing to the same part of memory? I don't have the Neo Geo hacking skills to suss this out, unfortunately. And once again, Yamazaki is infinitely more helpful in English.
"The Sultan of Southtown" sounds more like a wrestling epithet than anything you'd call the local mob boss. Wrestling expert fbm rates it as having nice alliteration, but dooms Geese to forever be a local guy. Kishi mentions that Fatal Fury 2 used "The Sultan of Slugs Battle Royale" in its arcade copy, showing that someone at SNK liked that construction.
Minor nuance change: Japanese Chonshu knows Geese is alive and has been looking for him, English Chonshu sounds a bit more surprised.
Rat -> weasel, again. I have no idea what "just the right size, too" is supposed to mean. fbm suggests it might be calling back to Geese's line against Yamazaki earlier: "I'm gonna decorate my study with his hide!" I'm not so sure, but the possibility exists.
Intro vs Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| So you're Geese Howard? A pleasure to meet you. | So you're Geese Howard? The pleasure is all mine. |
| My name is Jin Chonshu. This is a lovely town. It suits both of us well. | Call me, Jin. Jin Chon Shu. I like this town and plan to make it mine. Any objections? |
| As you know, those scrolls you're holding belong to my family. | As you know, the scrolls you hold are the property of my ancestors. Return them, now. |
| It's useless to play dumb. China's Tung, Germany's Krauser...you stole the scrolls from them. | Oh come, Geese. Don't play the fool, even if you do it so well, hand them over. |
| You should already know that it's useless for you to keep them. Now, come... | You battles with Tung and Krauzer led you to our secret. Now come. |
As is the theme for this route, Geese intimidated the translator into being reasonably accurate. There are a few differences, like English Chonshu specifically wanting to take over Southtown, being a lot pushier in demanding the scrolls and implies Geese fought Tung and Krauser for the scrolls (he didn't, he just filched them) but nothing nearly on the level of Terry's route. Speaking of Terry's route, the new romanization for Krauser is consistent, which mostly suggests the lack of a localization bible or the lack of a final editing pass. Considering the rest of the game, I'm leaning to to the latter.
Ending B
Ending B is also the same for all characters, so it's on a common page too.
Chonrei
Chonrei's intro is the same for everyone, so it's on a common page.
Ending C
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The hero's blood flowing through the Jin family mutated into evil ambition over the course of ages and possessed the brothers' bodies. | The blood of the Jins is the blood of death. It could only, in the end, conclude this way. |
| January 15th, 1995 Geese Howard defeats the Jin brothers and takes control of Southtown once more. |
Jan 21, 1995 Geese Howard defeats the Jins and conquers the world! |
| The perfect, immortal body that the Jin family believed in was nothing more than a figment of their 2200-year history. | The delusions of the Jins were just that. Immortality...the last refuge of corruption! |
Consistent difference between Geese and everyone else: Geese murdered some teenagers.
Difference between English and Japanese: Japanese Geese just re-takes Southtown, English Geese sets his ambitions higher.
For discussion about the common bits, see the common page.
Geese's Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| So something like a perfect, immortal body never could exist in this world, huh... Hey, Billy, what's that guy up to? | Whoa! Do I feel good! Billy, gather our thugs and let's have some fun! |
Hey, remember how Geese's route was remarkably well translated in meaning, if not in tone? Let's throw that all out the window.
In Japanese the scrolls flat out don't work, so Geese just refocuses on "that guy". Who could theoretically be anyone! (but we all know it's Terry [except that there's a Neo Geo Freak out there that says it's the kid in Terry's ending, which is so completely bizarre I still haven't made my peace with it]) Billy is upset about being sent on a wild goose chase for an ultimately worthless MacGuffin. Meanwhile in English Geese apparently used the scrolls, they worked fine, and he's going out to take over the world. Billy...I dunno, maybe he doesn't want to have fun.
Incidentally, the banner in the background just says 'invincible'. So exactly what you guessed it said.