Jin Chonshu
Wait, didn't he go back to being a normal kid last game? (x2)
Story
Story 1
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ripper: Here's the current winner, Mr. Geese. | Ripper: Mr. Geese, that's the current champion. |
| Geese: ... | Geese: Hmph! |
Story 2
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're not really trying yet, are you? Heh. Interesting. | You're holding back! Now show your stuff! |
Geese doesn't demand Chonshu start actually trying in Japanese, which is the big difference here. It gives him a slightly different feel.
Story 3
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| The secret scrolls? You came to steal that garbage? What a fool... | Secret scrolls? You're willing to die for that garbage? Well ,okay,let me help you! |
Story 4
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Chonshu: I see you've been awaiting my arrival...even though you're the one that's going to be defeated. Heheheh... | Chonshu: You seem to have been waiting for me. You'll wish you hadn't! |
| Geese: You're pretty good, child of the Jins. | Geese: You sure know your stuff, you progeny of phlegm! |
Chonshu doesn't explicitly say that Geese is the one that's going to lose in English, though it's pretty heavily implied. Mostly, this just seems to be lost to the dark gods of character limits. With that taken into account, this is pretty solid.
Meanwhile, Geese...well, the editor got to him. The only real difference is what he calls Chonshu - in Japanese it's a straightforward callback to his family/the whole ancestral spirits thing, in English it's...well, they clearly started with the Japanese.
Nice alliteration.
Win Quotes
vs Terry/Billy/Yamazaki/Sokaku
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You should understand by now: you're no match for me. | Now you know my power! |
The English is fairly obviously a cut-down version of the Japanese. It doesn't lose much, though it's a little lighter on specifics. It doesn't help that I tried to get Chonshu's Japanese voice across by making him more polite, which usually translates to more verbosity.
Fun fact: this is the exact same set of characters as Chonrei's line. I sense someone was copy-pasting.
vs Andy/Hon Fu/Duck
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It's all right, don't push yourself. No one can win against me, after all. | Just roll over and play dead. I'm bleeding invincible! |
Ahahahahah. I sense the editor got to this one.
It's roughly the same in meaning, though "[j]ust roll over and play dead" is probably a little out of bounds. Chonshu is supposed to sound fake-comforting there, not snarkily dismissive.
vs Joe/Franco/Bob/Mary/Kim/Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Too weak. | Just too weak! |
Yep.
vs Mai
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You fought this far even though you're a woman, and therefore deserve my praise. But you're just not good enough. | You fight well for a girl. Sadly,I'm just too tough! |
Very similar to Chonshu's line against Mary back in Fatal Fury 3 for some bizarre reason. The "fought this far" sounds extra-weird here, outside the context of FF3. The English drops that and just has him compliment Mai on fighting well in general. It also drops him explicitly saying he'll praise her in favor of just cutting straight to the compliment.
Mai not being good enough/Chonshu being too tough is really more of phrasing differences on a similar idea.
...but why only Mai...?
vs Chonrei
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| It seems as if I'm the stronger of us, Brother Sky Dragon (Kong Long). | Junior,you've met your match. |
Thanks to RinDestiny for help on how to handle Sky Dragon's name here.
Okay, so. Sky Dragon/Kong Long is the name of the spirit possessing Chonrei. I believe this is meant to show how the spirits are still possessing the Jins, which would explain why they're still hanging out fighting. The only time those names are mentioned is in the twins' FF3 backstory, which is untranslated. (Chonshu is possessed by Sea Dragon, their other brother Great Dragon and dad King Dragon didn't make it. I'm not sure SNK remembers that any of this existed.)
Naturally, the English drops that. There was no way players would understand the reference, even assuming that American SNK staff had enough access to materials to get the reference themselves. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to change "Sky Dragon" to "Chonrei", but the translation team probably did not have access to context here and wouldn't necessarily know that the unfamiliar name mapped to Chonrei. So instead they just replaced it with a quick, mildly disparaging "Junior".
Unfortunately, this makes the English line sound weird and confusing - why is Chonshu calling his older brother Junior? And it's odd to tell someone you know well that they've met their match. (or at least I think so) It's a weird line.
vs Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're done already? Really, old soldiers should just fade away. | Over so soon? Geez. Back to the rocker,old guy! |
I took a bit of a liberty to call back to one of Yamazaki's FF3 lines, but he is saying old soldiers should go quietly so I felt it was justified.
The English drops Chonshu calling Geese an "old soldier", instead just calling him "old guy". I guess "[b]ack to the rocker" could be read out of the Japanese, if you take some liberties. The Japanese phrase is kind of vague in general. This does sound like someone did an editing pass on it, so I'd guess that's where that comes from.