Duck King
Dance like you want to win.
Story
Story 1
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ripper: Here's the current winner's picture, Mr. Geese. | Mr.Geese,we got this graphic of the guy. |
| Geese: ... | Geese: Hmph! |
Story 2
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Ah, a familiar face... | Your face brings me back to more memorable days. Heh,heh,heh... |
It's a reference to FF1.
The official translation feels kind of weird, but it's more expanded than wrong. I suppose there's a minor difference between Duck making Geese remember and Duck's face being familiar/nostalgic, but that feels extra hair-splitty.
Story 3
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Show me how strong you have become. Hurry, hurry to fight through the tournament and face me! | I can't wait to test your strength. Hurry up and battle your way to me! |
Subtly different from Joe in a way that completely fooled me the first time I glanced at it. The main difference is that Geese wants to see how much stronger Duck has become instead of wanting to see his strength, suggesting that Geese and Duck have met before. (SORRY JOE) The second line is also slightly different, in that Geese repeats "hurry". Yep.
As a result, it gets a different English translation. That suggests two things to me. First off, the editor didn't get to this line (though they got to other lines on Duck's route), and that Joe's line was put in one central place in memory so that a change to one line is a change to all. SNK didn't always do this, so it's interesting to see them shift.
The translation drops the subtle bit about Geese wanting to see how strong Duck's become, which in an odd wrinkle suggests to me that the translator made the same mistake I did: they thought it was a repeat of Joe's line and possibly reused the same translation - which means this might be what Joe's line looked like before the editor got to it. This is a pretty tenuous conclusion, and it's entirely possible that it's not true. The differences between the lines in Japanese are subtle, but...something about the English line just feels more like Joe's line than Duck's.
Story 4
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Duck: HEY! Now that the Duck is here, you're going down, baby! | Duck: Hey,Duck is here! It's all over ,man! |
| Geese: So you've made it this far, Duck King. Hmhmhmhm... | Geese: Not bad for a dumb disco diddle meister,Duck King! |
...
Okay, so Duck's line is pretty straight. I tried to give him a bit more character voice, but the official translator also tried to do that a little, so it all works out.
Meanwhile, the editor clearly had a lot of fun with Geese. (I don't blame them) There's not really much to say about it from a translation perspective, given that anyone can look at it and see the editor took a ton of liberties with a pretty boring Japanese line. Heck, you could probably have figured that out without me. Just bask in the alliterative glory.
(I love the idea that Geese's idea of popular music and dance is stuck in the 70s. It's perfect.)
Win Quotes
vs Terry
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hey! You get how strong I am now, right, Terry? | Understand my power now? You capped cream puff! |
Cream puff returns, again. I get what they're going for, but man it's a weird insult. It's also just added in English, though I can understand the desire.
As you can see, Duck's still sprinkling English in his quotes. This is one of the rare times it's actually in English letters instead of katakana, though. It's always hard to decide how to handle this in translation - I just brought it over, the official translation dropped it.
vs Andy/Sokaku/Chonshu
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| No matter how many times you try it'll always be the same, baby! | As often as you replay it, the end is the same,baby! |
The English adds a cute little reference to either music or movies - I'd pick music, because it's Duck, but this was probably done without context and talking about the end feels like more of a movie thing.
This is pretty good.
vs Joe/Franco/Bob/Hon Fu/Kim
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You're good! You're really good! | Bellisima,baby. |
Going back to translating someone who uses lots of English in their speech for effect... The "you're good" here is written in English (in katakana), then repeated in Japanese just in case the player doesn't get it. I handled it super-literally to show off how SNK localized around it, which in this case was to translate to Italian. That's a perfectly legitimate way to handle it.
That said, "Bellisima", meaning "beautiful", is a bit of a stretch for talking to someone you just beat the crap out of. So I dunno.
vs Mai/Mary
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Oh, sorry! You're not hurt, right? | Sorry about your nose. It'll heal ,though. |
Once again with the nose! It is a funny image.
So the English line is made more specific, and it implies that Duck really did hurt Mai/Mary, instead of hoping he didn't. Same sort of idea, but there are a few things changed.
vs Billy/Yamazaki/Chonrei/Geese
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Hpmh! I'm the Duck King - you'd better remember that! | I am Duck,hear me roar! |
Shades of AoF2 King.
To repeat, "I am Duck,hear me roar" is a reference to famous 1971 song I am Woman by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton. The first line, "I am woman, hear me roar", is very famous and often referenced in pop culture, including by SNK previously.
The Japanese is a straightforward and somewhat arrogant put-down, but also somewhat generic. Changing it to a reference punches it up a little in English, though it makes it a bit harder to tell he's specifically looking down on the evil characters.
vs Duck King
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| You'll never win with that dance! | With that dance, you had to lose! |
...yep.
I thought "you had to lose" was another reused SNK-ism, but it's not showing up in anything I've done so far. I'll keep an eye out.