Brazil Team
Ralf and Clark redeem themselves after Ikari 3. And Ikari 2. And kind of Ikari 1.
Story
Rugal Mid-Story
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Heheh...so it seems they are my guests. If they manage to keep winning, I'll be sure to send them a most polite invitation...hahahahah! | Ha ha ha... They seem to be my guests. If they win through all the battles let's invite them. Ha ha ha! |
The English has to be edited down, even with an extra screen. The character limits on KoF94 were really tight! No room to pick out Rugal making a point of how polite he's going to be.
"[L]et's invite them" vs "I'll be sure to invite them" mostly comes down to what exact verb form you think Rugal is using there. I made my decision based on it not seeming like Rugal's talking to Mature here.
Before Rugal
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Secretary: Congratulations on your victory. The tournament sponsor will certainly want to meet with you all. Please, come with me. | Secretary: Congratulations on your victory! The sponsor of the tournament welcomes you with open arms. He wishes to invite you... Please, follow me. |
| Rugal: Welcome to my gallery. | Rugal: Welcome to my museum. |
| Ralf: You the guy behind this tournament?! | Ralf: So, you are the host of this tournament!? |
| Rugal: Correct! My name is Rugal, and I knew from the beginning that you lot were sniffing around here. Well, my goal is to add the world's strongest fighters to my collection, so either way you ending up here suits me. | Rugal: Yes! I am Rugal. I know you've been snooping around. My purpose is to add the world's strongest fighters to my collection. |
| Clark: Collection? Wait, you mean these statues-? | Clark: Collection? You mean these statues are!? |
| Rugal: Yes, exactly. These are all that's left of the fighters I have defeated! Well? Aren't they lovely? | Rugal: Yes, that is what I mean! These statues are the end result of all I have beaten! Aren't they wonderful? |
| Ralf: T-this guy! | Ralf: You devil! |
| Heidern: Rugal! It's been eight years. Don't tell me you've forgotten who I am! | Heidern: Rugal! It's been 8 years since we last met. You haven't forgotten me, have you? |
| Rugal: Oh? I thought I'd seen you somewhere before... You're the leader of that mercenary squad I wiped out, right? Come to think of it, didn't I kill your wife and child at the same time? I suppose I owe you an apology. As recompense, I'll send you to them so you can all live happily together. Now, let us go to the battle stage.... | Rugal: Oh yes... I thought I recognized your face from somewhere. You were the captain of the mercenary soldiers that I annihilated. I recall that I killed you family, too... I'm sorry about that. For compensation, I'll send you to the other world so that your family won't miss you any more. Come with me to the battle stage. |
So let's see here...we have the usual split between the official translator and me on if Rugal calls his collection a "gallery" or a "museum". I think a gallery sounds more correct for things he's displaying as art, but neither are technically wrong I guess.
I tried to make Ralf sound a little rougher, which the official translator didn't bother with.
I also tried to make Rugal's reply sound a little more coherent. The official translation jumps around a bit because again, every line had to be cut to the bone to fit inside the character limits.
Rugal's reply to Clark, meanwhile, has a missing word that's covered in-game by a screen change. I suppose "the end result of all I have beaten" is technically grammatical, but it sure sounds weird.
It is interesting that official translation expanded the screens Heidern's "it's been eight years" when there is a shorter way to say it. It suggests a translator that wasn't super good with informal English speech, which...yeah, matches the rest of the game. Notice how they did make sure 8 was a numeral instead of spelling it out - gotta save those characters!
Rugal sounds more sincere about apologizing for killing Heidern's family in English, which obviously isn't right. But the next line sets things straight.
The official translator and I split on if we should emphasize Rugal saying that Heidern can live happily with his family in the afterlife or them not missing him anymore. They're both kind of in the Japanese in a way that's hard to mash into English.
Mid-fight
Rugal ripping his shirt off is the same for all characters, so it's on his page.
After Rugal
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Rugal: I-impossible! That I should be defeated-! | Rugal: I..impossible! How could I lose a battle.....!! |
| Heidern: This is it, Rugal! Prepare yourself! | Heidern: You are history, Rugal! Give up, now!! |
| Rugal: Hahahah...I'd rather you not underestimate me. Drown in the ocean's depths! Farewell! | Rugal: Hmph..ha ha ha! I'm not such an easy target! You'll be swallowed up by the sea with me. Farewell....! |
| Heidern: Damn! Retreat! | Heidern: Oh, no! Let's get out of here!! |
"You are history" is a surprisingly idiomatic bit of English for KoF94. Along with "A watery grave awaits you!", it suggests that a native speaker did a quick pass at some point, though I'm not sure why they missed the opportunity to make it "You're history" instead.
And speaking of watery graves...it's not here! We already know the line was redone each time instead of being accessed from a central location, so it's not surprising there are differences. This is a pretty major one, though! It's also interesting that "You'll be swallowed up by the sea with me", though not entirely graceless, is not as good as "A watery grave awaits you". Maybe they did Brazil Team first...?
I tried to make Heidern sound more military and call a retreat instead of "Let's get out of here!" That sounds more like Ryo or someone.
Ending
| My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|
| Heidern: Mission complete! Time to pull out. | Heidern: We've fulfilled our mission. We'll withdraw from here. |
| Ralf/Clark: Yes, sir! | Ralf/Clark: Yes, sir! |
Heidern's lines again are weirdly long, considering they're standard military jargon that have equally standard equivalents in English. It seems the official translator also wasn't familiar with military cliches in English.
As for Ralf and Clark...look, there are only so many ways to translate that.
Win Quotes
Heidern
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | You're no match for us! We'll show you hell anytime! | I can show you hell any time! |
| Brazil | Understand now? This is the power of the real thing! Don't think you'll get to live next time! | I will kill you next time! |
| China | Those who have not seen hell are not true soldiers! You should be able to understand that much! | To fight, one must know hell! |
| England | This is a battlefield! Just playing around will make you a casualty! | Don't underestimate me! |
| Italy | You lot are just fooling around! You wouldn't last one minute on the battlefield! | You won't last a minute in war! |
| Japan | Stop trying to show off with those half-assed moves! Next time you'll die! | Next time you'll die, definitely! |
| Korea | My chops rend the air to create vacuum waves! No one can stop them! | Nobody can stop my chop! |
| Mexico | I'd heard so much about kyokugen, and this is all I got? Disappointing. | Kyokugenryu is nothing! |
You can say whatever you want in the arcade, who cares.
Most of these are just very cut down in English, as usual. Probably the most interesting is the explanation of exactly what Heidern is doing with the Cross Cutter in the Korea line, which uh...sounds better in Japanese. I do appreciate the poetry of "Nobody can stop my chop!".
Ralf
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | You were no match for us, but good job surviving as long as you did! | You are no match for us. |
| Brazil | I don't know who you guys are, but you got guts to claim to be us! | To claim to be, you have nerve! |
| China | You sure got some weird moves! But in a hand-to-hand fight, you gotta use your fists! | Fight with your own fists! |
| England | Your faces got all messed up, little misses! | Don't spoil your pretty face! |
| Italy | You got some skills, but we have more experience walking the line between life and death! | We are stronger in battles! |
| Japan | Unlike you lot, these bodies were forged in the heat of battle! | We were trained in war! |
| Korea | We put our lives on the line in battle! You go back to basic! | We risk our necks to fight! |
| Mexico | Kyokugen might be strong or whatever, but we're soldiers! | We are soldiers! |
I missed it the first time, but then I remembered: the Brazil line is a pretty standard way of saying "claim to be me/us", so that's what's going on there. "To claim to be" is missing a critical word and ends up not making sense.
The England line is specifically to the entire team, which is why I ended up with "little misses". The official translation just drops it entirely, which was probably the right choice.
Korea has that same "go home and try again" idiom that gave me so much trouble back in AoF2. I did my best and went with going back to basic as a more military-favored phrasing. Meanwhile the English decided to only keep the other half of the line, which...can't blame 'em.
Clark
| Team | My translation | Official translation |
|---|---|---|
| America | Yeah, you guys are best suited to playing sports on TV. | Go home and enjoy sports! |
| Brazil | Wow, you went that far with the disguise. Hey, lemme get a souvenir photo! | A perfect disguise! |
| China | Great job! So China really does have such a hidden side to it. | China is so mysterious! |
| England | If you don't want to get hurt, then quit fighting! | Go away if you fear injury! |
| Italy | I heard about you even on the battlefield and this is all you got? | You have disappointed me! |
| Japan | You use some interesting techniques, but it's clear you don't have any real combat experience! | You must be an amateur in war! |
| Korea | Want to enlist in our unit? We'll train you hard so you can be all you can be! | Will you join our team? |
| Mexico | We've come back from suicide missions! This is nothing more than a warm-up! | This is just a warm-up! |
In the line vs America, Clark's more saying he just wants to watch the America team play sports on TV than that they should enjoy sports. But I can see how they got from one to the other.
It's kind of cute how enthusiastic he is about meeting the Brazil Team. I don't think anyone else has asked to take a photo with their doppelgangers.
I guess "mysterious" is about as good as you can do with "hidden side" in so many characters. I'm not super happy with my version, but I did my best.
I struggled with the line vs Korea. Clark brings up 心技体/shingitai, which refers to the three qualities of a martial artist or athlete: heart, technique, and body. You gotta have all three to be successful. By joining with the Ikari Warriors, the Korea team will get trained in all aspects, which will buff out all the rough spots. Needless to say, this is really hard to get across in any coherent way in English, so I went with a famous US Army slogan. The official translation just got to drop it completely.
And as usual, the rest just lose half the sentence, but the other half comes across more-or-less intact.