Charlotte
What if we just put Lady Oscar into our game?
Challenges
vs self
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| You dare borrow the name of an ancient and noble family? This I shall not forgive! | You dare confront me? Plucky. You are, but, sadly, dead. | Confront me? Cute you are, but you must go. |
Well...
Yeah, this was completely rewritten. And made much more generic in the process. Pity.
I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of commas in that third sentence, especially when you consider that "Plucky" was probably supposed to have a comma after it too. The interesting thing is that none of them are wrong in usage. Just...probably could've rephrased to save on some character space there.
The SNES version is cut down even more, and loses "plucky" in favor of "cute". Maybe someone thought kids wouldn't know what plucky meant? And of course, no more references to death on the SNES.
vs others
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| Regret your foolish awakening of this sleeping lion in the afterlife. | All warriors are not called "sir." Twit! | All warriors are not called "sir", ha! |
| That is your style of swordsmanship? No matter. Show me what you have regardless. | Don't ever talk about my breastplate again! | Don't ever talk about my plate again! |
Yeah, these got completely rewritten, and as of such, I can't even be sure that they've been matched up correctly. None of the English lines have anything to do with the Japanese.
Though there is one possible connection. In the second line, Charlotte describes her opponent's sword/swordsmanship as "rude" or "insolent". You could say that making comments about her breastplate is rude, so...possibly the editor just took a famous leap of imagination?
That's a very thin line to try and hang this on, and I'm not going to do it seriously. But it's the one thing that I could think of.
Charlotte describes herself as a lion multiple times in Japanese. It never got into English. It will be interesting to see if she keeps doing that in the future.
Twit: Too spicy for Nintendo. Same with breastplates, which feels like an overcorrection but what do I know. It does make the joke more obscure, since now it sounds like the other fighters are criticizing Charlotte's armor instead of making off-color jokes.
Win Quotes
vs self
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| I will never fail in protecting the honor of my house! It is my raison de'etre! | Protecting the honor of my family is my bread and brie... | I live to protect the honor of my family... |
Okay, see, this is a translation. An SNK translation, but a translation. Charlotte sees protecting the honor of her family as basic and fundamental, and this gets across fine in English.
In a distinctly goofy way, sure, but hey! At least it's there!
The SNES version keeps the idea, but apparently assumed brie was too confusing for the children. It's now much less interesting.
Win with killing normal
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| For so long as I bear the emblem of my noble house, I cannot lose. | A woman of my breeding cannot lose. | With my breeding I can not lose. |
The English is a bit simplified, but the basic idea is still there. Charlotte can't lose with her noble house/breeding behind her, yep yep. The English line isn't even particularly goofy, which is honestly remarkable.
Woman: ...too spicy for Nintendo...? Honestly, this feels like you have to already have a filthy mind to think it's worth cutting out.
Win with special move
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| A lion that breaks chains and runs towards freedom. That is I! | I live to break the grip of tyrants and enslave my enemies. | I live to defeat my enemies. |
Okay, this is...a bit off. A bit.
In Japanese, we have the second time Charlotte calls herself a lion, and establishes her ideals. In English, the lion is dropped and her ideals get a bit...garbled. "[B]reak the grip of tyrants", fine, but I'm not sure where "enslave my enemies" came from besides "the editor".
Still, there is a connecting thread here that's easy to see. Just a bit, well...SNK.
Meanwhile enslavement was too spicy for Nintendo, which, fair. I feel like breaking the grip of tyrants would work fine, though, and fit in with her ending. But no one asked me. (which is good, because at the time they just would've gotten a bunch of rambling about ninja turtles)
Win otherwise
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| The outcome of this match was decided within my heart. Farewell until we meet again. | Au revoir,petit chou. For I will seize victory from vous. | Au revoir, for I shall have victory from vous. |
By the way, did you know Charlotte is French.
Once again, there's a connecting thread here, but it's gone goofy. It's odd that Charlotte says "I will seize victory" in English, considering that this is a win quote. She's already won! Weird. It also drops the whole "within my heart" thing, which I think might be a way of saying "I don't need to kill you because I already decided I won", but not 100% sure.
I read over this multiple times before finally noticing that "chou" isn't the Japanese word for butterfly. It's the French word for cabbage. Charlotte is calling her opponent a little cabbage. Also, I wildly embarrassed myself in France when I was trying to get a picture by a butterfly statute but could not remember the French word for it and I only just realised this now.
Incidentally, "vous" is the formal French second-person pronoun, cognate to English "you". Appropriate for an opponent, I suppose.
It feels odd to only cut "petit chou" here, since I don't think kids would know "vous" either. But I guess it's pretty obvious from context.
Clear
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| A beautiful woman's equally beautiful swordplay. Is that not pleasing? | A fablous babe with unbeatable moves. I am magunifique. | Fabulous with unbeatable moves. I'm magunifique. |
Technically accurate, yet wildly goofy. The essence of SNK.
I think the tonal contrast between "fablous babe" and "magunifique" is what really sells it.
Babe: too saucy for Nintendo. They also fixed the spelling of "fabulous", which is nice. There was some care put into the SNES version, over just getting all of this past Nintendo.
Story
Stage 4
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| Charlotte: This one's no good either... | Charlotte: He's finished. | Charlotte: He's finished. |
| Charlotte: ! | Charlotte: ! | Charlotte: ! |
| Charlotte: What-! | Charlotte: What is this...! | Charlotte: What is this...! |
| Amakusa: Kukuku... Behold, I am the vengeful spirit of Amakusa. Now, cry and plead unto the dark god! | Amakusa: Call me Amakusa, Amakusa! | Amakusa: Call me Amakusa, Amakusa! |
| Charlotte: Ambrosia's-?! | Charlotte: Ambrosia | Charlotte: Ambrosia. |
| Amakusa: Kukuku....Already your country has fallen under the sway of my dark god. Now, you as well shall bend your knee to Ambrosia! | Amakusa: Heh,heh, the dark guy rules your puny land. Join me,and rule together. | Amakusa: Heh, heh. The dark guy rules your puny land. Join me, rule together. |
| Charlotte: Silence! I will never bow to the devil bringing suffering to my countrymen! | Charlotte: Silence. Taste the fury of my wrath. | Charlotte: Silence. Taste the fury of my wrath. |
| Amakusa: Heheheh...then prepare yourself for death! | Amakusa: Then die,you crazy funster! | Amakusa: Then you're finished, finished! |
| Charlotte: God grant me strength! | Charlotte: Geez. You stink! | Charlotte: Geez. What's that smell? |
The idea is that Charlotte is looking for strong opponents to fight, I think. Or at least that would make sense with her line in the ending. Anyway, she's disappointed by her opponents.
What's interesting here is that she actually knows about Ambrosia ahead of time, and recognizes Amakusa as a subordinate. This is made explicit in her backstory, which of course was not translated for English-speaking audiences. So in English it sounds more like she just calls Amakusa by the wrong name right after he introduces himself.
Both the English and the Japanese have Ambrosia being responsible for the er, century or so of financial mismanagement that ultimately led to the revolution, but the English adds some confusion when Amakusa offers to let Charlotte rule with him. Doesn't make a lot of sense if it's Ambrosia ruling France, but oh well. In Japanese he just tells her to swear to serve Ambrosia, as is standard.
The translation also significantly cuts down Charlotte's reply, but they really didn't have a lot of choice there. It at least makes some amount of sense from the previous line and isn't too terrible a way of handling that vicious character limit.
...but there's no easy explanation for the last line. In Japanese it's a very straightforward and easy phrase, and then the English just...throws that out. I guess they were a bit nervous about saying "God" for whatever reason and just replaced the whole line with a rather weak insult.
The SNES version is very smiliar, but there are some changes. First, they added a period to Charlotte recognizing Ambrosia's hand in this. Which looks like it got an editing pass, but then they cut out an "and" from Amakusa's offer, which adds some broken English to the line. They did seem to have the space for an "and" there, so I have no idea what happened.
Then Amakusa drops the usual replacement for the "crazy funster" line. Honestly, I kind of like it.
Finally, Charlotte's final line is rewritten a bit. Instead of insulting Amakusa directly, she wonders what a smell is. My instinct is a reference to the smell of brimstone (sulfur), like the devil is supposed to bring, but I imagine a lot of kids thought of it as a fart joke. No idea why this line should be changed. I don't think Nintendo was opposed to grade school insults...
Ending
| My translation | Official translation | SNES |
|---|---|---|
| Charlotte: The blades of the Far East did not live up to their reputation. | Charlotte: Far East tour... What a letdown. | Charlotte: Far East tour... What a let down. |
| Charlotte: Pierre! What is it? | Charlotte: Pierre! What is it? | Charlotte: Pierre! What is it? |
| Charlotte: Hm? What's this...a revolution in France?! | Charlotte: Well, uh... The revolution! | Charlotte: Well, uh... The revolution! |
| Charlotte: This must not fail. I should guide the people! | Charlotte: I will lead the proles! | Charlotte: I will lead the way! |
| Noble: I alone am more than enough for you rabble! | Noble: Desist, all! Go back to your huts. | Noble: Desist all! Go back to your huts. |
| Noble: !! | Noble !! | Noble !! |
| People: Charlotte! | People: Charlotte! | People: Charlotte! |
| Charlotte: The enemy is in front of you! Now, forward! | Charlotte: We face the enemy! Forward! | Charlotte: We face the enemy! Forward! |
| People: *shouts of approval* | People: Waah. | People: Waah. |
The first line in English loses some specificity: Charlotte is disappointed by the quality of her opponents, not the sights or the food or anything like that. "Letdown" is also a very modern turn of phrase here.
Another point is that Japanese Charlotte is surprised there's a revolution going on in her homeland, while English Charlotte seems to already know about it. No one is interested in my rant about how the use of "proles" here is anachronistic, so I'll skip it, (Marx wasn't even borrrrrrrrrrn!) but I will note that it's a cute way of shortening the phrase in English. Even if they didn't really need to.
The noble's line is significantly changed, from a boast to a command. It has the same attitude, though.
I did cheat a little with the last line, but lines like that really do work so much better in Japanese. As you can see, when SNK decided to just run with it.
Anyway, let's leave it there and not talk about the Terror and Napoleon and the Bourbon Restoration etc.
The SNES version makes a few typographical changes: a space in "let down", a removed comma in "desist all". Both of these are actually incorrect. There's no space in the noun form of letdown, and the addressing comma is correct there. But they're the kind of things I can see someone thinking are correct and not checking.
The bigger change is Charlotte no longer leading the proles. Instead she will lead the way. It's pretty much the same, but less of a joke. Perhaps someone thought this should be a bit more serious?