Accurate translations are often ungrammatical. Sometimes you have to add or subtract words. But doing so can get you in trouble, as you have to infer information you might get wrong. (For an example, see the original US translation of Final Fantasy 4/2US, which calls Tellah prince Edward’s father¹.)

This game loves villainous tittering. Corneo says hoheehee. The original translation gave him something different to say, which is fine, except that it’s spelled oddly. It looks like he’s talking about a wheel.

This is probably a similar mistake as the classic This guy are sick.

Japanese doesn’t require you to specify singular or plural. A translator might at first think something is singular, later realize that it’s plural, and update the text incompletely. In the first case, they probably updated tomato to plural but forgot to remove the a. In This guy are sick it’s the other way around—person was probably mistaken for plural and changed later, without fixing the verb.

I guessed the whole squashed tomatoes thing was made up, but once again, it’s 100% accurate. The game genuinely has dialogue this goofy.

It’s not like Aerith to be particularly harsh or cold. She’s a sweetheart. But the original English is plausible. Aerith has just said I’m not going to help. Either way, there was no way Shinra could have won. Tseng uses the word きびしい (kibishii) which means severe, strict, rigid, unsparing, relentless, cold, harsh, tough, stern, austere, grave, solemn... you get the picture. I think Tseng is trying to say that Aerith is determinedly anti-Shinra, not that she’s cruel or cold. But harsh is a valid choice, and from Tseng’s perspective, maybe her anti-Shinra attitude is cold or harsh.

I wouldn’t remove the ellipses. Tseng is dying (though it’s retconned in later media), and I’m… dying… must… talk… like… this is a normal English trope.

As a kid I assumed flunkies meant all the monsters you constantly fight in battles. This was confusing. Those monsters probably don’t have the capability to solve the puzzles in the temple, and it’s not established that they’re under Sephiroth’s direct control. But Cloud is saying that Sephiroth seems to have the ability to split himself or create apparitions. The party has seen several of them in the temple. Cloud uses the word 分身 (bunshin) which means offshoots, alter egos, alternate selves, branches, or even children.

This one’s rather infamous. Here’s the whole dialogue.

Time to pick some nits!

First, they translated しょうがねえやつだぜ (shouganeeyatsudaze) as Goddamn jackass, that’s what you are. Damn, Barret. Harsh! しょうがねえ / しょうがない (shouganee / shouganai) is the well known can’t be helped and Barret uses it to modify the word やつ (yatsu), which means guy. The traditional translation, when applied to a person, is difficult or impossible, as in you’re being difficult. He wraps it up with a forceful ぜ (ze). Maybe it should be more forceful than what I wrote, but Goddamn jackass seems overly mean to me.

US Barret says How many people in this world do ya think really understand themselves? But he’s not saying that they don’t understand themselves, he’s saying they don’t know everything. Here’s an ungrammatical, extremely literal translation to help understand:

[Implied “As for”] myself, is thinking, “How many knowing-everything-persons exist in the world?”

And of course the implied answer is zero, which leads to the next sentence. Again, literally:

I think everyone, because of not knowing this or that, worries.

Finally, translating なやむ (nayamu, to be troubled/worried) as get depressed can carry the wrong connotation. It’s not wrong per se. But in modern English depressed can connote long term mental illness, whereas Barret is talking about temporary anxiety.

But to be clear: Most of this isn’t mistranslation. Mostly these are subjective choices that can be argued. Localization is hard!

This one, though, is a mistranslation. 引き返す (hikikaesu) means to go back, return, or retreat. It begins with 引き which means pull, but this is a compound verb and does not mean pull out². Cloud is wondering if he should follow Aerith’s advice of going back, and he ponders that he doesn’t have anywhere or anything to go back to.

According to my notes, the PC version changed this to Just pull out of here? To where? It sounds less like innuendo, but it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem. (Also it’s ripe for photoshopping, being only one subtracted letter away from something even worse.)

やる (yaru) following the て (te) form of a verb adds emphasis in a vulgar way. The only way to translate into English is to insert new words. Kick your ass is the obvious choice. Go upside makes it more Barret-like, and insulting Cloud’s hair covers the rudeness. I like it.

The Beacause misspelling cracked me up as a kid, as it messes up this dramatic moment. I also thought that attributing this line to Jenova was a mistranslation, as Jenova in monster form normally doesn’t talk. But no, it’s Jenova. Another instance where you might justify leaving the ellipses because (this incarnation of) Jenova must be saying this while dying.

Thus ends disc 1! Despite being the end of only 1 of 3 discs, this is story-wise a little past halfway.