I’ve played the first Wild Arms game numerous times, and even learned the Any% No ACE speedrun quite a few years ago. (Never got a time on the board, though.)

I’d never played any other game in the series. I’ve heard mixed things about them.

I was looking for another project to work on now that Illusion of Gaia is wrapped up. I wondered what people had to say about the translation for the original Wild Arms. I remember it had some real laughs. (Homunculus being translated as Holmcross, Berserk as Belselk, etc.) I found many people saying that the original game’s translation is decent, but Wild Arms 2 is an absolute disaster. Some said that the translation was so bad that it ruined the whole game for them, or that they had to stop playing. I found many defenders as well, but their defenses seemed to be along the lines of “It’s not so bad that you can’t tell what’s going on” or “It’s not bad enough that you can’t ignore it for the most part.” One said something like, “I actually like how badly translated [two weird characters] are because it makes them even weirder.”

Of course, now I’m intrigued. I guess it’s time to play through Wild Arms 2 for the first time, 24 years after its release. I’m keeping an Excel file where I translate every line I find, while marking every line that has a translation oddity. I’m going to properly estimate how bad Wild Arms 2’s translation really is.¹

And I’m going to highlight the translation oddities on this blog, yayyyy!

Here are the disclaimers for this project:

We start with the title screen, which is different across regions:

The game begins with an anime intro, much like the attract screen of the first game. In the Japanese version, the music has lyrics. In the English version, there are no vocals. You’re then allowed the choice of 3 characters. I’m gonna choose the blue-haired dude to start out with.

His scenario opens in a military truck. A commander explains that kidnappers have taken a hostage to a place called the Withered Ruins. A couple of the musketeers start whispering to each other.

Musketeer B responds:

If this mission isn’t active? Huh?

The commander notices the whispering and demands Musketeer B give his name. The original English translation is accurate, but I’d retranslate it so the follow up line makes more sense.

Who responds to What’s your name with Yes? In Japanese, はい (hai) is used in military contexts the same way we would use yes, sir.

When they get to the ruins, the Commander starts giving orders:

Our 3rd mission? Have we done two others today? He says 第三班 which means third team, group, or squad. Presumably there are musketeer groups on other assignments, or two other groups of musketeers on this assignment doing other jobs, like reconnaissance.

If you try to leave, Ashley says:

I wouldn’t say the case needs to be solved. That usually means there’s a mystery and the identity of the perpetrator is still unknown. Here, they know what the perps did and where they are, so the detective part is over.

Inside the ruins, lots of musketeers are pacing around for you to talk to. Some of them give tutorial messages; others give flavor text.

Getting moved around sounds like they’re being repositioned aimlessly. Presumably they need to be deployed because of monster attacks, which are happening more frequently because nobody’s policing these monster breeding grounds.

A nearby musketeer thinks that they shouldn’t have to do jobs like this, that this stuff should instead be left up to another group who are known to explore ruins. If you agree, he says:

The original makes the mistake of not changing a 3rd person reference to 2nd person, and it’s phrased as if the decision is up to Ashley. This is a should, not will.

But if you disagree:

He’s not saying that going all out won’t get a promotion or raise. The musketeers seem to believe that performing well on this mission actually could get one transferred to a special team. He’s saying that being enthusiastic みたところ - in appearance - won’t result in any rewards.

One Musketeer says that the valuable treasures in the ruins have long been taken:

渡り鳥 (wataridori), which literally means migratory birds, is a recurring term in the Wild Arms series. In the first game, it’s translated as Dream Chasers. In later games, they’re called Drifters or Wanderers. In each game, they’re people who wander around looking for adventure and taking odd jobs. You could call someone like that a mercenary, but I think that carries the wrong connotations. Mercenary is usually used in the context of soldiers for hire, but Drifters aren’t soldiers, and the odd jobs they take tend to be either normal jobs², or stuff like monster hunting or treasure retrieval.

Maybe you could defend Merc, I draw the line at expedition team. They’re not a team at all. They’re adventurers who aren’t associated with each other and have no commander. This game is making it out like they’re another branch of the same military that the musketeers work for, or something. It’s like talking about the expedition team called “hobos” or “swagmen.”

As you enter the ruins, you’ll find a guy standing in front of a hole.

I cannot imagine where they got the word fog from. Yes, it does say やみくも which can mean blindly, but it’s more in the sense of reckless rather than obscured by fog.

You’re asked to jump down and check on the guy. Ashley asks if the injured man can stand. He responds:

Pronouns are often excluded in Japanese, and you have to figure out the appropriate one based on context. In these two lines, the wrong pronouns were originally chosen. Obviously it’s the injured guy who screwed up.

Ashley tells him to take it easy until help comes. The injured musketeer responds:

A less drastic example of the same thing. Ashley was suggesting that only this soldier take it easy until help arrives, so we is the wrong pronoun.

Everything else is translated fine until we get to the room with the kidnappers. Outside, Ashley can hear their conversation:

The sentence is fine, but I think it’s weird to describe a voice as boastful. The word in question is いばった, which is the past tense of a verb with a ton of meanings: to put on airs, to act bossy, to throw one’s weight around, to be pushy, to be arrogant, to be boastful… you get the picture. Domineering might be another good choice.

It cuts to the chamber in which the kidnappers are talking.

The original is close to the meaning, but the way it’s worded misses the humor in the line. It’s like he’s saying he wanted to do a little… light kidnapping. Just a small one, for some extra spending money, nothing huge!

Side note: This is hard to translate to English, but the leader refers to himself as 俺様 (ore sama), which is an absurdly arrogant way to refer to oneself. Only fictional villains ever actually say this. It’s deranged.

These next two sentences aren’t mistranslated, but there’s a symmetry with an upcoming line that’s lost in the original English. (Almost all of the humor of these goofs is lost in the original translation.)

Gangal keeps his cool:

The normal way of saying man is 男 which is pronounced otoko. Gangal instead uses the kanji 漢 which is pronounced the same way, but instead means something like a man among men or a man’s man. It’s immediately followed by the same word in parentheses, except in katakana, to show how it’s pronounced: オトコ. This whole bit doesn’t translate to English, but the least you can do is make it clear that this guy is super into the idea of REAL MEN doing MAN THINGS.

Gangal tells Gerg that it’s his job to do the thinking, implying he wants Gerg to MAN UP and come up with a way out of this. Gerg responds:

This is the symmetry I mentioned earlier. Gerg repeats the same thing Zook did: that kidnapping was a bad idea and he said so from the beginning.

And Gangal effectively responds, Not with that attitude!

This isn’t a mistranslation, just something lost in the English version. In English Zook and Gerg respond:

In Japanese, they respond in two text boxes:

They put the anime sweat drop 💧 thing in the dialogue box. I think this is great, but I understand why it was removed. Back then, anime tropes like this were still working their way into American pop culture. Breath of Fire 3 left stuff like this in, which is where I learned what they meant as a kid.

Eventually the hostage tells them that he doesn’t have any parents so there’s nobody to pay ransom. Oops! Around that time, Ashley sneaks in and gets the boy’s attention.

It’s minor, but I think it’s weird to say Boy Hostage instead of Hostage Boy. Boy hostage puts the focus on him being a hostage who happens to be a boy, rather than a boy who’s temporarily a hostage. Y’know, like pirate ghosts vs. ghost pirates, that kind of thing.

The game tells you to name the boy—his default name is Tony. Ashley asks Tony to distract the kidnappers. He does, and Ashley corners them, but during Tony’s distraction he ends up stepping on a button that releases a huge monster. Oops!

Tony starts screaming and says that he had a feeling something like this would happen. Ashley tells him to shut it:

The original translation is literally correct, but this isn’t a normal English expression. There are a gazillion options here and you might disagree with mine. If you wanted to emphasize the meaning of what you just said was out of line, you could say watch your tongue or be careful what you say, or you’ll regret it. Regardless, Ashley is telling Tony to stop talking.

The game cuts to a conversation outside the ruins.

In English it sounds like this radar tech received word about the monster from other soldiers. That’s a possible reading, but I don’t think it’s correct. This guy is the radar technician. He’s using radar.

Not a mistranslation, but it’s hard to choose the determiner in this sentence. The translator has to guess whether or not this monster’s presence was already known (in which case you’d use the) or not (in which case, a).

At first I thought—who the hell found that? He says 検出 which means detect or sense with a sensor. Apparently his radar can tell stuff about the interior of monsters. Neat.

It’s extremely common in Japanese to trail sentences off with … and leave them unfinished. People do the same thing in English, but usually with the words so or or. For example, I don’t feel like doing it today, so… or Are you coming along? Or…

A translator has to decide whether or not it’s natural for the sentence to trail off in English as well. Sometimes it will be, as in the case of fading voices. Sometimes it will sound weird, as it does here.

There are so many ways you could translate なんてことだ. On the milder end, My goodness or Holy crap or Oh, my! You could use Oh my God or Good lord, but that adds religious connotations to a game world where that religion might not exist. You can rough it up with some cursing, if it’s appropriate: Oh, shit or well, shit or even fuck or fuck me.

There are dozens of valid choices. What the is not a great one. なんてこと is an expression of shock, but what the is an expression of bewilderment or confusion.

Anyway, the commander says that he wants to blow up the whole ruins with a rail gun, even if it means killing a bunch of his troops, to prevent the monster from getting above ground. He says he’ll take full responsibility for the outcome. All the rest of this scene is translated well.

Inside the ruins, where Ashley and the rest of the goofballs are running from the monster, the commander rushes in and gives an order:

Ashley don’t like that:

Here the translators added some sentence trailing where there wasn’t any in Japanese.

Ashley refuses the order, even after the commander tells him he’ll be in violation of service regulations. Ashley gives a small speech:

After that, Ashley says something that confused me for a while:

He simply says no in Japanese, which was translated faithfully. The secret is the dashes. Ashley is going to continue the thought in the next dialogue box.

The no isn’t to contradict the Commander’s orders. He’s contradicting what he had immediately said before (I think). He’s not just going to stall for time. He’s going to beat this thing by himself. Nice.

When you enter the boss battle, there’s a tutorial message. It says that bosses have multiple parts that can be attacked: The main body, and body parts. The second tutorial message says:

Attack the main body at its name? The game is trying to say that, when you select which target to attack, the main body won’t say main body. It will say the name of the boss instead. The other body parts will just say what part they are. In this case, it was the boss’s left and right arms.

Ashley can use an ARM, just like Rudy could in the previous game. When he does, the technique is called…

Ok, yes, that is what it literally says in Japanese, but it sure sounds weird in English. I’d at least change it to Weapon Shot or Gunshot or something.

Ashley turns out to be right: He can beat this boss singlehandedly. No need to kill everyone in the ruins. Heck, if the commander weren’t busy being a coward, he could have helped. This thing wasn’t even hard. Two fighters would have stomped it into the ground.

So, after being proven completely right, and the commander being proved an idiot, Ashley tells the commander that he’s ready to be punished. The commander says:

To which Ashley responds:

The original English is more literal, but I tried to capture the intent. Ashley isn’t saying Is that all as in Am I dismissed? I’m pretty sure it’s more like, Whoa, you’re not going to lock me away forever? Didn’t expect that. This helps the next two lines make a bit more sense:

Ashley’s prologue segment ends with some laments about how his first assignment after enlisting resulted in him being punished for doing the right thing.

In one part of his lament, he says:

He concludes that he’ll have plenty of time to think about the answer to that question while he’s under house arrest. And that’s the end of Ashley’s scenario.

Next time, I think I’ll take on the magic girl’s prologue and we’ll see how the trend continues.