Legends of Localization, Book 1: The Legend of Zelda 9780984503278, 0984503277

Citation preview

PDF Version 1.0 October 2018

LeGends

of

L o c a l I Z at I o n

Book 1: The Legend of Zelda

3rd Edition - Oct 2018

CONTRIBUTORS

Legends of Localization is an examination of

Clyde Mandelin

the cultural influences and differences that

Concept, Writing, Research

affect Japanese and English games. This book is an unofficial, educational, history-focused

To n y K u c h a r

exploration of a classic game.

Art Direction, Design, Layout

Certain portions of this book’s content (and

Heidi Mandelin

localization information on many other

Photography, Research, Editing

games) is freely available online at: http://legendsoflocalization.com

Steve Campos Videography

The Legend of Zelda is trademarked property of Nintendo of America Inc. All Zelda-

R e i d Yo u n g

related content (including names, designs,

Production Consulting, The Big Cheese

characters, games, scenarios, manuals, and merchandise) referenced in this book is

Drew Wise

copyrighted property of Nintendo and/or

Illustration (Mato Says icons)

their respective licensees. The contributors and publishers of this book claim no

Jon Kay

ownership of, endorsement by, or affiliation

Visual Consulting

with The Legend of Zelda or Nintendo. O.G. San All other content created by or licensed to

Modeling, Legends of Localization

Fangamer LLC in collaboration with Clyde

Mascot

Mandelin, including graphics, photographs, layout and text, are copyright 2015 Fangamer LLC and Clyde Mandelin.

However, many more people helped with this book’s creation. Look up the Special Thanks section in the back of the book for

This work may not be reproduced without express written permission, except for excerpts intended for review. Legends of Localization Book 1: The Legend of Zelda is designed, published, sold and distributed by Fangamer and printed by the hardworking folks at Bang Printing in Brainerd, MN. ISBN-13: 978-0-9845032-7-8

a full list.

Content s

v i

P r e fa c e

1

I n t roduc t ion

11

Gr a phics

17

G a m e p l ay

3 3

First

7 9

Second Quest

8 7

Au dio

10 1

It e ms

117

Enemies

1 2 7

M a n ua l s

161

Be yon d

18 1

F i n a l Th o u g h t s

18 5

U p da t e Pa t c h e s

19 2

Furt h er R eading

19 5

S p e c i a l Th a n k s

quest

the

Game

P R E FA C E Have you ever played a video game and wondered what it was like in its original language? Welcome to the world of Legends of Localization! My name’s Clyde, and I’m usually known online as “Tomato” or just “Mato”. In 1999, I started a silly little website that compared my favorite video game, EarthBound, with its original Japanese counterpart. I made the site on a whim – I never expected it to be very popular. But EarthBound fans loved it and visited it regularly for years.

Ah, the halcyon days of 1999… just before the Day of Lavos…

vi

A few years later, I graduated with a degree in Japanese and went on to become a professional translator. I’ve also done a number of unofficial translations on the side as a hobby. Basically, translating Japanese games and entertainment is what I live for. It’s great fun and always a challenge. In 2011, I hit a bit of a rough patch when work dried up for a while. It was stressful, but I also considered it a chance to take a breather. I had a lot of fun writing about EarthBound‘s localization years earlier, so I decided to write about other games’ localizations that were near and dear to me. My hope was that doing so would help get my name out there to avoid any future dry spells… but deep down I just enjoyed it as a hobby. And that’s how my new site, Legends of Localization, was born.

The Legend of Zelda was one of the first games I wrote about. Immediately after I published my work online, readers urged me to write Legends of Localization books. I didn’t think there would be an audience big enough to make it worthwhile, and in the case of Zelda, I didn’t think there would be enough content to fill an entire book. I often dreamed about making it happen, but I was too anxious. Luckily, friends and fans managed to convince me after years of effort. So what you’re holding in your hands now is a dream. I hope you enjoy it and find it educational. I’ve made so many new friends and connections working on it that I’d love to write more on a regular basis. So thank you for making my dream come alive! In this book, we’ll look at The Legend of Zelda‘s Japanese and English text and see what changed during the localization process. We’ll also take a detailed look at graphical and audio changes, as well as gameplay differences. Then we’ll dive even further into the lesser-known parts of localization: manuals and other related materials. It’ll be a lot of fun, whether you’re a Zelda fan or not. It’ll also be a great reference if you’re just interested in becoming a translator or localizer yourself someday. As this is my first book ever, there will surely be a number of problems and issues. If you happen to come across any factual inaccuracies or weird typos, let me know somehow. You’ll quickly find that Legends of Localization isn’t meant to be a dry, academic publication, but it’s also not meant to be a nostalgia-filled biography of someone you’ve never met. My goal is to strike a balance between the two, so you’ll find a good mix of serious research, critical analysis, and a casual, laid-back attitude. I’m also fond of doing things in weird, new ways, and this book is no exception. From the Japanese-style obi around the cover to in-book reader participation to the “update patch” section at the end of the book, be prepared for the unusual. More than anything, I’m just excited to share my love of translation and Zelda with others. So let’s explore this first legend of localization together!

Mato Says

From time to time I’ll share extra thoughts and insights about Zelda, its localization, and more in separate little sections like this. So keep your eyes peeled for the tomato! Although most of the upcoming analysis is focused on Japan and North America, I realize Zelda was released in many other regions too. This book would be much bigger if I were to do a worldwide analysis, though, so for now I’ve focused on just the two regions I know best. I’d love to include some information about other regions’ releases in future “patches” of this book, so if you have anything to share, please let me know.

FOREWORD

vii

I nt r oduc t ion T h e L e g e n d o f Z e l d a h ad a n i nt e r e s t i n g r e le a s e h i s t o r y, b ut t h a t ’s o n ly o ne pa r t o f t he g a m i n g e x p e r ie nc e . A g a me ’s h i s t o r y i s a l s o s h ap e d b y t he p e o ple who pl ay it .

1

Man, both look so cool, I can’t decide which version of the game I like better

Z E L D A H I S T O RY Let’s start by taking a quick look at the history of the game in Japan and North America. The Japanese version, known as Zelda no Densetsu (ゼルダの伝説 , “Legend of Zelda“), was released on February 21, 1986 as a launch title for the Famicom Disk System (FDS). It cost 2,600 yen at the time, but more frugal players could download the game onto their own disks at special in-store kiosks for only 500 yen. In North America, an English-language version called The Legend of Zelda was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) on August 22, 1987. Because the Famicom Disk System didn’t exist in North America, the game was altered slightly and released in cartridge form.

I am so, SO jealous of Japanese kids now

In 1994, a cartridge version of the game was released in Japan. This was essentially the NES version with Japanese text and a few alterations to bring it a little closer to the Famicom Disk System version. Later on, the game was re-released a few more times and ported to a number of different Nintendo systems and services. Some of these ports were based on the FDS version, while others were based on the cartridge versions. For simplicity’s sake, we’re going to focus mainly on the original Famicom Disk System release and the original North American NES cartridge release. Think of it as comparing what Japanese early-adopters experienced with what North American early-adopters experienced. We’ll still take a peek at some interesting parts found in the other releases, though, so don’t worry. 1994? The Super Famicom was years old by then, wow

2

P E R S O N A L H I S T O RY The Legend of Zelda has been analyzed to death after all these years, so many readers might ask, “What’s the point of looking at the game now? It’s all been done before.” A big reason is that the game was a major part of my childhood. That and being able to go back to the game now with my grownup perspective and Japanese knowledge is too intriguing to pass up. My first few years of education were at a private school, and every so often the school would bring in a new sort of bus. Sometimes they’d have a “science bus” where we’d do experiments and use microscopes and the like. Sometimes they’d bring in a “library bus” where we could read and borrow books. Sometimes they had a “computer bus” where we’d hone our computer literacy. The buses would usually stay around for a few months at a time on the school grounds. It was odd and interesting.

Apparently I went to Fun Bus School

But one day a different kind of bus showed up… one filled with TVs and weird gray boxes that played weird gray games. What the heck was this bus? Keep in mind I’d never seen a Nintendo Entertainment System before; I was just an Atari 400 kid at the time. Needless to say, we kids pretty much lived for that NES bus, and countless gaming memories began there. Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt were the only games available to us, but a few kids who were clearly rich sometimes brought games and accessories from home. I remember one kid well – his name was Ryan and he was a year or two ahead of me. And he always brought a backpack full of games to school. The fact that he was in a higher grade than most of us automatically gave him that “big kid aura”, but adding in all the Nintendo stuff he owned, he was more like a holy child deity from the heavens. Many of my first game encounters were through games he brought to school – a few I remember were Kid Icarus, Karate Kid, Gradius, and Goonies II… but what made the biggest impressions on me were Contra and The Legend of Zelda. When I first saw Zelda, I actually had no idea what game it was or what was going on. Ryan was in some sort of dungeon, just solving puzzles and stabbing stuff with a sword. But I’d never, ever seen a game like it before in my life. Super Mario Bros. had blown me away by showing me how games had reached a new level, but seeing Zelda was like getting punched in the face by a fist of undreamed wonders. I knew instantly that I had to play it, but Ryan tended to be a bit of a game hog so I only ever got to watch.

INTRODUCTION

Man, all these years later and *I* have a ton of NES games, yet I don’t give much care and just leave ‘em in the closet for years at a time. Kid me is displeased.

3

My parents bought me an NES later on. I loved Super Mario and Duck Hunt, but I still yearned for Contra and Zelda. Not wanting to seem “uncool” at my new school, I told friends I’d beaten Zelda when they asked me. “Oh, yeah, it was easy,” I probably said, even though I’d never played it. Yes, I was one of those kids for a while. My birthday eventually rolled around and somehow my parents knew exactly what I wanted – I got a copy of Contra and Zelda! And some other Nintendo-themed school stuff too, but man oh man, getting not one Nintendo game but two must’ve made my decade. And they were good games, too. Not like that smelly Ghosts ‘n Goblins, which is a story and maybe a book for another day…

I’m still waiting for a crossover between these two games…

I started playing both games. I hadn’t seen much of Zelda, so I eventually put my focus into that one. I fought monsters and wandered to and fro, eventually stumbling upon Level 1. It was nerve-wracking fighting my way through each room, trying to find my way to the goal. I was especially excited when I won the boomerang. It was a huge victory for me. Then I moved to the next room, where I was greeted by some bizarre sounds I’d never heard before – something that sounded like a dead body trying to breathe, or so my imagination suggested. What’s more, the room was completely empty. I was confused, but there was a key next to a wall, so I walked over to pick it up. That’s when it happened. As the creepy sounds echoed in the emptiness, a giant blue hand suddenly melted out of the wall… and grabbed me. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared stiff. And before I could get my wits together, the hand pulled me back into the wall! What?! Filled with terror, I could only gape at what I saw next. After all my struggles against creepy skeletons and tricky traps, I was taken all the way back to the beginning of the dungeon. Argh!

Yessss come to the key, my pretty

I now have a lifelong fear of hands

4

That weird sound, the weird hands, and the unexpectedness of it all creeped me out so much that I immediately turned off the game and didn’t come back to it for weeks. Instead, I played the heck out of Contra. Yes, somehow a little blue hand was more terrifying than giant screaming alien skulls.

Eventually, I picked Zelda back up and made my way through some of the dungeons over the course of many weeks. I got stuck at trying to find Level 4, so I asked my friends at school for advice. Either they knew I had been BSing before about finishing the game or they had forgotten, but whatever the case, I clearly remember them telling me to take the raft up to a new screen. Ah, what a nice, peaceful game to relax to

Then came Level 5. Terrible, terrible Level 5. The Darknut rooms before the flute were absolutely evil. To this day they give me a little trouble, but back then it was like I had hit a brick wall in the game. After probably weeks of effort, I finally defeated them and got the item. I was so ecstatic that I wrote in my little makeshift diary – some pieces of construction paper stapled together – that I had gotten the Magic Shield, the Magic Flute, the Magic Sword, and a bunch of other magic stuff all on the same exact day. Kind of like how adults will pad their resumes with not-entirely-accurate info, now that I think about it.

These rooms are pure evil I tells ya

Anyway, I could go on forever. The main thing is that I can associate different parts of my childhood with different parts of the game – I remember discovering secret rooms while at a sleepover at my friend Justin’s house. I remember discovering the graveyard but having to visit my relatives right afterward, so the whole time I was excited to go back home and explore the graves. And I remember making lame McDonald’s jokes about the mummies in Level 5 with my friend Sam, based on some McNugget commercials at the time. Basically, playing this game really was an adventure – it spanned a huge amount of time and was fraught with setbacks, but I was eventually able to get through it with determination and friends. So it’s always held a special place in my heart, not even as a game, but as a time, if that makes sense. And now this book is dedicated to those friends and those times.

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever had a chicken nugget that could take a bite out of YOU?

5

My connection with Zelda didn’t end with childhood though – I carried it into adulthood, and at one point I met a girl named Heidi who was a bigger Zelda fan than me. She had never played the first game much, though, so we played it together over the course of a few nights. She had a lot of fun with it, and she even drew maps of everything as she went from screen to screen. It was a really memorable bonding experience. It goes without saying that we ended up getting married, and now she’s even helping me with this project! Now I find myself working on a Zeldathemed book. It hasn’t been in the works very long, but I’ve already made so many new friends through it that it’s almost unbelievable. Somehow Zelda is now leading me into business deals, academic journals, and a new path in my career. Thanks to all the fans who’ve supported my work, writing about The Legend of Zelda is now my job! I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about this game that’s incredibly powerful. It’s why I’m a firm believer that video games are more than just the games themselves – the gaming experience goes far beyond just 1s and 0s and colorful pixels. In short, Zelda has been a mysteriously miraculous part of my life so far, and I’m sure it always will be until my own game is over. Anyway, that’s my simple Zelda story. I’d love to hear other fans’ personal experiences with the game, but this is a book. You can’t talk back to it. Still, if you can find a way to share your Zelda story some other way, please do, and let me know somehow.

6

Playing Zelda this way makes it such a fun experience! I can’t recommend it enough!

INTRODUCTION

7

Graph ic s Ga me lo c a l i z a t io n s u s u a l ly i nc lude g r aph ic a l c h a n g e s , a nd t h a t hold s t r ue f o r T h e L e g e n d o f Z e l d a . S o le t ’s t a ke a lo ok at s o me o f t ho s e v i s u a l c h a n g e s .

11

TITLE SCREEN Side B? What is this, a record player?

As you might expect, the Japanese and English releases of The Legend of Zelda feature slightly different title screens. The Famicom Disk System version says “The Hyrule Fantasy – Zelda no Densetsu”. Beneath this, some text says “Switch to Side B”. The NES version simply says “The Legend of Zelda”, and below it is “Push Start Button”. So what’s this about “The Hyrule Fantasy” in the original release, and where did it go? It turns out that this phrase was dropped completely from the localized material, but in Japan it was included on everything that used this logo, from the game’s box to all related merchandise. Even the rare Japanese board game featured it prominently.

Oh this might be a fun drinking game!

You could even consider “The Hyrule Fantasy” to be the Japanese game’s subtitle, just like other games in the Zelda series, such as “Adventure of Link” or “Ocarina of Time”. But for most of the rest of the world, this game is just plain ol’ “The Legend of Zelda”. Okay, so then what’s this about “Side B”? Well, the disks used by the Famicom Disk System are two-sided, and in some games you have to flip them over at certain points. Not all FDS games are two-sided, but Zelda is. Side A of the game features the title screen and introduction. Side B is where most of the game takes place. Luckily, the game doesn’t ask you to switch sides very often, but if you want to jump into the game, you do have to sit through a number of loading screens and at least one disk-flipping procedure.

12

Holy Ganondorf it’s a miracle FDS games are still around with their disks exposed like that

NES players, on the other hand, could just turn the game on and play immediately.

T H E T I T LE SC R EENS, T H EY A R E A C H A NGI N'

Incidentally, the Famicom cartridge version of Zelda released in 1994 had its title and title screen changed to include a “1” in the name. This didn’t happen with any of the English-language reprints or ports, though. Also, it looks like the ダ (“da ”) part of the Japanese logo was shortened for the 1994 re-release. What a weird little thing to change after so long.

Famicom Disk System

Famicom Cartridge

A DIFFERENCE OF FONT For years, I thought screenshots with the skinny font were actually taken from a cheap ROM hack. I hadn't realized it was an official font

Another difference that immediately stands out is the English font used in both versions of the game. The FDS release uses a thin 8-pixel by 8-pixel font, while the NES version uses the standard, thick 8×8 font found in lots of games back in the day. Japanese players actually got the thick font years later when the cartridge version of the game was released in 1994. I guess that counts as a rare case of a double reverse localization change. Not everything in the font underwent a makeover, though. Some of the punctuation, particularly the quotation mark, remained untouched. As a result, the skinny quotation marks look a little out of place with the thick English font.

GRAPHICS

The NES box showcases the thin font, though

13

MIND YOUR 0s AND Os The thin Japanese font looks kind of slick, but it also resulted in a silly mistake – the “O” in the Japanese naming screen is actually a zero. The two characters look exactly the same in the FDS release, so nobody ever noticed. But if you’re skilled enough to check the game’s programming and memory, you’ll see that it’s definitely a mistake. In fact, the mistake is in the Famicom cartridge release, too… and its updated font makes it much more obvious. It wasn’t until a decade later that we started talking 1ik3 th1s f00l

F DS

Zero

FC C A RT R I DGE

“O”

Zero

“O”

ENGLI SH R ELEA SE S

Zero

“O”

MANUAL LABOR Link, you must gather the scattered pieces of parchment and glue them back on

At the end of the game’s intro scroll, Link holds up a piece of paper that tells players to go check the instructions for more details. In the Japanese release, the paper is extremely tattered and says “Please see the book for details.” In the English release, the paper is less tattered for some reason and says “Please look up the manual for details.”

14

Actually, I always felt this use of “look up” here felt off – you’ll “look up” definitions of things in dictionaries or “look up” specific topics in an encyclopedia, but I don’t often hear people “looking up” entire reference materials. It could just be a regional thing, or maybe this part was translated by someone in Japan. Whatever the case, the intent is clear, so that’s all that really matters.

ZORA MAKEOVER The water-dwelling Zora enemy is another easily-spotted difference between the two games.

F DS ZOR A

In the FDS release, the Zora graphics are like all the other enemy graphics – no outlines at all. For the NES version, the localizers added outlines to the Zora graphics to improve their contrast. This makes them a lot easier to see in the blue water. This change was kept for many later ports, too. As a kid, I always knew the Zora had two different sprites in the NES game, but I never knew what the non-face one was – it just looked like some weird thing. I guess I never realized until now that it was supposed to be a Zora facing away from the player. It was immediately obvious to me when I saw the FDS version, though. Graphical changes are always a gamble like that, I suppose.

Front

Back N E S ZOR A

Front

Back

The back of the NES box shows the original sprite, though. Oops!

Zoras were mean and looked weird in the old days. And that's how I liked 'em!

Mato Says

Another little difference: on the game over screen of the cartridge Zeldas, the option you choose will flash red when you select it. The original disk version has no flashing. It’s a tiny change that few ever notice.

GRAPHICS

15

Ga meplay B e f o r e we s t a r t d i g g i n g i nt o t he g a me ’s m a i n t e x t a nd s uc h , t he r e a r e a f e w i nt e r e s t i n g t h i n g s a b o ut t he g a me it s e l f t h at de s e r ve a lo ok .

17

BOOTING UP When you turn the power on, the NES version of Zelda goes immediately to the game’s title screen. The Famicom Disk System is different though – it has a whole bunch of stuff that displays before the game loads, including copyright info, a spiffy animation with a catchy tune, and Mario and Luigi goofing around on the screen. This actually happens with most FDS games though, not just Zelda. Japanese gamers tend to find this FDS boot-up stuff very nostalgic. I guess it’s one of those “you had to be there” things that most of us never got to experience.

Mario and Luigi messing around on this screen reminds me a lot of their SMB3 title screen antics too

TITLE MADNESS A big part of a localizer's job is working with tiny, tiny details that most people will never notice. This is a great example!

T H E DI F F ER ENC E

Famicom title screen

NES title screen

Whoever made this decision, I officially dub you “Captain The”

18

There’s actually an ever-so-slight title difference that many players might not be aware of – the game is technically called “Legend of Zelda” in the Japanese version but “The Legend of Zelda” in the NES release. This added “The” was also included on the NES version’s box, cartridge, manual, and all that too, so at some point someone on the localization team said, “Hey, make extra-sure to include ‘The’ in everything!” It would’ve been very easy for something this small to get inconsistent treatment, so whoever wanted the “The” added was clearly very detail-oriented.

I N T R O S T O RY The way everything is in quotes makes it sound so sarcastic. Sure, "Link", go and find the "8" Triforce pieces. Yeah. Uh-huh. Sure.

After the title screen, a little introduction scene starts up, and the first thing we see is the game’s story. It turns out the story is exactly the same in both games – it’s even written in English in the Japanese version. Seeing this brings many questions to mind…

Why does the Japanese story use English instead of Japanese? This is one of the most common questions I cover in the Legends of Localization series. There are basically a number of reasons behind this phenomenon. First, English is a required subject in the Japanese school system, so everyone gets a couple years of exposure to the language. Mostly it’s a lot of rote memorization of vocabulary lists, so it’s not entirely useful. But it means that Japanese people can still pick out words they recognize when confronted with a wall of English text. Second, English words are used all the time in Japanese. If you study Japanese, you’ll immediately learn that many common Japanese words are actually taken from English. I’ve heard estimates that over 10% of modern, everyday Japanese consists of English words. So English is right at home in Japanese entertainment. Third, English has an interesting allure to it in Japan. You know how Americans love to get Japanese and Chinese characters for tattoos, even if they don’t really know what they mean or how to pronounce them? This is kind of like that, but times a million. If you walk around any Japanese street or go into any Japanese store, you’ll find English everywhere. Wait... Then why is it red?

G A M E P L AY

19

There are also often technical advantages of using English instead of Japanese – you only need memory for 26 letters if you use English, but well over 100 if you decide to use the basic Japanese writing systems.

I M I TAT ION I S T H E SI NC ER E ST FOR M OF F LAT T ERY

Air Fortress

Makaimura

The use of color coding important text

Completely English exposition text

Congraturation winner is you

For all these reasons, many games released in 1980s Japan were filled with English text. So while retro games in North America and elsewhere are usually synonymous with poorly-written English translations, retro games in Japan are synonymous with walls of English text and very little Japanese at all. In fact, English text in Japanese games has become so normal that Japanese gamers expect some amount of English in their games, even to this day. It supposedly feels “off” otherwise.

Another thing to note is that all the keywords in the Zelda story are highlighted in some way. This is very common in Japanese entertainment media, especially video games. Even decades later, Zelda games still use color-coded text highlighting all the time. The color coding in Zelda‘s introduction isn’t arbitrary, either – everything relating to the Triforce is in blue, the Gannon and Princess stuff is in red, and the part about Link is in green. This way, even if players aren’t very good at English, they’ll know exactly what words they should focus on and how things connect – enough to get the gist of the game’s goal, in other words. Lastly, the Japanese manual explains the game’s story and all that in Japanese, so this intro can be seen as more of an added decoration than anything.

Games can sometimes feel weird to Japanese gamers if there’s not enough English text

20

Why is it still in poor English in the NES version? Honestly, that’s anyone’s guess. It’s strange, as some of the text in the game is handled superbly, but some of it, like this, makes you wonder how anyone approved it for English-speaking audiences. We’ll take a closer look at some of these good and bad translation examples throughout the upcoming chapters.

Gannon? In Japanese, the main villain’s name literally transcribes as “Ganon”. This is the prevailing spelling, but every so often in these early Zelda games it appears as “Gannon” instead. Where the extra “n” suddenly came from is a mystery, but since it was in the Famicom Disk System version first it was most likely someone on the Japanese side who added it in. So why didn’t they change it for the NES version? That’s yet another mystery. It almost seems like the localizers didn’t even pay attention to this intro, but when we check out the game manuals later on we’ll see that they did pay attention to the story. What a puzzle…

GA N NON I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S

The Triforce of the Gods JP version of A Link to the Past

Zelda II Famicom Disk System version

20 0 3 T R A NSLAT ION

In 2003, Nintendo revised the English script and gave the text a slight makeover. This new script has been used by almost every Zelda re-release since, including the Game Boy Advance port and the Virtual Console releases. The intro story was fixed up too, including the whole “Gannon” thing.

LOAD TIMES IN MY ZELDA? It should come as no surprise that the Famicom Disk System version of Zelda often has to load new data during parts of the game. It’s interesting that even these old, primitive console games had loading times. In contrast, everything loaded super-fast in the NES release – no loading screens or anything for us.

F DS LOADI NG SC R EEN

“Please Wait”

Remember the N64/PlayStation days, when Nintendo was trying so hard to say how disk systems suck and that cartridges are the future? Then they immediately touted the N64 disk drive not long after?

Still, the clicking and clunking of the Disk System was actually a memorable experience for many Japanese Zelda fans. We might’ve missed out.

G A M E P L AY

21

FILE SELECTION Zelda: Elimination Mode! The latest open-world bloodfest from Nintendo!

After the title screen, you’re taken to the file select screen. This screen is slightly different in both versions of the game.

F I LE U N DER I N F LU EN T I AL

Metroid (JP) Nintendo was pretty gutsy to release a game where you kill angels! Also, a secret tip for the NES version: MY0 NINTENDO0 SUCKS0 ROYALY

It’s clear Nintendo didn’t like the idea of “kill” being used here, but it also just makes more sense to call it “elimination”. Personally, I think calling it “Delete Save” would’ve been better, as “Kill Mode” and “Elimination Mode” almost sound like special bonus modes without any added context. Also, this sort of file system and naming system was apparently somewhat standard on Famicom Disk System games that saved data. Or maybe it set the standard, since Zelda was one of the first FDS games to be released.

Myth of Light: The Mirror of Palutena

22

The menus don’t look exactly the same, but the biggest difference is that the file deletion option is called “Kill Mode” in the Japanese release, while in the NES version it’s called “Elimination Mode”.

Incidentally, Zelda‘s localized save select screen went on to serve as the basis for the save select screen in the two NESonly StarTropics games.

Do me so far, do me?

I F I T A I N’T BROK E ...

StarTropics

Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II

Even the phrase “Elimination Mode” was kept the same. This is a good example of how the simplest of localization choices can influence unrelated things for years and years afterward.

NAME YOURSELF OH MY GOD THE GAME KNOWS MY NAME THE GUBMENT IS WATCHING ME

In both versions of The Legend of Zelda you have to name yourself, and that name is attached to the selected save file. As we can see, the screen is slightly different in the Japanese version. It allows for many other characters, mostly Japanese katakana. The NES version adds in some new punctuation of its own, though. This screen and the file select screen is the first time we see heavy Japanese text usage in the Japanese release. Ah, so it’s not all English after all!

G A M E P L AY

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KILL YOURSELF? Theory # 1: Ganon is Zelda’s dad and the Triforce is his prized heirloom. She broke it, so he locked her up. Ganon excitedly tries to hug Link for fixing the Triforce, but Link is scared by his piglike appearance and kills him.

We already looked at the “Kill Mode” difference, but here’s the actual kill mode screen for reference. The word “KILL” is used twice on the Japanese screen – probably not something English-speaking parents would like to see.

CONTINUE TO BE DIFFERENT I always felt that this wording was a bit confusing. "Retry" seems like it would be the same as "Continue" - maybe "Start Over" might've been a little better?

The game’s continue/save/retry screen is slightly different in both versions of Zelda. The Japanese version includes English text alongside the Japanese text. The NES version simply has the English text, slightly repositioned.

I wonder how widespread of a problem this actually turned out to be

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This screen was further changed in later revisions of the NES game to remind players to hold in Reset while turning the game off. This was a super-important tip – simply turning the NES off could corrupt and erase the game’s save data. Famicom Disk System users didn’t have to deal with this wackiness, though.

I N V E N T O RY T I M E How does Link know which position each Triforce piece should be in?

Here we see the Japanese and English inventory screens as they appear when you’re walking around outside. The screens are basically the same, save for a few text differences. The inventory screen changes a little bit when you’re inside a dungeon. The Japanese and English screens are nearly the same here as well. One thing I loved was how the game would draw maps for you - so many crappy games back then were just like here’s an insane maze, have fun! Even worse if the mazes were 3D like Golgo 13

This particular Japanese screen is another good example of how Japanese game designers are perfectly comfortable mixing Japanese text with English text. Some things here are displayed in Japanese, while other text like “Compass” and “Map” is written in English. Incidentally, where it says “Use B Button for this” in the NES version, it says “Treasure that can be used with the B Button” in the Japanese version.

G A M E P L AY

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NAZI ZELDA? Level 3 of the First Quest has a bit of notoriety in the West – its layout is sometimes mistaken for a Nazi swastika. It’s understandable once you see the full level map. It’s pretty common knowledge by now that this is actually what’s known as a “manji”, which is a Buddhist symbol very commonly used in Japanese culture. The symbol is even used all the time on Japanese maps to mark the location of Buddhist temples. In comparison, a Nazi swastika faces the other direction. Despite these differences, I’m actually surprised Nintendo’s localization team wasn’t worried about backlash from parents who didn’t know any better. But in the end, I don’t think it caused much public outcry, if any. There’s also the fact that it was called a manji in the instruction manual. Who knows, maybe this level even helped educate some players.

Some of these shape names are a real stretch when you see the actual dungeon maps though...

I didn’t think it was possible, but history class and video games have just combined

Mato Says

To get a little more technical, though, both the manji and the swastika originate from Indian Hinduism as symbols of good luck. They’re also used in Buddhism, which originates from India as well. Because both Hinduism and Buddhism have such long histories, different cultures and religions have grown to use these symbols in different Oh, I wonder how many people saw Japanese maps like this and freaked out…

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ways over the centuries. Sometimes the two symbols are interchangeable, and sometimes they’re completely distinct. In Japan, at least, the left-facing symbol is usually the default direction used in Japanese Buddhism.

NO KEY NEEDED There’s a neat trick in Level 1: walk into the level and immediately walk back out. When you enter again, the locked door in the first room will be unlocked. I remember being excited by this when I discovered it as a kid, so I always wondered if it worked in the Japanese version too. And it does!

BR EA K I NG A N D EN T ER I NG

Just exit out the way you came and re-enter.

A locked door blocks the way.

No more lock!

A Q U A M E N T U S G E T S A N G RY There’s a lesser-known trick that has no special reward, but is fun to play around with sometimes. If you find an Aquamentus boss, don’t kill it – use the flute instead. If you play it a lot, it’ll shoot lots and lots of fireballs. I always wanted to know if this worked in the Japanese version of Zelda too – and it does! It’s neat to imagine kids in different parts of the world playing different versions of the game stumbling upon this same silly trick. Anger knows no borders

G O ODN E S S GR AC IOUS, GR EAT BALLS OF F I R E

Instead of attacking the Aquamentus as usual, enrage the beast with the sound of your flute.

G A M E P L AY

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I N T E R I O R D E C O R AT I O N Theory #2: The Death Mountain region is a walled prison. Ganon is the warden and the enemies are prison guards. Link goes on a killing rampage to escape.

Surprisingly, there are a couple dungeon rooms that are slightly different between both versions of Zelda. First is a room at the top of Level 4 in the First Quest. We see that the FDS version is empty, while the NES version has a bunch of bats added for some reason. There’s also a room in Level 5 of the First Quest that got similar treatment. These changes are driving me batty

The Famicom cartridge release does have the bats, however… and this is where things get weird. There are many Japanese ports of the first Zelda game, but some are based off of the Famicom Disk System release while others are based off of the cartridge release. As a result, the ports based on the FDS release have these empty rooms, while the ports based on the cartridge release have the bat-filled rooms instead. So, the next time you play, pause to appreciate the wonders of these bat rooms and how you’re one step closer to having a Zelda degree.

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H E A RT AT TA C K There are different versions of the FDS release of Zelda. The very, very first one has a neat glitch that allows players to get lots of extra Heart Containers. First, you need to have the flute. Then go to the eastern coast, and stand left of the Heart Container in the ocean. Use the flute, and a tornado will pick you up and drag you across the screen. When you touch the Heart Container, you’ll gain an extra heart – but the Heart Container will still be there the next time you check. Nice! It is a little more complicated than that, though. There’s a limit to the number of times you can do this, but it’s unclear how that limit is determined. The current theory is that the number of dungeons you complete sets the limit – so if you’ve completed two dungeons, you can only do this twice, for example. Also, your number of hearts will still max out at 16 – you can’t get any more than that. I find that it’s not very useful in the First Quest – by the time you get the flute in Level 5 you have a ton of hearts already and can probably even obtain the strongest sword in the game. But it’s very useful in the Second Quest, since the flute is found in Level 2. With this trick, you can get the strongest sword much more quickly than before. This glitch was promptly fixed, so it doesn’t work on all Zelda FDS disks. And, of course, it doesn’t work in the NES version or any versions released afterward. Drat!

Stand here on eastern coast

Use the flute

Tornado comes!

Tornado picks up Link!

Touches heart container

Heart Container get!

G A M E P L AY

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THOSE PESKY POLS There are weird, yellow enemies in Zelda called “Pols Voices”. They have whiskers and big ears and bounce around all over the place. They’re also really tough to defeat if you try to use your sword. So if you were a kid during the NES days, you probably checked the instruction manual to find information about them and came across this: “A ghost with big ears and a weak point - he hates loud noise.” The manual tells you that Pols Voices are weak against loud sounds… So what’s the immediate, natural conclusion? Use the flute item! That oughta do it. But nope, it does absolutely nothing to the Pols Voices. I remember being confused by this as a kid, thinking, “Why would the manual say that then? What else could it be talking about?” I didn’t realize at the time that there was a lot more to the story.

Darn you, properlytranslated manual!

Basically, the Japanese Famicom system is different from the NES in a lot of little ways. One of these differences is the controllers – the Famicom came with two controllers permanently connected to the system, and Controller #2 had a built-in microphone. But when the NES was released, it was stripped of this microphone hardware. So when Japanese players read that Pols Voices were weak against sound, they might’ve thought of the flute too. But astute players would’ve also thought, “Hey, I wonder what happens if I try to use the microphone on Controller #2?” It turns out that blowing into the microphone or making enough sound will cause all the Pols Voice in a room to die instantly! To compensate for the lack of a microphone, the NES version makes the Pols Voice enemies weak against arrows. They’re completely invincible to arrows in the Japanese versions, though. To get really technical, the Pols Voices are still weak to the microphone in the NES version – that weakness was never programmed out. So if you could somehow add microphone support to your NES, you could theoretically kill them the loudmouthed way.

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Microphones in my Zelda? It’s more likely than you think, but mostly a gimmick

These regional weaknesses were carried over in various ports and re-releases too, so Pols Voices are weak against arrows in all the English ports, while they’re weak against the microphone sounds in the Japanese versions. But how do things work on Japanese systems other than the Famicom Disk System? At first you might think the Pols Voices have no weaknesses in these versions, but the developers got crafty… A redesign of the Famicom was released in 1993, but it didn’t include a microphone. This was a problem for Zelda fans, naturally. I’ve heard that you can still kill Pols Voices by pausing the game for a bit and then pressing A, but it’s never worked for me. They’re still somewhat vulnerable to swords, luckily. In the Japanese Game Boy Advance port, the Pols Voices can be instantly defeated by pressing Select four times. This doesn’t work in the English versions, though, since they’re still weak against arrows. The GameCube and Japanese Wii Virtual Console releases map microphone input to the right analog stick. By twirling it around for a few seconds, you can simulate sound input, thereby killing the Pols Voices. The Japanese Wii U Virtual Console release is simple: you just shout into the microphone on the gamepad. The Japanese 3DS releases are interesting: you need to press L and R simultaneously to bring up a controller select option, then press Y to switch to Controller #2. Then you can shout into the 3DS’ microphone to simulate the Famicom’s microphone.

The Wii version requires much less anger

HOW TO DEF EAT T HO SE POLS Famicom, JP Wii U VC

Japanese GBA

JP GameCube, JP Wii VC

Japanese 3DS

All English releases

Use microphone in controller

Press Select four times

Twirl right analog sticks

Press L + R, press Y to select Controller #2, use 3DS microphone

Use arrows

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Fi r st Q uest It ’s f i n a l ly t i me t o t a ke a de t a i le d lo ok a t T h e L e g e n d o f Z e l d a ‘s t e x t lo c a l i z a t io n . We ’ l l s t a r t b y d i g g i n g i nt o t he t e x t t h a t ap p e a r s i n t he g a me ’s F i r s t Q ue s t .

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VISIONS OF REVISIONS The Legend of Zelda has been released on many different platforms over the years, but it’s important to note that not all versions are the same. In fact, the translation isn’t the same in every version, either. This means that we’ll need to understand the translation’s release history before we analyze it.

Original Translation The first version of The Legend of Zelda‘s translation is the most famous one – it’s fraught with typos, grammar mistakes, and bizarre writing. When fans quote the first Zelda game, they often quote this translation from 1987, whether they know there’s more than one translation or not.

This ragtag bunch of Zeldas kicks it old school yo

This original translation was included in all the NES releases of the game, as well as the version of Zelda hidden inside Animal Crossing for the Nintendo GameCube. For some odd reason, this old translation is also used in the 3DS Virtual Console and Ambassador releases of The Legend of Zelda.

Revised Translation Nintendo quietly revised the game’s text many years later. Obvious typos and grammar mistakes were fixed… but not all of them. Some translation goofs were also left untouched. My only theory is that these fixes were quickly made by an editor who didn’t know Japanese or wasn’t aware of the translation problems in the first place. But fear not – we’ll be taking a good look at them all in this book.

If you’re from the future, feel free to draw any new Nintendo systems that play Zelda below!

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This revised translation was first published in 2003, when the game was released on the GameCube as part of The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition. The revised text has been used by almost every release since then, including the Game Boy Advance port, the Wii Virtual Console release, and the Wii U Virtual Console release. Again, the 3DS Virtual Console release features the original translation for some unusual reason, so check it out sometime if you’d like to experience the original script but don’t have the NES version handy.

Spotting the Changes You can immediately tell which translation you’re playing with these two easy tips.

T I T LE SC R EEN C LU E S

NES, Animal Crossing, 3DS VC

Title Screen The title screen is one of the first indicators to look for. If it only lists 1986 as the date, then you’re probably playing the original translation. Anything else, and you’re almost definitely playing the revised translation.

Introduction Story If you stay on the title screen for a while, the game’s introduction will begin to play. This story’s text was pretty odd in the original translation, and it was heavily revised in the updated translation. The revised script also changes every instance of “Gannon” to “Ganon”, so that’s a surefire way to tell which version you’re playing. GameCube, Wii VC, Wii U VC

Game Boy Advance

OR IGI NAL T R A NSLAT ION, 1987

R E V I SED T R A NSLAT ION, 20 0 3

It’s open to interpretation, but I never realized that the original text suggests that Zelda has been imprisoned for years… and the new text suggests it’s been even longer

Use Your New Skills! Whether as a demo in the Super Smash Bros. games or as a part of the NES Remix series, there’s no shortage of weird Zelda releases too. And there will surely be many more in the future, on systems that we haven’t even dreamed of yet. So the next time you play one of these oddball Zelda ports, try to use your newfound skills to identify which translation it uses. Who knows, maybe an even newer revision will appear someday, potentially based on what’s in this book!

FIRST QUEST

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L O O K I N G AT E V E RY T H I N G Since there’s so little text in The Legend of Zelda, we’ll take a look through it all. Even though some of the lines are unchanged in translation, sometimes there are slight differences in nuance. Plus it’s interesting to see which lines were translated properly and which ones weren’t.

J A PA N E S E A N D S P E E C H S T Y L E S You know how there are various dialects of English, and you can often tell where someone is from based on the way they talk? Well, Japanese has that, times a bazillion. Here’s a quick look at Japanese speech styles.

Gender The first big thing is that there’s often a noticeable difference between the way guys talk in Japanese and the way girls talk. By this, I don’t mean that they audibly sound different – they actually tend to use different sentence structures. This means that if you read a line of dialogue from a game without any context whatsoever, you can usually immediately tell if the speaker is meant to be male or female.

Age

“Y Can’t Zelda Crawl?”

Adding to that, speaking styles in Japanese also tend to change depending on age. More so in Japanese entertainment, but it’s a real-life phenomenon too. Again, this isn’t referring to voices or inflections, but actual sentence structures, pronouns, verbs, modifiers, and all that. So you can often tell from a single glance of game text what the age of the speaker is, without any context at all. Okay. So far we can tell the gender and general age of someone in a Japanese game, just from a single line of text. That’s impressive in itself, but there’s more.

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Politeness The Japanese language has many levels of politeness. You have your sort of “standard and polite” form that they’ll teach you first in Japanese classes, but you have even politer levels above, and more casual and ruder levels below. For instance, the simple act of telling someone to eat changes drastically depending on politeness level. Here’s how to say it with varying politeness:

JA PA N E SE POLI T EN E S S R A NGE FOR “EAT” Omeshiagari kudasaimase P OL I T E N E S S

Meshiagatte kudasai Tabete kudasai Tabenasai Tabete kure Tabete Tabero Kue Kuwan ka

And that’s just a quick list – I’m sure you can fit even more in there. Sometimes there are even special words just for talking about the emperor, for example. Basically, these politeness levels provide a whole lot of clear, extra information, such as the social ranks of the speaker and listener, the relationship between the two, the attitude of the speaker, and all sorts of other things. Although English does have similiar traits, in Japanese it’s a lot more clear-cut and prevalent. So this means we can read a line of Japanese game text without any context at all and see what kind of person is speaking, what position they have, what their personality might be like, and more.

HOW OT H ER GA M E C H A R AC T ER S S OU N D I N JA PA N E SE

Final Fantasy VI Kefka alternates between polite and impolite speech

MOTHER 2 Buzz Buzz talks like an old man

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Vivian uses feminine speech

FIRST QUEST

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Dialects But there’s still more: dialects! There’s a “standard Japanese” now, but regional dialects are absolutely still alive and kicking in Japan. Their differences also tend to be a lot more extreme than what we English speakers are probably used to. It’s hard to explain if you don’t already know the language – just know that dialects are a lot more pronounced in Japanese. This even applies to fictional characters who aren’t necessarily human. Whether it’s for animated drums or giant space creatures, it’s extremely easy to invent completely unique speaking styles similar to real-life dialects. This means that just from a single line of Japanese game text, without any context at all, you can tell where characters might be from, what kind of upbringing they might have had, what kind of values they might have, what their occupation might be, what kind of beings they are, and all that.

S O M A N Y JA PA N E SE DI ALEC T S Japan has always had dialects, but they quickly grew in

Regional Dialects

number in the 17th century when feudal lords heavily

A

restricted travel between regions. Modernization, instant

A Hokkaido B N. Tohoku

communication, and mass transit have given rise to a

C S. Tohoku

“standard” Japanese, but dialects still remain a vital part

D Echigo

of local traditions. Some dialects are almost different

E E. Kanto

B

languages of their own!

F W. Kanto

K

D

-Shizuoka

M

E G

Q

G Nagano-Yamanashi

C

H Izu

F

L

N

I

Hachijo

J

Gifu-Aichi

K Hokuriku L Kansai

J O

H

P

M Unpaku N Chugoku O Shikoku

R

P Honichi

I

Q Hichiku R Satsugu S N. & S. Amami N. & S. Okinawan

S

T Miyako Yaeyama

T

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Yonaguni

All Together Adding in all these things, it’s clear that you can tell a lot from a single line of Japanese dialogue, without any extra information or context at all. On top of that, these unique speech patterns are usually amplified in Japanese entertainment media, so there’s a lot you can figure out from even the smallest scrap of game text. In fact, being able to pick up on these things is common in translation tests given by game and localization companies. A problem arises when translating Japanese text, though – we don’t have good equivalents of these speech patterns in English. So you usually wind up with everyone speaking in a singular way, devoid of these informational nuances. Not through any fault of the translators, but simply because of the way English works. A good localizer will try to bring those nuances across in different, creative ways.

Mato Says

Japanese speech patterns cause trouble for English games localized into Japanese too! Things become especially troublesome with Western games that let you create characters of any age, gender, class, background, and the like. English speech patterns rarely differentiate between any of these things, so these games aren’t programmed with Japanese speech nuances in mind. As a result, Japanese localizations of English games can often feel devoid of characterization too. None of this is to say that English is a bland, boring language, though. For example, I feel English shines in comparison when it comes to having a million colorful phrases and idioms for saying the same thing. English games translated into Japanese often feel drab as a result. Basically, each language is unique in its own way – it’s just that something is inevitably lost when crossing the language barrier.

Japanese in Zelda I bring up all this speech pattern stuff because a lot of it comes into play in the Japanese Zelda text – despite being simple one-liners most of the time, there’s actually a bit of nuance behind the game’s text. Much of it gets lost in the English translation though, so this is one of the things we’ll look at.

FIRST QUEST

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HELPFUL SWORD GUY “This is no gift. It is a curse.”

The first person you meet in Zelda is an iconic old man in a cave who gives you a sword. In English he says, “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” He says pretty much the same thing in Japanese: “It’s dangerous to go alone. I’ll give you this.” He also says it with an “old wise man” speech style that isn’t reflected in the English translation. You’ll also notice that the text is positioned differently in the Japanese game – it starts printing right above the man’s head. It does this with all the other text in the game, too. This text formatting was probably meant to act like a speech bubble in a comic, only without a bubble. Since it usually takes a lot more text to convey things in English, though, text in the NES version often takes up all of the blank space above characters’ heads. The vertical spacing was also changed to allow for three lines of English text in some rare cases. I personally find the English style a lot more aesthetically pleasing, although I can appreciate what the Japanese version was going for. For example, the Japanese version of A Link to the Past uses three writing systems: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Four if you count English. Five if you count our Arabic number system!

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It should also be pointed out that all the Japanese text in the game is written in katakana. Without going into a lengthy Japanese language lesson, katakana is one of the three main Japanese writing systems… but it’s unusual to use this one system alone. Usually you’ll either see a mix of all three writing systems, or at least a mix of the two simplest. So seeing only one writing system used here is a bit surprising at first, but there’s a good technical reason – there’s not enough video memory for more than one system. By digging into the guts of the game, we can see that the font shares very limited space with all the other graphics used in the game.

JA PA N E SE FON T M EMORY

This is where the "pieces" of the game's graphics are stored. There's very little room here for text characters, which is why only one Japanese writing system was included

ENGLI SH FON T M EMORY

Font Memory

Just for fun, if we take a look at the same thing in the NES release, we can see the thicker font in action… and that all the Japanese characters have been removed. In fact, some of the Japanese characters have been replaced with punctuation that didn’t exist at all in the Japanese release. This is interesting stuff – just imagine if the first Zelda game had no punctuation at all.

Because of this, nobody uses contractions in Zelda II. Compare that to the first word said by the first guy in the first game!

It sounds silly, but adding in this new punctuation was probably one of the best decisions made during The Legend of Zelda‘s localization. You might think it was a no-brainer, but the localizers for the next game in the series didn’t add any new punctuation. This led to some awkward phrasing and loads of typos in Zelda II… More on that in another book, maybe. Mato Says

You know, after deleting those Japanese characters, it looks like they could’ve used all that blank font space for a lowercase English font.

FIRST QUEST

English teachers hate this game

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H E A RT O R P O T I O N Don’t you DARE take that potion! I’ll punch anyone who takes it!

In the NES release, an old man says, “Take any one you want.” when you’re allowed to choose between a potion and a Heart Container. In the Japanese version it’s basically the same, kind of like “I’ll give you whichever one you want.” The word choice also lends the text a “wise old man” vibe that’s lost in the English translation.

SHOP GUY WHY DO YOU KEEP WEARING THE SAME COLOR CLOTHES AS ME

Many of the shopkeepers in the NES release say, “Buy somethin’ will ya!” This line is the same in Japanese – it even uses a non-standard, western Japanese dialect.

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For whatever reason, we Japanese-to-English translators tend to handle this sort of dialect by changing the “-ing” endings of English words to “-in'” and loosening words like “for” to “fer” and “you” to “ya”. There’s no rulebook that tells us to do it this way – we all somehow just arrive at this choice in our own way, and that’s what’s happening here in this English translation. So the localizers did a good job here of trying to bring that “non-standard, less formal” style across. It’s kind of impressive – you don’t usually see that level of care given to text this early on in console game translations. To get nitpicky, though, the NES line could probably do with an added comma.

WHITE SWORD GUY I like to get this before going into Level 1

There’s an old man with a white sword at the top of a waterfall. When you visit him in the NES release, he says about the sword, “Master using it and you can have this.” The Japanese text translates to something like “If you can use this masterfully then I will let you have it.” I really like how the English version is able to condense it all down – good translation is often about economy of words, and this is a good example. My only nitpick is that it sort of implies that you need to practice using it before he’ll let you keep it, but that’s not what he means at all. Neither version really makes it clear that you need to have a minimum number of hearts to use this sword. But I guess it was trying to convey the idea of “beat enough dungeons and get enough experience and you’ll be able to use this at some point” rather than trying to explain the underlying game mechanic details.

FIRST QUEST

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HINT LADY I really like the mechanic in this game of walking on top of your choices rather than selecting from a bland menu

You need to go uppppp the rocky mountains here to reach Level 5

There are a couple hint ladies throughout the game, and you have to pay them the right amount of money to get a hint out of them. This particular lady is the one in the waterfall near the top of the map. In the NES version, when you first see her, she says, “Pay me and I’ll talk.” In Japanese, she says something more like, “I won’t talk for free!”

Too bad you’re already talking I win

If you choose to give the lady the wrong amount of money, she’ll say in the NES version, “This ain’t enough to talk.” Her line in Japanese is pretty much the same: “This isn’t enough to make me talk.” If you give her too much money, she says, “Boy, you’re rich!” in the NES version. She says the same thing in the Japanese version: “You sure are rich!”

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Basically, the “boy” in the English translation isn’t her calling Link a boy, she’s showing her amazement. I don’t think that was ever in question, but it’s an example of how it’s possible to read a line of translated text in two slightly different ways. The Japanese line also has an “old lady” nuance to its wording. I can just hear an old woman saying it with that exact same wording in a movie or something. She must have a booming business up here in the mountains... inside a cave... behind a waterfall... behind a paywall...

If you do choose the right amount to give her, she’ll say in the NES version, “Go up, up, the mountain ahead.” In the Japanese version she says almost the same thing. My only nitpick is that her phrasing (“上へ 上へと ” in standard Japanese) equates more to “way up” in English. So something like “Go way up the mountain ahead.” might’ve been a better translation. The official translation implies that you need to go up, and then up again to reach the secret entrance to Level 5. But you actually need to go up four times to reach it. Honestly, I don't think this clue ever helped me

20 0 3 T R A NSLAT ION

The revised translation, first published in 2003, changes this lady’s clue very slightly. Rather than rewrite the clue entirely to be clearer, Nintendo’s editors simply removed the stray comma after the second “up”.

FIRST QUEST

Everyone lives in caves, but where does Link live? I think that’s what feels so odd about Zelda II to me, there are suddenly way too many houses

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OLD MAN PENINSULA Dude lives under a rotten tree, in a dungeon, in a locked room, with just a couple fires to keep him company. Sounds like he needs to praise the sun.

An old man in Level 1 has a hint to share. In the NES release, he says, “Eastmost penninsula is the secret.” I was always confused by this clue as a kid – it felt so much more random and vague than other clues in the game. Checking the full world map, it looks like he’s referring to the area with the money-making game, the Heart Container man you need a raft to get to, and the hidden Moblin that gives you 100 Rupees. Since the first two are easy EA ST MO ST SEC R ET S enough to find, I can only assume this clue is referring to the secret Moblin. 1. Hidden 100

1

Rupee Moblin 2. Money-Making

2

Game 3. Heart Container Man

Here it is - the infamous eastmost peninsula

If you enjoy Zelda 1, I highly recommend 3D Dot Game Heroes! It's a fun love letter to the Zelda series!

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3

Still, with such a strange-sounding line in English, you might think it was just a translation goof… But, nope! The Japanese text actually says “You can’t use arrows if you run out of money.” I’m not sure why this line was changed in the localization – the arrow hint is actually a really important gameplay tip, especially since you get the bow in this very same dungeon. Basically, this famous quote was completely made up and isn’t a translation of the Japanese line. Yet it somehow includes spelling and grammar issues! In fact, this line is so poorly written and bizarre that fans – and even other games – quote it regularly.

20 0 3 T R A NSLAT ION

On a side note, Nintendo’s revised Zelda script from 2003 fixed many typos and mistakes in the game’s original translation… but this line remained untouched. Even the misspelling was left as-is. Could this be one of the oldest video game typos in Nintendo’s history? Future spelling bee champion

Mato Says

Actually, it was common for Nintendo to keep revising its own games after releasing them in Japan – the changes made to EarthBound Beginnings are a great example of this. So this totally different “penninsula” line was likely added in by a Japanese developer during the localization process, which would also explain the poor English. There are more examples of this in Zelda‘s NES translation, as we’ll soon see.

EXPENSIVE GUY LIES! That’s the cheapest that shield gets!

Another shopkeeper says in the NES release, “Boy, this is really expensive!” In the Japanese version, he speaks in a western Japanese dialect and says something like, “This is a good value!” I guess the “boy” thing was an attempt at conveying the non-standardness of the dialect, although it doesn’t work very well. It definitely shouldn’t say “expensive”, though. He’s essentially trying to say, “This is a good value and worth buying.” Which is why he says this when there’s an especially good deal at his shop.

FIRST QUEST

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MONEY MOBLIN Lighting fires inside sealed caves is a bad idea

Another famous line in the NES translation comes from a Moblin that says, “It’s a secret to everybody.” The Japanese line is less unique, though – it’s a pretty common phrase and translates to something like “Now keep this a secret from everyone!”

SEC R ET SEC R ET S I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S “It’s a secret to everybody.” This line gets quoted all the time, in both Japanese and English. There are even throwbacks to this line every so often in other Zelda games!

A Link to the Past

Ocarina of Time

Ocarina of Time

Majora’s Mask

Twilight Princess

Skyward Sword

Skyward Sword

A Link Between Worlds

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In prototype versions of the Famicom Disk System release, this Moblin said something different: “I’ll give you this if you leave me alone.” Basically, he originally begged for his life, but now he just asks you to keep this money a secret.

F DS PROTOT Y PE

Many Moblins died to bring us this information

…Or, wait. The “it’s a secret to everybody” line could still imply that he’s begging for his life, but he doesn’t want others to find out about the fact that he’s paid you off. In fact, that’s exactly what happens in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS when this same scenario is referenced. In one scene in A Link Between Worlds, Link encounters a Hinox in a cave. The creature quickly begs for its life. This game could be a whole book of its own... AND I have all the materials ready for it...

C R EAT U R E’S I N T I AL DI ALO G P-p-please spare my life… Here. I’ll give you this. Just leave me alone! Now please go!

This scene is more or less the same in Japanese. Based on this, it looks like the Moblin in the FDS and NES release might have been begging for his life all along. I’m sure most players picked up on this, but not me. As an innocent little kid, I just assumed he was giving you money and he didn’t want anyone else to know about it.

I F YOU AGR EE TO LEAV E Safe… I’m safe… Thank you so much! Please don’t tell anyone I paid you off. I have a reputation to protect.

Wow, now I feel terrible for these hidden Moblins. And it’s no wonder that the one on the eastmost peninsula gives you so much to keep his hiding spot a secret.

Let’s keep this a secret to everybody.

FIRST QUEST

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MAIL MAN Aww, the old man is finally sending a love letter to his high school sweetheart. Hyrule Cave High School Football rules!

In the NES version of Zelda, an old man in a cave gives you a letter and says, “Show this to the old woman.” He’s referring to an old woman who sits in silence in other caves. Giving the letter to her will get her to sell you life potions. The Japanese version of this text is the same. To get super-literal, though, it’s more like “Show this to the old woman and see what happens.” or possibly “Show this to the old women and see what happens.” Mato Says

Indeed, there are actually multiple old women in caves that will sell you potions, but you only need to show the letter to one of them. I’ve always wondered if they’re all the same woman, or if they’re part of some potion lady guild.

OLD WOM A N LO C AT IONS

1

2

3 4

5

6 7

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MEDICINE LADY Insert Matrix joke here

After showing the old man’s letter to an old lady, she’ll start talking to you. In the NES translation, she says, “Buy medicine before you go.” She says essentially the same thing in the Japanese script, although she says it the way a stereotypical old person might. This nuance is lost in the translation. Mato Says

Many nuances in Japanese don’t translate into English. For example, old people in Japanese entertainment speak in a unique way that gets lost in translation, so it’s up to the localizer to restore the original “feeling” to the raw translation. Here are some simple options a localizer might consider in this case:  Have her phonetically sound old: “Buy shome medicine before you go.”

Dragon Quest IV Careful, though: too much phonetic fun can annoy players

 Insert words that evoke an “old person” vibe: “Buy medicine before you go, sonny.”  Try something weird, like an old-timey font In the end, localization is about trying lots of different ideas, no matter how crazy, and seeing what works best.

MOTHER 3 (From my unofficial translation) By preserving this frog’s old speech patterns, this simple line became a fan favorite

FIRST QUEST

51

MR. MONEY MAKER Hey kids say hello to gambling addiction

Another truly iconic line from the NES translation is from an old man who says, “Let’s play money making game.” It’s famous mostly because it just sounds so poorly translated. In contrast, the Japanese version sounds perfectly normal and features proper grammar. As such, this line doesn’t seem to be as iconic among Japanese fans. The Japanese text translates roughly to “Want to play a game where you increase your money?” It’s basically the same as the English translation, only it sounds awkward when translated literally like this. The concise “Want to play a money-making game?” would’ve been perfect for the NES translation… But then it probably wouldn’t have been as memorable. That’s the way translation goofs are – they can sometimes turn the mundane into the unforgettable.

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The 2003 script revision did make some changes to this line, though. This old man now says, “Let’s play a money-making game.” Wow, the editors even got the hyphen correct here. Mato Says I look forward to a Zelda spinoff where you make money by running your own business

Here’s an easy trick that I learned from Japanese friends years ago that I wish I had known as a kid. To get money easily, bomb open the secret cave that’s to the left of the starting screen. Save the game, reload the game, then play the moneymaking game in the newly-opened cave. If you fail, just use the “Retry” option from the game over/save screen and try it again. Repeat this a few times to turn 10 Rupees into 255 in just minutes!

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G R AV E L A D Y NO HE’S THE TALL MAN FROM PHANTASM

An old lady in a cave says in English, “Meet the old man at the grave.” The line is basically the same in Japanese, but technically closer to “Meet the old man in the graveyard.” The English version also sort of gives the impression there’s just one grave in the game, although once you visit the graveyard it’s clear that that’s not the case. In contrast, the Japanese line clearly states that there’s an entire graveyard somewhere in the game.

SMOKE GUY Just say no

Another famous line from the English translation comes from an old man in Level 2 who says, “Dodongo dislikes smoke.” I was amused by this as a kid, but I’m not sure why anymore. Maybe it just sounded like a random thing to say. Anyway, I always wanted to find out what he says in Japanese. It turns out that this line is pretty much the same: “Dodongo hates smoke.” You could even argue that Dodongo should be plural, since there are so many in the game.

FIRST QUEST

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O L D R E PA I R M A N Theory #3: All the old men in caves are just men who want to die in peace but can’t, thanks to Link

Sometimes if you uncover a secret cave in the overworld, an old man inside will force you to pay the door repair costs. In the NES release he says, “Pay me for the door repair charge.” He says essentially the same thing in Japanese. On a more literal level, it’s something like “You owe me for the door repairs.” or “I’ll be taking money for the door repair charges.” He also says this in a forceful, masculine way in Japanese.

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The English line was touched up in the 2003 revised translation. The word “charge” was removed, so the old man now says, “Pay me for the door repair.” This does indeed sound a little more natural in English. Pay me for the localization repair charge

Mato Says

At some point, someone at Nintendo must’ve said, “You know, we really need to update this game’s text. Let’s get to work and fix it, team!” And with so little text in the game to begin with, it shouldn’t have been too tough of a task to fix everything. That’s why I’m curious – why were only superficial changes made while glaring typos and mistranslations were left in? If changes were made once, could more be made now? I think that might be a neat angle Nintendo could use to get fans to purchase the game again: sell a special edition of the game with fully revamped text. This book negates any need for that, though – you’ll soon know all the ins and outs of the game’s text anyway!

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WAT E R FA L L W O N D E R E R I wanna be an old waterfall man someday

In Level 3, an old man says in the NES release, “Did you get the sword from the old man on top of the waterfall?” The Japanese text is the same. But it’s also said in a way that one might associate with an older person, at least in the context of this game. This text is also a perfect example of how you can say a lot in Japanese with fewer characters. We can also see that the English translation requires three lines of text here. Nothing in the Japanese script exceeds two lines, so the localization programmers had to do some work to give the localization the extra line of space.

WAT E R FA L L G U Y I make it a rule to always try to walk into waterfalls in games. There’s usually hidden stuff!

In the NES release, an old man in Level 4 says, “Walk into the waterfall.” He says the same thing in Japanese. This is such a simple, bare-bones, Japanese 101 line that it’d be almost impossible to mess up.

FIRST QUEST

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DEAD END GEEZER Tree is such a strange word. I bet you pronounce it Chree, don't you?

There are many old hint guys in the game, but only one tries to give you an arboreal clue. In the English script, this man says, “Secret is in the tree at the dead-end.” Due to the awkward-sounding English, this is another line that English-speaking fans often chat about and reference. In Japanese, the old man says the same thing, but with proper grammar and everything else: “There’s a secret in a tree at a dead-end.” Do all these people in caves know each other somehow, and that’s how they know where they all live? Is it like the Internet?

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DEAD EN D T R EE S ALL OV ER T H E OV ERWORLD

There are several dead-ends with trees found throughout the game. Be more specific, old man!

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The 2003 revised English translation added a word to this text. It now says “A secret is in the tree at the dead-end.” The change is laughably simple, but it does sound better than the original translation. On top of that, the editors responsible for this revision even formatted the text nicely. They didn’t format every new line for some reason, but they got this one at least. The question now is: What does this clue even mean? What’s it referring to?

I S T H I S OLD GEEZ ER J UST OF F H I S RO C K ER? What is this old man talking about? 1. The money-making game entrance? 2. The secret path to the secret area?

2

3. Or the secret entrance to Level 8?

3

1

Fans seem to have a number of different theories about this: 

Some believe it’s referring to the giant rotten tree on the eastmost peninsula – inside it is a money-making guy.



Others believe it’s also talking about this tree, but specifically referring to the secret entrance to the secret screen above it.



Another theory is that this clue is referring to the only tree in eastern Hyrule that creates a conspicuous dead-end. Burning this tree opens the secret entrance to Level 8.

Personally, I’ve always believed that this clue refers to Level 8’s entrance. But given the quality of some of this game’s hints, I can understand why others might feel differently. Mato Says

When translating or localizing game text, especially text that’s meant to be mysterious, it’s always important to not accidentally give more information than what was originally intended. In the case of this old man’s clue, the mystery remains just as mysterious, but in a murder mystery game you could accidentally reveal details about the killer if you use pronouns improperly, for example. Localization is a tricky business sometimes.

FIRST QUEST

57

LOST WOODS LADY Theory #4: The area in the first game is just a small region of Hyrule. It’s filled with old people because that’s where they’re sent to die - it IS the Death Mountain area, after all.

There’s an old lady living in the southwest area of the world map. If you pay her the right amount, she’ll explain how to get through a nearby forest. In Japanese, she says something like, “Through the Lost Woods, go north, west, south, and west.” Basically, she’s telling you how to navigate through the forest once you’re there. In the English translation, the old woman says, “Go north, west, south, west to the forest of maze.” Her unusual phrasing gives the impression that following these directions will take you to a “forest of maze”. As a result, this clue is almost as confusing as the forest itself. Not only that, it appears that “Forest of Maze” is the game’s official translation for what we all know as the “Lost Woods”. The phrase “forest of maze” doesn’t even make much sense – if the localizers had at least gone with “Maze Forest” then it would’ve been a lot more understandable. It could’ve even set the standard for what it would be called in future Zelda games.

Luckily, later localizers ditched the “Forest of Maze” name as soon as possible

Also, the use of “to” instead of “in” here is due to someone mistranslating a piece of Japanese grammar. This mistake is extremely common when non-native English speakers translate from Japanese to English, which seems to be the case here. Based on this and many other oddities in the game’s text, it’s pretty clear that this game was translated into English by Japanese speakers – most likely employees working at Nintendo’s offices in Japan who just happened to know some English. Given the amount of attention given to the manual’s localization, it’s surprising that the game’s text remained at this low quality. In the end, though, I think most English-speaking players could figure out that you needed to go north, west, south, and west to get out of the Lost Woods. In fact, many of us called the forest the “Lost Woods” even though it’s not mentioned in the game. How did we learn that phrase? Where did it come from?

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It turns out that it was called the Lost Woods in a few other places, such as the map that came with the game. It was also called the “Lost Woods” on the map in the very first issue of Nintendo Power. I do recall reading both of them over and over as a kid because they were so amazing, so I guess that’s how most of us managed to absorb the “Lost Woods” term so early on in the series’ history. How did the map get a better translation than the game???

In any case, this is a clear example of the game’s text not matching its supplemental material’s text. It’s common for this to happen when two or more totally separate teams work on a project together. When Nintendo’s editors revised the English translation in 2003, they fixed many issues in the script. But this Lost Woods hint remained untouched. Again, I can only think that the employee who actually edited the text wasn’t aware of the Japanese-to-English translation issues at the root of this line.

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FIRST QUEST

Never Eat Shredded Wheat

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MAGICAL SWORD MAN My challenge to you: get the Magical Sword... then get the White Sword... then get the normal sword!

The old man with the Magical Sword says the same thing the old man with the White Sword says: “Master using it and you can have this.” I always wondered if this old man might’ve said something different in the Japanese version, but nope, it looks like it’s the same line in the Japanese version too.

D I G D O G G E R E X P E RT "Darn you kids and your loud swing music!"

In the NES release, an old man in Level 5 says in slightly-off English: “Digdogger hates certain kind of sound.” This old man has correct grammar in Japanese, though. When translated, he says “There’s a sound that Digdogger hates.” or “There’s a sound that Digdoggers hate.” I’d personally go with the latter choice, since there are multiple Digdoggers throughout the game.

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The 2003 revised translation fixes the grammar in this line. The old man now says, “Digdogger hates certain kinds of sound.” This fix is nice, although the localizers forgot to re-center the text on the top line after lengthening the text on the bottom line. It’s nitpicky, but that’s the name of the localization game.

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Theory #4.5: Link’s grandfather gets sent to where old people are abandoned. With his dying breath, he gives Link a sword to survive.

BOMB MAN Nintendo, teaching children how to become efficient bombers

In a few places in the game, an old man offers to increase your maximum bomb capacity. In the Japanese release, he says something like, “You’d like to carry more bombs, wouldn’t you?” In the NES translation, he says, “I bet you’d like to have more bombs.” I’m kind of impressed – there’s been poor English throughout the game so far, so the advanced English phrasing in this line is a nice surprise. All that aside, the English translation is error-free and A-OK. The main point of interest is that he clearly talks like an old man in the Japanese version – if you took this Japanese line all by itself and showed it to someone, they’d be able to tell instantly that an old person was saying it. This subtle nuance is lost in the English text. Mato Says

Here’s a somewhat well-known trick: drop a bomb, then, just as it explodes, play the flute. If you time it right, the game will turn black and white. This trick works in the Japanese and English games, including their re-releases.

FIRST QUEST

61

ENEMY WEAKNESSES For some reason this level’s map always reminded me of E.T.’s sprite from the Atari game

An old man lives in a secret room in Level 5. In the Japanese script, he says, “There are some creatures that are weak to sound.” In the NES version, this was completely changed to “Secret power is said to be in the arrow.” The Japanese clue could be taken in one of two ways: either it’s explaining how to defeat the nearby boss with the flute, or it’s explaining how to defeat the nearby Pols Voices with the microphone on the Famicom’s second controller. Or it could be talking about both. In the English translation, though, the old man is clearly not talking about this dungeon’s boss – arrows don’t hurt Digdogger one bit. But if this is your first time playing the game, the phrasing of the translation makes things even more open to interpretation.

Hello? Anyone? An old man told me I could find secret power here...



Does it mean the arrow is an extra-powerful weapon in general?



Or is it suggesting you need to use it on the boss of this same level?



Or are arrows a key to solving some sort of puzzle later on?



Or is it saying there’s some sort of hidden item near the outside rock formation that looks like an arrow?

Clearly, the English clue is meant to reveal the Pols Voices’ weakness, but the phrase “secret power” doesn’t really suggest a specific action against a specific target. Think about it – Japanese players probably had an amazing moment of realization upon reading it. “Whoa! Is it saying I can use the microphone in Controller #2?! Whoa, cool!” In contrast, most NES players probably already discovered the Pols Voices’ weakness to arrows by this point in Level 5.

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In that sense, the English clue is less effective and falls flat in usefulness. In short, this line is another example of a brand-new English hint that turns out to be poorly worded and not very helpful. Nintendo did quickly edit this line a bit in the revised 2003 script, though. The clue now says “A secret power is said to be in the arrow.” It does sound a little less silly now, but the underlying issue still remains. Saying “Some creatures are weak to arrows.” would’ve easily solved the problem.

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Whoa, this guy was completely walled inside this room all this time? He must be crazy or deadly to get that treatment

HIT THE ROAD To this day I still don’t remember which staircases lead where. It’s my biggest embarrassment as a longtime fan

There’s a series of shortcut caves in this Zelda game – if you go into one cave, you’ll have the option to warp to one of the other three locations. It’s pretty handy, if you know how to use them.

Who built these tunnels and why? Are old people in Hyrule just a burrowing subterranean species or something?

Anyway, an old man greets you when you enter these caves. In the NES release, he says, “Take any road you want.” The Japanese text says the same thing, although to be excessively nitpicky, I personally would have translated it as “Take any path you want.”

FIRST QUEST

63

EYE OF THE SPIDER For Hire: Old man to live in a dungeon and spout nonsense to children

Like many of the other dungeons, Level 6 has an old man who tells you how to beat the local boss enemy. In the NES release, this old man says, “Aim at the eyes of Gohma.” The Japanese hint is essentially the same.

NOPE

The issue here is that Japanese often makes no distinction between singular and plural nouns. This can cause translation trouble in some situations, such as this line. It’s a problem because Gohma only has one eye. Surprisingly, Nintendo left this clue untouched in the revised 2003 translation. This man still talks like Gohma has more than one eye.

I gotta say, the color differences in the GBA port are really intriguing

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A nicer translation might’ve been “Aim at the eye of Gohma.” or “Aim for the eye of Gohma.” Or, if you wanted the old man to acknowledge that there are multiple Gohmas in the game then something like “Aim for the eyes of the Gohmas.” would work too.

Mato Says

You could argue that maybe the plural of “Gohma” is still just “Gohma”. Given the general English proficiency shown in other text in the game, though, I think that’s unlikely. It’s really easy to rationalize translation mistakes after the fact, so as a translator it’s important not to fall into that trap.

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FA I RY M A N That means there are lots of secrets in like 90% of the world, got it

In the NES release, a different old man in Level 6 says, “There are secrets where fairies don’t live.” The Japanese version is closer to “There’s a secret in a pond without a fairy.” or “There’s a secret in a pond where a fairy doesn’t live.” This hint is meant to help the player find the secret entrance to Level 7. The English line is okay, but the Japanese version is much clearer and more helpful. Because the entrance to Level 7 is hidden and requires you to use the flute to reveal it, many English-speaking players at the time struggled at this part. I think most kids back then had to learn the secret trick from friends or some other outside source. In my case, I learned about the trick when Nintendo Power published a fanfic solely about finding Level 7. A fanfic!

I think I was in the hospital when I read this… It was torture, having to wait days to try this in the game!

FIRST QUEST

65

THE SECRET NOSE Have you ever looked at the tip of your nose? Like, REALLY looked at it? Noses are so weird, man

The nose? Who knows

This is supposed to look like a demon’s head? This almost feels like how constellations are supposed to look like things but rarely do

I'm not kidding when I say this could've easily been called "Glasses Boulders" instead. Good thing someone realized that sounded terrible to native speakers

In the Japanese release, an old man in Level 7 says, “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.” In the NES version, he instead says, “There’s a secret in the tip of the nose.” Whoa, that’s quite a difference! In the English text, he seems to be referencing the “nose” of this dungeon, which is where you need to go to proceed to the boss. It’s not a very helpful hint, though – it’s not a hidden room, you can see the room just fine on the map, and you’ll end up there eventually anyway.

SPEC TAC LE RO C K I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S

Zelda II

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A Link to the Past

Why was this line changed? Why was this mostly-pointless clue deemed more important than an actual, vital clue that tells you about the final dungeon? I can only assume this change and other text changes were based on the whim of a developer or feedback from Japanese players. Incidentally, “Megane Iwa” is the Japanese name for Spectacle Rock. “Megane” usually means “glasses”, so the choice to use “spectacle” instead was a clever and interesting choice by the localizers. It was even good enough to become the standard name used in later Zelda games.

H U N G RY G O R I YA My wife and I call this guy Grumbledore

In the NES release, there’s a Goriya that says nothing but, “Grumble, grumble…” He blocks the way too, so you have to figure out a way to get past him. The answer isn’t immediately clear, but it turns out you have to buy some food and give it to him. “Wait! His stomach is clearly grumbling!” you might say. But nope, it’s not actually that type of grumble at all. This Goriya’s line is the same in Japanese, except it uses the onomatopoeia for the type of grumbling associated with complaining or muttering to oneself. So a clearer, alternative translation might be “Mutter, mutter…” or “Mumble, mumble…” Just by sheer coincidence, the English word “grumble” can also refer to the sound of a hungry stomach. And this coincidence makes the clue a little clearer in English. As a side note, this hungry Goriya seems to have been a last-minute addition to the game – he doesn’t appear in the uncovered prototype of the Famicom Disk System release, and his text is nowhere to be found in its programming. Mato Says

You can actually keep the bait after giving it to the Goriya. After dropping it, immediately go to the item menu screen, then press Up and A on Controller #2. Save the game, then come back. You’ll still have the bait, and the Goriya will be gone! This trick works in the NES and the Japanese releases, even though they’re on slightly different hardware.

FIRST QUEST

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D E AT H M O U N TA I N H I N T Theory #4.8: Ganon is the keeper of death just check out his dungeon and his room. After Link defeats him, people stop dying... and the result is horrifying

In the Japanese version of Level 8, an old man says, “Look for the arrows in Death Mountain.” He’s referring to the Silver Arrow item that’s hidden in the final dungeon of the game. In the NES release, the man instead says, “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.” Wait, what? An old man in Level 7 said that in the Japanese version. What gives? My only guess is that the localizers decided to add the “secret is in the nose” hint to Level 7 for some unknown reason – possibly based on feedback from Japanese players – and that change accidentally pushed a few other hints forward. I suppose they could’ve purposely rearranged the hints too, but that would’ve been a very odd decision. What’s weirder is that “Look for the arrows in Death Mountain” is a huge hint. You can’t defeat Ganon and complete the game without the arrows, but now you don’t even know that you need to be looking for them. It’s very strange that Nintendo would take out such an important tip. Mato Says

It’s actually not entirely fair to blame the localization team for these strange translations and rewrites, though. In this industry, it’s common to get special requests from outside the team – higher-ups, business partners, etc. Or someone who isn’t on the localization team but is involved in some other way might make changes of their own. Except for really simple projects, there’s almost always a layer of bureaucracy that plays a part in the final product. It’s an unavoidable fact of life for most localizers. So although some choices in this game’s localization are puzzling, it’s important to realize that the actual localizers might not be entirely to blame. The same holds true for any localization.

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BOMBASTIC OLD MAN You are a terrible hint man and you should be ashamed of yourself

In the NES version of Level 8, a different old man says, “10th enemy has the bomb.” What a weird clue. I clearly remember being confused by this as a child, and for years and years I never knew what it meant. From the sound of it, you’d think he means that you’ll get bombs from every tenth enemy you kill, but that’s not true. So what the heck is he talking about?! The truth is that there’s a strange gameplay mechanic programmed into The Legend of Zelda – if you can defeat ten enemies in a row without taking damage, and if you defeat the tenth enemy with a bomb, that enemy will drop more bombs for you to use. It took years for anyone to figure out this trick, even though this old man in Level 8 hints at it, so this clue was truly meaningless at the time. In the Japanese release, though, this old man says something completely different: “Search for the Lion Key.” Now that’s a useful tip! Why would Nintendo take out another helpful tip like this? Why would the localizers replace it with something so nonsensical? And why wasn’t the line changed in the revised 2003 translation? It’s a secret to everybody.

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FIRST QUEST

There’s some kind of decades-long conspiracy afoot here, I just know it

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N O T R I F O R C E N O S E RV I C E Can't get in? Try force! Ahahaha. Okay, I stole that from an old Nintendo Power letter.

If you try to explore the final dungeon before collecting all eight Triforce pieces, you’ll run into an old man blocking the way. In the NES release, he says, “Ones who does not have Triforce can’t go in.” He says basically the same thing in the Japanese version, except he uses a mild “old wise man” speech pattern. It’s hard to convey this nuance in English without changing a lot, but a very basic attempt might be “Those without the Triforce cannot pass.” Trying to get here at the start of the game was actually a nice challenge!

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The English translation gets the point across just fine, but it suffers from terrible grammar problems. These were fixed in the revised 2003 translation, so this old man now says, “Ones who do not have Triforce can’t enter.” It’s a definite improvement, but I personally would’ve tried to fit an “a” or “the” in front of “Triforce”.

Mato Says

At first, you might think that it would be easy to make a character sound old in an English translation – just throw in a lot of words like “thee” and “thou” and voila! This might work in some cases, but it’s important to realize that there are different types of “old” styles, and they’re not all compatible. It would sound weird for characters in a retirement home to talk like kings of yore, for example.

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SKULL EYES If you want a red ring, just wait a few decades for something called an Xbox

There are several old men in the final dungeon who share hints with you. In the NES release, one of these men says, “Eyes of skull has a secret.” It might sound like crazy-talk, but it makes more sense once you realize the dungeon is shaped like a skull. In the Japanese version, though, he says, “Have you found the Red Ring?” It looks like this is another case of the localizers or developers changing a clue completely out of the blue – and somehow making another grammar mistake in the process.

A skull? How bland. It’d be WAY creepier if it was shaped like a heart instead!

I feel that the Japanese hint is a lot more helpful. It essentially tells you, “Yes, the one item you couldn’t find yet is here in this dungeon. And I suggest you get it, too.” By this point in the game, any decent player would know that blank rooms on maps often hold secrets, so the English hint isn’t that helpful at all. One of the “eyes” isn’t even a secret – it’s where Zelda is waiting after you beat Ganon, so you end up visiting it anyway. This line was updated with proper grammar in the revised 2003 translation. The old man now says, “The eyes of the skull have secrets.” The new text also features odd formatting. Most of the game’s text is centered in the English script, including many of the revised lines that were introduced years after the original release. But this bit of text is left-aligned instead. How peculiar!

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FIRST QUEST

It took him around 15 years, but he eventually learned grammar good

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NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR Do you think maybe all these old men trapped in the dungeons were past adventurers who got stuck here? Are they Link from past lives?

Another old man in Level 9 says, “Go to the next room.” in English. He says the same in the Japanese release – there’s nothing especially notable here translation-wise. What’s he referring to, though? There’s a secret wall to the left that you can bomb, and the room beyond it is important for reaching key parts of the dungeon. But there’s also a secret room to the right – which you can’t bomb your way into – that houses the Red Ring. All things considered, it seems that he’s most likely referring to F DS PROTOT Y PE the Red Ring room, but something about this clue always felt “off” to me in both languages. It turns out that this hint used to hold much more meaning before the game was released. In a leaked prototype of the Famicom Disk System release, this man still says, “Go to the next room.” But the map layout is very different from the finalized release. False Wall

Silver Arrow

They probably changed it because it felt like bad gameplay design to suddenly throw an all-new, crazy game mechanic like this into the final level

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In the prototype, the room to the right contains the Silver Arrow item, which you need to complete the game. But you can’t reach this secret room the way you can in the final release – instead, you need to walk into the righthand wall of the hint man’s room. If you keep pushing against it, you’ll somehow be taken to the next room.

These “false walls” get used all the time in the Second Quest of the final release, but they never appear in the First Quest. So it seems that this old guy’s hint was originally meant to introduce this game mechanic at the end of the First Quest. It suddenly gives new meaning to his text, and shows how players were supposed to learn about the Second Quest’s false walls.

T H E M A P TA S T I C M A N What does any of this mean?! WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE ISLAND

R EADER S’ T HOUGH T S 

It’s telling you to bomb the top of the room with the rightmost Patra, which is why it drops bombs when defeated



It’s telling you to bomb the top of the most northeast room on the map, as this will lead you to the secret room with the Red Ring



It’s telling you how to reach the Silver Arrows



It’s a hint on how to reach the final boss

In the NES release, a different old man in Level 9 says, “Patra has the map.” By this point in the game, it’s pretty common knowledge that clearing a room of enemies can net you a key item, like a map or a compass. So it seems odd for this to be a hint now, but I suppose the designers really wanted to make sure that players could navigate this final dungeon. It’s not a very good hint, though – if you don’t have the instruction manual during your first playthrough, it’s unclear who or what this “Patra” even is. It turns out that the Japanese hint says something entirely different, though: “Destroy the topmost boundary.” Wow, talk about a vague clue! In fact, Legends of Localization readers have sent in so many suggestions about what this means that I don’t know what to think anymore. I agree that it’s most likely pointing to the Red Ring item in the top-right corner of the level. But it’s such a vague clue that it’s not helpful at all – without having played the game before, you’d never know that it’s saying to bomb the top wall of that one specific room. At the very best, this clue would have players trying to bomb the top wall of every room. The poor quality of this hint is probably why it was changed for the NES release. Incidentally, this old man says the same thing in the prototype Japanese script, but because of the different map layout, it’s possible he’s referring to a secret room at the very top-left corner of the dungeon. This secret room contains a compass, which is helpful for finding your final destination. Is that really the intention behind this line of text, though? The mystery lives on…

F DS PROTOT Y PE

Honestly, I really prefer the prototype dungeon over the finalized one. It feels like a much more solid challenge

Compass

FIRST QUEST

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S AV I N G T H E D AY Oh, look! We’re color-coordinated!

Once you’ve beaten Ganon and saved Princess Zelda, a short ending scene plays. During it, Zelda says in English, “Thanks Link, you’re the hero of Hyrule.” A comma is arguably missing here, but it’s otherwise the same as what the Japanese text says. Right after this, the NES version of the game continues with “Finally, peace returns to Hyrule. This ends the story.” The Japanese text is basically the same, along the lines of “And so peace returns to Hyrule. Thus ends this tale.” Oh yeah, the idea of THREE Triforces wasn’t introduced until the next game

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But what’s most interesting is that Zelda, Link, and the Triforce all disappear in the Japanese version when this final text appears. This isn’t the end at all! There are 80,000 more Zelda games and stories to come!

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This ending text was slightly changed in the revised 2003 translation. The final sentence now says “The End.” instead of “This ends the story.” What a very odd change to make.

ENDING Another book will start now. Please press the Buy Button.

The final screen in the game is basically the same in both English and Japanese, but for the sake of completeness, the English version says “Another quest will start from here. Press the Start Button.”

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The Japanese text translates to something like “Another quest will start now. Please press the Start Button.” Both versions include “© 1986 Nintendo” at the bottom of the screen. The revised 2003 translation displays the same text on the screen, except the copyright information has been permanently removed. By this point in time, Nintendo’s executives were probably planning to re-release Zelda for years to come, so this probably seemed like a good move to make. Especially since the updated copyright info already appears on the title screen anyway.

Which quest is canon? Are they on different timelines now? Or is one a dream?

Mato Says

Early on, Nintendo of America invited NES players to call a hotline after finishing Zelda to chat about their experiences. Neat! Here we see the hotline advertised in the Fall 1987 issue of the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter.

FIRST QUEST

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CREDITS If that’s seriously the only people who worked on it, I’m absolutely impressed

After the ending scene with Zelda is over, the game’s credits begin to roll. Except these are some weird names. As a kid, I was always curious about them – they sounded weird and goofy, and although I didn’t know Japanese at the time, I could tell that names like “Ten Ten” and “Marumaru” were definitely not real. All the while, I was eager to know what the credits looked like in the Japanese version of the game. I assumed they were different and made more sense, but nope! The credits are the exact same in Japanese and English.

SI LLY C R EDI T NA M E S I N OT H ER GA M E S

Mega Man

Willow

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Once I learned a little Japanese, I realized that “S. Miyahon” was actually referring to Shigeru Miyamoto… But I could never figure out why his name was wrong in the credits. I thought for a while that maybe it was a mistranslation – the “moto” part of Miyamoto, 本 , can also be read as “hon” in some cases, so I figured it was just a mistake. Even later on, I came to learn that it wasn’t a mistake at all – most of these names are crazy for a reason.

Japanese game companies in the 1980s were apparently afraid of having their top talent poached by competing businesses, so it was common for Japanese game credits to be filled with pseudonyms and personal nicknames. That way, the staff members could receive their due credit while maintaining some anonymity. This is why other early Japanese games are filled with wacky staff names too. Credits loaded with names like “Fish Man”, “Tall Nob”, and “Yuukichan’s Papa” have since become iconic symbols of those earlier days. Odd names still appear in modern games on occassion, but it’s usually out of personal preference rather than company policy. Because of these staff pseudonyms in The Legend of Zelda, it was difficult for years to identify who really worked on the game. But the leaked Japanese prototype solved much of that mystery – most of the credits contained actual names instead of fake ones.

F DS PROTOT Y PE

Executive Producer Hiroshi Yamauchi Producer Shigeru Miyamoto

I. Marui is still a bit of a mystery, though. There are many theories out there about who this person is and what his or her full name is. Most evidence points to I. Marui being a guy named Tatsuo Nishiyama, but this is based on credits that appear in other games. If it is Tatsuo Nishiyama, though, that means he had two pseudonyms – first, he went by I. Marui in the prototype version of Zelda, then he switched it to Marumaru for the final release. The guy must’ve really liked fake names.

Directors Shigeru Miyamoto Takashi Tezuka Designer Takashi Tezuka Programmers Toshihiko Nakago Yasunari Soejima I. Marui Sound Composer Koji Kondo

A team of under 10 people!

Programer? Programer?! Dang it, Zelda II!

T H E ELUSI V E I. M A RU I U NCOV ER ED?!

Zelda II

A Link to the Past

The names still needed to be kept short in the game, so here are the full, unabbreviated, reallife names!

The Wind Waker

FIRST QUEST

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Second Q uest T h e L e g e n d o f Z e l d a h a s s o me s e r io u s r e pl ay v a lue – a f t e r yo u f i n i s h t he adve nt u r e, yo u c a n pl ay a mo r e c h a l le n g i n g , t o t a l ly r e m i xe d ve r s io n o f t he g a me . Na t u r a l ly, t he r e a r e s o me lo c a l i z a t io n c h a n g e s t o o .

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EXPLORING THE SECOND QUEST Many of Nintendo’s early games are packed with replay value. Whether it’s getting to play as a suit-less Samus in Metroid or getting to take on a more challenging version of Super Mario Bros., players are in for a treat at the end of every early Nintendo game. The Legend of Zelda is no different – a completely new quest with completely new challenges awaits players who make it to the end of the game. This “Second Quest” features many new obstacles and gameplay mechanics. It also contains a few lines of new text not found in the First Quest, so let’s look at all of them now and see how they were handled in the localization process.

SECOND QUEST FILE I’ve heard stories of gamers naming their file ZELDA on their first playthrough... That must’ve been one wild ride!

Save files for First Quest games have a green Link icon next to them. Second Quest save files feature a green Link holding a white sword. This icon is the same in both versions of the game. For whatever reason, as a kid I sort of assumed that Second Quest saves would’ve been represented differently in the Japanese releases. I guess not! Mato Says

Incidentally, the trick of jumping straight to the Second Quest by naming your character “ZELDA” works in both games too. Good thing the Japanese naming screen already had English letters, or the English release might’ve required a crazy, nonsense name.

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ARROW MAN The true Second Quest starts here

In the NES release, an old man in Level 4 of the Second Quest says, “If you go in the direction of the arrow.” This seems like a strange translation at first, but the Japanese isn’t much different: “If you go in the direction of the arrow mark…” In Japanese, the word he uses makes it 100% clear that he’s referring to the kind of arrow that points at something. But in English, “arrow” can mean a couple different things – in fact, we’ve already seen how this same problem led to heavy ambiguity in the First Quest. In this case, though, it’s still fairly clear from context that he’s probably talking about the kind of arrow that points at something, rather than the kind you shoot. The English translation also feels odd because it’s an incomplete sentence masquerading as a complete sentence. The line is incomplete in Japanese too, but it’s presented as one – it even has a trailing ellipsis. On top of that, it also uses the speech pattern of a stereotypical old, wise person. This old man is referencing a rock formation that looks like an arrow… but the hint’s purpose is still totally unclear. Fans everywhere agree on three possibilities:

A RO C K Y R EF ER ENC E

1 

It’s revealing where to find the Magical Sword



It’s indicating where to find a secret Heart Container



It’s pointing the player toward the final dungeon

Whatever the case, it’s not a very helpful clue in Japanese or in English.

2

3

The old man might be hinting at... 1. The Magical Sword 2. A Heart Container 3. Final dungeon entrance

SECOND QUEST

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D A S TA R D LY O L D M A N ! This man symbolizes the paradox of modern society: working to live while living to work

A new type of character first appears in Level 4 of the Second Quest. He blocks your path and forces you to give up some money or a Heart Container if you want to progress any further. In the English release, he says, “Leave your life or money.” The Japanese text is basically the same, just with the nouns swapped: “Leave your money or life and go.” As per usual, the line also has a bit of an “old man” vibe to it in Japanese. Mato Says

There are multiple old men in the Second Quest who will take your Heart Containers like this. But what happens if you only have the three hearts you start the game with? It turns out that the old men will accept your payment and open the door, but you won’t lose a Heart Container. Instead, all your filled hearts will turn white, yet you’ll still be alive. It’s strange. The same thing happens in the English release too. Mystery solved!

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GIVING DIRECTIONS Theory #5: Link is dead and everyone and everything is directing him toward the “light”

In the Japanese release, an old man in Level 6 of the Second Quest says, “There’s a secret north of a lake.” In the NES version, he instead says, “South of arrow mark hides a secret.” Wow, that’s a pretty big difference! What’s the deal? Well, he’s essentially giving a hint on where to find Level 8, which would be extremely difficult to find with blind luck alone – you need to bomb a specific, inconspicuous part of a normal-looking mountain behind a normal-looking river. The Japanese hint is saying that you need to look north of a lake. There are many lakes and ponds in the game though, so this is a little vague. Technically speaking, the entrance to Level 8 is two screens directly north of a pond with a fairy, but none of the screens directly connect with each other. So if that’s what the Japanese hint is saying, it’s a pretty poor clue. My guess is that someone on the localization team picked up on this – likely through feedback from Japanese players or from personal experience – and decided to simplify the clue by referencing a different landmark. The entrance to Level 8 is one screen directly south of the only arrow-shaped rock formation in the game, which makes it a lot easier to locate. So this is an instance in which an English hint is more helpful than the original text. And it doesn’t include any spelling mistakes. I do feel it could’ve been phrased a bit better, though – and it actually was. The revised 2003 translation changed it very slightly to say “South of the arrow mark hides a secret.”

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SECOND QUEST

This definitely won't get you arrested

With each new localization, the word "the" gets added more and more. The next time you use the word "the", think of The Legend of Zelda!

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DEAD-END TREE These dead-end trees don't explode, at least

An old man in the Second Quest says in English, “Secret is in the tree at the dead-end.” This line appears in the First Quest too, and the Japanese version isn’t very different, as we’ve already seen. So why bring it up again? The truth is, I’m actually not sure why this line even exists in the Second Quest. If this clue was meant to point to the entrance to Level 8 in the First Quest – which is debatable itself – then why is it in the Second Quest?

The only dead-end is the old man’s hint career

The prevailing theory is that the entrance to Level 7 in the Second Quest is still a tree and it’s sort of in an area that’s a dead-end. It’s just not as obvious of a dead-end tree as the one in the First Quest. I guess that makes sense.

SECOND QUEST ENDING I'm impressed that this text uses "an" in the Japanese release - that would've been super-easy for a non-native English speaker to mess up

Players who manage to complete the grueling Second Quest are presented with a treat: a final ending screen that’s ever-so-slightly different from the one in the First Quest.

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In both the Japanese and the NES versions this screen says “You have an amazing wisdom and power.” It displays this in English even in the Japanese release, which is fine and normal for old games like this… but the Japanese ending of the First Quest was written in Japanese. Why did the developers use Japanese for one ending and English for another? I’d love to have been there to hear their reasoning behind it. Besides the main ending message, there’s also a line of text at the bottom of the screen. In the NES release, this text says “End of ‘The Legend of Zelda 1’”. In the Japanese version, it says “Legend of Zelda 1 ‘End’”. These screens aren’t very different, but I like how the developers knew before the game was released that they were going to make a second one. In fact, this game’s title literally was changed to “Legend of Zelda 1” when it was re-released as a Famicom cartridge years later. The revised 2003 translation keeps all this text the same, except it’s now much more enthusiastic thanks to the addition of exclamation marks! As a side note, the leaked Japanese prototype features different Second Quest ending text. The prototype ending thanks the player twice and uses the word “force” instead of “power”. The Japanese word “chikara” can be translated to either “power” or “force”, so that’s probably how this oddity came about. I assume the change to “power” happened when someone realized “Triforce of Force” sounded silly. The prototype also has no “End of The Legend of Zelda” message after the main text, nor does it list the number of times the player died.

Somebody important felt a serious need to slap this "1" on everything for some reason... Was there some concern about consumer confusion?

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F DS PROTOT Y PE

I'd love to see an interrobang release next‽

This ending is so polite that I bet it would even bow if it could

You know, it’s pretty rare to have a prototype to look at and analyze when looking at game localizations like this. It’s a dream come true!

SECOND QUEST

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Aud io Ga me lo c a l i z a t io n g o e s b e yo nd ju s t t e x t – e ve n t he b e e p s a nd b o o p s o f a g a me pl ay a pa r t . S o le t ’s t a ke a qu ic k lo ok a t ho w t he aud io t r a n sf o r me d du r i n g t he ju mp f r o m t he Fa m ic o m D i s k Sy s t e m t o t he Ni nt e ndo E nt e r t a i n me nt Sy s t e m .

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A U D I O H A R D WA R E It’s amazing how many people bought this add-on for the system back in the day - I guess it led Nintendo to think they could make a big success with disk add-ons for the Super Famicom and N64 too

The Famicom Disk System included extra sound hardware that let game developers create more interesting sound effects and music than they could with the ordinary Famicom and NES. As a result, the FDS version of Zelda sounds very different from the NES version in many ways. Since I grew up with the NES version of Zelda, I’m used to the audio it uses. Fellow NES gamers often feel that the NES music sounds better, too. Conversely, Japanese fans are mostly in agreement that the FDS version sounds much better and that the cartridge versions are lackluster. It must be one of those “whichever one you grew up on is best” sort of things. Anyway, because this is a book, comparing the game’s audio is a bit problematic. After tossing around a number of wacky ideas, I decided to include the waveform images of each audio clip along with some descriptive text to explain the differences. But if you really, really crave that ear candy, you can also visit the website address below to experience the audio differences in a way that actually makes sense. Nobody uses QR codes so I could make this a Rickroll and no one would ever know…

Hear the sounds for yourself by visiting the URL below or scanning the QR code to the left.

l e g e n d s o f l o c a l i z a t i o n . c o m /z 1 a u d i o

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MUSIC DIFFERENCES There isn’t much music in Zelda, but a few tracks and short tunes are slightly different between the two releases. Let’s take a look.

Title Screen & Intro

NES

FDS

It’s hard to tell here, but the NES version even looks a little more computer-y when zoomed in

The famous Zelda theme greets players as soon as the game starts up. I’m extremely attached to the NES version, but Japanese fans tend to believe that the Famicom Disk System version is much better, with its faux-flute sounds and such. I do agree that many of the instruments make part of the song sound nicer in the FDS version, especially the bells and flutes. They give it a more “fantasy” vibe. There’s some weird percussion or something in the background of the FDS version, though – at first I thought it was static or the audio messing up, but nope, it’s supposed to be like that. I like the strength of the NES music. I don’t know why, but the beeps and boops just feel strong for some reason. I also like the combination of the start of the NES music and the flowing waterfall on the screen. Somehow they’re a really good match.

Secret Discovery Chime

NES

FDS

The NES version looks more stabby and painful, too

Almost every Zelda game features a famous little tune that plays when you reveal a secret. The FDS and NES versions sound the same, except the FDS version sounds a little lighter and more metallic somehow.

AU DIO

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Key Item Obtained

NES

FDS

Look at me, analyzing graphs and frequencies. And everyone said I’d never use this stuff as a translator!

A short tune of just a few notes plays when you pick up an important item. The notes are the same in both versions of the game, but the “instruments” sound different. The difference is almost too subtle to hear, though.

NES

I’ve written new lyrics to this song: “Ple-ease taaaake me awaaay!

FDS

Flute

The melody played when you use your flute sounds a little different too. The FDS sound hardware is pretty good at doing wind instruments, so I feel it sounds more flute-like than the NES version. Many Nintendo fans recognize this tune as the whistle sound from Super Mario Bros. 3, but it actually originated in this first Zelda game. This little melody has also gone on to be used in a number of other Zelda games, including the title screen music of Ocarina of Time and as the tune played by the Ocarina of Wind in The Minish Cap. Wait, if this tune is also in Super Mario Bros. 3... does that mean Zelda 1 takes place in the same universe as SMB3?! Time to rewrite the Zelda timeline!

T H E F LU T E S OU N D I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S

The Minish Cap Ocarina of Wind melody

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Ocarina of Time Title screen music

Final Dungeon

NES

FDS

When I’m old and have a mansion, I’m going to have a spooky tune like this playing everywhere when people dare visit me

The final dungeon in the game has its own unique music, and boy is it ever intimidating. The Famicom Disk System version is also a little bit different from what most of us are used to. 

The FDS version features a short, fast beat for about three seconds before the main song starts.



This beat keeps going throughout the entire song, like a racing heartbeat that won’t stop. The NES version seems to have this same beat, but it gets drowned out a bit during parts of the main tune.



When the music loops in the FDS version, it also does the start-up beat again. This makes the loop sound awkward compared to the more seamless NES version.

Explaining music is a difficult task, but it’s still possible to see some of these differences by comparing their waveforms.

Ending

NES

FDS

This difference would be so much clearer if I could invent a way to make book paper play sound

The music that plays during the ending sounds slightly different too. It’s mostly a case of different-sounding instruments – the NES version sounds a lot more beep-boopy. Overall, I think the FDS tune sounds a little more dance-inducing for some reason.

AU DIO

91

Link Dying

NES

FDS

Pac-Man lives on as Link dies

When you die in the game, Link spins around and “pops”. In the FDS version, this spinning sound reminds me a lot of when Pac-Man dies. Even the final pop sound reminds me of Pac-Man somehow. The NES version sounds different. Even the pop doesn’t sound the same. It’s hard to describe, but it has a more computer-like vibe to it than the FDS version.

Game Over

NES

FDS

A game where you shoot lasers with different waveforms sounds kind of cool. This would be a piercing laser

The game over and continue screen music is a little different between both versions. This isn’t surprising, since it’s nearly the same as the ending music.

Mato Says

In a prototype version of the Famicom Disk System release, this game over tune is very different. More than anything, it sounds like a very short piece of classical music… or like something out a horror movie theme song. Interviews with the musician seem to indicate that early plans for the game included using classical music – for example, what we know and love as the main Zelda theme was almost Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. Perhaps this prototype game over music has some connection to those early plans, or maybe it was just a generic placeholder tune.

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SOUND EFFECT DIFFERENCES Many sound effects were changed during The Legend of Zelda‘s localization too. Some of the differences are so slight that they’re nearly imperceptible, while others are shockingly distinct. Let’s take a peek at all the changes.

Getting A Heart

NES

FDS

It seems my life has always been a lie

The sound that plays when you pick up a small heart is ever-so-slightly different between the FDS and NES releases. It also plays when you pick up a key. I guess the best way to describe it is that the FDS version sounds “fuller” while also ending on a more positivesounding note.

Getting Rupees

NES

FDS

This gets played every time you move to a new letter on the naming screen... Who thought that was a good idea?!

The sound that plays when you pick up a Rupee is also different. This sound is used for other purposes throughout the game too, so this is one of the first audio differences to really stand out. The difference is difficult to explain, but the NES version sounds a little more muted, for lack of a better term.

AU DIO

93

Getting Items

NES

FDS

FDS version confirmed for awesome-looking missile

There’s a unique sound that plays when you pick up certain items – fairies, for instance. The FDS version has a light, magical sense to it, while the NES version has a stronger, more computer-generated vibe to it.

Item Appearance

NES

FDS

Also, the NES version sound effect looks like a fast forward icon, except on ultrafast forward

Sometimes a key or other item will appear in a room after every enemy has been defeated. When this happens, a special sound plays. The FDS and NES versions sound almost the same, but the NES version has a slightly different-sounding instrument. Most players probably wouldn’t notice the difference right away.

Mato Says

The audio is clearly different on the Famicom Disk System, but why is this? The Famicom included extra audio lines for developers who wanted to use custom audio hardware. Games like Castlevania III and Lagrange Point – and even the Famicom Disk System itself – had built-in audio chips and synthesizers to produce amazing music that the ordinary Famicom couldn’t. The NES actually did support such custom audio hardware, but the extra connections were moved to an unused port at the bottom of the system, intended for future add-ons.

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Sword Shooting

NES

FDS

You wouldn’t think these were sound effects for the same thing in the same game!

When you have full health, you can shoot a beam out of your sword. The sound it makes is very iconic, so it’s shocking to many players when they hear how different the FDS and NES versions sound! Both versions have a sort of “beam” quality to them. The FDS version lasts a little bit longer, feels slightly more sci-fi than the NES version, and fades out near the end. The NES version is shorter and ends with a quick metallic-sounding finale.

Bombs

NES

FDS

Now don’t anyone go and do a poll on this subject, though...

Even the bomb explosions sound different. The FDS explosion sounds a little odd, and part of it sounds like other creature sounds from the game. You could even mistake it for a loud, stomping sound if you didn’t know any better. The NES version sounds exactly like what most gamers would expect from an old video game explosion. You could probably play it for any retro game enthusiast and they’d immediately say, “Yep, that’s an explosion!”

AU DIO

95

Opening Doors

NES

FDS

I come unhinged every time I hear that FDS door sound

When you unlock a door or open a shuttered door, the door makes a sound. This sound is very distinct in both versions of the game – and it’s by far one of the most surprising differences. The FDS version is loud and startling. It almost sounds like someone or something taking damage. You wouldn’t think of doors at all from just the sound alone. The NES version has a more convincing and satisfying sound, and even has a sort of echo to it. But by itself, without any context, you wouldn’t think it’s a door at all. I guess door sounds are just tough to do in general.

NES

Electric Grasshopper might be a pretty cool drink name, if it isn’t one already

FDS

Enemy Deaths

The sound that enemies make when you kill them is different in both games. The FDS version is tough to explain. I suppose the best description might be to say it sounds like an electric grasshopper making a quick buzz. The NES version is even tougher to explain. It doesn’t really sound like anything, but I feel it’s definitely a much more satisfying sound to hear when an enemy dies.

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Boss Sound

NES

FDS

The NES sound spooked me so much as a kid, I wonder how I would’ve reacted to the FDS sound instead

There are a variety of bosses in The Legend of Zelda, so it makes sense that they have a variety of unique sounds, too. The FDS sound effect made by Aquamentuses, Gleeoks, and Ganon is loud and very “in your face”. It’s genuinely intimidating, but it also has a fake, synthetic quality. The NES sound effect has a more organic feel to it. It’s not intimidating, but it sounds like a sound a giant creature might make.

NES

FDS

I wonder how all these new NES sounds were created and who was responsible...

The FDS sound effect made by Dodongos and Gohmas sounds like an electric elephant. It’s pretty impressive to hear. The NES sound effect feels very similar to the NES Aquamentus sound, but not exactly the same. It’s more breathy and organic-sounding than the FDS version, at least.

NES

FDS

Oh, I see, the FDS sound is a sideways Christmas tree and the NES version is a seismic graph

The FDS sound effect for Manhandlas, Digdoggers, and Patras has an otherworldly feel to it. It feels very computer-generated, and fades out at the end. The NES sound effect is just bizarre. It’s almost beyond explanation, but it still feels otherworldly while also sounding much less computer-y than the FDS version.

AU DIO

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Boss Howls

NES

FDS

Don’t hit your bosses in real life to hear what sounds they make

When boss enemies and other major enemies take damage, they make a special sound. In the FDS release, this sound is very loud, surprising, and seems a bit like the FDS Aquamentus sound effect. In the NES release, the sound is softer and seems similar to the otherworldly NES Digdogger sound effect.

Getting Hurt

NES

FDS

Ho ho ho, Merry Linkmas!

The sound Link makes when he gets hurt was changed too. It’s such a short sound that it’s almost impossible to explain with words, but the NES version seems to have a lower pitch to it.

NES

Are you Team Rupee or Team Shield? Choose one for life!

FDS

Game Over Cursor

For some reason, the cursor sound on the game over screen was changed. In the Famicom Disk System version, the cursor sound is the same as the standard cursor sound – it’s basically the Rupee sound. In the NES release, a different sound is used: the sound when you block something with your shield. Why did they change this? Someone must’ve made the decision at some point…

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SOUND EXPERIENCES Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look online and see what Japanese fans think of the NES-style audio, and what English-speaking fans think of the FDS-style audio. But keep in mind that these are just a few random opinions and shouldn’t be taken as representative of everyone!

Japanese Fans’ Reactions to NES Opening Theme

English-Speaking Fans’ Reactions to FDS Opening Theme

“It feels lonely with the missing audio channel…”

“Wow, it’s crazy to know that this was the original Zelda theme in Japan and that this is their nostalgic trip but for everyone who grew up without the Famicom, this sounds like a like remix or touch-up O_O Those bell tones :D”

“If the FDS version was better in any way, it was the audio. Having to deal with load times and flip the disk was a pain, though.” “There’s absolutely no question at all – the Disk System has the best audio quality.” “Aww, it’s sad without those bell sounds…” “I felt disappointment the first time I heard the cartridge version’s intro music.” “So the sound is different. It wasn’t my imagination after all…” “The richness of the Disk System’s music is just wonderful!” “Sorry, I can only accept the Disk System version.” “It wouldn’t seem as bad if you hadn’t heard the Disk System music first.” “It feels like it’s trying its best.” “The original music was so good that I’m glad I was born Japanese.” “When talking about the original Zelda, it’s the Disk System version or bust! The cartridge version isn’t even an option!”

“I have to disagree, i think it sounds way too MIDI like. The NES version for the win!” “SO Much better than The NES Version” “i grew up hearing zelda on the NES. i may still prefer the NES version over this, but i still like this.”

The version you grew up with seems to make a BIG difference!

“The ‘bells’ have to be the best part of the song. It just sounds so awesome.” “I like the NES version better. So shoot me. (It’s the true classic in my eyes.)” “Holy cow! This version is awesome compared to the NES version!” “I don’t know why but I like the NES one just a bit more” “it’s so cool hearing the famicon version and that it’s different because of the hardware. It’s so freshing because it’s so old and familiar but new to me after all these years…love it.” “This isn’t the proper 8-bit version =[“

AU DIO

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Item s It e m s a nd e qu ip me nt a r e a ke y pa r t o f e ve r y Z e l d a g a me . T he y ’r e s o i mp o r t a nt t h a t s o me it e m s e ve n de f i ne t he s e r ie s . W it h t h a t i n m i nd , le t ’s s e e ho w s o me o f t he it e m s i n t he ve r y f i r s t Z e l d a e nt r y we r e lo c a l i z e d .

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J A PA N E S E I T E M L I S T A full list of items is displayed during the game’s introduction screen. The Japanese intro kindly provides English translations for some reason.

Also note that the Japanese text for the Triforce says “Hidden Triforce of Wisdom”

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ENGLISH ITEM LIST The English item list has the Japanese text removed, but is otherwise the same as the Japanese list… with a few unexpected exceptions.

They seriously kept “All of Treasures” in too? Man, this intro didn’t get much localization attention, did it?

ITEMS

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H E A RT C O N TA I N E R S I really don't like how later Zelda games started giving these out in quarter pieces. I understand the reasoning, but I still don't like it. Now go fetch me my ribbon candy

It turns out what I had always known as a “Heart Container” was actually called a “Container Heart” in both the Japanese and the NES release of the game. It seems my confusion stems from the fact that it was called a “Heart container” in the manual. The game and the manual are pretty inconsistent like this, as we’ll continue to see.

Incidentally, the Japanese name for this item literally translates to “Life Container” or “Container of Life” rather than “Container Heart”.

RUPIES I'm impressed that the Japanese developers knew to pluralize their made-up currency name by removing the 'y' and adding 'ies'. Or that they knew to pluralize the term at all

The Zelda series’ currency has experienced some growing pains throughout the years, particularly around this first game’s release. Let’s take a look. To begin, the “Rupy” is the currency used in both versions of the first Zelda game. The plural form is “Rupies”. As a kid, I assumed this was just a misspelling of “Ruby”, possibly because the manual called them “Rubies” and because of their gemstone appearance. But to add to the confusion, the official Nintendo Fun Club newsletter called them “Rubles”.

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I’ve never been a gem-knowing guy, but rubies ARE supposed to be red, right?

Later on in the series, Nintendo settled on calling them “Rupee” and “Rupees” in English. So for English-speaking players, the currency has been known as “Rupy”, “Ruby”, “Ruble”, and “Rupee” at different points in time. For Japanese players, though, this same currency has always had just one name. The revised 2003 translation fixed this issue by changing the spelling of “Rupy” to “Rupee” to conform with later Zelda games. Being able to go back and fix old problems is a dream for countless translators and localizers, so I bet many folks at Nintendo were glad to tidy up this little inconsistency. When I was little, I was surprised when I learned that Rupees are an actual type of money in places like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, and elsewhere. I thought there might’ve been some deep meaning behind the shared name, but in the end it sounds like it might’ve just been a coincidence.

RU PEE S I N LAT ER Z ELDA GA M E S

A Link to the Past

Link’s Awakening

Majora's Mask

Phantom Hourglass

I seriously wonder if "Rupee" was the result of A Link to the Past's localization team messing up or just not caring about consistency with previous localizations

20 0 3 T R A NSLAT ION

I'll take one Magic Shield, please!

ITEMS

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THE WOODEN SWORD I never really considered how “sword” has such an odd spelling in English, plus it looks like you’re saying “S-word”

Many longtime fans of the first Zelda game refer to the first sword in the game as the “Wooden Sword”. Surprisingly, though, it’s not called that anywhere in the game – it’s simply known as “Sword” in the Japanese and English releases. It’s also just called “Sword” in the Japanese and English manuals, as well as “Sword” in other supplemental materials like strategy guides and magazines. We were all wrong all along!

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T H E SWOR D I S M IGH T I ER

Japanese Manual Simply called “Sword”

English Manual No sign of a Wooden Sword

English Tips & Tactics strategy guide

Nintendo Power, Issue 1 Fold-out poster

Despite the fact that no written material seems to refer to it as a wooden sword, all my friends at different schools called it the “Wooden Sword” throughout my childhood. Even online, it seems to be the prevalent name for the item to this day. In contrast, it appears that the name “Wooden Sword” was never widely adopted by Japanese fans. What was it about this sword that convinced us that it’s a wooden sword, though? Many fans incorrectly attribute it to the game’s introduction scroll, the game’s manual, Nintendo Power magazines, and the like. It’s a strange phenomenon, and it’s almost as if we’ve all been under some sort of mass memory glitch. Ultimately, the sword’s color was probably the biggest cause of our shared misconception – although the brown color could’ve just as easily made it a bronze sword or a rusty sword rather than a wooden one. Eventually, a Wooden Sword item did make an appearance in the Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons games, and even the Japanese versions referred to it as the “Wood Sword”. Additionally, there’s a special sword in Hyrule Warriors known as the “8-Bit Wooden Sword” in the English release… but it’s again just referred to as “Sword” in the Japanese version. For some reason, we really want this sword to be made out of wood. In summary, what we collectively know as the “Wooden Sword” is simply known as “Sword” in Japan. We were all localizers without ever knowing it.

The localized English name makes things much easier to search for, that’s for sure

Does this make me the Oracle of Localization? Am I the third game?

WO OD WOU LD BE G O OD

oracle eng/jp difOracle of Seasons ferences

Sword made of wood in both versions

Oracle of Ages Sword made of wood in both versions

H Y RU LE WA R R IOR S SPEC I AL SWOR D

Japanese Release: "Sword"

English Release: "8-Bit Wooden Sword"

ITEMS

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POTIONS O’ PLENTY I wonder if any kids back then ran around with bottles of different color cough syrup pretending to be Link. Now I'm mad that I didn't think of that at the time

The two potion items in the game are called the “Life Potion” and the “2nd Potion”, at least according to the English text in the introduction. Technically, though, the Japanese text calls them “Water of Life (Blue)” and “Water of Life (Red)”. How odd that they translated them so differently. At first I thought the change was made due to limited screen space for the text. But some other item names are clearly longer and take up two lines in English, so maybe the reason lies elsewhere. To throw some further chaos into the mix, the English manual refers to these items as “Water of life”. There’s so much inconsistency between the game’s translation and the manual’s translation that it’s pretty clear the two were done by wholly different teams of different nationalities. Personally, I feel that this back-andforth between multiple terms is a big defining part of early Nintendo games. I rarely see this implemented in modern indie games that strive for a retro vibe, though.

Mato Says

Here’s an easy tip I never realized as a kid: if you have a blue bottle, buying a second will turn it red. Handy info to know in some situations!

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BAIT AND SWITCH From the English term, you'd think this is an item for replenishing your health during your long adventure. But nope! You throw it on the ground

There’s an item in the game that’s literally just a hunk of meat on a bone. It’s known as “Food” in both versions of the game, at least according to the English text shown during the introduction. The word displayed in Japanese text actually specifically refers to “food for animals”, though. As such, it also often means “bait”, which is why animal-like enemies will run straight for the food when you place it on the screen. Unlike the game, though, the English manual and other materials translate the word as “bait” or “enemy bait”. I’d always wondered why “Food” went by such different names, so this clears up that question. You know, what DOES Link eat during his adventure? Or any of his adventures ever? Is he even alive?

Mato Says

As a side note, the Food item apparently looked slightly different before the first Zelda was released – in fact, its original look can be seen in the Japanese manual. It’s such a minor, insignificant change that it’s easy to overlook, but it’s clearly shaped differently.

ITEMS

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WHISTLE WONDER I was only good at playing the recorder for one day. Every other time was horrible and I still hear the sounds in my nightmares

One of the key items in this Zelda game is a multi-purpose musical instrument referred to as a “recorder” in both the Japanese release and the English release. This term is fine and not really confusing – I even played a recorder in grade school so I knew exactly what it was. But the word displayed in Japanese text, フエ (“fue ”), usually translates to “whistle” or “flute” instead. “Recorder” has its own word, リコーダー (“rikōdā ”), that the developers could’ve used if they had wanted to be that specific. Pretty cool how instruments already play a big part this early in the series

Actually, most kids I knew at the time called it either a flute or whistle, so the in-game name didn’t really stick. It’s probably because the manual and Nintendo Power used those alternate terms instead. I'm an adult now and I still don't really know how to whistle. Whatever you do, don't follow in my footsteps! Learn to whistle!

I NST RU M EN T S OF M A S S CON F USION

Whistle

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Recorder

Flute

THE GOOD BOOK Similar imagery remains for several more games, culminating in a cross with Jesus on it in a Japanese strategy guide!

One of the key items in the first Zelda game is a book. This book boosts the power of the Magic Wand item – with it, magic blasts turn into flames after hitting something. In the English release of the game, this item is known as the “Book of Magic”. But in the Japanese release, it’s actually called a bible. This isn’t necessarily for promoting Christianity or anything – Japanese entertainment often blindly grabs foreign religious and cultural material to suit its needs without much care about underlying significance. That’s why Japanese games are often full of random religious stuff that makes little sense in context, and why many games have you basically defeat God as a final or secret boss.

OH M Y G OD

Shin Megami Tensei II

Dragon Warrior VII

Fighting God as the final boss

Fighting God as a super-boss

(English fan translation)

Because of this disregard for cultural context, it’s common to see truly bizarre things in Japan that would be offensive elsewhere, but that are usually well-intentioned and meant as innocent fun. This phenomenon isn’t limited to entertainment media only – it’s everywhere. As an example, this was an innocent celebration held by the city of Obama, Japan. No offense was ever intended, but it sure caused a big international ruckus at the time!

ITEMS

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Culturally-sensitive localizers will usually pick up on these potential problems and try to steer things in a more appropriate direction. Navigating religious imagery in particular has always been a challenge in Japanese-to-English game localization, especially when the target audience exists within a heated religious climate. The task usually boils down to rephrasing content or altering content to avoid any potential controversy, however silly it might seem. An airport ad that happily announces they're trying to be more international, so this guy puts on a blonde wig and a big foreigner nose

R ELIGIOUS R EF F ER ENC E S ALT ER ED I N OT H ER GA M E S

Final Fantasy IV All instances of “prayer” changed to “wish”

Super Castlevania IV All instances of crosses removed

DuckTales All crosses removed before release

EarthBound Prayer to God removed

Illusion of Gaia Cross replaced with statue

ActRaiser God renamed “Master”

This concern does have merit, though. Countless religious groups have spoken out against video games over the years, claiming that they’re filled with blasphemous, Satanic imagery. Apparently, they’ve even held mass video game burnings. So it’s natural for game developers and localizers to want to play it safe with their own games whenever possible.

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Fantasy games, electronic or not, have long been controversial among religious groups

"Is Pokemon demonic? Yes, they are all oriental demons. Their names are actually the names of demons." “Let us say to the Nintendos and the other games – if you are going to be sick, we are going to find a way to protect this country from you.” Things actually got so out of hand that at one point the Pope had to step in and declare that Pokémon isn't evil

“She has an affinity for the fantasy game called “Dark Soul”, which is a very dark, deathladen video game on PlayStation and other video type things.”

ITEMS

113

A similar, although far less intense situation is likely why the Bible in the Japanese version of Zelda was renamed the Book of Magic in the English release. It’s also possible it wasn’t really meant to be the real-life Bible in the first place – I commonly see the word used in a generic sense in Japanese entertainment. The name and its related imagery just seem cool and exotic to Japanese sensibilities. Still, it’s interesting that Zelda‘s localization team didn’t like the Bible reference, yet had no problem with the rest of the Christian imagery used in the game, including the crosses on the shields and graves. The localizers most likely felt that these crosses evoked a sense of knights and such more than a sense of religion.

C RO S S I M AGERY I N T H E ENGLI SH R ELEA SE

Later on, the series’ developers decided to move away from the cross imagery and use brand-new symbolism anyway

It's cool to see how a localization of a Japanese game can actually affect the original game like this

BI BLE TO BO OK OF M AGIC

Famicom Disk

Famicom Cartridge

Interestingly, the Famicom cartridge release of the first Zelda game adopted the localization’s name change – the English text displayed during the Japanese introduction now says “Book of Magic”, despite the fact that the Japanese text still says “Bible”. Naturally, this change also occurs in later ports based on the Japanese cartridge version.

The NES release of The Legend of Zelda was only the first of many Zelda localizations to tiptoe around religious content. Evidence of Nintendo’s strong stance on the subject can still be seen in many other games in the series.

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R ELIGIOUS R EF ER ENC E S I N LAT ER Z ELDA GA M E S

Zelda II “Goddess Statue” item renamed “Trophy”

Zelda II All “temples” changed to “palaces”

A Link to the Past Religious terms like “church” and “priest” replaced or removed entirely

Ocarina of Time Star & crescent icons changed due to similarity to Islamic symbol

Majora’s Mask “Demon God Mask” named the more acceptable “Fierce Deity Mask”

A Link Between Worlds Religious changes from A Link to the Past retained for continuity purposes

Despite the harsh treatment of religious content in these early Zelda localizations, Nintendo’s stance has since improved. There’s been a gradual shift, and now references to gods, priests, and the like are much more common than ever before. It’s interesting how times change.

R ELIGIOUS R EFER ENCES IN R ECENT ZELDA GA MES

Skyward Sword

A Link Between Worlds

ITEMS

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E nem ies A Z e l d a g a me w it ho ut e ne m ie s i s l i ke a s a ndw ic h w it h no t h i n g i n s ide . M a ny o f t he s e r ie s ’ ic o n ic f o e s m a ke t he i r deb ut i n t he f i r s t Z e l d a g a me, s o le t ’s s e e wh at t he g a me ’s lo c a l i z a t io n me a nt f o r t he s e badd ie s .

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GANON’S EXTRA NAME As we’ve already discovered, the final enemy in the first Zelda game is called “Gannon” during the in-game introduction… but he’s known as “Ganon” in the instruction manual and other supplementary materials. This “Gannon” spelling was quietly fixed in the revised 2003 translation of the game, making it one of the earliest console games to receive major renaming treatment.

So if Zelda hid the Triforce pieces, are the dungeon bosses technically on her side?

Mato Says Theory #6: Zelda is actually an old hag who sucks the life energy out of everyone. She wasn’t kidnapped by Ganon, Ganon is her bodyguard!

This sort of retroactive name-changing became more common in the industry as games became more complicated and game localization began to be taken more seriously. Probably the most infamous name update was when the character “Aeris” was changed to “Aerith” in the Final Fantasy VII universe. The reverse has become common too, though – the Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog series have had major name updates meant to undo earlier localization changes.

Final Fantasy VII

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

MOBLINS There are certain enemies in the first Zelda game that look a little bit like bulldogs with spears. Fans know these creatures as Moblins, but that wasn’t always the case – they went by several different names in the early days. According to the English manuals of the first two Zelda games, these foes are actually called “Molblins”. This name appeared in other English-language Zelda-related materials too, including a children’s book and the official comic series.

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T H E MOR E MOLBLI NS T H E M ER R I ER

1

2

3

4

1. English Manual 2. Japanese Manual 3. Zelda-themed children’s book 4. The Legend of Zelda comic, Issue 7

I miss this old show, especially Ganon's wonderful, soothing voice

Even though “Molblin” was the official name according to the English manuals and more, the name “Moblin” began to replace it for some reason. Even the TV cartoon went with the “Moblin” spelling. Eventually, this altered name became the official English translation for this term. There’s no longer any question about the name – it’s been “Moblin” since the third Zelda game. Incidentally, as if two names aren’t enough, these creatures go by a third name too – the official North American Zelda board game uses the name “Molbrin” instead.

ENEMIES

Molbrin wants to be your Valentine

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So the big question is: which name is correct? Molblin, Molbrin, or Moblin? The Japanese name is literally transcribed as “Moriburin”. Based on this information, it’s almost a certainty that the word is a combination of the word “mori”, which means forest, and the word “goburin”, which means “goblin”.

A more meaningful name choice might be “Forblin”... but surely there are better ideas. Share your ideas online or elsewhere!

Basically, there’s no ambiguity with the Japanese name, but because Japanese words can be spelled in multiple different ways in English, this enemy’s name wound up with multiple spellings and a total loss of meaning. It’s also very possible that the localizers didn’t think to create a new, equally as meaningful name for English-speaking players. Given all this information, it seems the most technically accurate transcription might be “Moriblin”. The English name is steeped in custom by now, though, so it’s silly to think anyone would ever adopt a new name or spelling. For English speakers at least, this enemy will probably forever remain known as “Moblin”!

WIZZROBES The Legend of Zelda series is plagued with evil wizards that zip through the air and shoot magic. They debut in the original game, and are known as “Wizzrobes” in the English release. The Japanese name is essentially the same, but because of how Japanese works, the number of Zs doesn’t matter.

On my crappy TVs I used to think that circle part was their mouth

In fact, this double-Z English spelling confused me at first – I had somehow always known them as “Wizrobes” most of my life. But it seems that they’ve had the “Wizzrobe” spelling throughout the entire series, with rare exceptions. Translation-wise, there’s no real reason there should be two Zs in the name, so this unique spelling is one of the earliest localization choices that has remained intact throughout the series’ history.

W I Z Z ROBE S I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S

Ack, these guys are from Phantasm too!

A Link to the Past

The Minish Cap

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A Link Between Worlds

Majora's Mask Originally called “Wizrobes” Fixed in 3DS remake

LIKE LIKES Like Likes are weird creatures in the Zelda series that look like walking intestines or organic, pulsating bags. They love to eat shields, and they’ll eat your upgraded shield if they can latch onto you! They’re known as “Like Likes” in both Japanese and English, and their name is pronounced like the English word “like”, as in “I like this book.” The origin of the “Like Like” name was actually a mystery for a long time, until Super Smash Bros. Melee was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2001. This fighting game featured Like Likes, and even included a short, informative description about them. According to the localized English release, Like Likes are said to be named after an old Hyrulian proverb that says “Shield-eaters and world leaders have many likes alike.” The Japanese description is slightly different, and sheds light on the true origin of the Like Like name. Its name comes from the proverb, “Even bugs that eat water pepper have their personal like-likes.”

These things are even creepier in 3D Zeldas, yuck!

This is referencing a Japanese proverb that uses a Japanese phrase that uses the Japanese word for “like”. But it switches things up slightly by introducing wordplay involving the Japanese word for “shield” and the Japanese word for “water pepper”. It’s such a tangled ball of Japanese culture and language that it’s almost impossible to explain it without localizing the explanation too. In short, the Like Like name has very old Japanese roots, much like many other characters and enemies in early Nintendo games. Mato Says

Just for reference, the Japanese proverb quoted is “Tade kū mushi mo sukizuki.” The “sukizuki” part means “personal tastes”, but in an over-the-top, incredibly literal way it could also be viewed as “like like”. The “tade” part refers to “water pepper” – more specifically, Persicaria hydropiper – which is an extremely bitter plant. The Japanese word for shield is “tate”, so you can see how the wordplay works. The proverb basically says that everyone has their own personal tastes that vary wildly from others’. Similar to “different strokes for different folks” in English.

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ZORAS The Zelda series has long had aquatic creatures that annoy the hero by attacking and shooting fireballs. Most Zelda fans know these enemies by the name “Zora”, but they were technically known as “Zola” in the first game, according to the instruction manuals. Even the animated TV series and all the related merchandise at the time went with “Zola”. They’re all women? SIGN ME UP!

ZOLA USAGE

1

2

3

4

1. English Manual 2. Japanese Manual 3. Tips & Tactics guide

5

4. North American animated TV series 5. North American

“Hold it right there, Zola!”

board game

Translation-wise, this name is perfectly correct as “Zola” or “Zora” – it’s one of those infamous L and R mix-ups that happens in translation because there’s no difference between the two in Japanese. In cases like this, a good localization team will pick one spelling and stick with it consistently from then on. It’s clear that the localization team for the first Zelda game did exactly that, but for unknown reasons, the team localizing the third Zelda game decided to undo everything and use the name “Zora”. This name change has persisted throughout the series ever since.

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Eventually, Zoras became a benevolent aquatic race in the series. But to add to the confusion, the enemy Zoras still appeared in some games. To help make sense of this, Oracle of Ages tried to explain that the evil ones are “river Zoras” and the nice ones are “sea Zoras”. The term “Zola” hasn’t fully died, though. Some English-speaking fans consider “Zolas” to be the evil Zoras, and “Zoras” to be the proud race of aquatic people. It’s a clever idea that’s been kept alive by the encyclopedia on the official Zelda website.

OF F IC I AL Z ELDA W EBSI T E

Online Zelda terminology encyclopedia

Z EALOUS Z ELDA ZOR A S Z A P Z A N Y ZOLA S

A Link to the Past

Shaking the Zola name took a while, though even the Link's Awakening guide accidentally used the Zola spelling

Ocarina of Time

A Link Between Worlds

There’s Zorakabobs, Zora creole, Zora gumbo, coconut Zora...

ENEMIES

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DARKNUTS There are powerful knight-like enemies in the first Zelda game that most new players struggle with. These enemies are tough and usually appear in large groups, so they’re always very intimidating. In English, they’re known as “Darknuts”. But in Japanese they’re not Darknuts at all – they’re actually called “Tartnucs”. I have to admit, I do like the name Darknut a lot better anyway

This is a pretty drastic name change, and at first it almost seems pointless. At best, the Japanese name could also be translated as “Tart Knuckles”, but that doesn’t make much sense. So what’s the deal? Easy: try reading the name “Tartnuc” backwards. Although Darknuts don’t appear in every Zelda game, they do still retain the Darknut name even after all these years. So this particular name change, most likely chosen in just a matter of minutes, has endured for decades since. The name sometimes appears as “Dark Nut” in later games, though

DA R K N U T S I N OT H ER Z ELDA GA M E S

The Minish Cap

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Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

MANHANDLA A very odd enemy appears in the first Zelda game as a boss in Level 3, and then as a mini-boss in later dungeons. This enemy has a chompy thing on each side and moves in an unusual way. In Japanese, this enemy is known as a “Testitart”. The developers sure liked to use “tart” in the enemy names for some reason, although I’m not sure what significance the word might have. Whatever the case, this enemy’s name was changed to “Manhandla” for the English localization. It’s neat how this boss resembles its own level’s layout

Why the change, though? Perhaps the “testi” part of the Japanese name sounded a little too iffy? Maybe it was something players might giggle at and make fun of, so they changed the name to something completely different. If that’s the case though, it’s funny that they took out the “testi” thing with this name but added a “nut” reference for the Darknuts.

I T’LL M A N H A N DLA YOU

Hyrule Warriors

All that aside, the name “Manhandla” most likely comes from the English word “manhandle”. It’s possible the intended meaning lies elsewhere, but the reasoning is probably lost to the sands of time at this point. The name has remained throughout the series’ localization history, though, so this early localization choice has had a consistent impact on the series for decades. Feeeeed me, Link!

ENEMIES

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M a nu a l s T he v ide o g a me e x p e r ie nc e i s n ’t ju s t a b o ut t he g a me s t he m s e lve s – t he g a me s ’ m a nu a l s pl ay a m ajo r r ole a s we l l . W h a t a g a me c a n ’t s ho w, a m a nu a l c a n . S o le t ’s d ive e ve n de e p e r i nt o t he f i r s t Z e l d a g a me ’s lo c a l i z at io n by lo ok i n g at t he Japa ne s e a nd E n g l i s h m a nu a l s .

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THE POWER OF THE MANUAL Unlike many other games at the time – especially Atari games – the Zelda instruction manual was big, in full color, and had heaps of amazing art. I liked it so much that I would even take it to school with me and read through it during class and on the ride home after school. It was like a work of art, as far as game manuals were concerned. I’d always wanted to know how the Japanese manual compared to it… and now is the perfect time to finally answer that question. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the manual for the NES game is basically taken straight from the Famicom Disk System manual – writing, art, tips, and all. What is surprising, though, is that the Japanese manual has even better presentation. I thought the NES manual had a lot of color and charm, but the Japanese manual tops it somehow!

COVER ME UP Right off the bat, the covers for each manual are different. The gold of the NES manual matches the game and the box well, and the simplicity lends it all a very high-class, elegant feel.

I think I prefer the English manual’s simple, mysterious elegance

The Japanese manual cover also literally serves as the “box art” for the Famicom Disk System version of Zelda. The art gives off a strong adventure vibe that the NES manual cover lacks. It’s also immediately clear that the manuals have different dimensions. The FDS manual needed to be square-shaped to fit in a disk case, but the NES manual lacked that restriction, so it was resized to something more rectangular. This resulted in a major layout change for the content inside.

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COV ER TO COV ER

The manual’s cover is now the game’s cover!

STICKERS FOR YOU Insert this, eject that, put stickers on this, flip that... Nintendo sure was bossy back in the day

The manual for the Famicom Disk System version of Zelda comes with stickers. Some are for sticking “Side A” and “Side B” onto the disk – the instruction manual even goes into detail about this. Link and the game’s logo are included as other stickers, just for fun.

Japan had similar card and sticker packs, but it’s unclear if they were the same

The NES release of the game didn’t come with any stickers, though. Probably the closest equivalent that we had were the Zelda stickers found in Nintendo Game Pack sets sold at around the same time.

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NO DON'T STICK THAT IN THERE

HELLO, DISK-KUN The Famicom Disk System actually had a mascot named “Disk-kun”. The FDS Zelda manual includes a lot of Disk-kun material, usually when explaining how to save the game or how to properly take care of the game disk. Here we see Disk-kun being tortured in all sorts of ways while the manual says things like “Keep the disk away from magnets! TVs and radios have magnets too, be careful!” and “Don’t touch this part!” The FDS manual also includes a page listing all of the possible error codes that the system might give, such as “unable to read disk” and “wrong side inserted”. Since the Famicom Disk System hardware was different from the NES hardware, the English Zelda manual has none of this at all. The NES manual does include the usual warnings and instructions on how to properly care for the game cartridge, of course.

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SCREEN REPLACEMENTS Although the text is generally the same in both manuals, sometimes the English manual includes completely different screenshots. This might’ve been due to a lack of screenshot assets when the localizers were working on the English manual. They clearly had all the hand-drawn art assets, but it appears that wasn’t the case for screenshots too. As an example, we can see here that the English manual uses screenshots different from the Japanese manual. One of the English screenshots even has a strange black box only around the mini-map for some reason. Maybe the screenshot was tampered with or manipulated in some way?

Seriously, to this day I have no idea why that one box looks so poorly added in

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S AV E T H E D AY Once it’s time to save your game’s progress, the Famicom Disk System version is so straightforward that there isn’t much to say beyond the usual “Don’t turn the game off while the game is saving!”

The famous Zelda battery, revealed at last (NSFW)

The NES cartridge uses a totally different saving mechanism – there’s an actual battery in the cartridge that keeps the player’s data intact even when the system’s power is off. Because of this drastic difference, the manual needed to be revised to reflect the new saving system. In particular, the manual explains in detail that you need to hold the Reset button as you turn the system’s power off. If you’ve played any other battery-backed NES games from this era, you’re probably used to seeing this warning all the time. Japanese players didn’t have to bother with this Reset-holding nonsense at first. When the Famicom cartridge release came about, though, they were told to use the “Hold Reset” maneuver just like the rest of the world.

Batteries are a boy's best friend

Mato Says

Because the NES hardware wasn’t originally designed with battery save systems in mind, a very tiny, unpredictable power drop happens when the system is turned off. This drop can sometimes cause the NES to write random data to random memory locations, including locations associated with save data. This can effectively corrupt or erase a game’s save data. Holding Reset puts the system into a predictable, safe state, though. This is why players are told to hold the Reset button as they turn the system off!

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N O W Y O U ’ R E P L AY I N G W I T H F R I E N D P O W E R One frustrating part of The Legend of Zelda is that you can’t save the game any time you want without purposely killing yourself. Or so you thought… I remember not realizing it at first as a kid, but there is a way to save your game anytime you want, and it’s written right here in the instruction manual. Just press A and Up on Controller #2 at the same time while on the item select screen. Actually, the English translation gets this slightly wrong: “…press the A button on Controller #2 and the Control Pad.” Press the control pad? What?!

Such short controller cords argh

In contrast, the Japanese version is much clearer: “On Controller #2, press the A Button and the Up Button on the control pad.” Still, that’s a pretty strange code for such an important feature. Why couldn’t the developers have made it a special option you use with Controller #1? Plus, what if you don’t have a second controller? And what if the game messes up while you insert Controller #2, as it often did for me whenever I inserted or removed a controller during a game? Well, as we’ve seen before, the Japanese Famicom has two controllers permanently attached to it, so none of this was a real problem for Japanese gamers. In fact, we’ve seen how Controller #2 doesn’t go unused in the Japanese release – it’s the key to killing the Pols Voice enemies.

“Look what you made me do!” shouted children worldwide

I don’t know why the developers couldn’t have just made Select on Controller #1 bring up a save menu, though. That would’ve been far more useful than the pause feature…

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S T O RY Zelda‘s in-game text doesn’t provide a whole lot of background information about the story, so that’s where the manual steps in. Both versions of the story are essentially the same, but since it’s such an important part of the game and series, let’s take a look at it. Once upon a time there was a bad guy. A young nobody grew strong and defeated the bad guy. The end. Now give me all my royalty checks please.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

In the distant past, when the world was still in chaos… In a small kingdom in the Hyrule region, golden triangles with mystical powers – known as Triforces – were passed down from generation to generation.

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English Version

A long, long time ago the World was in an age of Chaos. In the midst of the chaos, in a little kingdom in the land of Hyrule, a legend was being handed down from generation to generation, the legend of the “Triforce”: golden triangles possessing mystical powers.

One day, however, the Great Demon King Ganon, who sought to rule the world with darkness and fear, invaded this kingdom with his evil army and stole the Triforce of “Power”.

One day, an evil army attacked this peaceful little kingdom and stole the Triforce of Power. This army was led by Ganon, the powerful Prince of Darkness who sought to plunge the World into fear and darkness under his rule.

Fearing his evil reign, Zelda, the princess of this small kingdom, in an attempt to protect the remaining Triforce of “Wisdom”, split it into eight fragments and hid them throughout the land.

Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of the kingdom, split up the Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and hid them throughout the realm to save the last remaining Triforce from the clutches of the evil Ganon.

At the same time, she ordered Impa – her most trustworthy nursemaid – to search for someone brave enough to defeat Ganon, and then helped her secretly escape.

At the same time, she commanded her most trustworthy nursemaid, Impa, to secretly escape into the land and go find a man with enough courage to destroy the evil Ganon.

Upon learning of this, Ganon grew furious, imprisoned the princess, and sent pursuers after Impa.

Upon hearing this, Ganon grew angry, imprisoned the princess, and sent out a party in search of Impa.

Impa desperately f led through forests and over mountains, but, eventually out of strength, she found herself surrounded by Ganon’s minions.

Braving forests and mountains, Impa f led for her life from her pursuers. As she reached the very limit of her energy she found herself surrounded by Ganon’s evil henchmen.

She was in a desperate situation!

Cornered! What could she do?

Just then, a lone boy appeared, skillfully confused the minions, and rescued Impa.

… But wait! All was not lost. A young lad appeared. He skillfully drove off Ganon’s henchmen, and saved Impa from a fate worse than death.

His name was Link. He came across this situation during a journey.

His name was Link. During his travels he had come across Impa and Ganon’s henchmen.

Impa told him the entire story.

Impa told Link the whole story of the princess Zelda and the evil Ganon.

Link, burning with a sense of justice, resolved to rescue the princess, but to stand up against Ganon and his Triforce of “Power” he absolutely must gather the fragments of the Triforce of “Wisdom” and complete it.

Burning with a sense of justice, Link resolved to save Zelda, but Ganon was a powerful opponent. He held the Triforce of Power. And so, in order to fight off Ganon, Link had to bring the scattered eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom together to rebuild the mystical triangle.

Otherwise, he won’t even be able to infiltrate Death Mountain, where Ganon lives.

If he couldn’t do this, there would be no chance Link could fight his way into Death Mountain where Ganon lived.

Will Link be able to defeat Ganon and save the princess?

Can Link really destroy Ganon and save princess Zelda?

It all rests on your skill.

Only your skill can answer that question. Good luck. Use the Triforce wisely.

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I can say from professional experience that this story was translated extremely well, likely by someone completely different from the rest of the manual and game. As we can see, the English translation says pretty much everything the Japanese version says, but generally better. Nothing is really lost, and nothing strange pops up out of nowhere. There are a couple minor points to note, though: 

The English text says this takes place in the land of Hyrule, but the Japanese text says this is the Hyrule region. It’s a small nitpick, but the Japanese description suggests that Hyrule is just one tiny area of a much larger land – which makes sense once you play the sequel.

MAPS WITHIN MAPS

The Legend of Zelda overworld map

Zelda II overworld map

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

The English text says that a legend of the Triforces was handed down in this small kingdom. But the Japanese text says it’s the Triforces themselves that get handed down. That makes sense – Zelda probably wouldn’t have access to the Triforces if all that was passed down were legends.



We see that the generic Japanese title of “Great Demon King” has become “Prince of Darkness”. The Japanese title, 大魔王 (“Daima ō ”), is found in all sorts of Japanese fantasy entertainment and has probably been translated dozens of different ways over the years – even King Koopa of the Super Mario Bros. series shares the same moniker. I have to say, though, that “Prince of Darkness” is one of the coolest translation choices I’ve seen for this word yet.



The English text actually adds in the blurb about “a fate worse than death”.



The English text adds in a line at the end that isn’t in the original.

A few clunky parts aside, I’m really impressed with the translation of this story. It has the hallmarks of an experienced translator – for instance, a common rookie mistake is to always translate one Japanese sentence into one English sentence, no matter what. But here we see that complicated lines have been simplified by breaking them into multiple, shorter sentences with a more natural flow. In fact, it works so well that I would’ve thought it had gone through an editor after translation, but the fact that so many nuances remain intact makes that seem unlikely. In any case, nice job, whoever worked on this!

MEAN GANON The tips section of the English manual states that “Link’s going to have a difficult time trying to destroy Ganon. He’s real mean.” It’s being picky, but the Japanese version is closer to “As Ganon is very powerful, it will clearly be difficult to defeat him.” There’s a difference between being mean and being strong – if being mean is all it takes to be difficult to defeat then the crotchety old men in the caves could probably take over the world. This use of “mean” instead of “powerful”, “strong”, or “tough” is repeated regularly throughout the English manual. It’s not a big deal, of course. I just find the line “He’s real mean.” to be a funny way to describe the Prince of Darkness and the game’s ultimate villain. Grrr! He's real mean! Just look at his possible arm or leg! Be afraid!

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BOOMERANG Although the story was translated superbly, most of the rest of the English manual suffers from weird, haphazard stylistic choices. Sometimes the guide will suddenly jump from third-person to second-person, as if it’s talking directly to you. This happens occasionally in the Japanese manual, simply due to how Japanese works, but it’s much more rampant in the English manual. The English manual also uses really odd phrasing sometimes, but perfectly fine phrasing other times. It lends the feeling that different parts of the manual were translated by different people. It’s also possible that some parts were done in a rush while others weren’t. The manual’s boomerang entry is a perfect illustration.

Japanese Version (basic translation) Hey! We can't have stylized edges on our art! You know American kids can't handle that!

English Version

Wood Boomerang and Magical Boomerang

Wooden boomerang and magical boomerang

You can gain the upper hand in battle by switching between weapons (boomerangs, etc.), depending on the enemy you’re facing.

Carry weapons such as boomerangs etc. to match the enemy. This way Link can fight more effectively.

Swiftly switching to the treasure select screen and changing equipment is vital to Link’s success in battle.

The skill to switch over quickly to the treasure select screen (remember the sub screen?) and swiftly take out treasures is really important. If you’ve got this skill, Link will be able to win through to the end.

My sample translation isn’t 100% literal, but here we can see that the official translation has some awkwardness to it, and that it adds a second-person reference (“remember the sub screen?”) out of nowhere. Some phrases, like “be able to win through to the end” are also overly literal, which is part of the reason for the awkwardness. Mato Says

“Wait, overly literal is good!” many might say. But it’s not always so. Think of it as like a photo in Photoshop. If you sharpen a slightly blurry photo, it’ll come out looking nicer. But if you keep sharpening it or if you over-sharpen it in one go, it actually makes it look horrible. The same thing is true with translation, so if you ever see awkward text in an English translation – which is common in these old games – it’s probably due to over-literalization.

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MAGIC SHIELD The manual describes the different shields in some detail. The English version handles it just fine, except for the Magical Shield.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Magic Shield

Magic Shield

Bigger than the original shield.

This is bigger than the other shield.

It can block enemies’ spells and swords, as well as Zora beams and the like.

Use it to fend off the enemy’s spells and rocks, and Zola’s ball. Shield your eyes, the game is changing!

Silly manual, Zolas don’t have balls...

First, we see that the shield is named the “Magic Shield” in both Japanese and English… but the actual game calls it the “Magical Shield” instead. So which is it? This name inconsistency isn’t a big deal at all, but it does show how mistakes in source material can survive the localization process. Next, the English translation says that the Magic Shield blocks enemy rocks… But wait, the original shield does that already. This is a clear mistranslation – it should instead say “swords”, referring to the swords used by the Lynel and Second Quest Stalfos enemies. We also see that it says “Zola’s ball” instead of “Zora beam” in the English translation. That’s acceptable, I guess – they do seem more like balls than beams. But the use of the singular “Zola” here almost makes it sound like there’s only one “Zola” in the entire game.

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RUBIES? There’s another piece of evidence that points to the manual translator not bothering to check the game’s intro: “Rupy” and “Rupies” were incorrectly translated throughout the English manual as “ruby” and “rubies”. This mistranslation could be either due to the translator thinking, “You know, the original text is wrong, it should be ‘ruby’, ‘rupy’ isn’t a real word.” or it was a case of ルピー (Rupy ) looking a lot like ルビー (Ruby ), especially in small print. Nintendo's pre-Treehouse era localizations were rife with these basic mistakes

H E A RT C O N TA I N E R S The introduction sequence calls the “Heart Container” item a “Container Heart” in the Japanese and English versions of the game. But the Japanese manual actually calls them something like “Heart Bottles” or “Heart Flasks” – so they literally are containers. I had never really stopped to think about what a “heart container” might entail, so that’s kind of neat to know. Just don’t imagine a container that contains actual heart organs and you’ll be fine

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SUPER KEY The Lion Key item in the game is basically an infinite-use key – once you get it you never have to worry about keys again. Also, once you have the Lion Key, the key indicator at the top of the screen displays “A” instead of a number. For my entire life, I never, ever knew what this “A” stood for. It turns out that the Japanese manual has the answer.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Key and Magical Key

Key and magic key

These are needed to open locked doors in the labyrinths.

Link needs these to open the locked doors in the labyrinths.

The Magical Key is especially useful; it can be used over and over.

The magical key is very useful. Link can use it over and over again.

When you have it, the display will show an “A” (for “Almighty”).

Once he’s got this magical key, “A” will be displayed showing that he’s unstoppable!

Theory # 6.5: Zelda’s true age is 255, thus why your rupees max out at that number. She’s cursed the land so that nobody can be worth more (in money) than her own age.

We see here that the localization changes “Magical” to “Magic”, yet the description is suddenly inconsistent with that treatment. There are also other little issues, but the biggest problem is that the meaning of “A” was completely lost in the translation. My best guess is that a non-Japanese-speaking editor showed up later and mucked with the text – any competent translator would’ve left “Almighty” as-is.

The game lion sure is different from the manual lion

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CANDLES The English description for the candle items is a bit off, and you don’t even need to know Japanese to realize it.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Blue Candle and Red Candle

Blue and red candles

With these, you can light up dark rooms inside labyrinths.

Some of the rooms inside the labyrinths are really dark. So use these to brighten them up.

Blue candles can only create fire once per screen, while red candles can produce unlimited fire.

Blue candles are good for one screen only, but the red ones can light up rooms for several screens.

It’s true that Blue Candles can only be used once per screen, but Red Candles are special because they can be used more than once per screen. The mistranslation that occurs in the English text is clearly due to a lack of context – whoever translated this hadn’t played the game before, or at least had never used the Red Candle before.

Why is blue weaker, though? Isn’t blue flame supposed to be hotter?

Mato Says

Translation mistakes often have “fingerprints” to them, so it’s possible to analyze them almost like in crime shows. Except crime shows aren’t as entertaining.

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WHISTLE In the game’s introduction, the musical instrument item is called a “Recorder”. But in the English manual, it’s called a “Whistle” instead. The description is free of problems, at least.

I'm 100% Team Flute. Team Recorder can kiss my Darknuts

Japanese Version (basic translation)

The intro crawl calls it a “Recorder”, gosh get your story straight!

English Version

Flute

Whistle

A magic item that will cause all sorts of mysterious things to happen.

A really mysterious, magical item. Use it and it’ll amaze you with what it can do.

BAIT The hunk of meat item is known as “Food” in the game’s introduction, but is translated as “Enemy bait” in the English manual. In this instance, the manual text is a little bit better. The fact that the description says it’s used to lure enemies makes it 100% clear that “bait” was the appropriate translation choice. You know, I wonder what animal this meat comes from in the first place. If it IS animal meat...

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POTIONS In the game’s introduction, we see that the potion items are called “Life Potion” and “2nd Potion” in English. In both versions of the manual, though, we can see that they’re known as “Water of Life”.

Water of Life = H 2O+ Li OH MY GOD WHAT SORCERY IS THIS

M A G I C WA N D Following the pattern of “Magical” to “Magic”, the “Magical Wand” is renamed the “Magic Wand” in the English manual, despite what the game’s introduction calls it. More importantly, the “Bible” item has been named “Magic Book” in the English manual… except it’s actually called the “Book of Magic” in the English game. It looks like the game localization team and the manual localization team weren’t on the same page when it came to this change. Whatever the case, the manual team was at least aware there was a name change at some point.

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T H E W H I R LW I N D FA L S E H O O D There’s a huge lie in the English manual! There’s a small part that says that if you get all the Triforce pieces and play the flute, you’ll be taken to the ninth labyrinth… but that’s not true at all. As a kid, I couldn’t believe Nintendo would just lie to me like that. It turns out this is actually due to a mistranslation. A comparison with the Japanese text sheds light on this mystery. Mistranslations can cause confusion, frustration, and maybe constipation

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

When you obtain a Triforce hidden in a labyrinth, all of your life hearts will turn red and you can return to the labyrinth’s entrance.

All of Link’s LIFE hearts turn red when he finds a Triforce fragment hidden in a labyrinth. He will also return to the labyrinth entrance.

The Triforces you’ve taken are displayed in the diagram in the sub-menu, one for each labyrinth level completed.

The Triforce fragments are displayed in the picture in the sub screen at each level as Link fi nds them.

Additionally, by playing the f lute and summoning a whirlwind, you can warp to the entrance of labyrinths whose Triforces you’ve finished taking.

Remember the magical whistle? Well, once he’s collected the last Triforce fragment, Link can warp to the ninth labyrinth by blowing the whistle and summoning the whirlwind.

Basically, the Japanese phrase for “finished taking” somehow became “collected the last”, and the part about warping to the labyrinth entrances got changed beyond comprehension. Good thing this translation was just for a game manual and not for medical equipment instructions or something…

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OCTOROK The Octoroks’ description in the English manual has another case of “tough” or “strong” being translated as “mean”. In this case it doesn’t matter as much, since I’m sure they’re indeed mean, but it’s ever-so-slightly different from the original, intended meaning. The manuals are FILLED with prerelease screenshots - these Octoroks are a great example. Finding all the tiny manual differences is fun, try it sometime!

P E A H AT According to the English manual, a Peahat is a “ghost of a flower”. In Japanese, the term used is 化身 (“keshin ”), which has several translations. One is from Buddhism, and is often translated as “Avatar” – one who takes human form to help mortal humans. Another, more common meaning is “incarnation”. Basically, it’s not necessarily a ghost, it’s just that “ghost” is probably the simplest alternative in translation. One final, minor difference: the English text says that a Peahat “bounces around”, but the Japanese text says nothing about that at all, just that it flies around and flutters. Shoulda called ‘em In-Carnations in English

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MOLBLINS We’ve already taken a detailed look at the Molblins, but let’s check out what the manuals have to say about them. This conversion from paper to pixel - or the other way around - is really impressive

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Molblin

Molblin

A forest-dwelling goblin with a bulldoglike face.

A bulldog-like goblin who lives in the forest.

Attacks by throwing spears. A little tougher than an Octorok.

He attacks by throwing spears. A little bit meaner than Octorok.

The descriptions are very similar, but there are some minor things of note. 

The Japanese manual states that their faces are bulldog-like. The English manual implies that their entire bodies are bulldog-like.



There’s another instance of “meaner” instead of “tougher” or “stronger”.



“Meaner than Octorok” is odd to begin with – it implies there’s one specific being named Octorok. This singular/plural issue is common with Japanese speakers trying to speak English, so it’s likely a Japanese speaker translated this part of the manual, possibly with a native English speaker there to fix up any glaring issues. In fact, many of these descriptions awkwardly use singular pronouns when a plural pronoun would sound better. It’s part of the manual’s retro charm, though.

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LY N E L

Lynel train sets?

Lynels are centaur-like enemies that walk around outside and shoot sword beams every which way. In the English manual, these enemies are called “guardians”. In the Japanese manual, they’re actually referred to as “guardian deities” or “gods of protection”. Also of note is that “strong” is actually kept as “strong” here. How strangely inconsistent.

ZOLA We’ve already explored the history of the Zola name, but the enemy’s description in the manual is interesting as well. Japanese Zola, learning her ABCs

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Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Zola

Zola

A water-dwelling half-fishman that sticks its head out of the water.

Half-fish, half-woman who lives in the water.

The beams it fires can’t be blocked by the small shield.

When she sticks her head out of the water she lets out a ball that Link’s little shield can’t hold back.

There are little issues here and there, but the biggest surprise is that the English manual declares that all Zolas are now female. Of course, the Japanese manual says nothing of the sort, so what’s the deal? In an even stranger twist, this same thing happened with Cheep-Cheeps in the English Super Mario Bros. manual. Wake up, cheeple!

My only guess is that the same editor worked on both manuals, and that either this person considers all sea creatures to be female for some reason, or is someone who prefers to use “she” or “her” when confronted with the gender-neutral pronoun issue.

GEL There are simple enemies in The Legend of Zelda‘s dungeons known as Gels. I had always assumed that “Gel” was pronounced like “Jel”, but nope! The Japanese name clearly indicates that it’s a hard “g”, meaning it’s like the “g” in “gift”. Despite that, it’s very possible that the term “Gel” entered the Japanese vocabulary from a language other than English, in which case “Jel” might be appropriate after all. At the very least, now it’s clear how they pronounce the name in Japanese.

Basically, pronounce the “G” in Gel like the “G” in GIF

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DARKNUT As we’ve already discovered, Darknuts underwent a name change during localizaton. So let’s take a peek at their manual descriptions.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Tartnuc

Darknut

A labyrinth-dwelling knight with great offensive strength. Parries attacks from the front with its shield.

The knight who lives in the labyrinths. He has lots of attacking power. He repels Link’s attacks from the front with his shield.

The only notable goof here is the use of “the” and “he”, which makes it sound like there’s only one of these knights in the entire game.

Darknuts move very fast, but if you are quick they will not last

POLS VOICE The English manual implies that all Pols Voices are male, but the Japanese manual makes no such claim. It almost feels like the manual translator assigned random pronouns to different enemies… unless the actual game creators were consulted during the translation.

Pols Voice jump super high, but if you watch your speed you will not die

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WIZZROBE

Wizzrobes move fast, I agree, but if you get touched you lose a heart of energy

The English manual describes Wizzrobes as “Masters of Movement”. The manual generally doesn’t capitalize proper nouns as often as it should, though, so you’d think this is an actual title or at least something official. Nope! It turns out that this phrase is completely made up. The Japanese text has no such proper noun or title.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

Wizzrobe

English Version

Wizzrobe The Master of Movement.

Utilizes movement techniques to appear here and there, while unleashing spells that can’t be blocked by a small shield.

He appears here and there letting out magic spells that Link’s little shield can’t hold back.

Quite tough.

He’s pretty strong. Watch out!

Mato Says

Although this probably didn’t happen with The Legend of Zelda or its manual, it’s not uncommon for entertainment translators to end up translating something as it’s still being created. This can cause all sorts of headaches, particularly when something you’ve already translated suddenly gets thrown out or rewritten. This in turn leads to consistency and quality issues... It can be a mess. But it’s just a fact of life for many translators out there.

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GIBDO Gibdos are tough, mummy-like enemies that appear in dungeons. Their description in the English manual also features a slight mistranslation.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Gibdo

Gibdo

A mummy man. Possesses supernatural strength and high offensive power.

The mummy man. He’s got some strange powers, and some pretty powerful attacking force.

The Japanese description uses the word 怪力 (“kairiki ”), which can be a troublesome word for some translators. On the surface, it seems to be a compound word meaning “eerie” and “strength”. That’s where the “strange powers” in the English description comes from, in fact. But in truth, 怪力 actually means something like “abnormally strong” or “superhumanly strong” – maybe even “Herculean strength” in some cases. This vocabulary mistake is why the two descriptions differ the way they do. Plus, within the context of the game, Gibdos don’t have strange powers at all. They’re just ordinary, tough enemies.

Again, it sounds like this particular translator never really played the game

Mato Says

Translating games without playing them first is very common, especially for freelance translators. Most translators get a few spreadsheets with text to translate and that’s it. In fact, I’ve had to translate games without even knowing what genre they were.

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MANHANDLA As noted earlier, the Manhandla enemy in the English release was called “Testitart” in the Japanese game. Its manual description is what’s really interesting, though.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Testitart

Manhandla

A four-limbed, jumbo-sized Pakkun Flower.

A large man-eating flower with hands sticking out in all four directions.

Speeds up with each limb lost.

It moves faster as it loses its hands.

Possesses somewhat powerful offensive strength.

It’s pretty mean. So, watch out!

Known as Piranha Plants in the English Super Mario Bros. universe, they’re actually called Pakkun Flowers in the Japanese games

Again, we see “strong” and “tough” changed to “mean”. But what really stands out is the part about the “Pakkun Flower” in the Japanese description. Surprisingly, Pakkun Flowers are actually enemies from the Super Mario Bros. series – they’re what we know in English as Piranha Plants. The Japanese 3DS release stops calling them Pakkun Flowers though. DENIED

The translator must not have been aware of this connection, which is why the English manual wound up going with “man-eating flower” instead. I guess whoever worked on this part of the manual hadn’t worked on the Super Mario Bros. manual translation. In short, this Zelda boss is actually a reference to Super Mario Bros.! I never would’ve known had I not checked the Japanese manual all these years later. I bet I would’ve loved that cross-game connection as a kid.

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DIGDOGGER Another recurring boss enemy in the first Zelda game is called a “Digdogger”. It’s a weird, yellow creature with a unique weakness… and a surprising description in the game’s manual.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

Such gorgeous lashes... I'm... I'm in love

English Version

Digdogger

Digdogger

A giant Unira.

Big sea urchins.

Due to its enormous size, shockwaves will cause its body to shrivel up.

In spite of their big bodies, they shrivel up when attacked.

However, it has powerful offensive strength.

But watch out! They come on pretty strong.

There are a few things worth noting here. First, the English translation is wrong – this boss doesn’t shrivel up when attacked. In fact, you can’t hurt it at all with ordinary weapons – that’s what makes it so different from other bosses. Instead, you need to use the flute to weaken it first, then you can attack it normally. Second, the part about “shockwaves” in the Japanese manual is admittedly a little strange, but at least it gives a hint that Digdoggers can’t be beaten via normal means. In contrast, the English hint steers you in the wrong direction and doesn’t give you any vague clues at all. Lastly, the Japanese manual calls this enemy an “Unira”, but the English manual calls it a “sea urchin”. While “uni” does mean “sea urchin” in Japanese, this is an “unira”.

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T H E C LU C LU CON N EC T ION

Clu Clu

Clu Clu Land Standard Unira enemy

…Wait, what’s an “unira”, you ask? It turns out that it’s a made-up name of the urchin-like enemies in Clu Clu Land, another Nintendo game from the time. Remember how in Link’s Awakening there are a bunch of character cameos from non-Zelda games? It turns out this has been happening since the very first game. It’s just that none of us knew because the English manual didn’t translate everything properly. If Uniras can get into Smash, we can get Zoda in too. Come on, let’s make it happen!

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Unira trophy

OT H ER N I N T EN D O C RO S S OV ER S I N T H E Z ELDA SER I E S

Link's Awakening Kirby and Goomba

Link's Awakening Piranha Plant

Ocarina of Time Unused Star Fox Arwing

Ocarina of Time “Mario” with Bowser pendant

Majora's Mask Mario mask

The Minish Cap Lakitu

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BUBBLE

If touched by one in the First Quest, use your flute to get your sword back sooner

There are enemies named “Bubbles” that lurk inside dungeons. They’re different from normal enemies, though – if they touch you, you’ll lose the ability to use your sword for a while. The manual tries to explain this, but the English translation stumbles a little bit.

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

Bubble

Bubble

A hitodama.

The spirit of the dead.

When possessed by it, you’ll be unable to draw your sword for a while.

When it clings to Link, he won’t be able to unsheath his sword for a while.

First, we see that the Japanese description uses the word “hitodama”. This word comes from old Japanese folklore – it literally means “person soul” and is a specific type of fiery apparition that looks spooky but is otherwise harmless. It’s mostly associated with the recently deceased, but is also said to be seen after someone loses consciousness and their soul slips out of their body for a while. The closest supernatural equivalent we have in English might be “will-o-wisp”, although it’s not exactly the same. So the English localization in the manual isn’t wrong by any means, there’s just technically more to it than being a simple spirit. The main issue with the Bubble’s description, though, is that the word とりつかれる (“toritsukareru ”) is mistranslated as “cling to” – which is an understandable mistake for an inexperienced entertainment translator. In this context, it actually means “to possess”, like when you’re possessed by a ghost or something. So apparently these things will possess Link temporarily when he touches them, which is why he can’t draw his sword.

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D E A D LY F I G H T A section in the Japanese version of the manual proclaims in bold text, “And now the confrontation with the Great Demon King!” The same text in the English manual says “And now the fight to death with Ganon!” Interestingly, Nintendo’s English translation actually added a reference to death here. In just a few years, the term “Nintendo game” would become synonymous with “censored for family-friendly happy fun time”. It’s fascinating to see how that attitude wasn’t as prevalent in the early NES days.

The localizers also changed the double exclamation marks into just one exclamation mark. A very common practice, even in the old days, it seems.

Mato Says

In these early days, Nintendo localizers didn’t fret much about references to death and killing. In fact, the Super Mario Bros. manual added mentions of killing! This carefree attitude didn’t last long, though.

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LITTLE THINGS There are a number of other little mistranslations and oddities in the English manual. Here are some notable ones. Invisible Doors

Japanese Version (basic translation)

Of the caves with people living in them, some have sealed doors and are hidden from view. How to open them?

Yup, that’s an invisible door if I ever saw one

English Version

In the caves where people live are invisible closed doors. How to open them? That’s a secret, too.

The English clue makes it sound like there are strange, invisible doors inside of inhabited caves.

Unbeatable Medicine

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

The water of life is a medicine that is superior to all else, so you can’t buy it without the proper credentials. To produce those credentials, you’ll need to…

The water of life is a medicine that can beat anything. So, those who don’t have the right credentials can’t buy it. In order to show your credentials, you have to…. Oh, I’m sorry! You’ll have to find that out yourselves. Good luck!

The “beating anything” part is a simple mistranslation. Most noteworthy is the new, selfreferential content at the end… Has the English manual become self-aware?

Surprise!

Japanese Version (basic translation)

English Version

To exploit the weaknesses of the big-eared Pols Voices, you’ll need to surprise them yourself. How to do that, though…

Link will surprise himself if he hits upon Pols Voice’s (the monster with the big ears) weak point. Do this by… Sorry! That’s a secret!

This hint is referring to the Pol Voices’ weakness to the Famicom’s microphone. Due to an unquestionable mistranslation, the English version misses the mark entirely.

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T H E S W O R D A N D B O O M E R A N G M Y S T E RY Mass misremembering begins here

As we’ve seen, the Japanese and English manuals feature different screenshots from the game. And there happens to be one screenshot in the English manual that’s particularly fascinating. In the tutorial section of the Japanese manual, we see that Link is getting the weakest sword from the old man in the very first cave. There’s nothing out of the ordinary at all. But in the English manual, we see a completely different screenshot – the same old man is offering Link a choice between the weakest sword and the weakest boomerang. This sword-or-boomerang choice never happens in the game, so what’s it doing here in the manual? In the English manual, at that? It seems that this screenshot comes from an early, pre-release version of the Japanese game. It also appears for a brief moment in a promotional video for the Famicom Disk System, created before the system’s release. Unfortunately, the old man’s text was blacked out in the manual image, but it is visible in the video: It’s dangerous to go alone. Take the weapon of your choosing. Most Japanese fans probably never saw the Famicom Disk System promotional video, but many English-speaking fans did see the game’s manual. This difference has led to some interesting experiences – multiple readers of Legends of Localization resolutely claim to have played a version of The Legend of Zelda that included this sword-orboomerang screen. Is this possible, or did the English manual somehow cause mass confabulation among players over the years?

For every mystery, there is someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. Perhaps that someone is reading. Perhaps... it’s you.

In any case, the question remains: how and why did this screenshot end up in the English manual? I guess for now it’ll remain one of those unsolved Zelda mysteries…

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Beyond t he Ga me A v ide o g a me e x p e r ie nc e g o e s b e yo nd t he g a me it s e l f . W he n yo u pl aye d t he g a me, ho w yo u pl aye d t he g a me, ho w yo u d i s c o ve r e d t he g a me… T he s e a r e ju s t a s me a n i n g f u l . But wh a t h ap p e n s whe n o ne g a me i s r e le a s e d at d i f f e r e nt t i me s , i n d i f f e r e nt pl ac e s , a nd i n d i f f e r e nt way s?

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REGIONAL EXPERIENCES At its core, The Legend of Zelda is the same game regardless of the system you play it on and the language you play it in. You explore a fantasy world, solve puzzles, and fight monsters. But, at the time of its release, there were factors outside the game that lended a different overall experience to fans in different regions. Let’s take a brief look at some of these differences that extended beyond the game.

A VA R I E T Y O F V E R S I O N S The first Zelda game was released in many different forms, some of which you may have never known about.

Famicom Disk As we’ve already seen, The Legend of Zelda was first released for the Famicom Disk System. The complete set included a labeled, two-sided disk, a paper sleeve, an instruction booklet, a warning slip, a service slip, a disk case, and a package case. This was the standard release, but you could also take a rewritable disk to participating locations and have the game loaded onto your disk for a small fee. Of course, if you bought it this way, you obviously wouldn’t get the case, color instructions, stickers, and all of that nice stuff. But you would get a simplified, mostly black-and-white, fold-out version of the manual instead. I have the urge to press the “NINTENDO” part of this disk into some cookie dough to make Nintendo cookies

Mato Says

Nintendo’s Famicom disk rewriting service began in early 1986... and it lasted surprisingly long. The service was finally shut down in September 2003. Support for the system lasted even longer, though - Nintendo stopped repairing Famicom Disk Systems in October 2007. That’s some serious customer support!

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Japanese gamers could buy whole games at a corner toy store or elsewhere for the equivalent of just a few dollars. These stores would get new games in every month, and even featured advertisements for upcoming games. But because the Disk System was never released outside of Japan, we missed out on this experience. Instead, the closest equivalent we had were video rental stores that also rented out games. Technically, there seem to be two different versions of Zelda for the Famicom Disk System: Versions 1.0 and 1.1. Version 1.1 fixes a number of bugs and issues, including the handy Heart Container glitch.

A fitting ad for the start of an epic series

T H E PR IC E I S R IGH T

An article in a 1986 issue of Marukatsu Famicom Magazine suggests that only 100,000 copies of Version 1.0 were sold. If true, then the initial FDS release is much rarer than the revised release. It would’ve been exciting as a kid to seek out copies!

Japanese Disk System full version 19 86

2015 (adjusted)

2,600 Yen or ~$14 USD

~$30 USD

I have many fond memories of renting games on the way home from school on Friday evenings. The rush to return them in time and occasionally failing - is another memorable experience I wouldn’t trade for rewritable games

Japanese Disk System rewritable 19 86

2015 (adjusted)

500 Yen or ~$3 USD

~$6 USD

North American NES release 19 87

2015 (adjusted)

$44.95 USD

~$94 USD

This is a dream compared to the crappy Xeroxcopied manuals some rental places would make

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Famicom Cartridge In 1992, Nintendo prepared to re-release The Legend of Zelda in cartridge form for the Famicom. The game was pushed back to 1994 instead, likely as a way to promote the recently-released Famicom AV system. This Zelda release featured many of the audio and visual changes found in the NES localization, so it provided a slightly different experience for Japanese gamers.

Uh oh, but the remodeled Famicom lacked a microphone...

The full Famicom cartridge release came with a box, a manual, the cartridge, a plastic cartridge holder, a hint book with a map, a warning slip, and a service slip. The addition of the map and hint book brought it a little closer to the experience that NES gamers had, too.

Charumera Release A special and very rare version of The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan as a promotion for Charumera-brand ramen. Very little is known about this special release, but the basic story is as follows.

The Charumera logo is on the label... but is anything else different?

Charumera is a popular Japanese ramen brand that dates all the way back to 1950. The company that sells it has a long history of holding interesting promotional campaigns, including a few that involved Nintendo games. Between January and March of 1986, Charumera held the “Charumera Famicom Present” campaign. It was a standard Japanese-style campaign that involved sending in a postcard for a chance to win one of several prizes – and in this case the grand prize was a Famicom, a Famicom Disk System, and a copy of The Legend of Zelda. The promotion set historical records for the company, and according to the official website years later, the company received over 20,000 entries per day! The Charumera Famicom Present campaign attracted this explosive attention for a reason: it began before the Famicom Disk System and The Legend of Zelda were even available in stores.

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So much ramen, so little Zelda

In fact, the campaign started even before television commercials and other mass marketing had begun. Not only that, the prizes weren’t ordinary Famicoms and Famicom Disk Systems – they were special, limited-edition versions with Charumera branding on them. In the end, only 1,500 winners were chosen from the flood of entries. Possibly due to the success of this promotion, another Charumera campaign for the Japanese version of Kid Icarus was held later that year. This new campaign also included a special, silver-colored Charumera-branded Famicom carrying case that looked reminiscent of Charumera ramen packs. Because the Charumera version of The Legend of Zelda is so rare and so old, very little is known about the game – even pictures of it are rare. The disk does feature different, Charumera-branded labels, but that’s all that’s readily apparent.

The game is so rare that no one really knows what to price it at - this one was snatched up quickly, so Japanese price charts have it even higher now

1986 magazine advertisement for the Japanese Kid Icarus Charumera campaign

This Charumera ramen campaign was even the basis for the special version of Rally King in Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS

The current consensus among fans is that the Charumera version of the game itself is exactly the same as the official Famicom Disk System release. Because it’s so difficult to find, though, no one has done a detailed, bit-by-bit comparison of the two.

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NES Gold Cartridge The first Zelda release for the NES came as a shiny, gold-colored cartridge with a battery inside that held the player’s data even when the NES was turned off. Other games at the time featured tedious passwords, but The Legend of Zelda ushered in a new, pain-free era.

I dunno why, but the hole in the box just added so much class to this release

The revised version also features a trademark ™ symbol next to the logo

The gold cartridge received a revision at one point. The two biggest differences involve the title and game over screens – the revised game over screen includes a warning about holding Reset as you turn the NES off. Externally, there are many different variations as well. Some copies have a circular seal of approval while others have an oval seal. Some cartridges have five screws in the back, while others have three. The cartridges also feature a variety of different markings. Many other little differences surely exist, as well. Trying to keep track of it all can be a nightmare if you’re not an expert.

Color Schemes

ENGLI SH R ELEA SE S

JA PA N E SE R ELEA SE S

The Japanese and North American packaging featured very different color designs – the Japanese release had a blue-green theme, and the North American release showcased a gold theme. With occasional exceptions, these color scheme differences have continued to endure ever since.

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The Triforce of the Gods

The Dreaming Isle

Skyward Sword

The Triforce of the Gods 2

A Link to the Past

Link’s Awakening

Skyward Sword

A Link Between Worlds

NES Gray Cartridge In the early 1990s, Nintendo re-released many of the old classics under the aptly-titled “Classic Series”. The series included The Legend of Zelda, which was released as a gray cartridge with an updated box. Content-wise, the gray cartridge seems to be the same as the revised gold cartridge. Because this gray cartridge was released closer to the end of the NES’ lifespan, it’s actually rarer than the gold version. Even so, the gold versions tend to fetch higher prices on the used market. Mato Says

Obviously, there are many more versions than just what I’ve listed here. But going into detail about every region’s releases and variations could probably be a whole book of its own. Hmm, perhaps that could be a project for another time…

I felt like this gray version was cheating on my childhood even though I was still basically a kid at the time. The only Zelda is a shiny Zelda!

Japanese Prototype Disk Important internal prototype, let's not protect the disk's innards at all

In early 2010, a prototype of the Famicom Disk System release of The Legend of Zelda was posted on a Japanese auction site. A kind-hearted collector outside of Japan paid 32,500 yen (approximately $360 USD at the time) to procure the game, simply to share its content with fellow fans. The disk is white and is marked with a “ZEL-B” label. Because it’s an unfinished build, the prototype is different from the final FDS release in many ways. There’s no prologue or item list, for example. Most of the Second Quest dungeons are a mess. Some sprites are different. It’s fascinating to see all these differences and other internal tweaks – it gives a glimpse into the game’s history that would’ve been completely lost or unknown otherwise. There does exist another Famicom Disk System prototype. It looks very similar to the ZEL-B prototype, except its label says “ZEL-A” instead. Nothing much is known about this copy, except that it was likely bought by a private Japanese collector sometime in 2003. Fans believe it might be identical to ZEL-B or at least very similar, but ZEL-A supposedly lacked an introduction sequence as well.

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I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat. The answer is 'Zelba'

The proto is weird

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English Prototype Cartridge In 2012, a gamer made headlines when he put up an unusual NES Zelda cartridge for sale. The asking price? $150,000. Only a few details are known about this particular version. It features a yellow cartridge, a generic label, and some handwritten text that says “NOA COPY 2-23-87”. From this, it’s believed that this is a prototype English version of The Legend of Zelda, put together on February 23, 1987. Since that’s about six months before the North American release date, it’s likely that this cartridge differs from the final release. Internally, it appears this cartridge contains rewritable chips used for test purposes, so the game appears to be legitimate in that regard. Hmm, should I buy a house or should I buy a rare Zelda cart?

The cartridge was eventually sold to a private collector for $55,000. Currently, very little confirmed information is known about the game’s text and how it might differ from the final release. Lines of text from early parts of the game appear to be identical to the final release, at least.

NES Service Center Cartridges Yellow Cartridge Zelda is a mouthful, so let's call it Yelda instead. Images courtesy of Barry Falls Jr in association with retrochronicle.com

There are also a number of yellow NES cartridges with The Legend of Zelda label on them. These were never available to the public – they were actually used at Nintendo service centers to test and diagnose NES consoles. They’re quite rare, of course, so you’ll almost never find any for sale at a local shop… although it has happened before. Also noteworthy is that some test cartridges had holes drilled into them to keep them on a chain. Otherwise, customers might have accidentally left with these test cartridges in their repaired systems. Content-wise, these cartridges appear to be identical to the ordinary NES Zelda releases. Still, they’d be a neat gem in any Zelda collection.

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The Ports Come Together As we’ve seen so far, Japanese Zelda fans had a considerably different experience from fans elsewhere. Between hardware differences, text changes, multiple revisions, and more, the Japanese Zelda experience wasn’t quite the same as the English Zelda experience. By the time Nintendo began releasing ports of the first game in 2001, though, that situation had changed. Nintendo now had a more unified international network in place, which meant that almost every Zelda port in Japan received an equivalent Zelda port around the world. As Nintendo grew to embrace the international market, fans’ experiences worldwide began to unify a little more. But the differences found in the initial releases still live on to this day.

BS Zelda A special Super Famicom accessory known as the “Satellaview” was released in Japan in the 1990s. This add-on allowed players to download games and various types of media via satellite. The Satellaview system featured an upgraded, 16-bit take on the original Zelda game, colloquially known as “BS Zelda”. The title might sound funny at first, but that’s because “BS” has a very different meaning in Japan than it does elsewhere – it’s actually a common abbreviation for “broadcast satellite” or just “satellite”. BS Zelda was a little odd, because it wasn’t an exact remake of the game. For example: 

Link was replaced with the player’s own Satellaview avatar, meaning you play as an ordinary-looking boy or girl.



A timer system was implemented, allowing you to play for a certain amount of time only.



Real-time voice acting was implemented, using actual voice actors in a sort of “live radio broadcast” format.



The game was split across multiple broadcasts, so you’d need to wait for later broadcasts to be able to access certain areas and dungeons.



There were multiple maps, quests, and sub-quests.



The 255 Rupee limit was removed: 99,999 became the new maximum!

This thing looks like a Super Frankencom

So, although it wasn’t a true Zelda port or remake, and even though it was only ever available in Japan, BS Zelda definitely has its own unique place in Zelda history.

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Japanese Board Game The Legend of Zelda quickly grew too powerful to remain in video game form. Bandai released an officially-licensed board game in Japan in 1986, the same year the video game debuted.

This game box is actually deceptively small, about the size of a frozen Lean Cuisine

This board game is a very detailed, faithful reimagining of the Famicom release. The game takes place on the actual map from the video game – even the dungeon locations are accurately placed. Players are tasked with traveling the world in search of the eight Triforce pieces guarded by eight evil boss enemies. Then the completed Triforce needs to be taken to Death Mountain, where the final battle with Ganon will take place. The first player to defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda wins. The board game is so detailed that it actually provides all sorts of tips about the video game, including enemy weaknesses, hidden locations, and how to access certain areas. The old people in the caves will give you items, and you can even play a money-making game. The board game truly is a sight to behold!

Sorry, old hint dudes. This board game teaches us everything we need to know

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North American Board Game A completely different Zelda board game, published by Milton Bradley, was released in North America in 1988. This version isn’t nearly as faithful to the original video game as the Japanese board game – instead, it features six “worlds” that players must traverse until they find the Triforce in the final world. Overall, it lacks the heart and sense of adventure that the Zelda series is known for. For example, uncovering the Triforce doesn’t even guarantee you victory – the winner is just whoever has the most hearts at the end of the game. For fans of the video game, this board game might be nice to own as a conversation piece. Unfortunately, it misses the mark in terms of atmosphere and fun.

A Zelda board game?! Awesome!

*Yawn*

Comparisons to Candy Land are not without merit, except Candy Land is fun

The only thing this game teaches is the difference between “board” and “bored”

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Wristwatch Game The first Legend of Zelda continued to jump to completely different formats after its initial video game release. One particularly interesting version was an LCD wristwatch, released by Nelsonic, that debuted in North America in 1989. The watch was more than just a watch – it contained a Zelda game! It was a very dumbed-down version of the original NES Zelda, but it was still an amazing thing to see at the time. It was only one of several Game Watch games released by Nelsonic over the years – other entries included Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and Star Fox. This particular Zelda game was only sold in North America and Europe – it was never given a Japanese release. In fact, its existence is often unknown or overlooked by Japanese fans, although the same could probably be said of most fans anywhere. This game takes very little from the original NES release. Enemies include “Bats” and “Iron Balls”. The sword can only be used eight times. The story is almost non-existent and filled with typos… which is surprising, because presumably native English speakers wrote its text. Do kids even play crappy LCD games anymore? Actually... do they even use wristwatches anymore?

I actually remember seeing a little bit of this game during school a few times. A friend had brought it in, but it was too hard to see anything, much less understand what was going on. In all honesty, it’s probably a pretty good game for an LCD watch, but as a game in general, it’s definitely an acquired taste.

Game & Watch Nintendo’s Game & Watch games were still alive and kicking at the time, so it’s natural that a Zelda Game & Watch was made. Many entries in the Game & Watch series enjoyed an international release, but for some reason the Zelda game was never released in Japan. The game remained a North American exclusive until 2002, when it was featured in Game & Watch Gallery 4 for the Game Boy Advance… but this never received a Japanese release, either. In a funny twist, though, the Zelda Game & Watch’s packaging boldly states “MADE IN JAPAN” while the manual says “PRINTED IN JAPAN”.

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This Game & Watch Zelda game is almost completely unfaithful to its source material. Ganon is no longer in the story – instead, Link needs to defeat eight dragons that kidnapped Princess Zelda. Enemies include “Goblin” and “Ghost”. Link uses a tomahawk as a weapon. These quirks aside, though, it is really impressive for a Game & Watch game. It manages to feature the gameplay and objectives of an actual adventure game, despite its limitations. It even includes a Second Quest of its own. Between the lack of a Japanese release and the bizarre game itself, it goes without saying that this Game & Watch game is one of the oddest entries in the Zelda series.

I’m waiting for the 3D remake

Mini Classics A port of the Game & Watch Zelda game was released around the world as part of the “Mini Classics” series. This series began in 1998 and featured many of the original Game & Watch games in a much smaller, Game Boy-shaped form. The series is a bit confusing because different companies released different games in different regions over time, often with different packaging. This particular Zelda game is basically the same as the Game & Watch release… but it again failed to be released in Japan. ALL TIME HAPPENS AT ONCE language is a human invention of an evil cubeless singularity

Yes, despite its design, this is an officially licensed product

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GUIDES & MORE Guides and magazines play a big role in a game’s experience, too. Sometimes they stir the imagination before you’ve played a game. Sometimes they’re essential to progressing through a game. And sometimes they reveal reasons to explore a game a second time. Let’s take a quick look at what Zelda guides shaped experiences inside and outside of Japan!

Japanese Guides The “Famicom boom” of the 1980s quickly grabbed the attention of the Japanese publishing industry. These companies jumped at the chance to produce strategy guide books for almost every game imaginable – which in turn produced a strategy guide gold rush of its own. As a result, popular games like The Legend of Zelda wound up with dozens of strategy guides, all with their own unique illustrations, maps, and tips. This flood of Zelda guides was truly something to behold.

Japanese Magazines Of course, there was no shortage of game magazines in Japan, either. The sheer number of competing publications kept a constant deluge of Zelda content flowing for years after its release. Japanese magazines were also notorious for printing fake tricks to fool everyone. This one explains how to get the ultra-powerful Master Sword in the Second Quest

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North American Guides Unlike Japan, North America received very few Zelda guides. The most common guide was an official release called Tips & Tactics. Beyond that, fans had to suffice with a few pages of coverage in some official Nintendo guides. Even more desperate fans had to resort to a bland, unofficial guide. “Excuse me, sir. Is Havel down here?”

True fact: the red water sections in dungeons are actually rivers of blood. The Official Nintendo Player's Guide says so... twice!

North American Magazines The Legend of Zelda was featured in North American magazines too, but mostly in Nintendo Power and its predecessor, the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter. Both were very popular and often showcased new information about the game. As a result, most English-speaking players relied on magazines for gameplay tips rather than actual strategy guides. Ultimately, it seems like Japanese gamers might’ve had a richer experience in terms of guides and magazines. With so many different Japanese publishers creating their own books with their own unique art and information, it was almost a golden age of sorts. Why didn’t this same situation happen outside of Japan, though? I believe that because The Legend of Zelda was released so far into Japan’s Famicom boom, there was already a huge, thriving market for video game guides. In contrast, the market in North America was still coming out of the “video game crash” from a few years earlier, so there wasn’t a large demand for such things at the time. Basically, the conditions were perfect in Japan, but not so hot elsewhere. There were surely many other factors, though.

BE YON D T H E GA M E

I honestly associate this cover with Zelda much more than Mario 2

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COMMERCIALS & MORE Videos seen on TV and elsewhere are another big part of the whole gaming experience. Let’s take a peek at some of the Zelda-related videos from the time of the game’s release.

Famicom Disk System Promotional Video The Famicom Disk System was poised to take Nintendo games to new heights, and The Legend of Zelda was going to lead the way. So it was only natural that Zelda was one of the highlights of a lengthy promotional video for the FDS. It was such a focal point, in fact, that Nintendo splurged on some fancy artwork, animation, and voice acting to accompany the Zelda portions of the video. This promotional video was probably only presented to retailers or shown in certain game shops. Even so, this video somehow left a lasting memory for many Japanese gamers in the ’80s.

Famicom Disk System Commercial #1 Japanese commercials are somewhat notorious for being silly and crazy, but they were a lot simpler back in the 1980s. The Famicom Disk System had a nice, plain, straightforward commercial as well – it politely introduced the system, explained what it did, showed off scenes from The Legend of Zelda, and then gave the system’s price and release date, all in under 30 seconds. No frills and no catchphrases, just the facts.

Famicom Disk System Commercial #2 The Legend of Zelda was highlighted in a more standard commercial that featured a TV personality and a popular child actress. These two appeared in many of the Famicom Disk System commercials, and in this particular one they showed off how difficult and frustrating it is to play Super Mario Bros. 2 and The Legend of Zelda. The commercials even included small animated bits of Mario and Link chastising the two for playing so poorly! No joke, Link literally says, “You suck!” in this commercial

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Basically, besides the gimmick of a man and a girl screeching at each other, the commercial really played up the “Famicom Disk System games are so much more massive and thus more difficult than ever” angle. Overall, it was a nice and charming piece of promotion.

NES Zelda Commercial #1 In North America, television viewers were introduced to The Legend of Zelda by two different, unique commercials. The first involves a nerdy kid and a cool kid sitting in a room, ogling the latest Nintendo newsletter. The nerdy kid decides to turn on The Legend of Zelda… and then begins one of the most infamous rap songs of all time. “It’s the Legend of Zelda and it’s really rad

Of ALL time

Those creatures from Ganon are pretty bad Octoroks and Tektites, Leevers too

But with your help our hero pulls through

Yeah, go Link, yeah, get Zelda”

NES Zelda Commercial #2 A much darker and weirder North American Zelda commercial featured a mentally unstable man running around shouting for Zelda and screaming enemy names at nothing. It was truly bizarre.

Zelda Cereal Commercial Gamers in the United States were treated to an experience that Japanese gamers missed out on – a Nintendo-themed breakfast cereal! In 1988, Ralston Cereals began selling boxes of “Nintendo Cereal System”, which came with two bags of cereal inside. One bag was Super Mario Bros.-themed, and the other bag was The Legend of Zelda-themed. The commercial for the cereal is considered a classic piece of 1980s weirdness.

Fun fact: this is actor and comedian John Kassir. He was the voice of the Cryptkeeper, Buster Bunny, and a donkey in The Simpsons.

Animated Series A Legend of Zelda cartoon was produced for North American audiences in the late 1980s. Zelda was occasionally featured in the separate Captain N cartoon series as well. Japanese fans were never treated to an animated version of Zelda, unfortunately.

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Fi n a l T houg ht s A s we ’ve s e e n , T h e L e g e n d o f Z e l d a ‘s lo c a l i z at io n he lp e d p u s h v ide o g a me lo c a l i z a t io n f o r wa r d a s a whole… b ut it a l s o s t u m ble d a lo n g t he way. He r e a r e my g e ne r a l t ho u g ht s o n wh a t t h i s c l a s s ic m a n a g e d t o ac h ie ve .

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Although it was an early game, it’s clear that Nintendo put a lot of work into bringing the first Zelda game to English-speaking players. Everything from attempting to improve upon the original script to ensuring the English manual was a part of the experience to modifying the game to use a battery, it’s obvious a lot of work was put into the localized release.

My original online comparison project was a very simple affair - just a game and some pieces of paper

After working on this book, I now have enough stuff to open a Zelda museum!

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That said, this was one of Nintendo’s first serious game localizations, and it shows: garbled English, nonsensical new text, inconsistency issues, and more. It’s actually fascinating to dig into each Zelda game’s localization because it paints a picture of Nintendo’s approach to localization over time. The company’s localizations improved with each passing game, almost as if it were “leveling up” in a video game. Who knows, maybe we’ll take a look at more Zelda localizations in future books like this. Although the localization did have some issues, what matters is that most English-speaking players were able to wholly enjoy the game, and in that regard the localization was a success. Not only that, many of the translation and localization choices made for this first Zelda game laid the foundation for the rest of the series. The localization staff probably had no idea how big the series would become, but I’d like to think that the localizers’ efforts on the first game helped it to bloom. The fact that so many lines in the text remain memorable to this day – for better or for worse – is proof of this.

We’ve taken a deep look at The Legend of Zelda‘s localization. I hope it’s been fun and educational, and that it’s enhanced your appreciation of this old classic. Even if you aren’t a fan of the original game, my goal was to provide interesting insight about the game and about localization in general, so hopefully it still proved interesting. Now I'm doing business stuff and working with a team and holding meetings and doing photo shoots!

For instance, imagine the localizers had said, “Meh, this manual is too much work and English speakers wouldn’t fully appreciate it anyway. Let’s just make a 5-page, bare-bones booklet instead.” That choice would’ve drastically changed the experience for many players.

Admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot of text in this first Zelda game, so for a long time I didn’t think it would make sense to write a book on the subject. My original comparison was an online project that amounted to maybe 80 pages or so. By digging into the other aspects of the game’s localization, such as the manuals, the games’ histories, and related releases, I realized I could show how game localization doesn’t just start and end with the game itself – it goes so far beyond that. It genuinely is that way in the industry, too. I regularly receive job offers to translate game manuals, guides, ads, and other materials that aren’t a part of the games themselves. Game localization is a lot of work.

Fans have an amazing power and wisdom. It's my dream that maybe, someday, Nintendo will do something along these lines too

My biggest surprise after posting my Zelda comparison online was seeing my work quoted by fans all over the world. It’s been cited in other books, academic journals, and there are even fans working to revise the original game’s translation, based on my work. I’ve also made many friends and received countless kind messages from fellow fans over the years. Somehow The Legend of Zelda is magical, whether the game is turned on or off.

FINAL THOUGHTS

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Upd ate Patc hes T he Z e l d a s e r ie s i s a lway s c h a n g i n g , a nd I ho p e t o s h a r e ne w i n f o r m a t io n a s I f i nd it . T h a t ’s why I ’ve le f t t he f ol lo w i n g pa g e s o p e n f o r “up d a t e pa t c h” s t ic ke r s . K e e p a n e ye o ut f o r t he m o n t he o f f ic i a l L e g e n d s o f L o c a l i z a t i o n s it e !

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PAT C H v 1 . 0

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PAT C H v 2 . 0

U P DA T E PA T C H E S

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PAT C H v 3 . 0

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PAT C H v 4 . 0

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F U RT H E R R E A D I N G If you enjoyed this look at the first Zelda game and still crave more, I’ve got just the sites for you! Video Game Chroniclers If you’d like to read more of my Legends of Localization work, definitely check out the full site at legendsoflocalization.com And if you like obscure video games and video game history, here are some other amazing sites to visit online.

The Cutting Room Floor  tcrf.net Discover tons of unused content hidden throughout your favorite video games. One of my favorite sites of all time! Tiny Cartridge  tinycartridge.com Tiny Cartridge provides video game news and info in a fun way that reminds me of the old days of Nintendo Power. Great stuff! Unseen64  unseen64.net Explore the history of your favorite video games, including beta content and games that never saw the light of day. The Gaming Historian  youtube.com/gaminghistorian Learn all about key moments in video game history in an entertaining and honestly informing way. Lost Levels  lostlevels.org Lost Levels is brimming with amazing articles and exclusive interviews about video games that were never released. GlitterBerri’s Game Translations  glitterberri.com GlitterBerri regularly shares fascinating info found only in Japanese articles and magazines. She even translated Hyrule Historia!

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Zelda Websites If you’re a fan of the Zelda series and would like to read and discover more, here are some great resources that I personally recommend.

Zelda Dungeon  zeldadungeon.net A fun site run by super-enthusiastic Zelda fans. Lots of neat information and helpful walkthroughs. Check it out! Zelda Universe  zeldauniverse.net This popular, long-running Zelda website features all the latest Zelda news and inside info that fans hunger for. Zelda Wiki  zeldawiki.org If you’re looking for Zelda series information, this is the place. It even covers the most obscure Zelda topics, like Charles of Moria and Great Wimbich. Zelda Informer  zeldainformer.com Zelda all day, every day! This enormous Zelda site features a popular podcast, a constant stream of Zelda news, and interesting articles. Gannon-Banned  gannon-banned.com Get your Zelda facts straight! Don’t get Gannon-banned!

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SPECIAL THANKS So, so many people helped this book enter our universe. My eternal thanks to everyone who helped, including these kind souls. You are the Triforce of Friendship! Lindsay & Dan Moore

Katsuyuki Ohmuro

Christopher Warriner

Cody “lilty” Hutt

The amazing people at The Cutting Room Floor

Sam “Jesta” Geden

William Olewinski Jack & Jenna Kevinchai Nat Guy Carl F. Frank Cifaldi Gideon Zhi ItchyD Tonch GlitterBerri Killer Bob Jason M. Darien Sumner Mike Evans Steph Campos Audrey Waner Amanda Johnson Ryan Novak Brent Long Laura Wilson Ahmar Rana Kari Fry Charlie Verdin McDonald’s ice coffee black Adil Mohyuddin

Patrick “Bouvre” Collier Vid Strickland Coolfizz Daniel Linn Nick Mulligan Mark MacDonald Xkeeper Ian Albert Brent Adams Batteries Plus Bulbs James Rolfe theredpikmin PaylessImages MC Andrew Martin Poemato CX fans! If you’re reading these, you get 50 Tomato Points! The folks behind Project 64 (pj64-emu.com) Josef Blom Yashichi Super Potato TV- GameKan Field Notes So many people on Twitter who investigated with me! And you! Write your own name here!

Jeremy Parish

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UPCOMING

COMING SOON

LeGends

of

L o c a l I Z at I o n

Book 2: EarthBound With a script by a famous Japanese writer and a game overflowing with Western pop-culture influences, EarthBound stands out as one of Nintendo’s most fascinating localization projects ever. Get ready for hundreds of pages filled with surprising revelations, inside information, and universal cosmic destruction. This legend of localization doesn’t stink!

UNDER CONSIDERATION Zelda II: The Adventure of Link A lot of work was put into The Legend of Zelda‘s localization, but Nintendo took Zelda II‘s localization to a whole new level. MOTHER 3 My Legends of Localization series usually has me writing about other translators’ work… but now this is my chance to write from the other side. Final Fantasy My current Final Fantasy IV comparison would literally be thousands of pages long… so maybe I should start with a simpler game first? The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time The challenges of this epic Nintendo 64 game pushed Nintendo’s localization skills to an all-new level. But what hidden secrets lurk deep inside its text?

Pokémon Without a doubt, I could write 151 books on the Pokémon series. Rapping not guaranteed. Super Mario Bros. I’ve already written a lot about this first game… and I’d love to write even more! Shadowgate Shadowgate is considered one of the worst games ever in Japan. I want to share why. Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind What could possibly have gone wrong when this classic was localized into Japanese?

UPCOMING

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