I’m surprised you didn’t mention Tomodachi Life. The European version had different box art, different script, different characters models, even the characters had different accents compared to the US one

I actually did miss a mark on a spelling test thanks to Game Boy 'Color', no joke.

It should also been kept in mind that many games use the same English title in all European countries, and thus the title should be easy to understand even for people with limited English knowledge. For example, "Universal Gravitation" can easily be understood as "gravitation universelle" for French speakers, "gravitación universal" for Spanish speakers, "gravitazione universale" for Italian speakers, "universelle Gravitation" for German speakers… Whereas "Topsy-Turvy" is not a well-known or recognisable word for non-English speakers.

You can tell its going to be a Jon episode cause the title is never anything anybody ever asked for and I love it!

5:11 An odd thing about Paper Mario Color Splash is that there WAS a localisation change. (Minor Spoiler?) One of the “things” in the game was a washing machine. The American version has the same washing machine as Japan, a model where clothes are loaded into the top. But for Europe and Australia, the washing machine is an ENTIRELY different model where clothes are loaded into the front. That also means when you first find the machine it is lying on it’s back. So the localisers where willing to provide entirely exclusive models to different regions...but not add one letter to the games title..

One of my favourite ones is the character Bryne in Spirit Tracks. Over here in the UK, he's called Staven. And the reason for this didn't know until recently: "In the EU English version, he is called “Staven”, which is derived from the BR Standard Class 9F 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive to be built by British Railways"

The game that blew my mind for English/English translation is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Among other changes like menu text, literally every single of the 500+ trophies has a different translation between regions, and I simply can't understand why they would go through that kind of effort.

While most English-speaking regions like Australia uses the NoE English localisation, there were times that the country uses the NoA localisation. In Australia, the DS Rhythm Heaven game was titled "Rhythm Heaven" like the North American name, and then the later games uses its European name instead.

Fun fact: the whole “Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry Series” sticker on the Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne box art was only a thing in the European version. It was also renamed to Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call for some reason.

One localisation difference that interested me was in Pikmin 3 where the UK dialogue implied Charlie had a crush for Brittany, whereas in America Charlie talked more about himself.

The difference between French and Canadian French localizations are also interesting, with sometimes use of Quebec slang

My favourite one is that in Paper Mario Colo(u)r splash, there is a scene with a washing machine, and in America it’s top-loading washing machine, and in Europe it has that circular door on the side.

Something that interests me is how the NoE translation of Miitopia, both 3DS original and Switch remaster, seems to have more fun with itself than the NoA translation. I could just give the comparison of NoA's "Sarcastic Guy" to NoE's "Sarky Bloke" but to elaborate a little, the NoE script lampshades tropes a little more often, engages in some sillier wordplay and likes to interject antiquated phrases contrasting the games' mishmash setting, it fits the vibe of the game a little better than the NoA translation.

Melody Motorway is SUCH a better name for the track that it's kind of shame the default is presented as Music Park

The changed vehicle names messed me up quite a bit in Mario Kart Wii. Everyone online raved about the Flame Runner and I couldn’t figure out how to unlock it! Turns out… it’s just the Bowser Bike!

One of my favourite examples of regional changes is in splatoon 2, where instead of the Vampires vs Werewolves splatfest, we got... Toilet paper in vs. Toliet Paper out. Im not joking

The Working Designs' US translations of JRPGs are full of '90s refrences that have really made them a part of their time. Loads of Wayne's World and Bill & Ted mannerisms Etc.

Mexican here, born and raised. The exact same thing happens with the Spanish language localizations. I think Spain had games in Spanish long before we had them here in Latin America. The first Nintendo game I can think of it's Pokémon Red/Blue, back in the year 2000 we finally got a Spanish translation, but it was the European version; even the cartridge had a different code: DMG-APAS-LTN. For me it was fun to been able to understand what the game was telling me... However there were some words that I've never heard nor read before. Six years later we finally got latin american localizations on games and they're quite different one from the other.

Glad someone else is talking about the disgraceful disappearance of "I'm using motion controls!", It's something I noticed right away after 8 Deluxe came out

You mentioned Ape Escape but failed to mention the best part part about Ape Escape 2. In the American version the main characters Jimmy and Natalie are voiced by the same people who did Ash and Misty in the pokemon dub. Strangely enough the American version is the only game in the series not published by Sony. Instead it was published by Ubisoft which is probably why the PSN version is the European version.

I remember playing the game World’s End Club and that game having both an American and British translation for the text but only an American translation for the dub so, as the game went on, more and more lines varied between the text dialogue and the spoken dialogue.

Thinking about how NoA localized the "This way" command in Splatoon 1 as "C'mon" which could be seen as condescending, like "c'mon, what are you DOING?" I didn't know until years later that it was supposed to be a "This way" command. Also, agreed with the British VAs in the Xenoblade series being the identity of the series. It's especially cool in America cuz we love fantasy settings with British accents. Plus... It's different. Non-American (English-speaking) VAs is interesting from an American perspective.

Layton games not only have the superior European names, but also the superior British VA. Namely Luke. Though I was surprised that in the Phoenix Wright crossover, all regions used the British VA for luke.

Honestly I wish NoE kept localizing Splatoon into english. Their script was less crazy but it kept the serious aspects of the story intact which became more and more important with the games going forward. KZfaqr Rassicas (forgot the name so correct me if I'm wrong) has some very good videos at how NoA's localization of Octo Expansion is just plain worse and makes a story that originally simply had political undertones way too politically charged.

Oh hey, I have one! On the PS1, there's a completely different voice actor for Gex in Gex: Enter the Gecko (or Gex 3D: Enter the Gecko). Gex also has completely different lines depending on the version.

Xenoblade X did have have an in-story reason for why it needed an American dub. But I'm glad they moved back for 2 and 3, the British subbing industry needs the work!

Another Code/Trace Memory is one where I've heard the European translation is preferred as NoA inserted a lot of humour that wasn't indeed. Especially important when considering a story driven game.

5:31 "You could have just put a U in there" Nintendo was saving all of those extra U's for the Wii U later on :)

They also double localize Spanish! For Spain and Latin América!

Not to mention that in Triforce Heroes, the Triforce never appears, so it doesn't make sense to call Link the Triforce Hero.

I know sometimes it seems like keeping the original Japanese is the way to go, but remember, when Nintendo picks the Japanese Name, they are picking something that *sounds marketable* in the Japanese language. "Universal Gravitation" might *flow* better in Japanese as a subtitle, and when a game's title is functionally part of it's marketing, localization can make the call to change things if the direct translation doesn't "flow" in the language it's being translated to. Cultures are different, and what works in different cultures is the job of localization. Sometimes they may make the wrong call, but you don't *notice* the right calls.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star had a completely separate translation too. I haven't seen them side by side, but I heard the UK translation is considered to be better. Personally, I'll never forget that Toad who called Bowser a "wally".

Even though it's technically not Nintendo, there were some changes between the NTSC-U/C and PAL English versions of Goldeneye. Aside from the obvious spelling changes, Q's Analysis for Facility no longer misidentifies the mines as Timed Mines. In the NTSC version, Q warns Bond that the mines will go off once they are placed, which is false; The mines you carry are Remote Mines and therefore must be manually detonated. In the PAL version, Q instead informs Bond to place the mines in a way so that all the targets are destroyed, or else if improperly placed, the mines won't take out every canister. The cancelled XBLA version appears to be using the PAL version as its basis, as it uses the PAL version Analysis instead of the NTSC version. However, the Xbox Game Pass version uses the NTSC-U/C version regardless of Region.

Wow, I didn’t even know about the motion/tilt controls thing, I always thought it was motion controls for all versions and they just changed it for the Switch version. I’ve been saying I’m using motion controls for years. The more you know!

I will always advocate for Melody Motorway being a way better name

While I'm impartial to most of these: Wario's Galleon is fantastic. Using Shipyard in NA has shades of "Sorcerer's Stone" because American kids are apparently not smart enough to understand "Philosopher's Stone".

still love how Layton games in Europe have the grammar things AND a different dub for Luke

Another thing with the Color/Colour thing is we use Colour in Canada yet almost always get the American version of games with their spelling.

I preferred when they did the separate localisations. I hate how now we just get the american english version, we need more british english in gaming. Also, apparently Spyke in Splatoon talks stereotypically british now??? He never did in splatoon 1 here in europe but now that we just get the american translation he does in the dlc. And its weird. He basically feels like a different character

In an English vocabulary test I wrote "colour" wrong because I didn't know the writing on my GBC was not British English. 😔

You forgot "Mario Party 8". In the board, "Shy Guy's Perplex Express", there's an event where Magikoopa casts a spell that contains the word "Spastic". However when the game was localized in Europe, initial copies contained that word, but were quickly recalled due to the word "Spastic" being a European slur against diasbled people. So the word was replaced with "Eratic".

The game boy color vs. colour thing actually tripped me up in school because my teacher and our workbook used British English, so it was "wrong" when I put color because of my beloved GBC D:

Here in Latín America Nintendo does an alternative localization for their games next to Spain for their most popular games, but Pokémon company doesn't and we hate the excesive use of slang from Spain

Whilst the process of relocalising for the same language may seem pointless, I do love a lot of these UK localisations more than their US counterparts. A game that was relocalised but not mentioned here is Fantasy Life. This was bizzarly a game that released in EU and AU before NA, and their scripts are another case of completely seperate localisations. Therefore there's a lot of differences, such as Flutter being unnamed in the NA version, Staffs being called Wands (Because NA don't know what a staff is apparently), location name changes and the Magician job being called Wizard as a few examples. There's also the DLC exclusive job titles being 'Demi-Creator' and 'Creator' in NA, but in EU their's no hidding and it's straight up 'God-In-Training' and 'God'.

It's like in the Wii era. A lot of Nintendo games (like Mario Galaxy 1&2) were translated in "Québécois" (French Canadian language from the province of Québec). :)

I think probably my favorite example of localization differences is Endless Ocean: Blue World, or in Europe, Endless Ocean 2: Adventures Of The Deep. First off, I think the name Blue World makes more sense as you explore the waters of each continent, though Adventures Of The Deep is probably referencing the end of the game. However, lots of names, phrases, and even species were changed as well. There was a KZfaqr named SkullKid3 who used to Let's Play the European version (as that's where he lived) which shows the localized differences.

Fun Fact: in German it‘s called „Rette die Krone!“ (save the crown!) instead of Find Mii or Streetpass Quest

The pronunciation of Duck Hunt fact made me chuckle. I never thought of that and will never unhear it

I didn't even know "tilt controls" was some meme. I sure do remember the motion controls line though. Played loads of that on WiiU. "I'll give it my best shot!"

One other thing is sometimes Nintendo outsources their localization instead of doing it internally. For example, Fire Emblem Awakening, Xenoblade X, and FE Warriors Three Hopes were all done by 8-4.

You could probably make a whole other video on this topic in regrets to offensive words between cultures having to be alerted. Like with Super Mario RPG. And there's also the recent petition in Latin American countries to localise their Spanish translations more as certain words and phrases from Spain don't land so well over there.

I wish more companies did proper British versions. Sucker Punch is great for it. The Sly games all used British spellings over here, and Ghost of Tsushima has a British English option for its subs too. In Jak 3, the Slam Dozer became the Ram Rod for some reason.

I really enjoy these videos that focus on the European gaming market! Most channels focus on the US

At least Europe got their revenge when Hot Shots Golf on PS4 was simply called Everybody’s Golf in all regions. So I’d say it’s worth it.

I remember as a child watching Americans play splatoon and then being shocked when I finally got the game and saw Cuttlefish saying ‘give ‘em hell’ in the first level in the British version

I like to headcanon that Music Park is the name of the full park-- while Melody Motorway is the specific road you drive on. That way the flags make sense.

Here's a fun thing: the version of Ape Escape 2 on North American PSN for PS4 is actually the British English version. At first I wondered why this happened (Ape Escape 1 has the North American localization on PSN) and I realized Ubisoft actually localized Ape Escape 2 and 3 in America, and Sony likely just slapped the PAL version (which they published) on there so they wouldn't have to pay Ubisoft

I don't know why I prefer the name Suckerfish over Squee-G in Splatoon so much, but I am still irritated that they went with that name going forward. I also prefer how Judd speaks in the UK version, I feel the dryness and lack of cat puns fits him much better.

There is a hilarious moment in EU/PAL 3DS Miitopia where a character says "it's just me, your mighty and infallible God" which they apparently removed in the US version since they thought using God's name would be taken in vain. So dumb.

Dragon Quest V didn't have a number either in Europe. It was only with DQVI and IX, when Nintendo took over the European publishing duties of Dragon Quest games from Square Enix that they started using the numbers in European releases. And even then, DQVI was called Realms of "Reverie" instead of "Revelation" here. :) But yeah, this stuff is so fascinating, particularly in cases like Kirby and Smash Bros where they even go out on their way to record new voices for the PAL english release. Konami did that with the Eledees/Elebits games as well.

As a fun fact, the Korean version of Mario Strikers Charged is called "Mario Power Soccer"

Hey Jon SO sorry but I will NOT be watching this video until the American localization is available. Thanks for understanding

I remember being surprised at how different Advance wars Days of Ruin was between the European and American versions

Splatoon 2 had the same thing in French too. The NA French and EU French were very different, even in the name of the weapons. I had to make a translation file because my team had players in both France and Quebec. For example, the Forge Splattershot Pro is "Liquéficateur pro Fusia" in Canada, and "Liquidateur pro griffé" in France. Or the Aerospray MG being "Pouche-pouche" in Canada and "Aérogun" in France.

As a non-English speaker by origin I have always found these differences fascinating.

Great video! This is a very interesting topic for me (I'm a translator) and I always like to see the differences in videogame localisation. Localisation gone wrong could also be a good topic to cover!

OK, most of this is logical enough. I do take issue with equating "Long Johns" to "Trousers". Long Johns are a specific type of long underwear (Worn when it's frickin' COLD), also called thermal underwear. They go UNDER clothes, if you're showing them off you're doing it wrong (unless your about to have a good time, and are in a very warm place (or a place that's about to BECOME very warm (*wink wink *know what I mean? *nudge nudge))).

In french, we say neither "tilt controls" or "motion controls" but "i'm using the gyroscope"

as a fellow european, glad to see more attention on this.

Thanks for making a video about that! The games having separate UK localisations were the primary reason why I wanted to import E region Wii U and gen 2 3DS consoles into Singapore to play instead of the U region consoles and games we got here!!! However, I never did as I didn't have much of an interest in gaming and couldn't afford to even get a 3DS and some games at the time! Then the Switch came out and it seems to have US English only, no UK English, at least in Splatoon and Animal Crossing, the first-party games I play the most on mine, and would try and translate the American nuances into British nuances, but that only works for comparison points I know about. I should really consider working on a series of blog posts and videos to help more people translate US English to UK English, but if I did, there'd be more of a focus on fiction books as I'm more of a bookworm than a gamer.

The fact that in the US version of Splatoon, Spyke was written as a cockney, but in the PAL version, he was a shady guy that, if anything, probably sounded more American than most other characters is so weird to me. And since we return to Inkopolis Plaza in the first DLC for Splatoon 3, seeing Spyke with the cockney dialogue feels like he's had an entire character rewrite.

my ability to correctly predict if it’s a Jon video so often means you’ve established your vibe so well that it comes through in the titles and topics you choose

Many of the differences between game titles in the US and UK was because of European trademark law. One name could be registered in one language, and any direct translation to another language would be covered by the same trademark filing. It will be interesting to see if Brexit changes that.

I have read about how many changes the European version of Luigi's Mansion 2 made to the English script! I also read that Sonic Battle made a bunch of little changes to the English script that already existed in the Japanese version...

Reminds me of how games have 2 spanish's Latin american spanish and european spanish (like spain)

I never knew how much I was missing this video from my life. Good work lads 🙌🏼🙌🏼

As an American I really much prefer the European localizations that are more accurate to the Japanese version. Even with Xenoblade X there is a lot of weird NOA changes that make the lore needlessly more confusing, and also removes religious references, Xenogears references, and the Turn A Gundam reference. Breath of the Wild is also infamous for having many localization issues thanks to NOA.

That was totally weird. I played Fantasy Life a month ago and later saw a video and I was really surprised that some jokes in the dialog were completely different.

It will never not annoy me how NOA came up with the wonderful name of the "Check Mii Out Channel" but NOE thought "Mii Contest Channel" was a better name

the list of different localised game names was interesting, because while with some i was well familiar (rhythm heaven vs rhythm paradise and pushmo vs pullblox for example), there were some i just had no idea were a thing until now, on both sides of the pond- my childhood copy of squeak squad was a rom on an r4 and i had no idea it was supposed to be called mouse attack here, and i also had no idea americans call streetpass quest find mii!!

I just started the video and I'm just at 0:33, but I can already say that Spanish speakers can relate. We, Latin Americans sometimes, receive Spaniard translations, and sometimes it's pretty unfair since Latin America is literally a bunch of countries in a continent, while Spain is literally just one country and they receive better language support, prices and customer support than all our Latin American countries.

Meanwhile in Australia we get a mishmash of EU and NA. Botw on Switch actually has the NA box art but the EU cartridge meaning the home icon doesn’t match up with the box art 😠

One of my favourite localisation changes is in Spirit Tracks, the four different quadrants of the world are called realms in the American version but lands in the European version. While the European version technically makes more sense as the term realm is typically used for areas far more separate to Hyrule such as the Sacred Realm or the Twilight Realm (Even the European version of Spirit Tracks still calls the final area the Dark Realm), it lead to the unfortunate consequence of one of the areas being called Water Land which is really dumb sounding.

Gotta love all the european Gaming content that Jon does :)

Finally, I’ve always wanted to see someone discuss this.

i've got a rather minor one, but flipnic on PS2 was given the subtitle "ultimate pinball" over in NA and our version changed the names of the theology stages to "evolution" also the NA version was published by capcom; the EU one was published by ubisoft, and the JP one by sony themselves

In Splatoon 1, Spyke was only outright British in the American version, Up on the D-Pad was “C’Mon” instead of Europe and Japan’s “To Me”/“This Way” or whatever, and Down on the D-Pad was “Booyah” instead of “Nice”. Because “C’Mon” kinda sounds like “Come on man what the hell”, many non-Americans playing with Americans dealt with “To Me!” in situations that didn’t apply at all. It also confused and split the American playerbase and the vagueness just sucked. Now, everyone gets “This way!” and “Booyah!”, which is much nicer

An interesting and important aspect of the splatoon 1 european localisation is the two in-game signals you can send to teammates. The american game offered "Booyah" and "C'mon", while the european had "Nice" and "To me", which are infinitely lamer at least imo.

Ain’t this a pretty good Jon episode? It is a good episode!

This may not be the right channel to talk about this, but Europe Spanish vs Latin America Spanish translations are different too. Like, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay different, from the script itself to names of places and characters, it's all changed, for every single game. And Nintendo's localization teams LOVE it. The only Nintendo games that don't have LA Spanish translations are the Pokémon games. That makes many Latin American players play the english version instead!

Usually non-English speaking regions in Europe get either the British titles or translations of those.

This video is adorbs! Very interesting and fun to watch!

This is so funny, literally 4 hours ago I was talking with an American friend about how Kirby Squeak Squad was called mouse attack here. I hadn’t even heard of the game before that, and here it used as an example.

German here, I only know Francis, the nerd chameleon from Super Paper Mario, is named Konrad in the German version. I heard this is in reference to the German Tech supply store Conrad... which is both weird and without citation, but I cant even imagine any other reason for the name change.

I remember that cool DSiWare game X-Scape (X-Returns in Japan) was called 3D Space Tank here in Europe, very creative.

5:19 haven't LOLd this much in a while haha! Thanks for that!

Something else is the DSiWare Express sample titles are called "A little bit of X" in Europe and I can't unhear Lou Bega's Mambo number 5 upon learning that

Nothing like a Jon vid to close the work week

Jon is so cool that now just listening to this intro music puts a smile on my face =)

While names are one thing, I think the actual differences in the in-game scripts are much more interesting. NoA seems to generally go for more of a natural-sounding and stylized approach, in comparison to NoE being more strict and direct with their translations (I bet NoE having to manage translations into multiple languages is indeed part of it). There is definitely some debate about NoA's stylistic changes straying a bit too far from the original Japanese (such as in Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion), but in general I feel the two aren't that far off from each other. There's always going to be a question of how to balance being a literal translation from another language (especially one like Japanese) and sounding natural and believable in English. At least it's interesting that due to NoA and NoE's differing styles, we get to experience two different balances in an official capacity, which most other situations (such as anime) we only get one official translation.