Non-English Titles in Video Gaming

[Ian Gillseed]

I notice the Japanese/English issue in Soul Calibur II is drawing some comment right now, but what I'm really wondering about is the title trend.

I seem to recall Squaresoft releasing a shooter titled Einhander a few years back. There are some other titles in German as well. Now in the new issue of EGM they're reporting that the next Xenosaga (or Xenomovie, if you prefer) will sport the sub-title, "Jenseits von Gut und Bose" (Byond Good and Evil).

What's up with that? Is it a Japanese thing? I notice they seem very interested in other languages there and they love to use them, whether it makes sense or not. Or is it legitimate to use German here for some reason I can't see? It just seems weird to me, mainly because it's so specific to video games. You rarely (if ever) see an American movie using a title with other languages in it. Yet they do it on games with nary a thought.

[Linear Helix]

Foreign languages ALWAYS have an innate coolocity about them. What's a horror movie without Latin chants? What's a fighting game without some bad-ass Japanese-named moves?

Frankly, however, it gets ridiculous when Nationality X uses every language but its own in any work.

[Rince]

Actually the German titles in those two games make total sense: Einhänder had one hand in which he held his extra weapons, thus "One-Hander".

The sub-title of Xenosaga was discussed here earlier and implies ties to literature, maybe Nietzsche.

Japanese like the Germans, that's why they use those German phrases. Did any of you play Dracula X (PC Engine CD) or Einhänder in Japanese (!) - the SPEECH in there was all GERMAN!

My jaw dropped in the early 90's as I inserted my precious Dracula X into my Duo and heard the German voice speaking a perfect intro.

Then next my jaw dropped when I got my imported Einhänder and all the taunts of the enemies were in German, and good one at that.

Also, the first big advertising plate in the first level of Einhänder was really funny, that made NO sense.

It showed:
"Leben?"->"Sterben?"->"Volksgasmaske!"
"Live?"-> "Die?" -> "Mass-Gasmask!" (<- not directly translatable to english, it means a gasmask for all people...)

Then, in history of the PC Engine especially, there were MANY games with German subtitles or even, in one case, a whole game being just called "Faselei", which means "Gibberish" if you translate the meaning. And it had NOTHING to do with gibberish. ;)

"Wachenröder" (PC Engine, almost Front Mission-like Gameplay) or "Schwarzschild" (also a strategy title) on Mega CD were also german titled games.

It's just that they like the sound of our language, that's what I read at least.

[Timberwolf]

I remember there was german in the opening of .hack//infection as well. That's a good point. I don't really mind, whatever floats their boat I suppose.

[Ian Gillseed]

"Schwarzschild," eh? Hee hee...that sounds kind of dirty in English! Then again, I'm a total pervert so "good morning" makes me giggle. :)

[Sitorimon]

lol, well think that most rpg games contain utter gibberish as names and such anyway so why not extend it to titles?
We English are so lazy when it comes to languages, we make all the other countries learn our language, and we dont theirs lol

Sitorimon

[Zephyrin]

I personally don't mind things like that when the majority of it is proper nouns. But the Xenosaga example...that's too much. There's no way for me to know what the phrase means, so it's existance means nothing to me. Names I can handle, but speech, writing, and phrases don't exactly do me any good.

[Rince]

It would be cool if they made all their games german, so I could understand them and not having to wait for the localisations, if ever they come anyway!

The Xenosaga titles are tied to literature, Zeph. I guess somebody at Namco had a reading session with some literature greats like Nietzsche and some other big guys of the old school, and incorporated their writings into the Xenosaga.

"Der Wille zur Macht" -> The Will to Power
"Jenseits von Gut und Böse" -> Beyond Good and Evil

Hack// is a classic nerdy RPG where they wanted to input some style. Thus, German comes in handy for the Japanese. If you put it to JAPANESE language, there's even more German in the game.

Anybody remember Herzog Zwei for the Mega Drive?
Not only was it the first Real Time Strategy game (before Dune!), but it was the first Mega Drive (Genesis) game which had a german title.

[Ian Gillseed]

Hey yeah, translate "Herzog Zwei" for us, Rince. Always wanted to know what the hell that means.

[Eight Rooks]

"Duke Two", according to Babelfish. "Twin Generals" or something? :D

[Rince]

Yep, that's it. Duke Two. Doesn't have any meaning. However, there was a "Herzog" on some Computer System available from TechnoSoft, so it figures that they went to the logical conclusion of "Zwei" with the sequel.

[Ian Gillseed]

Hmmm...that doesn't quite explain why the first one was called "Duke" in German, but yeah, I guess I see where the sequel's title came from.

Now what about the Panzer Dragoon games? Isn't "Panzer" German?

[Zephyrin]

Are these titles referring to some popular literature titles that I'm unaware of? I've never heard of the titles before, myself.

[Rince]

I think they refer to famous quotes from aforementioned literature. As I'm not that heavy into old lecture I don't know for sure, but I think somebody told me that it referred to Friedrich Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". It's a seemingly famous work of him.

Look here:
http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/bge.htm

Panzer is German, that's right. I don't know why the english don't use their "Tank" for describing German war machinery, but I hear Panzer every so often in every war game over there. Seems the cult lives on. Also, they seem to fall in love with "Luftwaffe" (which is our Air "Force").

[Grass-eatin'me]

Zwei!! is a well known game. Try to think of a game entitled 'Two!!'; it sounds boooooring. But then it is 'Zwei!!' it sounds fuUn

I think they only want the names to sound more original, or fun. Remember that many Japanese's DO understand english (writing/speaking in it is another......thing...:p). And that is why such funny names like Zwei!! is used, I guess.

makes me think about the classic wolfenstein 3d. the guards there talk in german.

[Ian Gillseed]

Yeah, but if you play it on the snes, you can't kill any dogs. :(

oops, I mean hunds.

[Zephyrin]

Originally posted by Rince
I think they refer to famous quotes from aforementioned literature. As I'm not that heavy into old lecture I don't know for sure, but I think somebody told me that it referred to Friedrich Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil". It's a seemingly famous work of him.

Look here:
http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/bge.htm

Panzer is German, that's right. I don't know why the english don't use their "Tank" for describing German war machinery, but I hear Panzer every so often in every war game over there. Seems the cult lives on. Also, they seem to fall in love with "Luftwaffe" (which is our Air "Force").

Whatever it is, Rince, it obviously doesn't appear Japanese, and if you were following me, that doesn't justify the Japanese title. They took some literary book title and translated it and stuck it in the title of an American release? Tell me again the purpose of this?
If I knew Japanese, I'd be sure to make plenty more stupid foolish examples of this title fad.

[Eight Rooks]

What's the purpose of it?

Put very crudely...

Because Monolith want the story in the game to be associated with these weighty literary themes, and people who've heard of/read Nietzsche think of him as "oh, that German guy who wrote all those scary books about Man and Superman and has that quote about looking into the abyss and God being dead". Ergo people will look at a title which has a pretentious German phrase in it and consciously or unconsciously think "ooo, it must be big and important and be talking about important things like that Nietzsche guy talks about". If they printed it in Japanese, the reaction would be more along the lines of "what's that mean? 'Will To Power'?... oh, right. Hmmm". Or if they put it in English it wouldn't have that same gravitas for some people.

Sure, you don't think along these lines, Zephyrin. * shrugs * Many people don't. I don't entirely, though it still gets something of a reaction out of me (though in this case I hate Xenogears et al, so it's sorta wasted on me...). But particular markets are influenced by that sort of thing, not just the Japanese; they may be keener on it, but Namco could have changed the title if they thought it'd be lost on the West.

As I said, I acknowledge that essentially it's stupid, but I still can't help but react i.e. "ooo! German! It must be big and clever!" etc. a little... Sorry. Why do I have two lines of some Eastern European language in my sig? Why don't I just put it in English? (It's lyrics from a song.) I like the way it sounds, I like the way it reads... and it carries a feeling of being different and special because it's, you know, not in English. Sure, I'm - at least in part - being an idiot, but it works for me. * shrugs again *

[Rince]

I think Eight Rooks nailed it down: It implies something bigger and makes people LOOK. That's the whole damn reason I can see.

It is well known that Germany had in its renessaince and recent past some very great writers, who's works have to be read in school up today. Like England had it's Shakespeare we had our Goethe, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann and other literature greats. God, in today's standards nobody would select their works above watching one hour of "Star Search" here, but there still are some people who read it and want to understand it (or pretend to).

And second: Yes, it sounds cooler if German is spoken by persons who can't pronounce a decent "ü" or "sch". It makes us giggle.

[Ian Gillseed]

Don't tempt me, Rince. I'll record another bad German mp3!

[Grass-eatin'me]

Originally posted by Ian Gillseed
Yeah, but if you play it on the snes, you can't kill any dogs. :(

oops, I mean hunds.

That doesn't matter, german dogs can't speak any better than german mice.

[Rince]

I have the impression that some of the american developers seem to THINK that any even remotely German person (i.e. their "Schaferhund" possibly) can do the voice overs in any nazi flick they might come up with. Hence I laughed my ass off when hearing the Wolfenstein original voice overs.

"Ah Eva Braun, mein Leben!" just made no fukking sense when the bad Hitler Robot died.

Also, americans wanting to rephrase "Was ist los?!" and "Achtung!" are funny as hell. The best phrase however is "Schweinhund!" which just nails down the understanding of German from 90% of the american public, possibly 99%, counting out those emigrants who have a Schaferhund for past's sake.

And Ian, I think recording MP3s isn't the worst thing an american has ever done to us! Go ahead! ;)

[Grass-eatin'me]

I've found a guide at good old GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com)


Hehehe, I love those voices. *goes off to record mp3s*

Edit: I forgot to tell what this txt actully is. It is all the voices from all the characters of WolfenStein 3D. (sorry, Ian. Neither the dogs, nor the mice are included :P)

[Eight Rooks]

Weeeeeell... I think you're reaching if you're looking for Wolfenstein 3D to "make sense", Rince... :D

How are the voices in Return To... from your POV? ;)

[Linear Helix]

Rince:
(i.e. their "Schaferhund" possibly)
SHOFF-air-hoont, ja!?

[Rince]

More like "Shaver-hoond", LH, jawoll.

And I like the voices too, guys. As in all things, I try to find a sense in this, senseless as it may seem. Though through a Germans eyes and ears we must've been complete fools to lose the war. At least, that's what propaganda hammers into us.

The voices of RTCW were... WIERD again. Either they just need to use REAL Germans for doing those voices (like they did a REALLY good job in Medal of Honor, those were top notch!), or rather make-believe that we all talked english, so our threats and taunts would be understood by the allies. But not this mixed up make believe german. That's for the (m)asses.

May the Weisswurst prevail forever! Heil Weisswurst!

[Linear Helix]

Darn!

Hile VICE-verst, PLEASE?

[Rince]

You got 56%!

"Hile ViceVurst!"

[Linear Helix]

That's exactly what I said. So I get at least a 98%.

Oh, and uh-- how about them non-English titles in video gaming? Yeah.

[Rince]

Non-english titles in Video Gaming? One Word: Großartig!

Seems we've pretty much covered all there's to say about it. Or have we?

[Linear Helix]

Gross are tick!

Yes, I believe that it (German at least) has been discussed thoroughly.

At least I haven't seen any games try out Al Bhed concepts recently.

[Ian Gillseed]

Well, I got around 30 posts out of the thread, so I'm pleased with it. :)

Keep those threads a-comin', people!

[Ogni]

I was just playing PhantasyStarII (yes I beat PSI :yes: ) and got to thinking, there are quite a lot of games with german words in it:

Einhänder
Xenosaga: Der Wille zur Macht
Xenosaga II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
Panzer Dragoon Zwei

k, quite obvious.

Now here is what I found in PSII: Ryker (the to get back to town) is very similar to the german word for return "Rückkehr" (spoken very similar) and to get out of a dungeon, the technique is called Hinas similar to "Hinnaus" german slang for "get out"....

Just some thoughts, while I wait for closing time.... man work sure sucked today.
So please don't flame me if this thread is kinda odd...

[Shin ATMA]

The main guy behind the Xenogears/Xenosaga story, has something with the German language, he said that in an interview a looong time ago. If you see a lot of characters and even the mechs and airships have German names. But clealry he is obsessed with German just like Mamoru Oshii (Avalon, Ghost in the Shell) is obsessed with his dog.

But yeah I guess the language does bring some style or feelings to a game if they use like German names for something (it could be also other languages like Japanese or Spanish or anything besides English)..just like some guys go crazy if they hear a girl called Alana was looking for them instead if it was Britney was looking for them.

[Ian Gillseed]

For more reading on this subject:

http://www.slightlydark.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2011

[Linear Helix]

I was searching around for that thread, Ian, but I couldn't find it. I thought I was going crazy.

[Anemic Boy]

No big deal, I merged the threads.

[Rince]

Yeah, we've been discussing this.

Japanese were obsessed with the Germans for a long time and vice versa. Our cultures match in many ways, believe it or not. They like how we work and we like how they work, so no big mystery there. They also like the sound of our language somehow.

By the way: Hinaus is written with one "n" only, Ogni! Don't make us look like fools, willya? ;)

I'm only saying that in the good olden times of the PC Engine (Cough, cough, hack hack, oh my backside!) there were a load of odd-named games.

My all-time favorite is "FASELEI", just very very funny German word - they seemed to like it back then.

Also, we had the "Götzendiener" Soundtrack here as a hosted release, remember?

There's loads and loads of other examples.

Best thing in Einhänder by the way was that in the Japanese version (I don't know about the US version, I only have the Jap one) there was perfect German voice-acting in game, which made my jaw drop, like it did back then when I inserted the PC Engine Draclua X and it had a perfectly spoken German intro... wierd I tell you!

[Ogni]

In Jet Set Radio you could hear an original german cigarette commercial sampled in a song. ("Wer wird denn gleich in die Luft gehen? Rauch erst mal eine HB" tl> "who will freak out right away? First off, smoke a HB (brand)")
Don't know if they edited it in the other versions, but I loved it...

@Rince: My keyboard must have... well okay I confess, sometimes my english is better than my german. But nobody would have found out if you wouldn't have mentioned :angel:

[Shin ATMA]

Maybe this has been said as an excample already on a previous page, but the French (or Belgium) artists..known as "Mobues"(sp?) played a big role as an inspiration source for the Panzer Dragoon series. You can see some resembles in the arts of Panzer Dragoon and also when you finished one of them you see "Thank you Mobues"(sp?).

[Ian Gillseed]

Ah, I never knew that, Shin ATMA. Thanks for the info. Moebius is one of my favorite comic artists.

[Shin ATMA]

He's making a movie now or well he is definitely have some sort of a role in an upcoming movie. I think I still have the trailer on my laptop, need to host it or find the address where I found the trailer (I'll look for it when I have more time and i'll let you know). You could spot his work right away in the movie. He's dark futuristic world never goes unnoticed.