Dub Induced Plot Hole / Video Games

• Bionic Commando (1988):
  • The wiretapped conversation in Area 1 has the line "Commander, beware of the elevator". The Japanese version had a booby-trapped elevator on the left side of the shaft that would fall if the player stepped on it; this was Dummied Out in the North American version.
  • In the Famicom version, to reveal the underground passages on the map, you had to use a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on a POW in Area 17, whereas in the NES version you just swing over and talk to him. This hole was fixed in the remake.
• English releases of Bonanza Bros.^note except for the brothers' Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing profile, which reverted to the Japanese backstory claim the Villain Protagonist thieves are just testing security systems or helping police recover evidence. This doesn't explain why your character appears in prison clothes complete with ball and chain on the game over screen.
• Breath of Fire II has an island filled with giant monsters and two cameo characters from the first game. One mentions that he has found a weird stone and that when he holds it, he can see his bones through the skin. One of the monsters is called the A. Sludge. If you played the Japanese version, you find out that the A. in his name stands for Atomic! While the translation is technically correct, it doesn't explain much of why there are giant monsters on the island.
• Cannon Spike, an action shooting game featuring numerous Capcom characters, features an enemy named Fallen Balrog. The name was kept in the overseas versions of the game, despite the fact that he is based on the Street Fighter II character known as Vega in English.
• Castlevania: The Adventure: The English manual is pretty ambiguous about the game's setting and the protagonist's identity, never mentioning him by name. The print ads for the American version promoted the game as Simon Belmont's third adventure, following the original Castlevania and Simon's Quest. On the other hand, the Japanese manual is pretty clear in identifying the protagonist as Christopher Belmont, Simon's ancestor, who was actually mentioned in the manual for the first Famicom game. The game's sequel, Belmont's Revenge, would be more consistent with the Japanese setting.
• The American localizations of the early Contra games claimed that those games were set in the present, while the Japanese versions actually took place in the 27th century. This was mostly done since the games themselves didn't look very futuristic, taking place mostly in jungle environments and generic military bases. This didn't prove problematic until Contra III: The Alien Wars, which had a futuristic city as its first stage. To work around this plot hole, Konami simply claimed that the main characters in Contra III were not Bill and Lance, but their descendants Jimbo and Sully, and then scrubbed off the time stamps on the photographs shown in the ending sequence depicting Bill and Lance's previous missions.
  • Contra: Hard Corps had one of the biggest alterations to its narrative out of the series due to European censorship. Probotector, the European version of Hard Corps, changed numerous small details to make it appropriate for sale. Colonel Bahamut, originally a war hero turned villain (whose motivation changes depending on your route) is now an alien invader who has arrived to Earth to conquer it. Additionally, Deadeye Joe was remade as the "Alien Commander", who only appears in Chapter 1 and the Chapter 2 route where you chase him. He originally does appear in future chapters if he doesn't die in chapter 2, but he vanishes from the game from hereon despite his boss fights still being present (unmanned mech fights). Even the scene, where he saves the main character(s) out of a desire to fight them himself, was given to the Sky Police. Finally, Doctor Geo Mandrake is revealed to be working with Colonel Bahamut in Chapter 4, and will die to his own creation if fought, or will fight you in a mech/transformed into an abomination depending on which Chapter 5 route you take. In Probotector, he vanishes from the narrative after Chapter 2 whether you meet him or not, and his boss fights are still present, but they aren't explained (the Monster Genesis Machine operates without him aboard it).
• In the Disco Elysium scene involving the Pale Latitude Compressor, the Detective overhears a radio transmission of a "strangely familiar voice" telling someone else either that 1) they saw [the Detective], he's lost his mind, and is a shameless asshole, or 2) [the Detective] refused to stop to chat, he's lost his mind, and is a shameless asshole. Whether you hear version 1) or 2) of the scene depends on if you spoke to the Man With Sunglasses (Jean) and/or Horse-Faced Woman (Judit) in the Whirling, indicating that the speaker is supposed to be a radio transmission from one of the two, informing someone at the Precinct on the situation. In the original release, this line was not voiced. In The Final Cut, the line is voiced, but due to an directorial error the reference to Jean and Judit was not caught, and it is instead performed by a 1) woman with a London accent or 2) a man with a London accent for the beginning of the line, finished by the same voice take as in the first variant. Neither of these voices sound anything like Jean or Judit (who have distinctive French accents), so the scene comes off as nonsensical.
• The Final Boss of DJ Boy's console port is the same "Mammy" fought at the end of the first level, only now wearing ninja-gear. The International versions of the game changed the skin-tone of both bosses to look less stereotypical, but the skin-tones weren't consistent, with the Ninja-version having darker skin than the original.
• Drakengard:
  • The second game infamously confused The Grotesqueries with the God(s) due to confusion over what the term Nameless was referring to^note It originally referred to the Watchers, but the translation used it interchangeably with Gods, leading to a confusing "reveal" that actually seemed to outright contradict the first game, which suggested they were either minions of the Gods or something they had been holding back.
  • The third game has bosses called Angels... which would be fine, except that the entire rest of the series translated the same term as "Watcher" for fear of religious backlash, so this obscures a minor but crucial link this game has to the rest of the series.
• The NES version of Double Dragon III rewrote the game's plot for the English version in order, ultimately changing the final boss's identity from a resurrected Cleopatra to Billy Lee's girlfriend Marian possessed by an evil spirit. This creates a bit of a plot hole in the final stage, which takes place inside a pyramid. The room leading to Cleopatra's tomb requires the three Sacred Stones of Power that the player's party has collected up to that point in order to be unlocked. It's somewhat logical that Cleopatra was locked away thousands of years ago before the stones were spread around the world, but English version provides no explanation as to how Marian ended up locked behind a room that requires the three stones to be unlocked (or how she ended up being possessed by an evil spirit in the first place).
• Dynamite Headdy has a full story with dialogue boxes, all of which were completely untranslated and removed. The story of Headdy being a puppet and taking on Dark Demon is lost, and numerous characters were changed. Of the most egregious was Heather. A warrior woman trying to bring King Dark Demon to his senses. When you beat Dark Demon, it is revealed he is actually a medal named Smiley, who believed Heather told him he was the "greatest puppet ever". Heather reveals Smiley misheard her, as he is "The prize for the greatest puppet ever". Realizing he made a mistake, Smiley flings himself at Headdy to award him while Heather watches with an amused laugh. In the North American version, as there is no dialogue, Dark Demon turns into a tiny smile, and rather than the medallion flying towards Headdy, Heather flings herself at Headdy in thanks.
  • The lack of dialogue also means both the keys and the reason for Headdy attacking the Theatre Owner who put on the play in the secret ending being also go unexplained, with Headdy just apparently attacking some random rich man rather than a calculated evil owner who wants to throw Headdy into danger just for more profit.
• In the Japanese version of EarthBound (1994), when Ness has an Out-of-Clothes Experience in Magicant, you can find a girl who is grossed out by his nakedness and calls him "dirty." The nudity was removed from the English version of the game, so Ness wears his pajamas instead... but the girl still exclaims "Fresh!"
• People who play the Game Mod Elona Plus in English might be confused at the term "Catsister" being applied to all human-animal hybrid characters regardless of species or gender. This is because the Japanese term is "Kemobito", which is closer to the trope name "Little Bit Beastly", a more accurate description. In the original Elona, the only NPC type in that race was the Younger Catsister, but the mod didn't change the translation when more varied characters were added.
• Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth:
  • Multiple characters have voice clips proclaiming "I won!" regardless of whether or not allies are present in battle.
  • A more major one occurs with relation to the game's setting and subsequently its ending. In the Japanese version, the game contains numerous implications that the game is set on a Terraformed Mars, including the presence of two moons, mentions of the world formerly being a "Red Planet", and several references to actual Martian geographical features. In the ending of the game, Arken, the creator and keeper of the Yggdrasil tree, elects to move on from the world to another that needs her aid. This world is then revealed in the ending scene to be the Earth of the previous Etrian Odyssey games. The English localization, however, removes any and all references to Mars from the script, and at points outright refers to the planet as "Earth"; this causes the subsequent ending reveal to make next to no sense.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The West lost out on a good cross-game Mythology Gag - Final Fantasy IV has a Knife item that deals the highest amount of Throw damage in the game, so later Final Fantasy games feature monsters called Tonberries that use a superpowered attack called Knife. Unfortunately, the original English translation changed the Knife to a Spoon for some reason, making the Tonberries inexplicable.
  • Final Fantasy VI:
    • A minor one, but in the original translation, Terra compares Sabin to a body-builder, and Sabin, a few lines later, refers to himself as a "bear", quotation marks included. This gives the impression he's describing himself as a different kind of bear... In the Japanese version (and the Game Boy Advance retranslation), Terra compared Sabin to Vargas's bears, which Sabin's remark was meant to be a response to.
    • The Never Say "Die" Bowdlerisation of the script makes Celes's suicide attempt confusing, since all the blocking and melodrama remains the same but it was awkwardly rewritten to be about how jumping off the cliff lets you 'perk up again'.
    • At one point it's possible to find either Relm or Shadow in a cave, depending on the choices you have made up to this point. The Japanese script didn't use a pronoun. The original English script used the pronoun 'she' - even if Shadow is the one you find, spawning a lot of conspiracy theories about Shadow being a woman. The revised English script fixes this by simply not using any direct pronouns.
    • Those who have played the Super NES and Game Boy Advance versions of the game will note a discrepancy in Setzer's motivations for helping the Returners. In the former version, he says "The Empire's made me a rich man." whereas in the latter he says "The Empire's been bad for business." This is the result of a mistranslation of an idiom meaning "business has dried up," which was misinterpreted as "gone up."
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • Why does Tifa suddenly panic after deciding to go on ahead of Cloud and Barret in the middle of the Shinra Building staircase? In the original Japanese, she squeals when she realises it means Cloud and Barret could look up her skirt, and then calls them perverts, and Cloud and Barret respond with confusion. In English, she sets off, then starts screaming for no reason and gives no indication of why. It might have been a slight Bowdlerisation, or a poor attempt at fixing a scene that admittedly turned Tifa out-of-character for the sake of a stock anime gag.
    • Poor translation turned Johnny into a completely incomprehensible character to people playing the game in English. In the original Japanese, he was a friend (possibly ex-boyfriend) of Tifa who grew up in the slums and who's jealous of Cloud for upstaging him. In English, he ends up a childhood friend of Tifa and (genuine) ex-SOLDIER who knew Cloud from his time in the unit, a position that throws up huge plot holes and makes no sense at all.
    • The poor translation also made the reveal scene that Cait Sith is actually Reeve nonsensical. In the Japanese version, in a panic, Reeve accidentally switches accents between his Cait Sith Kansai-ben and his normal speech while talking to Scarlet, and then again to Barret, which clues the party in that he's Reeve. In the English version, there is no accent switch, so Scarlet comments on Reeve speaking strangely for no reason when he's speaking normally, and Barret seems to figure out that Cait Sith is Reeve for no reason at all. The sloppy translation makes the scene in general hard to understand.
    • The English translation accidentally kills off Tseng when Elena attempts to get revenge on Cloud for 'doing my boss in like that'. In the Japanese, she'd accused Cloud of merely beating him up. Since Tseng was last seen unconscious and slumped in a building the main characters end up shrinking to pocket-size, and never appears in the game from that point onwards, it seemed logical he was dead, so many fans were surprised when Tseng appeared in the Compilation still alive and with no acknowledgement that this was unusual (unlike with Rufus, whose "death" was Retconned). This mistake, like many others, was corrected in script for the PC version of the game in which Elena states "You really got guts messin' my boss up like that!" However, the initial PC version was much less played than the PlayStation version, especially in its initial release.
    • The scene at the end where Cloud tells everyone "alright, everyone, let's mosey" isn't, as is commonly claimed, a "Blind Idiot" Translation - it's a solid attempt at a Cultural Translation of a scene where Cloud uses a weak Japanese verb to indicate that they should go and Cid gets him to change it to a stronger one. The problem comes in with the fact that the translator missed the fact that the scene was a Call-Back to a Despair Speech Cloud gives after Aeris's death, in which, after explaining that everything was hopeless and he shouldn't carry on, he says "let's go" in the same weak way. The translator mistook the scene for a comedy scene rather than a dramatic moment and localised it accordingly. This has the result of making Cid react like he's listening to Cloud say something he heard Cloud say before when Cloud only says 'let's mosey' once.
    • Due to a translation oversight in French, when you first arrive in Nibelheim with Sephiroth, Cloud asks him about his family. During Cloud's flashback in Kalm about the Nibelheim mission, Sephiroth tells him that his mother was Jenova instead of saying his mother's name was Jenova, causing players to become puzzled about why he doesn't seem too fazed about his mom being a headless mutant body in stasis only to freak out about it a few minutes later.
  • A minor example in Final Fantasy VIII, Zell continually tries (and fails) to get his Trademark Favorite Food from the Balamb Garden cafeteria. What his favorite food actually is, however, depends on what translation of the game you're playing (in English, it's hot dogs; in French, it's bretzels, which are similar to hot dogs; etc). Much later, during the Dance Party Ending, Zell is seen stuffing his face with a pile of what looks like dinner rolls. This is actually the punchline to a Brick Joke — in the original Japanese script, Zell's favorite food is a particular kind of bread. He finally got his hands on some!
  • Final Fantasy XIV: When Nael van Darnus was introduced in the game's original release, his/her gender was left unspecified in the Japanese version. Localization teams, however, chose to use male pronouns. Several years then passed before Nael finally appeared without a mask in the game's patch 2.2, revealing herself as a woman. This was first hastily explained by Nael having originally been male until "his" body was rebuilt by Bahamut into a female one for unspecified reasons. Two years later, Nael's story was retconned again into its current form: the real Nael died long ago, and his sister Eula had been posing as him ever since. An interesting feature of this example is that the miscommunication managed to sneak through even though the game was localized by an in-house team working in the same offices as the Japanese developers.
• Fire Emblem:
  • After Marth liberates his homeland of Altea in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, the people give him the title of "Starlord" in the Japanese version. The English localization changed this to "our star and savior", possibly for trademark reasons or because they thought the original sounded silly. This wasn't a problem at the time, but when Marth later appeared as a DLC character in Awakening and Fates he had his own personal class... named "Starlord" in Japanese. "Star and savior" doesn't work as a class name, so the localizations had to change this to "Lodestar", losing the reference to Marth's original games.
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (the one released as just Fire Emblem internationally):
    • This game is a prequel to another game that didn't come out in English. In particular, the game ends on what would appear to be an unexplained cliffhanger that was in fact a setup for the plot of the game that came before it.
    • In the Japanese version, the Tactician's affinity is determined by birth month and blood type; the English version excised the Personality Blood Types and uses only the month. This leaves the fact that there are units who are twins with differing affinity unexplained.
    • The English translation changed Lyn's age from 15 to 18, probably to reduce the odd implications of her as a Ms. Fanservice character. Which is fair... but they didn't change a line in one support suggesting her parents eloped sixteen years ago.
    • The localization changed Lloyd/Linus's weapon in "Cog of Destiny" from a Runesword to a Light Brand, likely to make them less difficult. The chapter's fortune-telling Hint System still mentions the boss wielding a "cursed, life-draining sword", however.
  • A somewhat complicated one. In the series, there are two kinds of "dragon" - the magical, intelligent, shapeshifting variety, called a manakete, and an unintelligent and unpowered variety that sees use mostly as a mount, called a hiryu ("flying dragon"). The English translation decided to go with "wyvern" for the latter variety to differentiate them: though they have four legs and therefore don't match traditional wyvern designs, the name has similar connotations of a dimwitted horse-sized dragon in Western fantasy, so it seemingly worked out. Then in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, they introduced the "Wyvern Knight" class, which rides a dragon that actually is a traditional wyvern, with two legs and two wings, and it's called "waiban" (an obvious transliteration of the English word). In Japanese, this makes sense; the wyvern and the hiryu look different and are named different things. In English, you wonder why they're both called wyverns when they're clearly not the same species.
  • The translation of Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance adds a line to Ike and Soren's A support that states that Greil helped Soren along with Ike, which not only makes Soren's loyalty to Ike specifically rather than Greil more confusing, but is also explicitly contradicted in a more detailed recounting of the event in question in Radiant Dawn.
  • In an unintentional swap of keywords, Rolf tells Tauroneo in their C support that his mom died and dad left his family. While this is already confusing because Boyd mentions his dad dying earlier (in an early info conversation), it's made clear in Radiant Dawn that Rolf's mom is alive and was the one who left the family while their dad was dying. In the original Japanese, Rolf's retelling of the events match up with the rest of the games.
  • One of Janaff's alternate death quotes is "Ike, please look after my son!" Janaff doesn't have a son, he was actually saying "look after the prince" (i.e. Reyson).
  • One that's become consistent throughout the series: Reyson in Path of Radiance has an ability simply called "Re-Move" in the Japanese version, which does exactly what it sounds like, allowing a character to keep moving after they've already done something. The English version changed this to "Canto", because Reyson is a singer, and a canto is a term for a sung section of a long poem. Makes sense, and it's a better name. Thing is, "Re-Move" had appeared in games prior to the translation, where it was a generic skill shared by all mounted and flying units. Later games reverted it to this status but kept the name Canto, despite it now being completely incongruous. (They could have changed it to something like "Vigor" or "Withdraw", but at this point the name has stuck.) In Fire Emblem Engage, "Canto" is renamed "Canter," as a term for a way a horse runs.
  • By a similar count, changing the name of the spell "Resile" to "Nosferatu" made a lot of sense when the first translated game had it be a dark magic spell. A dark Life Drain spell named after a famous vampire film? Makes a lot of sense, compared to a rather oblique reference to an obscure word meaning "to recoil." But in several prior games, Resile had been a light magic spell, and later games tend to alternate between it being light or dark. In the games where it's a light spell, this mostly leaves people very confused as to why you would name a light spell, and one generally used by good-guy clerics, at that, after vampires.
  • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has three examples involving gameplay changes in localization leading to story problems.
    • The first: if you promote Lucia to Trueblade during Part 2, her battle model will reflect the Traumatic Haircut she gets at the end of the part, before it's happened. This wasn't a problem in the Japanese version, because it wasn't possible to promote her to Trueblade until after Part 2. (There, you needed a Master Crown to promote to a 3rd tier class, and you didn't get any until Part 3.)
    • The second deals with the "More Merchants" base conversation early in the game. They mention needing to sell weapons for scrap metal in order to make custom forged weapons, but waive this requirement for your first forged weapon, as a special offer. The English version removed the scrap metal system entirely, so this "special first-time offer" is useless... but the conversation still has an importance rating of 3 stars (which indicates getting an actual gameplay reward out of it). Furthermore, not needing to pay scrap metal for your first forge was mistranslated as getting your first forged weapon free of charge, which isn't true.
    • The changes to 3rd-tier promotion in the localization made Master Crowns less necessary, so several of the ones hidden in map tiles during Part 4 were changed to items like Arms Scrolls. As the items contained in these tiles are less special now, their glowing effect was removed. The plot-hole arises when several base conversations in Part 4 reference the glowing spots in a case of Gameplay and Story Integration (the implication is Yune is leaving the treasures to help the group), and these weren't re-written in the localized version.
  • Fire Emblem: Awakening has one right at the beginning. Robin, suffering from amnesia, knows Chrom's name without being told it, which Frederick finds very suspicious. However, in the English dub, Lissa calls her older brother Chrom by name (instead of "Onii-chan" in Japanese) before Robin does, providing a reasonable explanation as to how Robin would know it. The scene plays out the same anyway, with Robin saying his name "just came to [them]" and Frederick accusing them of lying.
    • Henry's conversation with Inigo if he's his father in The Future Past DLC has a line where Henry says "It wasn't until I met your mother that I figured out what a real smile was." This is a reference to his supports with Olivia... at least in the Japanese version. The English version heavily re-wrote Henry and Olivia's supports to remove any mention of "real smiles", so the above line no longer makes sense. (Or at least, isn't a Call-Back anymore) Since the DLC came out after the main game, the English localizers must have forgotten they changed that support when they translated the father-son DLC dialogue.
  • A rather nasty one occurs in Fire Emblem Fates, when Ryoma insults Corrin should they side with Nohr, he says that they shouldn't value the siblings because they aren't blood related, a stark contrast to his understanding portrayal in the original Japanese. While in line with the altered portrayal of the Hoshidans in the localization as being rather racist, it creates a huge plot hole when it's revealed later that Corrin isn't the blood relative of the Hoshido kids, just Queen Mikoto, which Ryoma reveals in his supports that he knew from the beginning. Consequently, the altered line makes Ryoma look like an uncharacteristically huge Hypocrite.
    • In the Hidden Truths DLC, the first map features Odin, Laslow and Selena in their past identities, before they went by these false names. But since they still keep their voice clips from Fates, Owain can still say "Odin Dark knows no fear" in battle. None of his Japanese quotes referred to him by that name, so there wasn't an issue there.
    • In Birthright, during Chapter 16, Corrin's maid Flora encounters the party and helps them care for the ill Takumi, getting attacked by Garon's lackey Iago just before the battle. In the following chapter, she turns out to be a traitor, which doesn't explain why Iago attacked her. In the original Japanese, Flora explains that Iago's attack on her was a staged ruse to gain Corrin's trust.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Edelgard's response to Dimitri's attempted Kirk Summation in Azure Moon falls victim to this. In the English dub she concludes that "a highborn person like [Dimitri wouldn't] know how the poor feel or what motivates them". Which seems oddly hypocritical, given that Edelgard is royalty herself, nor does it make sense as a response to Dimitri's preceding line about The Power of Friendship. In the original Japanese she instead concludes that because Dimitri has had people to support him, he wouldn't understand those who are left to suffer alone; which makes more sense in context and hints at her own abandonment issues.
  • A general list of these throughout the series can be found here.
• The English localization of Gungriffon completely wrote the plot of the game, moving the setting from 1995 to 2075 and swapping the protagonist and antagonistic faction. This caused a bunch of incongruencies, such as why the armies are still using 90's-era jets and armored vehicles as battlefield mainstays in 2075 or why all of the friendly radio messages addressed to the (now American) player character are in Japanese.
• Harvest Moon:
  • The Miracle Potion needed to impregnate cows is named "Cow's Seed" in the Japanese version. In most games it's an item, however when you order one in the more realistic Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, you get a live bull instead of a potion. There is a discretion shot where Takakura 'uses' the Miracle Potion and the two cattle look very pleased afterwards.
  • Harvest Moon DS was is a sequel to Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town set 100 years in the future. As everyone looks and acts the same as they did in previous games, the English translation used their old names instead of giving them new names like in the Japanese version. Despite the fact the English version is an Alternate Universe title instead of a sequel, several references still slip by. For example Gustafa mentions that a man (the original Gustafa) once owned his hut a long time ago.
• The English localization of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle has an unfortunate Sub-Induced Plothole with Joseph Joestar's counter-taunt, based on his famous ability to tell a person what they're going to say before they say it. When used against Ermes Costello, he tells her she'll say "Your foe is right here!" While the actual spoken line is the same thing Joseph says, Ermes' line is translated in the subtitles as "Come at me, bro!" Regardless of actually getting the line wrong, Ermes' super meter still takes a hit.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Goofy states that Pete was banished by King Mickey. However, Birth by Sleep shows it was Queen Minnie that banished him. In Japanese, the word Goofy uses is gender-neutral and could, in context, be referring to either Mickey or Minnie — the localization team just guessed wrong as to which.
  • Also from Kingdom Hearts II, Ursula's Villain Song "Ursula's Revenge" has her sing the line "Without your precious mermaid, now you're crazy with revenge" at Prince Eric, making it seem strange that he is surprised by Ariel being a mermaid afterwards. However, in the original, Ursula referred to Ariel by name during this line, making no mention of the fact she isn't a human.
  • The English localization of Kingdom Hearts III has an infamous one near the end by completely mistranslating the motivation of one of the series most important characters. In the original Xehanort, while dying, reveals that he believed the war between Light and Dark had become a futile cycle, and his intent was to end the world and start over from scratch, something which is mutated in the localization into him trying to bring "balance" to light and dark, with zero mention of wanting to start from scratch. This ends up making the entire character incoherent, leads to lots of inconsistencies in the storyline, and makes his Alas, Poor Villain look completely unearned.
• The modern Kirby games' pause screen lore tends to get hit with this when they're translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, German and Spanish.
  • In Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Magolor Soul loses a bit of Flavor Text asking Kirby to free his corrupted soul from the "hatred and obsession" the Master Crown is using to control him. Averted in the Deluxe remake, which is more in line with the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean versions, and even adds new information about the Master Crown in the True Arena and the Magolor Epilogue.
  • In Kirby: Triple Deluxe's English, French, German, Italian and Spanish versions, Sectonia is said to have fed off countless hosts, has forgotten her true form, and now her soul needs to be given "eternal beauty sleep". In the Japanese and Korean versions, this is relayed to the player by Sectonia herself!
  • In Kirby: Planet Robobot, the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish translations of "The Noble Haltmann", while otherwise quite good, miss a recurring line from the Japanese and Korean versions that call President Haltmann "the father of the galaxy". Like with Sectonia, it doesn't translate Star Dream Soul OS's first form's Flavor Text in the first person, which stops most international players from learning that Star Dream knows what's left of Haltmann's soul is holding it back from fighting at its true potential and decides to have it purged at the start of the battle. There's also a bit of lore the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish versions miss about Galacta Knight, which states that he was sealed away multiple times in the past and is singlehandedly capable of causing The End of the World as We Know It.
  • The content added in version 4.0.0. of Kirby Star Allies gets hit with this the worst, with descriptions for the Parallel bosses that don't accurately get across how most of them were created (especially Parallel Dedede, whose pause description literally states that King Dedede brought the Jamba Heart that corrupted him to Hyess), and leaving out extremely important information about Morpho Knight (rectified with the rarity lvl. 14 Sword Hero Gear in Super Kirby Clash) and Void that renders their English, French, Dutch, Italian, German and Spanish backstories completely ambiguously lacking in the relevant lore.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In the original game, the manual includes the hint that the Pols Voice enemy "hates loud noises". At no point in the localized version of the game does this come into play. It's referencing a trick on the Japanese (Famicom Disk System) version, in which Pols Voices could be killed by shouting into the microphone built into the controller. However, when the Famicom was released in the West as the Nintendo Entertainment System, it didn't have the microphone, but the description in the manual was unchanged. American gamers wasted a lot of time trying to kill them by playing the recorder, not helped by the presence of a boss who is injured by the recorder. And when the enemy reappeared on the Nintendo DS it was back to using the microphone.
  • The English translation of the manual of A Link to the Past states that the Master Sword was forged specifically to stop Ganon, whereas the original Japanese stated that the people began searching for the Master Sword when Ganon rose. Skyward Sword would later contradict the English version by showing the Master Sword's origins well before Ganon(dorf) even existed.
  • In Breath of the Wild, Dark Beast Ganon is said to be the result of Calamity Ganon giving up on reincarnation in a last ditch attempt to destroy Link. The problem is the Golden Ending implies Ganon could return at some point. The original Japanese script has Dark Beast Ganon form because he refuses to give up on reincarnating.
• In Lost Judgment: at the end of the game, the dub strangely omits a reference to the main antagonist of the game, Jin Kuwana, as the person who reported all the locations of his victim's bodies.
• In Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, Working Designs mistranslated "Mel governs Meribia" as "Mel founded Meribia." Thankfully, this was corrected in Silver Star Harmony.
  • In Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, one of Ronfar's battle quotes is "Thank God for miracles!" in a world that has a Goddess (Althena), not a God.
  • Eternal Blue also says that Mel founded Meribia and "named it after himself," which would somewhat make sense in the Japanese version, where Mel's name is "Meru," although it somewhat seems out of place in English.
• The Mega Man series:
  • When Capcom localized Mega Man 3, they changed the name of Mega Man's brother from Blues to Proto Man, since they felt the former was not a fitting name for a character dressed primarily in red and gray (even though the name is reference to the music genre) and wanted to emphasize the character's status as a prototype of the hero. This name change would be carried to the character's NetNavi counterpart in Mega Man Battle Network, despite the fact that ProtoMan.EXE is not a prototype of anything.
  • Mega Man 7 had a fairly infamous one in its climax. In both versions, Dr. Wily informs Mega Man that, according to "the law", robot shall never kill humans; Mega Man's response in the original is to silently lower his buster, while in the English localization he angrily exclaims, "I am more than just a robot! Die, Wily!"... only to lower his buster anyway. One could infer that he had an internal conflict over making good on his threat, but it still looks strange.
  • Mega Man X2 had a bit of these in the English localization regarding the character Serges with the original Japanese version of the script giving multiple hints that Serges may have actually been a host body for Dr. Wily such as almost calling X "Rockman" before correcting himself, something nobody else knew about. Sigma's final words in the game after the final boss fight about Zero also made it more clear that Zero was the last of the "Wily Numbers" while the English localization instead had him refer to him as the last creation of "The Doctor".
  • Mega Man X4 had an especially infamous example in the English localization during Zero's story regarding his status as a Maverick in the past. When Zero meets Sigma again and he reveals the truth about their first encounter, Sigma strangely acts shocked and surprised right afterwards about it and sounds like it was the first time he heard it, despite the fact that he already knew, while Zero seems oddly nonchalant about it - almost as if they'd accidentally swapped each other's lines for that one specific scene.
  • Mega Man Star Force had an especially notable one in the English localization of the second game. In Black Ace/Red Joker, when Jack is introduced to Geo's class, everyone comments that his name indicates that he isn't from around there. One problem for the English versions: they change any Japanese name to more English-sounding ones, meaning Jack's unchanged name shouldn't sound odd to them.
• Metal Gear:
  • The character of Liquid Ocelot exists in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots because Kōji Totani, the Japanese voice actor for Revolver Ocelot, died and they needed someone to replace him. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Ocelot was occasionally possessed by Liquid Snake's persona as a result of a botched arm transplant, so they had Banjo Ginga voice Ocelot this time with the rationale that Liquid has completely taken over Ocelot's mind, becoming one entity. The English version of the game didn't have to deal with this problem, so they kept Patric Zimmermann for the role, despite the fact that Ocelot is supposed to be speaking with Liquid's voice, like he does in the English version of MGS2.
  • Colonel Campbell's cameo in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as a kind of guardian of time who yells at you if you take actions that contradict the storyline of the previous games is baffling in the English version, only making sense as some gag to show you how far time has broken down. In the Japanese version, where the Colonel is voiced by the dub actor for Christopher Lloyd, it is (while also implying a Time Crash) incredibly funny.
  • Metal Gear Solid V contains convoluted explanations for two in Metal Gear Solid - an explanation for the gibberish "Shalashaska" moniker, and another one explaining why Dr Clark is referred to with male pronouns despite being identified in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as a woman.
• Metroid
  • In Metroid: Other M, Samus experiences what appears to be PTSD when seeing Ridley again, triggering a traumatic flashback to her childhood. Except, that isn't what's happening at all. It's supposed to be a visual metaphor where Samus is forced to confront the fact that she feels weak, as part of a character arc where Samus is struggling to admit to herself that she still has moments of weakness and uncertainty, with her equating weakness with being a child. The dialogue establishing this theming wasn't as obvious in the English localization, making the scene come across as her being terrified of a foe she's fought a dozen times by now when she's really been frustrated with her own perceived inadequacy for the entire game, with Ridley being her breaking point.
  • Metroid Fusion ends up with Samus destroying The Federation's Metroid cloning facility as the as well as the entire Biologic Space Laboratories. From here on, fans theorized that if a sequel to Fusion was ever made, it'd feature a fugitive Samus on the run from her former employers. Metroid Dread seemingly ignored this plot point, with Samus working for the Federation again, to the confusion and disappointment of fans. Turned out there were some details in the original Japanese that got lost in localization: namely that the cloning facility was headed by a rogue faction within the Federation that worked in secret and were completely unknown to the higher-ups.
• Mickey Mousecapade, in its original Famicom version, involved Mickey and Minnie rescuing Alice from the Queen of Hearts and her minions. The NES localization replaced most of the Wonderland bosses with villains from other Disney stories, such as Maleficent taking the place of the Queen as the Final Boss, but retained Alice as the Damsel in Distress, albeit referred to as a "mystery friend" until The Reveal at the end, as well as the Walrus Mini-Boss and the Card Guard mooks in the Castle.
• No Umbrellas Allowed was originally written in Korean, so there are some translation errors in the English version.
  • One customer tries selling you The Great Heist, a Fictional Video Game going by its box design, but HUE holds it off until you learn more about its special tags. However, it's described as a board game in Darcy's manual.
  • Another customer sells you a limited edition candle, when it's actually a koala calendar.
• Paper Mario:
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: After the fight with Grodus near the end of the game, Grodus will take Peach hostage and threaten to kill her if Mario tries to attack him. If Mario selects "Attack," Grodus will act as though Mario has given up and prepare to finish him off, but if Mario selects "Do not attack," Grodus will ask if Mario intends to defy him. The replies appear to be switched around in the English version due to the translator missing a negation in the original question.
  • In the English translation, the final RDM email states that the paper has sent its final issue but then says ""May we meet again... sooner than you think *wink* wink*, which is perplexing as there are no further RDM issues received in the game or its sequels. This is because in the original Japanese and other translations, there is a extra section further down at the end. For whatever reason, the English translation excised it but kept in the statement alluding to its existence.
  • Super Paper Mario: In Chapter 1, Tippi instantly recognizes Dimentio when they first meet him. How Tippi knew him or why she recognized him was never explained or mentioned again afterward. That's because in the Japanese version, she was simply repeating what he just said back to him.
  • Paper Mario: Sticker Star: A small variation, but still misleading. The museum description of the Sombrero sticker says that the "angle of the throw" affects how the attack turns out, which might make you think you can throw it at a different angle to deal more damage or hit different enemies. This line is completely absent from the original Japanese, which instead says that Sombrero Guy throwing his sombrero is likely his attempt at fanservice.
• The Persona games:
  • The original Persona hits every other bad translation trope there is, so it's not surprising it gets this one, too. In the Japanese version, the two young girls in the other world are Mai and Aki... so it's not very surprising that they turn out to be aspects of the mind of party member Maki — as Nanjo points out, it's simple wordplay. In the English-language version, they're now Mae and Maggie, and Maki is Mary — so not only does this previously fairly well-foreshadowed twist suddenly come out of nowhere, but Nate (Nanjo) still gives the explanation that it's simple wordplay even though this no longer makes sense, making him look less "smart and observant" like he's supposed to, and more like a raving lunatic.
  • Persona 5: There are some common sense oddities and mistranslations here and there in the English translation of the game, such as:
    • In Sae's first appearance, a police officer is telling Sae in the original Japanese that they got a call from her boss, telling them to allow Sae to interrogate their prisoner. In the English version, it's translated as if the officer's telling her she's about to get a call from her boss, despite how odd it sounds for him to ask the police officer to tell Sae he'll be calling her on her personal phone, rather than asking the officer to hand Sae their own phone, or something similar. Royal fixes this, by having the Older Detective say, "I just got off the phone with your director."
    • Shadow Kamoshida chides his guards for "mistaking [his] Ann for someone like her [the real Ann]", which is confusing because what happened was the exact opposite of what he's complaining about: his guards mistook the real Ann for his cognitive version instead of realizing she was just another "Intruder" like Joker and Ryuji. The dubbing team swapped the two Anns in this dialog somehow and didn't catch it, as in the Japanese he correctly mocks them for mistaking the real Ann for his "Princess" which was why Ann is brought to him, while the resulting line sounds more like the guards tried to take Princess Ann to the dungeons like the other intruders thinking she was the real Ann.
    • Ryuji will mention his "Folks" at some points in the English translation, despite it being a plot point that his Dad left years ago and he lives alone with his single mother, who explicitly feels ashamed for having to raise him as such, even now.
    • Futaba explicitly refers to Morgana as Mona in one scene shown after her slumber when her heart is stolen. Yet, when it comes time for her to choose a code name, the rest of the team has to explain to her what a "code name" is. Granted, Ryuji, Futaba and Haru do often refer to Morgana as "Mona" in the real world, treating it as a nickname as well as his code name.
    • In a later scene in Royal, Futaba refers to Kasumi Yoshizawa by her first name in the English translation, even though everyone but Joker (and Morgana by extension) is on a Last-Name Basis with her and she had no way of knowing her first name. This is a plot hole for the third semester, as Kasumi isn't her real first name, she's actually her sister Sumire Yoshizawa, and it's heavily implied only Joker ever thought she was Kasumi, because he was the only one who had a reason to. (seeing the name in her wallet)
• In Phantasy Star II, the party attempts to bring back Nei at the clone labs after her Plotline Death, but they fail to do so. The original Japanese version explains that her biomonster DNA was stored in Climatrol and was lost in its destruction. However, the English version instead just tells you that "it just can't be done", despite the fact that Nei could be cloned up to this point as easily as the rest of the party, albeit at a higher price.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Red and Blue has an NPC on Cinnabar Island who offers to trade you his Electrode for a Raichu; if you speak to him afterwards he claims "the Raichu you traded me went and evolved!", which isn't possible. This led to years of wild fan speculation, with many interpreting this line as either "proof" of the existence of the so-called "PokéGods", or as an Early-Bird Cameo of a new Mon to be revealed in an upcoming game. Turns out it was just a translation error — in the Japanese Blue Version, which provides the script and engine for the international releases rather than having them directly based on the original Red and Green (Blue was an Updated Re-release with bug fixes and generally better graphics, hence using its code), the NPC traded you a Graveler for a Kadabra, both Pokémon that evolve by trading, and his line afterwards was meant to be a hint on how to obtain their final forms. For the English release, the localizers changed the Pokémon being offered to what they were in the Japanese Red and Green but forgot to alter the dialogue to match.
    • There was a similar NPC in Cerulean City who offers his Jynx in exchange for a Poliwhirl. After the trade, talking to the trader has him claim "the Poliwhirl you traded me went and evolved!" Unlike Raichu, Poliwhirl does have an actual evolution programmed into the game. However, it evolves by recieving a Water Stone, not through a trade. ^note Pokémon Gold and Silver would later give it a trade evolution, though it needs to have a King's Rock equipped for it to happen. In this case, the NPC traded a Machoke for a Haunter (both of which evolve upon trading) in the Japanese version of Blue.
  • Heat Wave is a Fire move widely available by way of move tutors to Flying Pokémon. Its English description implies it's just another fire-breathing move, whereas the Japanese description states that the attack comes from the Pokemon's wings, which explains why it can be learned by Sigilyph.
  • The name "Tail Whip" suggests that the user would smack the enemy with their tail to lower their Defense, but it is actually far less hardcore then that. Its original name is actually "Tail Wag", which is apparently used cutely to lower the enemy's guard. It is even considered a "Cute" move in Pokémon Contests. Later games would support the original depiction more in its description and animation.
  • The deliberately useless move included in Gen I could be translated as either Splash or Hop. Given that, at the time, it was only learnable by the Water-type Magikarp, they decided to go with the former. But starting with Gen II, Pokémon like Hoppip and Buneary have been able to learn it. These Pokémon are associated in no way with water, but clearly associated with hopping.^note One could argue that the fact that it's not a Water-type move should have clued them in from the start, but considering the Early-Installment Weirdness regarding the typing of moves like Karate Chop, it can be forgiven. Pokémon: Magikarp Jump, a spinoff based on Magikarp jumping contests, which shows Magikarp Jumping very prominently, doesn't even bother trying to localise Jump Power to Splash Power, or the Jump button to Splash. Strangely, however, the animation for the move does show splashing water underneath the user in the main-line games of the fourth and fifth generations.
  • Some of the Pokémon's localized names in Gen I don't really match their designs. For instance, the Bulbasaur line is based on frogs, not dinosaurs. Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard are based on lizards, dinosaurs and dragons respectively, rather than salamanders, chameleons and lizards.
  • In the Japanese version, the old man who initially blocks the north exit of Viridian City is stated to be passed out drunk. The localization Bowdlerized him into merely being grumpy because he hadn't had his coffee yet, yet it left his sprite that clearly depicted him lying on the ground unchanged. It also states that the area is his private property, despite being the middle of the road.
  • The Japanese version of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald introduced a move called Firefly Light exclusive to the bug-type Pokémon Volbeat, which makes sense. The English translation team called it Tail Glow, making Western fans wonder why Ampharos (an electric Pokémon with a glowing sphere in its tail) or Charizard (a fire type with a flame on its tail) can't learn it. And then in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum the legendary Pokémon Manaphy was able to learn it, which makes some sense because it's based on deep-sea animals which typically have bioluminescence as fireflies do, but Western fans were even more puzzled because Manaphy has no tail whatsoever. Pokémon Sun and Moon would later introduce Xurkitree, a 12 foot tall mass of cables that resembles a humanoid figure or tree with glowing zip-ties on its person and an electric plug for a tail. It also learns Tail Glow, making this an inversion where the English translation would make a better fit then the Japanese name.
  • The Flying-type move "Aerial Ace" in Japanese is named "Swallow Reversal", a term for a sword technique supposedly invented by the swordmaster Sasaki Kojiro. Consequently, while it's a common move among Flying-types, it's also possible for most Pokémon with claws or slashing-based attacks (the Honedge line being a prime example) to learn it. This association, however, isn't nearly as obvious to others, not least because "Ace" is normally a term for a skilled pilot, which only furthers the Flying-type connection. The most famous example of this is Diglett—a Pokémon that not only cannot fly, but explicitly never leaves the ground.
  • The Fighting-type move Hi Jump Kick is called Jumping Knee Kick in Japanese, explaining why it damages the user if it misses.
  • The Pokemon known as Isitsubute and Barrierd in Japanese were localized into English as Geodude and Mr. Mime, which implies all members of both species are male. While this wasn't a problem in Gen I since Pokémon didn't have gender aside from the Nidoran line, the proper introduction of gender in Gen II made it possible to have female Mr. Mime and Geodude.
    • Mr. Mime gave us another awkward situation in Pokémon Sword and Shield, where we are introduced to a Galarian subspecies that developed around tapdancing instead of miming. So now we've got the possibility of "Mr. Mimes" that aren't misters and can't mime.
  • The animation for Submission implies that the move involves spinning in some way. That's because its Japanese name is based upon the pro wrestling move called the "Hell Wheel" (and is portrayed exactly like said wrestling move in the anime).
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon introduces the move Throat Chop. The translation decision wasn't a problem in its debut since Incineroar and the Sneasel line were the only ones who can get it (the latter by breeding) and they mainly use their arms to attack. It also made a lot of sense, since the move's description does mention it's an attack aimed at the neck and meant to damage the target's throat, making them unable to even speak for a bit—which is what a throat chop is. Then Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon made it a tutorable move, and the list of Pokémon who can learn it includes armless Pokémon such as Arbok, Seaking and Corsola. As it turns out, the Japanese name of Throat Chop is actually "Hell Thrust", its animation also reflects this by showing a single penetrating action instead of some slashing motion, and none of its attack descriptions mentions anything about chopping.
  • The Iron Fist ability raises the power of punching moves, nearly all of which have the word "Punch" in their names. The move known in Japanese as "Surprise Attack" was translated as "Sucker Punch", leaving several players confused as to why it wasn't powered up by the ability. (Sucker Punch is a term for a cheap, unexpected attack, though the name led to a lot of players taking it literally) Conversely, "Meteor Mash" is boosted by Iron Fist, because it's called "Comet Punch" in Japanese. (Like Mr. Mime, this was the case of an early translation coming back to bite them: the translators had already called another move "Comet Punch" in Generation 1 so had to change this one)
  • Darmanitan has an ability called Zen Mode, which turns it into a stoic, statue-like daruma with psychic powers at half HP which contrasts with its regular beast form's aggressive temperament. At first, this sounds appropriate, but Pokémon Sword and Shield gave it a new Yeti-inspired form which turns into a Hot-Blooded flaming snowman instead, which is the opposite of Zen. This confusion arose because in the original Japanese version, the ability was called Daruma Mode, which simply described its form and did not reference its emotional state. It also still fits the new form because Galar Darmanitan turns into a yukidaruma (Japanese for snowman), though that would have also been Lost in Translation if they kept Daruma Mode as-is.
  • The game translation's renaming of Hyper Balls into Ultra Balls came back to bite them when the consoles became powerful enough to show the balls as more than a simple two-toned circle or a generic Pokeball... and they turned out to have "H" blatantly stamped on them. And then things got even more awkward with Pokémon Sun and Moon's introduction of actual Ultra Balls, which had to be renamed into Beast Balls.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, all Pokémon speak, except Wobbuffet, which still uses Pokémon Speak. Except not really, as mentioned in the Anime section, Wobuffet's Japanese name means "that's the way it is", so it's not really saying its name, it's agreeing with what other speakers are saying. The Explorers game caught on and had Wobuffet say "That's right!", but the Who's on First? pun on its name is lost.
  • In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers games, Dialga's Superpowered Evil Side was just called "Dark Dialga" in Japanese. The localization Woolseyised this to the more intimidating-sounding "Primal Dialga" (and to possibly avoid association with Dark-type)... but then the remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire would later give Groudon and Kyogre new stronger forms called... "Primal" forms, which led many fans to think Primal Dialga was connected to them. It isn't, they're entirely separate things.
• The JAST localization of Season Of The Sakura changes the protagonist from a student just entering high school to a student entering some kind of pre-college, post high school program where everyone is supposedly 18....except the protagonist apparently, since he's still said to be 16.
• Shining Force II has a scene in which a plot-central prophecy is mistranslated, causing two characters to be referred to with the wrong names. To make things worse, they are referred to with names that already belong to entirely different characters. This causes the prophecy to make no sense in relation to the other games in the series.
• The Western versions of Shutokou Battle 0, Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero, renames most opponents from Japanese names to Western ones. However, the Western version of Shutokou Battle 01, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3, keeps the names as is, so returning characters that should be recognizable by name aren't.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The decision of early translators to change Sonic's home world from Earth (granted, the Japanese word for Earth can also mean "the land", suggesting that Sonic's world is actually unnamed) to Mobius (which is presumed to have been a translator error from an interview with Yuji Naka) probably didn't seem like much of a stretch at the time.^note As many of the levels in the early games looked more surreal than anything you'd find on Earth anyway. Years later, after Sonic Adventure started forcing the Japanese continuity on the rest of the world, the series began mentioning Earth by name, humans other than Robotnik/Eggman appeared, and locations took on more realistic elements. This led to confusion for the many Western fans who grew up with the numerous comic books and TV adaptations which placed Sonic on a planet called Mobius.
    • The Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) tried to reconcile this by revealing that Mobius was Earth in the future (they continued to call it "Mobius" after this revelation, though, regardless of the games explicitly using "Earth," up until the Super Genesis Wave reboot, which resulted in the planet being unnamed).
  • Dr. Robotnik's English name was always somewhat at odds with the fact that so many of his evil inventions involved the word "Egg." At the time of Sonic Adventure Sega of America began slowly phasing in his Japanese name, "Dr. Eggman." Extra lines were added in Adventure to explain that "Eggman" was a nickname used by Sonic and co. to make fun of him, while Dr. Robotnik remained his "real" name. By the sequel, suddenly Eggman's calling himself "Eggman" as well and his surname is rarely brought up.
    • The explanation that Eggman was an insult used by Sonic and hated by Robotnik is in itself an example of this, as it brings the question of why Robotnik started calling himself that in later games, or why it's the password to one of the doors in the Egg Carrier in the game itself. The "Eggman" name even shows up in the classic games - in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, "EGGMAN-01" can be seen written on the Wing Fortress. Sonic Drift 2 also kept his Japanese name, leading to confusion from western players. Ian Flynn would create an explanation in the Archie comics that "Eggman" did start as an insult, but Robotnik instead chose to embrace it and give it power as his iconography, something which would be adapted into the game canon come the TailsTube series and Sonic Frontiers.
  • Sega of America also briefly attempted to merge Amy Rose in Sonic CD with Princess Sally from the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) animated series by referring to Amy as "Princess Sally" in the American Sonic CD booklet. Apparently they thought people would believe a squirrel and a hedgehog were the same character just because they were both pink and shared a name. Even before then, Sally wasn't pink in the cartoon aside from its pilot, and she stopped being pink in the comics the next year. Needless to say, this was disconfirmed into infinity long before Sonic Adventure premiered in the States. In particular, this got Jossed within two years. In the comics, Amy made her first appearance in Issue #25 (which dropped in 1995); and she was referred to by her proper name in the Sonic Drift 2 game (also 1995).
    • The 1996 PC version's manual attempted to correct this by replacing all mentions of Sally with Amy, but it still failed to avoid being this trope. The revised storyline portrayed Sonic and Amy as being friendly toward each other, arriving at Neverlake together, and Amy getting kidnapped right there. This is at odds with what's shown in the game: Sonic arrives at Neverlake alone (as depicted in the opening FMV), Amy doesn't get kidnapped until the beginning of Collision Chaos, and the ending FMV shows that Sonic doesn't enjoy Amy's company.
  • Knuckles Chaotix: The English story from the manual is this in spades. The Japanese one is far more sensible, containing multiple references to previous games such as mentions of the Chaos Emeralds, the Master Emerald, and the fact that Knuckles is the Angel Island guardian. It explains the origins of the Chaos Rings, and states that the park in Newtrogic High Zone (the game's setting) is Eggman's base of operations. The English story removed the references, renamed Newtrogic High Zone into Carnival Island (despite the former name appearing in-game in level title cards and the hub area), bafflingly changed Knuckles into the guardian of Carnival Island and its park (thus contradicting established canon and the game itself, creating plot holes such as to why is it that the park has Eggman's face plastered everywhere (most notably the entrance) or why it has areas specifically designed for his boss battle mechs), removed the references to the Chaos Rings (thus leaving them unexplained and unmentioned despite being major items obtainable in the game that are required for the Good Ending), and in their place added a mention of a "Power Emerald" that never appears in the game or is mentioned again.
  • In an example of both this and Voodoo Shark, the American manual of the first game handwaves the Goal "blocks" in Special Stages as disguised traps devised by Robotnik to pull Sonic out of the Special Zone and prevent him from collecting the Chaos Emeralds. Which brings the question: If Robotnik had previously entered the Special Zone and put them there, why didn't he simply grab the Chaos Emeralds when he was there? Especially considering that there were no Goal blocks to pull him out of the dimension prior to his involvement, so collecting the emeralds should have been relatively easy for him.
  • "Is that what Chaos Control is?" - Shadow, after witnessing the Biolizard use it in Sonic Adventure 2, despite having previously used the technique plenty of times himself. (Some interpret it as the Biolizard using a more advanced form of Chaos Control.) In the original Japanese version, his line was "Was that Chaos Control?" as in "Did it just use Chaos Control?"
  • Why does Nack the Weasel◊ look nothing like a weasel◊? Answer: Because he's not supposed to be one! He was originally known as Fang the Sniper in Japanese, and he's actually supposed to be a jerboa◊ according to his character designer, Touma. This also explains why he has extremely thin arms (even by Sonic standards), only four fingers on each hand when every other Sonic character has five, and a thin angular tail; jerboas have thin legs with four toes each and a tail like that. His actual species seems to have gone over the localization team's heads as a result of it not being mentioned in the title attached to his Japanese name, unlike most Sonic characters, with some materials having him be a jerboa-wolf hybrid. The inaccuracy caused his dub name to be scrapped right after his debut game, with his next appearances changing it back to his Japanese name of "Fang the Sniper" in Western territories^note even Sonic the Fighters, which changed "Eggman" to "Robotnik", but would still retain "Nack the Weasel" for his appearances in the Archie comics. Even his "Wanted!" Poster in Sonic Generations lists both names for him. The IDW Comics and Sonic Superstars would see Fang definitively clarified as a jerboa, have him ditch the name of "Nack the Weasel," and have his title changed from "Sniper" to "Hunter" (since his weapon of choice is a cork pop gun). The Fang's Big Break prologue comic and TailsTube series would clarify things further, stating that all of his old regional names were aliases that he adopts to avoid law enforcement.
  • A minor one, but after the intro to Sonic Forces, it's said that Sonic was subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture for six months aboard the Death Egg. Yet when we next see him, he looks no worse for wear, as cheerful and snarky as ever without a scratch on him. That's because this particular line was only added for the English dub. The Japanese version mentions no such thing.
    • In an early scene in the English dub, Silver mentions that Tails "has just lost it", implying that Sonic's absence drove Tails insane. Yet when we see Tails shortly after this, he seems perfectly fine and sane. In the original Japanese script, Silver said that Tails had gone missing, i.e. was "lost". The translators simply misinterpreted the sentence.
  • In addition, Sega of America came up with lore for the Sonic the Hedgehog Bible, which created plot holes and was eventually declared Canon Discontinuity:
    • The Bible gave Sonic a Super Hero Origin, with him being originally a regular brown hedgehog who turned blue after learning to run fast enough to break the sound barrier. Except that we see other anthropomorphic characters with superpowers and unrealistic fur colors (including hedgehogs) with no explanation.
    • Dr. Eggman was given an origin story where he used to be slim, benevolent scientist named Dr. Ovi Kintobor, until an accident with the Chaos Emeralds and a rotten egg turned him into the evil, egg-shaped Dr. Ivo Robotnik. The Kintobor backstory no longer holds up as of Sonic Adventure 2, which established his name had always been Dr. Ivo Robotnik.
    • The Bible also tried to explain the origin of the abilities Sonic displays in the games, attributing them to having learned them from the little animals he rescues from the Badniks. For instance, it claimed that Pocky the rabbit (renamed Johnny Lightfoot) trained him to run fast, though he didn't attain Super-Speed until a casual expiriment with Kintobor began pushing the limits of his running abilities. Too bad they didn't even play the games when they wrote this origin, as they even tried to explain abilities he doesn't have such as swimming. Amusingly, it even attributed Sonic's roll attack to having indirectly learned it from Cucky the chicken (renamed Chirps), as apparently "he can curl into a ball because he's a hedgehog" wasn't a good enough explanation.
  • Sonic Adventure 2: The heroes try to trick Eggman with a fake Chaos Emerald that will explode if exposed to enough chaos energy. However, Eggman suspects what they're doing due to picking up two chaos energy signatures, and manages to confirm it by bluffing Tails into telling him. The English dub keeps this plot point the same, but the translated script creates a minor plot hole with a dialogue change. Eggman's line "Are they plotting to fool me by using a fake Emerald?" is changed to "Did they really think they could trick me with that fake Emerald?", implying he managed to deduce that they were not only trying to trick him with a fake emerald, but that he knew which one was fake. This raises the questions of a) how he knew for certain already and b) why he needed to trick Tails if he'd already figured it out.
• Splatoon 2: The leadup to the Unicorn vs. Narwhal Splatfest (which was never held in Japan) has Marina mention offhandedly that her landlord is a narwhal. Narwhals, while aquatic, are mammals. Though this wasn't an issue at the time, it doesn't jibe with the core plot of Splatoon 3's "Return of the Mammalians" story mode, where it's obvious from the name alone that mammals in general are extinct — and the story doesn't make exceptions for ocean-dwellers, as the Salmonid Field Guide states that the Flipper-Flopper, which wears a mask that makes it look like a dolphin, is modeling itself after "an animal said to have flourished in ancient times."
• In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Peppita autographs her original Japanese name, Souffle, on the back of Fayt's shirt.
• Street Fighter II has the infamous quote "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!" With that, gamers everywhere scrambled to find out just who this elusive "Sheng Long" was, which in part inspired Electronic Gaming Monthly to print an April Fool's joke that may have inspired the character of Akuma. The truth is, Ryu was referring to his Rising Dragon Punch: the Mandarin pronunciation of the Shoryū in Shoryūken is "Sheng Long", and the translators at Capcom used the Pinyin transliteration of the characters instead of the Japanese ones for some reason. The curious part about the "Sheng Long" quote was that the actual Japanese version of The World Warrior has all of the victory quotes written in kana (kanji was not added to the game's text until Champion Edition), so Shoryūken is written the same way it is pronounced in Japanese.
  • In Super Street Fighter II, Cammy's ending in the Japanese version originally revealed that she was an agent of Shadaloo before she lost her memories and joined Delta Red. In the English version, this was changed into M. Bison revealing that Cammy was his lover. This brings up a strange implication when Street Fighter Alpha 3 revealed that Cammy was actually a DNA copy (read: clone) of Bison himself, although the GBA port of Super Turbo later featured a revised ending that reflected Cammy's retconned origins.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The English manual of Super Mario Bros. 3 initially called two items "Kuribo's Shoe" and "Jugem's Cloud," which led to American confusion and curiosity about who these mysterious unseen characters were. In reality, Kuribo is just "Goomba" and Jugem is "Lakitu" in Japanese — the item names were never properly translated. The American localizers' creative flair in naming Morton "Morton Koopa, Jr." (in reference to Morton Downey, Jr.) also seems to imply the existence of a Morton Koopa, Sr.
  • The universe of Super Mario Land comes off as an even weirder than it should in English, given how lazily all the character names were translated (or not translated). Piranha Plants were called by their Japanese names in the English manual, implying some brand new creature, and no effort was given to giving the Goomba, Koopa, and Bullet Bill-like characters names that resembled their traditional English ones, as the Japanese version did. The Virtual Console version's manual localized some of the enemy names.
  • In Super Mario World, a type of enemy similar to a Goomba appears, called a "Kuribon" in Japanese (derived from "Kuribo", the Japanese name for Goombas). The English translation of the game didn't make any distinction between the two and simply calls them "Goombas". Since regular Goombas don't appear in Super Mario World, this didn't create an issue at first; years down the line, though, Super Mario 3D World featured both regular Goombas and "Kuribon" Goombas, sometimes even in the same levels. The translators handled this by renaming the Mario World Goombas "Galoombas".
  • Mario Party 8: The Italian version called Buzzy Beetles "Ronzibei" (a mostly direct translation of the English name, since is a portmanteau of "ronzare" and "scarabeo", respectively "buzz" and "beetle"), when in every other Mario game the name is translated as "Nella".
• In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Ridley can transform into Meta Ridley... but this is highly inconsistent with established Metroid canon, where Meta Ridley is a cybernetically-enhanced version of Ridley from the Metroid Prime Trilogy while this particular transformation is just his dark-skinned glowing form from Metroid: Other M. The reason why "Meta Ridley" is In Name Only is because it's actually a Dub Name Change: it wasn't originally Meta Ridley to begin with. The Japanese version of the 50-Fact Extravaganza names this form 黒リドリー, which translates more accurately to "Black Ridley" (Meta Ridley's actual Japanese name is メタリドリー). The connection to Meta Ridley is an addition made by the English translation despite having no basis in prior existing material.
• Tales of Vesperia: In the Italian translation, Flynn calls Estelle a princess right after rescuing Ioder, with no one reacting since it's not supposed to happen yet.
• True Love Junai Monogatari changes the main character from a high-school senior to a college senior (likely to avoid portraying teens in sexual situations) but leaves his age as 19, which makes no sense since people usually graduate college at around 22 or 23. It also doesn't bother removing references to characters deciding which university they're going to next year, which makes no sense if they're supposedly graduating from college. It also translates the protagonist's response to the Token Mini-Moe character's reveal that she's closer to his age than she appears by revealing she's in the same type of school as him by having him think to himself that he thought she was in "Junior College." Junior college students are typically the same age as college students — it's just a term for vocational schools used in some regions.
• In the WarioWare series, Ashley has a vague, implicitly young age, but tends to be explicitly referred to as 15 in international promotional materials, possibly because the localization team felt it was strange for a preteen girl to be living on her own. Ordinarily this doesn't create problems, but in Ashley's eponymous minigame in Game & Wario, the player needs to calm her down when she gets angry by rubbing her on the head. This makes sense if she's supposed to be a little kid, but a teenager would find this gesture patronizing at best.
• The World Ends with You:
  • On meeting Joshua, he addresses Neku by name before asking him to introduce himself. He does, in fact, already know who Neku is — the plot hole is in Neku's failure to find this odd. In the Japanese text, this doesn't occur.
  • There's a random NPC thought titled "English?", about an English-speaking foreigner trying to find a samurai sword at the request of his friends back home, but having difficulty finding it because he can't speak Japanese and the shopkeepers don't understand English. In the Japanese text, this is the only English-language thought fragment in the game. So in the English text, it's the only Japanese one. Puzzle over that for a moment.

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