As soon as Masahiro Sakurai began dishing out daily updates for Smash Bros. Brawl, we knew this game was going to be special. A game of this magnitude deserves a unique way of being presented. Usually upcoming games, even the multi-selling hits, get previews, trailers, and the occasional playable demo videos posted on gaming websites for fans to see. Not many games get so in depth as Brawl has gotten in showcasing their specs. Not many games get daily developmental updates in six languages.

This is where the power of Brawl comes in.

Not only is Brawl becoming a grand scale game in Japan or in the US, but it’s becoming a game that is creating fans in different parts of the world simply due to its multilingual aspect - and this isn't even referring to the game itself.

All the updates originate in Japan and in the mind of Masahiro Sakurai. Whether or not he consults his team – he mostly likely does to prevent any overlapping errors or unintended spoilers – the updates are his doing at least. Sakurai has already shown us his like for blogging earlier this year and last year when he started posting updates for his game and when he answered questions and took suggestions for Brawl. And we all know he listened.

Now, because his thoughts need to be translated to reach his fans, some problems can arise. Translation always leads to something getting lost or misinterpreted. It’s natural and it’s why languages are so complex and unique in their own right.

At first I thought Nintendo translated the Japanese into English, and then based on the English, the other sites would get translated. But recently I’ve come to the conclusion that each one gets translated from Japanese except for the UK English site. I base my hypothesis on the fact that each translation has its own amount of originality, flexibility, and wit that does not appear to come from a more straightforward English based source but instead from the more ambiguous Japanese.

As readers of his updates have noticed, Sakurai tends to be vague in delivering news. It’s natural for anyone to not want to reveal everything about an upcoming game to avoid causing spoilers. Ironically, isn’t he already doing that through each update he produces? His vagueness comes out as being playful though and it creates more speculation and makes his fans more interested in what the interpretations might mean. He has reason for playing with us.

The problem in this vagueness comes when it’s translated. Japanese is a very vague language. Often, a sentence won’t directly contain a subject, or a gender, or even a case. When translated into another language, it can get tricky and even somewhat deceptive.

Take for example these sentences:

Beak the Targets update:
This time, there are five different maps of varying difficulty—challenges you can take on with your favorite character.
今回は難易度が異なるマップが5つあり、
好きなキャラクターでチャレンジできるようになり
Dispondrás de cinco mapas diferentes que variarán en dificultad. ¿Estás dispuesto a asumir el reto con tu personaje favorito?

Lucas Special Moves update:
There’s a character named Ness who has appeared in the Smash Bros. series up until now, and Lucas is very similar.
いままでのスマブラシリーズに登場していた“ネス”という
キャラクターがいますが、リュカはそれに近いです。
Seguramente os acordaréis de Ness, un personaje que apareció en anteriores ediciones de Smash Bros. Pues bien, Lucas es muy parecido a él.

Whether you understand them or not, each one has a difference in tone and meaning. "Five levels" for each character or "five levels of different difficulty" set for everyone? "Up until now?" or "so far"? Each one has a similar point, but the ideas they convey, their connotation, vary,

Why wasn’t Sakurai simply more straightforward when it came to these updates if his intention was to reveal new information?

Are these Brawl updates really intended to satisfy us fans, or do they deny us certain things that make us crave them even more?

You "translate" it!

Labels: games, languages, smash bros