Is it Shaker!?

Dragon Quest is considered by many to be a forefather of turn-based RPGs. In the decades since its initial release the game has seen several remakes, remasters, and adaptations. In that time there have been just as many efforts to translate Dragon Quest into English.

I'm a hobbyist translator and student of communication. I love to think about the process of creating art and expression, particularly within text-based mediums. And I have a bit of an affection for the Dragon Quest series.

Since each translation of Dragon Quest was developed by different teams, I wanted to explore the philosophies driving these translations, and maybe to figure out if any one has produced a perfect translation (spoilers: probably not).

In order to research this article I played through or watched let's play content of every mainline remake of Dragon Quest (sorry, no Builders this time!). I also spoke with the talented Nob Ogasawara about his experience translating Dragon Quest for the GBC (more on that throughout the article!).

I’ll be examining the original NES Dragon Warrior, SFC Dragon Quest, Gameboy Color Dragon Warrior, and modern (post-DQVIII) Dragon Quest. The article will mostly focus on comparing translation decisions made in each game and providing context with relevant Japanese Dragon Quest releases.

The journey ahead is quite long. Command?

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This may feel obvious but I’ll start with a definition. Translation is the act of conveying a message from a source language (L1) into a target language (L2).

Beyond that definition, a translator may have a number of other goals in mind. For example, as we’ll explore further down, translators are often required to work within certain limitations outside of their control. Most people would agree that a translation of the Famicom Dragon Quest would be a failure if the translation was entirely in the form of a radio drama and no NES cartridge was ever produced. Medium is a big consideration.

Publishers often have target markets in mind and different cultural expectations often mean references to alcohol, sex, and other “adult themes” will be scrubbed from English translations of Japanese games. The goal here is not necessarily to produce a “pure” translation of the original game. Since games are products, several decisions will have some financial reasoning that may be out of the translator’s control. There may also be cultural considerations and changes made in order to be more palatable to a target-language audience.

Sometimes I might use the word localisation. I tend to use each interchangeably but you may want to note that localisation often involves more consideration about what differs between cultures. An adequate translation of ベビーカー (lit: Baby Car) could be stroller. It gets the point across for most audiences. But if, for example, the setting of your game leans more towards British-English you might want to “localise” the word as pram. Most regional differences are mutually understandable (some more than others!) but this is just one of many considerations translators need to pay attention to in order to provide a sense of place, and in order to reduce language barriers for their target audiences.

Finally, a translator’s personal and aesthetic values will undoubtedly have some impact on a translation. It can be a taboo topic because of the increasingly political response to all forms of art, but translation, like many expression-based fields, is part art and part science. Each translation will be the product of the values of the working translator blending with the material of the source text. Whether a translator wants to flex their creative writing while naming monsters or is a strict adherent to matching the original Japanese character-for-character, the translator’s values will inform the end product.

So what is the goal of translation? What should it be? Let’s finally get into some examples and look at what decisions were made at various crossroads in Dragon Quest.

While working on this article I spoke with Nob Ogasawara, translator of several games including Pokemon and Dragon Warrior (check out his Twitter). I wanted to understand his process when translating Dragon Warrior in the Dragon Warrior I+II collection on Gameboy Color.

The Gameboy was able to store more data than the NES and as a result there were fewer limitations in terms of what characters could be programmed, but the resolution of the Gameboy was far smaller. Nob was forced to contend with 18-character line limits. His prose had to be tighter to accommodate.

If you’ve ever watched Tim Roger’s fantastic mosey through the localisation of Final Fantasy VII you’ll have learned that Japanese generally has fewer issues with text space. While many retro Japanese games were unable to store kanji (logographic characters able to express lots of information), Dragon Quest was able to leverage the relatively few limitations in terms of spaces, word wrapping, and word order. English translations have much less flexibility.

The modern version of Dragon Quest (including several releases from the mobile port onward) appears to revel in its near-limitless script size, to the point that it sometimes seems to ignore the value of a concise message.

Dragon Quest (Switch) (JP)	南の海辺の洞くつの中で 美しい女性を見たという人が いました。 しかし　洞くつの中は 怪物だらけ。美しい女性なんか いるわけが　ありません。 きっと　こわさのあまり まぼろしでも　見たのだと 思いますよ。
Simple Translation	There was a person who claimed to have seen a beautiful woman within a sea-side cave to the south. However the cave is riddled with monsters. Beautiful women can’t be found in places like that. I think he was probably stricken with fear and saw things.
Dragon Warrior (GBC) (EN)	A man claimed to have seen a most beautiful woman in the cave by the sea south of here. But the cave is infested with monsters. There can’t be a beautiful woman there. He must have just imagined it. (39 words total)
Dragon Quest (Switch) (EN)	A traveller did tell me of a cave at the sea’s edge south of this place, in which languisheth a maiden most fair. But the cave in question is overrun with foul fiends. Pray, how might a delicate damsel survive in such a hellish hole? More likely doth it seem that the traveller, driven mad with fear, did glimpse a phantom of his mind’s own making. (66 words total)

No doubt the modern translation is beautiful, but it also makes even the most basic NPC appear to be an educated poet or thespian. While the GBC translation omits some details in this example – particularly the speaker’s supposition about the traveller’s state of mind – it concisely delivers relevant information to the player.

Nob told me that while writing with a limited resolution had its share of challenges, Yuji Horii’s writing style was snappy and concise already so creating concise and accurate translations was not as much trouble as it potentially could have been.

In order to solve the issue of screen size Nob had to get creative. He pushed for changes that would allow more information to fit into less space. In particular the use of icons for items and equipment (Iron ⚔ rather than Iron Sword, etc.) and a dedicated character for combinations of apostrophe and commonly combined letters such as S, R, and T, allowing for words like “she’s”, “we’re”, and “don’t” to take only four character spaces instead of five.

All these helped squeeze a bit more blood out of the stone, but there are cases where no amount of work made certain item or monster names work out. The special item おうじょのあい (lit: Princess’ Love) called Lady Lora’s Love on GBC is abbreviated as LoraLuv in the player’s inventory after receiving it. The NES’s Rogue Scorpion is called RgeScrpio on GBC. Situations like this make me wonder why other solutions to the limited character space weren’t sought out.

Dragon Quest (GBC) (JP)

Dragon Warrior (GBC) (EN)

An interesting question in translating games is how to approach text that will repeat dozens of times. While there is no flavour text for discovering basic items in the Famicom Dragon Quest, the games from the Super Famicom onwards featured the now iconic なんと！ (Nanto!).

なんと is typically an expression of surprise and can be used positively and negatively but tends to have a somewhat theatrical tone – a perfect fit in a series like Dragon Quest which tells stories like miniature stage plays. In the context of the game, the message appears to show the hero’s (or narrator’s) surprise that they’ve been conveniently blessed with an item in an otherwise harsh world. Here’s a basic table of each translation’s decision.

Japanese (SFC+)	NES	SFC	GBC	Modern
なんと！	Fortune smiles upon thee, [HERO].	What?!	What's this?	What luck!

Curiously the NES release of Dragon Warrior inserted flavour text where there was none in the original.

Dragon Quest (FC) (JP)

Dragon Warrior (NES) (EN)

The NES and modern releases accurately capture the feeling that I get in Japanese (again, the NES version technically didn’t translate this line in any literal sense). The hyper-literal “What?!” in the fan translation leaves a bit to be desired, coming across as a somewhat clunky, unsuitable reaction in the context. The GBC version serves a broader purpose, and may be more fitting when the player finds their fifth Torch after already having access to the Radiant spell.

Another quirk of the English translations is the use of the definite article (“the”) which raises the status of items like Herbs and Torches. The Japanese versions don’t have to deal with this problem and are able to sidestep it entirely. The modern version puts in some extra work and rewrites the text depending on the type of item discovered.

Dragon Quest (Switch) (JP)

Dragon Quest (Switch) (EN)

Dragon Quest (Switch) (EN)

Dragon Quest’s script has become highly referenced in future games and within fan communities. One iconic text comes from the kidnapped princess of the game. When begging the hero to escort her back to the castle, she presents the player with one of their first big choices in the game… almost. It’s a fake choice of course. Rejecting her puts the player in a looping dialogue box until the player relents and agrees to her request. In Japanese her reply, “そんなひどい…” expresses her dejection that you would ruin the celebratory mood so heartlessly. The text is not only used to reference all looping dialogue boxes in Dragon Quest games within the Japanese community, it’s also referenced in several future games.

The NES version of Dragon Warrior also had a somewhat iconic text. While researching Dragon Warrior/Quest resources, blog posts, let’s plays, etc. the one line repeated most by fans of the series was “But thou must.” Perhaps this version is less universally applicable to all situations, but it was iconic and – just like そんなひどい – it continues to occupy the grey matter of old-school fans to this day. However, to my knowledge, no future game specifically references this NES moment (if you know any examples please let me know!). Below you can see how future titles maintain the iconic line in Japanese while English games remove it.

Dragon Quest (FC) (JP)	Dragon Quest VIII (JP)	Dragon Quest XI (JP)
Dragon Warrior (NES)	Dragon Quest VIII (EN)	Dragon Quest XI (EN)

This isn’t really relevant to any particular release of Dragon Quest in English but I do think it’s a sign that western localisation either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about continuing classic references, and it appears to be a place where the fans and localisers have a divergence of expectations.

I do think there's an interesting question here, though. Should translators consider meme-ability when writing? Should they consider past titles and current expectations when writing a translation? Is a translation better for recognising a pattern and following it, or should the translation ignore historical context in favour of a more fitting translation for a scene? I'm not sure what's correct here, but I am a fan of references I can feel smart for recognising.

Next let’s compare some elements of the two middle-era translations. At times the SFC translation comes across as a parody of what would happen if you just translated everything literally with the goal of not “injecting yourself” into the translation. On the other hand the GBC translation shows how a translator can minimise their own presence without ignoring the craft that goes into translation. It forgoes the flowery script of the NES and modern editions in favour of a more contemporary style. Its characters speak clearly in natural English while still retaining the spirit of the original Japanese. In other words, while the SFC version aimed for perfect accuracy, the GBC version aimed for perfect faithfulness. When comparing the SFC translation and the original script they appear to agree on so many things. So why do I think it’s a weak translation?

When aiming for a distant target with a rifle, operators need to account for conditions like distance, wind speed, and wind direction – elements called external ballistics. While the GBC translation of Dragon Quest made careful adjustments to make sure its bullet hit the mark, the SFC translation simply aimed for bullseye without accounting for other conditions and ended up miles away from the target.

Dragon Quest (SFC) (JP)	いや〜めでたいのう。 しわくちゃな顔が　ますます しわくちゃに なってしもうたわい。
Simple Translation	How wonderful. This old face of mine has wrinkled even more.
Dragon Warrior (GBC) (EN)	What a cause for celebration. My wrinkles have deepened from grinning so much.
Dragon Quest (Switch) (EN)	Well, I’m overjoyed! My wrinkled face will become completely wrinkled now.

This is a line spoken by multiple NPCs following the Dragonlord’s defeat in the game. While the language used is somewhat unorthodox, the message is fairly simple. The characters saying this have received news that the world was saved and are commenting that their faces are even more wrinkled than before because of how happy they are about the news.

A lot of that information is not in the text directly. There’s no mention of grinning as used in the GBC translation, but a reasonable reader extrapolates that the cause of the wrinkling is smiling (and not some unknown force). The SFC translation aims to match the phrasing of Japanese (although it misses that 〜てしもうた is a dialectical past-tense of 〜てしまう) and immediately stood out as unnatural in English to me.

Japanese as a language is generally more flexible about repeating vocabulary. English, on the other hand, comes off as somewhat grating when the same words are repeated exactly in a sentence. The repeating “wrinkled” is a red flag that any editing process missed this line (if there was any in the first place).

The SFC fan translation of monster names in particular stands out as lacking in any critical thought. The translations of several monsters are awkward as a result of not considering the English reader.

A concern when translating (or even interpreting) second languages is the concept of false friends – words that sound straight forward, but don’t mean what you think they’d mean. The Japanese word ボディバッグ sounds identical to body bag, but the word is used to refer to what you might call a sling bag in English.

The meanings of words and phrases aren’t just the sum of their parts. The Japanese word 女子力 (joshiryoku) could be literally translated as “girl power”, but in English “girl power” is associated with female empowerment and solidarity. In Japanese the word has more to do with a woman’s femininity and adherence to social expectations.

In other words, it would be a disservice to the author and readers to misunderstand the intention of the author when translating seemingly straight-foward words.

There are cases where even the transliteration is inaccurate to the Japanese. キースドラゴン (Kiisu Dragon) was changed to Kiss Dragon. While researching the reasoning behind the Japanese names, the most common line of thinking is that the names are the result of character limitations in the original game. Another theory is that キース is from Keith, a Gaelic word for “forest”. In any case it was certainly no one’s intent to call them Kiss Dragons, and that translation is a worrying indication of the type of care put into the project.

Rather than focusing on the exact words used in Japanese, I’d recommend trying to feel out and match the intended meaning. A strict adherence to sound without considering meaning is generally not a good idea and certainly doesn’t show respect for the original writers.

The GBC translation doesn’t exactly do a lot with メトロゴースト or キースドラゴン, choosing to follow the NES choice with Poltergeist and Blue Dragon.

Who is Dragon Quest’s target audience? Is it a game for children? A game for everyone? Is it for highly educated and refined adults?

One argument for the weakness of the NES and modern translations could be their overly theatrical expression styles. While the Japanese games include some rarer Japanese forms, for the most part the series is known to use commonly understood Japanese.

The modern translation uses words which could only be described as Shakespearian. It makes no attempt to be comprehensible to readers who aren’t prepared to engage with it on its level, and I think that’s a weakness that isn’t often discussed.

Dragon Quest (Switch) (EN)

Monster names suffer somewhat from this problem as well. A simple enemy like まほうつかい (there are dozens of potential translations for this such as: magician, wizard, spellcaster, etc.) is given an obscure name like Prestidigitator. The benefit of this is that while no one can spell the monster’s name without a spellchecker, it’s unforgettable and unique. You definitely can’t fault the modern Dragon Quest localisation for a lack of creativity.

Japanese	NES	SFC	GBC	Modern
まほうつかい (Mahou Tsukai)	Magician	Mage	Magician	Prestidigitator

The GBC version strikes a balance in its writing that feels suitable for young audiences without alienating an older audience, although there are a number of odd choices. Renaming Metal Slime (consistent across all other localisations) Metaly is understandable considering the character limits on GBC, but in hindsight it comes across as a bit childish and it hasn’t aged as well as some other monster names. The basic ゴースト (Ghost) enemy is called Spooky on GBC – a cute name, but perhaps an unnecessary change.

A surprising case of consistency across localisations is spell names. Until the revisions in the modern era almost all ten spells were perfectly consistent (Hurt and Hurtmore were Firebal and Firebane on SFC and GBC).

The modern revision based changes on the critically successful Dragon Quest VIII. The localisation of all English Dragon Quest translations have followed VIII’s lead and maintained a new canon of spell, monster, and other staple names that Dragon Quest as a series loves to pull from (a strength of the series, in my opinion!). I personally find the modern localisations to be far more charming than their traditional counterparts. I also believe they’re more faithful to the Japanese version’s quirky spell names.

Japanese	NES/SFC/GBC	Modern
ホイミ (Hoimi)	Heal	Heal
ギラ (Gira)	Hurt/Firebal	Sizz
ルーラ (Ruura)	Return	Zoom
マホトーン (Mahotohn)	Stopspell	Fizzle

For some context, while the Japanese names may appear to have no meaning at a glance, they often draw from a variety of Japanese onomatopoeia. The single-target fireball spell in later games, メラ (Mera), may remind those familiar with Digimon of Meramon, the flaming-hot Digimon. Most other spells have some ~vibe~ they give off which eventually gives players an intuition for what a new spell might do despite a general lack of explanation in the games. The modern era naming system matches the vibe perfectly. Spells are simultaneously quirky while providing enough information for a player to make an educated guess about what they might do.

The modern remake similarly breaks the consistency with monster names as previously mentioned. Trading clarity for its own flavour of naming logic, the modern convention appears to be designed with brand development firmly in mind. The aforementioned Prestidigitator is undoubtedly more interesting and unique than Magician. The リカント (Lycanth) is called Wolf in all variations except post-reform which branded the creature Bewarewolf, a cute portmanteau of Beware and Werewolf. メーダロード (Meida Lord) retains the Lord title in all prior variations but is renamed Raving Lunatick in modern adaptations.

Of course some names are so iconic that they are totally consistent across all variations. スライム (Slime) is Slime in all variations and is unlikely to ever see changes. がいこつ (lit: skeleton) has been Skeleton since the NES version and saw no revision across all remakes. Items like torches, magic keys, the rainbow drop, and even the dragon scale accessory have been more or less consistent for the last 30 years.

So what did we learn? Between four translation styles was perfection discovered? If we took parts that worked from each of these perhaps some Ultimate Translation might be possible. Really, though, what works for one person might not work for another.

Nob Ogasawara laughed at my suggestion that translation necessarily involves some loss of information. His philosophy when translating is to convey the original text to a new audience as faithfully as he’s capable. I asked him if a perfect translation could exist ignoring all limitations of age-appropriateness, space limits, and external factors. He told me in a no-holds barred situation the translation might have come out differently.

Nob told me that he sees the role of a translator as someone who makes a product which is “faithfully comprehensible to the end consumer without getting underfoot.” He ended by saying “Invisibility is high praise as far as I’m concerned.”

Players with no understanding of the original text really have no reference point to compare the games. At the end of the day the best translation should be the one that works for those players, since they’re the one the translation functions to serve the most.

As it stands the modern iterations appear to serve that function best to me, although I recognise the script can come across as overwritten at times. I also see a lot of value in the efficient language used in the GBC translation, though some of its techniques to compress names leave a lot to be desired. The SFC version of Dragon Quest in Japanese is my favourite visually, and a number of (unofficial) translations exist, but it’s a wild west out there and in the best case you’d essentially be looking for a version where the translator has taken lessons from the modern revisions.