Inactivity + Zelda titles rant

It's been a while since I made a post here. I haven't quit, but I'm taking a break from translating at the moment. I don't know when I'll be back in action again, but I have something that's like 90% done, so I'll probably release that sometime soon.

In celebration of the soon-to-be released new Zelda game, have a very long rant about Zelda titles and differences between the original Japanese and what we got.

Let me start off by saying that I don't claim to be an expert of the series in any way.
I've only played the 3D console games (OoT, MM, WW, TP, and soon SS), and I never invested an awful lot of time collecting every heart piece or finding every secret after the N64 era.

What I do know something about is translations. If you think the English titles are always the same as the Japanese, think again. I got interested in these differences some time ago, and I tried to figure out why this was the case.

This is the compilation of those sleepless night I spent reading fan sites and Japanese wikis. Already this post is longer than most other posts you'll find here, but if you're interested in the Zelda series, you might find it interesting. If nothing more, you'll be half an hour closer to the release of "Skyward Sword" when you're done!

tl;dr version: Non-literal* translations are non-literal. Discuss.

* I know "literal" is a dirty word to a lot of people, and you're supposed to convey the meaning rather than a word-by-word translation. However, when it comes to titles, we're talking 2-3 words. It's unlikely that any deeper meaning is lost in a literal translation, and it's more than often just a case of censorship or rewrite in an attempt to make it more suitable for the target audience. But enough of that - let's get started!

For every game, I'm going to start with the year (years for multiple versions) it was first released (R). I'll then list the official English title (E), the Japanese title (J), and finally a very literal J->E translation (T). After those three lines I'm going to go into more detail regarding the differences between the titles, and sometimes some trivia.

As you will notice, almost all of the Japanese titles follow the same structure with "Legend of Zelda" followed by an "A no B" subtitle. The "A no B" grammar means "A's B" or "B of A." This vary in the English versions, but I will always use the "B of A" version in the literal translation, e.g., "Ocarina of Time."

R: 1986, 1994
E: The Legend of Zelda
J: THE HYRULE FANTASY: Zelda no Densetsu (1)
T: The Hyrule Fantasy: Legend of Zelda (1)

The first game in the series came out in 1986 along with the new FDS, but was later re-released in 1994 in a cartridge version for the Famicom (NES). A "1" was added at the end of the title in the Famicom version. The main thing you'll notice here is that "LoZ" was actually the subtitle in this game. To me, this sounds like "The Hyrule Fantasy" was the intended main series, and "LoZ" was just one of the planned games - much like how "Modern Warfare" is a sub-series for "Call of Duty."

We all know that that never happened. Already in the second game "The Hyrule Fantasy" was dropped in place for the now iconic "Legend of Zelda" title. By the time the game was released in America, "Zelda II" was already out in Japan. Sure they ignored half of the title in the English version, but this is one of the few times I think this was a reasonable thing to do. "LoZ" had become the name of the series, and this wasn't one of those cases where the titles were changed for convenience sake... *coughfinalfantasycough*

I can't find anything confirming the sub-title theory, so like most ideas about the Zelda universe, it's pure speculations. Furthermore, it's beyond the scope of this rant, so let's move on.

R: 1987
E: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
J: The Legend of Zelda 2: Rinku no Bouken
T: The Legend of Zelda 2: Adventure of Link

There isn't much to say about this title. Apparently the world had yet to realize that this was "The Legend of Zelda," and Roman numbers are cooler than Arabic when it comes to sequels, but apart from that the titles are identical.

From hereon, "Legend of Zelda" will be omitted from the titles. The only differences in the titles are the sub-titles, so I'll only cover those.

R: 1991
E: A Link to the Past
J: Kamigami no Toraifoosu
T: Triforce of Gods

This is where things gets interesting. The Triforce is an object of divine origin, and this was apparently the game that introduced the back-story with each piece representing one of the Goddesses that created the world of Hyrule. Thus, the original title makes perfect sense. From what I understand, the title was change in the English version to avoid references to religion.

This isn't the first time religion effected the translation of a Zelda game - nor the last. "The Book of Magic" was known as "The Bible" in the first game, and the music in fire temple in "OoT" was changed due to what sounded like "religious chanting" in the original version.

Religion is, and has always been, serious business in the world, so I can see why changes like these were made. However, that doesn't change the fact that the English title is completely bogus.

This game was the game that motivated me to write this lengthy rant. Not only are the English title completely different from the original, it has also caused a lot of confusion. I like lore and mysteries surrounding games, movies, etc. in general, so I've read my fair share of theories regarding the Zelda chronology. There is some fun reading if you're into that kind of stuff, but the title of this game is misused as a reference in a lot of theories.

First of all, should you really base the chronological order of something on its title? No, you shouldn't. Titles are only a few words that sometimes sum up the jist of the story, or just something that sounds cool. Just look at all the series with "The Last" or "Final" in one of the titles. Given that the game/movie/etc. sells well, you'll most likely see a sequel in a few years. Hell, there are like 20 "Final Fantasy" games. There's nothing "final" about it.

If you want to place one part of a series on a timeline, you do so based on the story; not the title. Even more so when you're working with something that has been translated, because things like this may have happened where the title has nothing to do with the original.

Claims that this game belongs at the beginning of the timeline due to the "past" or "a link (as in connection) to the past" annoys me a lot more than it should. Again, this is the main part of the rant. The rest won't be quite as wordy... at least not until we get to the mess that is the "Oracles" series...

R: 1993, 1998
E: Link's Awakening (DX)
J: Yume wo Miru Shima (DX)
T: Island Where One Dreams (DX)/ Dreaming Island (DX)

Truth be told, I don't understand the reasoning behind this localization at all. Link finds himself on an island that is in fact the dream of something known as "The Wind Fish." "Dream Island" or "Island of Dreams" would both be suitable titles, and I don't see why they would be offensive to anyone in any way.

The English title is in itself somewhat weird as well. The whole game takes place in a dream, yet its title refer to the act of waking up. Also, wouldn't it be the Wind Fish that awakens, and not Link? Turns out Link was dreaming as well, and it's an "it was all a dream" ending. So the title is nothing but a big spoiler. Might as well call the upcoming Wii U game "The Legend of Zelda: Ganon is defeated and Hyrule is saved."

This game was released on the Game Boy and later re-released on the Game Boy Color with the "DX" suffix. This is the same in both versions.

Bonus: Zelda on the CD-i

I'm sure most people have already seen the infamous cut-scenes from these games on Youtube. No one really consider the three games that were released on Philip's CD-i to be part of the Zelda series, and sees them as nothing more than franchise exploitation.
I agree, but given the spirit of this rant, I have to say that they at least got the titles right.

We haven't seen that much of it yet, but a common theme in Zelda titles are to have some sort of noun with some sort of property. "The Ocarina of Time," "The Mask of Majora," and so forth. In this aspect, these games stay true to the series.

In 1993, "Link: The Faces of Evil" and "Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon" were both released. Especially "The Wand of Gamelon" is an extremely Zelda-esque title. The following year "Zelda's Adventure" was released - a title very similar to "Zelda II."

There are no Japanese version, so I can't compare titles. The games may be horrible, but at least they had appropriate titles!

Bonus: Zelda on the Satellaview

I stumbled across this while browsing through old Zelda games. In 1995, Nintendo released the Satellaview add-on to the Super Famicom (SNES). Seems like Nintendo would at certain times broadcast signals from a satellite that you could pick up using a receiver - literally getting the games beamed down to you from space!

It's an interesting concept, and it lasted for five years. During this time, some Zelda games were "released" in this way. The Satellaview was never released outside of Japan, so there are no English titles to compare with. Still, I thought it was a fun thing to bring up. You can read more on Wikipedia.

The word "innovation" has become a bit worn-out nowadays when speaking about Nintendo, and sometimes I wish I could play my games with a plain old controller, but seeing things like this and the Virtual Boy, it's hard to call them anything but innovative.

R: 1998, 2011
E: Ocarina of Time (3D)
J: Toki no Okarina (3D)
T: Ocarina of Time (3D)

This was the first Zelda game I played, and what a game it was. I was 10 at the time, and it was just full of amazing things: a huge world to explore, challenging puzzles, a vibrating controller, an immersing story, time traveling, the idea that adulthood sucks, fucking skulltulas that gave me nightmares - all in wonderful, blocky 3D (back when 3D meant "three dimensional" and not gimmicky "out's coming out of the screen!" effects)!

Not only is it widely accepted as one - if not the - best game ever made, the English translation of the title is perfect. GOTYAY.

3D re-release in 2011. Also gimped water temple D:

R: 2000
E: Majora's Mask
J: Majora no Kamen
T: Mask of Majora

Y2K came and we didn't all die. And what's more, we got a new Zelda game to kick off the new millennium! Yeah, it wasn't as great as "OoT," but I still had lots of fun finding all those mask - though I have to admit that I bought a guide to the game.

Once again, there's nothing to complain about with it comes to the title. Perhaps we've seen the last of illogical, rewritten transla-

R: 2001
E: Oracle of Seasons/ Ages
J: Fushigi no Ki no Mi: Daichi no Shou/ Jikuu no Shou
T: Nut of Mystery: The Earth Chapter/ Space-Time Chapter

Oh wow. We just hit the motherload. Before moving on to perhaps the most confusing titles in the Zelda series, let's have a look at the trilogy that became a duology:

"OoS" circles around what seems to be an incarnation of the Goddess Din, while "OoA" has Nayru. The idea is that you play the games separately, and then link them together to unlock new content and whatnot. A neat concept, but what happened to Farore?
There are three pieces of the Triforce, and accordingly three Goddesses.

Farore was going to have her own game, and it was planned to be released after the other two games. You were also meant to be able to link this game with the other two, further unlocking more features. Apparently this was no easy task to do for the developers, and the idea was scrapped due to problems linked (heh) to this linking of the three games.

An early title for what was going to be the "Triforce Trilogy" was "Mystical Seed of Power/Wisdom/Courage," with each game featuring one of the Goddesses and a different theme: Power had a season theme, Wisdom had colors, and Courage had time. When they couldn't make all games work together, they kept "Power" more-or-less the same, scrapped "Courage," and put its time-theme into "Wisdom." Also they included Farore as the "Oracle of Secrets" in both games - the one in charge of the secrets linking the two games would reveal.

The "Oracle of Secrets" seems like a last-minute-solution, and I find it unlikely that the third game would've been "Oracle of Secrets." If anything, the third (Courage) would've been "Oracles of Ages," and the second (Wisdom, and what is now OoA) would've been something else. "Oracle of Colors" seems like the only reasonable option.

With that (kinda) sorted out, let's talk about the titles. Like I mentioned before, almost all the Zelda game titles has something to do with a noun with some property. In this case, we had a nut (or seed) of mystery/wonders. It was decided that the world wasn't ready for a sub-title within a sub-title yet, so the "Nut of Mystery" part was dropped. Also I suppose you can't say "nut" in a video game in the 21st century.

All we now have left is the "Earth Chapter" and "Space-Time Chapter" from the original title. They decided to just name the games after the oracles in each version. I can see how the original would be a bit weird, so they simplified it by making "Earth" into "Seasons" and "Space-Time" into "Ages." So now instead of having two titles that sounds like they have nothing to do with each other, we have two that are very similar. Still, what's with the original?

Well, at least according to the creation story told in "OoT," Din create the Earth. Din being the "Oracle of Earth" makes sense, but Din was never the problem in this series. Nayru brought the law to the Earth Din created. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I suppose it's like physics, gravity, water is wet, and so forth. Farore filled the Earth with all living being. And then the Goddesses were a Triforce.

Neither creating the laws of physics or life has much to do with time, but apparently the developers thought so. I suppose they just decided to give the space-time attribute to one of the Goddesses while working on this game, but Farore was originally meant to have this power. Was this based on something (remember that Din was associated with the Earth three years before this game was released), and if so, did they just ignore this and alter the lore just because they couldn't get the software to work properly?

The Oracle series are pretty damn confusing. What's more, it's going to be back to haunt us three years after its release...

R: 2002
E: The Wind Waker
J: Kaze no Takuto
T: Baton of Wind

This is the black sheep of the 3D console titles. Again, Nintendo have an obvious theme with their titles, and for some unmotivated reason, it's changed in the English version.

In "OoT" we controlled time with an ocarina. In "MM" we had a mask that... belonged to Majora I suppose. In "WW" we controlled the wind using a baton. Why not call it
"Baton of Wind"? And if there's some reason behind this, why wasn't "OoT" called
"Time Traveler"? They seem to have a thing for titles which abbreviates into a repetition of one letter anyway (MM, WW, SS).

It turns out that the "Baton of Wind" is called the "Wind Waker" in the English version, so at least both titles refer to the same item this time.

R: 2003, 2004, 2011
E: A Link to the Past & Four Swords (GBA), Four Swords Adventures (GCN),
Four Swords Anniversary Edition (DSi & 3DS DLC)
J: Kamigami no Toraifoosu & Yottsu no Tuurugi, Yottsu no Tsurugi+
Yottsu no Tsurugi: 25 Shuunen Kinen Edition
T: Triforce of Gods & Four Swords, Four Swords+
Four Swords: 25 Year Commemoration Edition

Originally released as a GBA port of "A Link to the Past" with the multiplayer game
"Four Swords" included. "A Link to the Past" still suffers the same errors in the title as in the original, but at least I'm happy with the "Four Swords" title.

A sequel to "Four Swords" was later released to GCN, known as "Plus" in Japan, but "Adventure" elsewhere. I guess "plus" implies some sort of add-on, and this was a new game. A reasonable change.

The original two-game-in-one version was (re-)re-released this year as downloadable content for the current generation of Game Boys. There's nothing to comment on about the title. These are kinda unremarkable. Let's move on to something I can rage about!

R: 2004
E: The Minish Cap
J: Fushigi no Boushi
T: Cap of Mystery

Sounds familiar? Yep, it's like the oracle series, but this time it's a mysterious cap rather than a nut. And just like in those games, the title is changed a bit - although they probably still refer to the same item.

The Minish is a race of tiny creatures in the game, and the cap Link wears in this game is a living Minish being with the power to shrink Link.

I guess they thought they might as well come up with something else for this title too since they dropped the "mystery" part in the Oracle series.

R: 2006
E: Twilight Princess
J: Towairaito Purinsesu
T: Twilight Princess

By this point, I like to think that Nintendo realized that leaving localization to dirty gaijins isn't such a good idea. There is no real Japanese title, since it's just an English title spelled using Japanese characters. Not very surprisingly, they're the same.

R: 2007
E: Phantom Hourglass
J: Mugen no Sunadokei
T: Hourglass of Visions/Dreams

This is a direct sequel to "WW," so I suppose it makes sense to try to keep the title structure similar. If they had called the first game "Baton of Wind" - which they should've done in my opinion - I think they would've gone with a "Hourglass of..." title.

As far as handheld titles goes, and with they way things are, this one is okay.

R: 2007
E: Link's Crossbow Training
J: Rinku no Bougan Toreeningu
T: Link's Bow-gun/Crossbow Training

In 2007, Nintendo released their Zapper controller shell - joining the ranks of the Wii Wheel and golf clubs as yet another inconveniently-shaped chunk of plastic that will take up an entire drawer. Basically it's shaped like a machine gun with the Wii Mote laying horizontally in the barrel, and the Nunchuk sitting vertically at the handle.

The Zapper came shipped with "Link's Crossbow Training," which obviously had a positive effect for the sales. It's a bit mean to appeal to the Zelda audience with a device that would never be usable in an actual Zelda game.

The game was just some "how to use the zapper" mini games. The titles are identical.

R: 2009
E: Spirit Tracks
J: Daichi no Kiteki
T: Steam Whistle of The Earth

Well... this a sequel to "PH," which in turn is a sequel to "WW," so the same logic applies for the title here as well. The only difference is that the Japanese and English titles aren't even remotely similar. They both refer to trains in a way, but that's about it.

The game takes place in "New Hyrule" which was discovered after the event in "PH." In this new land, the Triforce seems to have been replaced with the "Symbol of the Spirits" - the symbol inside the sun in the above picture. It also introduces a new divinity: the "Spirits of Good" (or "God of Light" in the Japanese version).

With the absence of the Triforce, it's unlikely that "The Earth" in the title refer to the old Goddess Din like in the Oracle series. The Japanese word can also mean "land," and it seems like the different regions of the game are called "Land of Forest," "Land of Fire," etc. in the Japanese version. These are called "Forest Realm" in the NA version, but "Forest Land" in the EU version.

The in-game "Steam Whistle of The Earth" is just called "Flute of The Earth" (or perhaps "Land") in Japanese, but "Spirit Flute" in the English version. It's the key item of the game, and like almost every other game, it's the Japanese sub-title. From what I understand, the actual steam whistle on the train is only used to scare cows off the tracks. I don't see why they chose to name the game after the steam whistle, when the main item is just called the flute. "Steam whistle" in Japanese is "steam" + "flute," so maybe they just added "steam" to associate the title with the Spirit Train.

Out of the three games in this "new world" series (WW, PH, ST), this is the one where the title differs the most. The "Spirit Tracks" are the railroad tracks that you travel on with your train, and the "Spirit Flute" is used to restore those tracks. Sure they're closely related, but it's like calling "OoT" "Sage Medallions" - you play the ocarina in order to get access to the temples, which in turn you do to gather medallions.

R: 2011
E: Skyward Sword
J: Sukaiwaado Soodo
T: Skyward Sword

Just like the last console game, the Japanese title is in English. In fact, all the box art I've seen from the game appears to use Roman characters exclusively.

Since there's not much to say about the title, let's have some trivia:

It's the first game in the series that will require the Wii Motion Plus add-on, and will utilize its enhanced motion sensor technology. This will hopefully encourage the player to do something else than just flail the remote around. A limited edition version will be shipped with a gold-colored Wii Mote with build in Wii Motion Plus.

Celebrating the 25 year anniversary of the Zelda series, the first shipment of games will include a CD with various Zelda music. Yay for novelty items!

Final words

At the end of the day, "The Legend of Zelda" is one of the most beloved and praised video game series of all times. Should I ever find the time, I'd love to play more of the games. Just to make it clear: I don't criticize the quality of the games in this rant; just some of the choices made when translating the titles.

A lot of the titles aren't bad per se, but it's the inconsistency that annoys me the most. The original titles all have a very clear theme where they're (almost) all named after the key item of the game. This is to some extent lost in the translation, where the English titles are all over the place. Does this effect the greatness of the series in any way?
No, not really. This is merely nitpicking - but hey, it is a rant after all.

If you actually read your way to this point, I hope you found it fun or interesting in some way. Today is the 18th, and "Skyward Sword" is out in Europe. Within a week, it'll be available worldwide. I hope you'll get the chance to try it out if you're a Zelda fan.

Finally, a lot of emphasis is put on reviews nowadays. The cool kids claim that they don't listen to reviews, and as soon as a game gets a 8/10+, it's due to bribes.
Truth be told, I don't really care if it's going to be the best game in the series or not.
That doesn't matters much when that series is one of the best out there.