When I was playing through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (FE9) again a few months ago, I came across this particularly silly line that many fans (and I) find amusing.
I was curious as to what he said in Japanese, and managed to get hold of the Japanese game script to check just that!
The dialogue in question is from Chapter 25 of Path of Radiance (Strange Lands). It occurs in the scene right after you beat the level.
For those unaware, that map features traps and boulders that the enemy tries to roll down atop you. So when the group thinks they’ve cleared the field of enemies, along comes this guy…
|
Japanese |
English (Literal) |
English (Localization) |
| かかったな！ くらえっ！！ |
So you’ve come! Eat this! |
Now we’ve got you! Eat rock! |
This line never ceases to be silly each time I read it. As you can see, in Japanese he does say eat but in the more straightforward “eat this” sort of way (it can be translated as “take this!” as well).
They did keep the “eat” theme, and simply changed it to eat this [rock]. The line about being clever is totally different though, and a silly addition.
The localizers may have felt particularly jolly that day (or perhaps had a running joke with this guy, or maybe it’s even a joke on the localizer’s choice of wording itself as a sort of meta joke). This is all speculation of course. There could be many reasons we will never know!
Either way it has little bearing on the story or anything and certainly gave me (and others) a good (albeit slightly confused) chuckle.
It’s an example of the types of minor changes that can happen with little controversy to make things more fun for the audience (subject to what they assume is fun, of course). Admittedly it may take away the seriousness of the situation (considering they get killed right after, and that the context is set as the group is nearing the grim final chapters…)
Well that does it for this brief comparison! I gained access to the Japanese text in both the Tellius games so hope to look into some other things in the future.
If you have any suggestions of what else to look into that you may be curious about, please feel free to leave a comment below! I hope to tackle something regarding the Black Knight next.