DS Games With More Than One English Translation?

[wingzrow]

So it's come to my attention that both advance wars days of ruin, and another code/trace memory, have TWO translations. One would be the american translation, and the other would be their european translation.

My question is this. Why would nintendo have their company translate the same games twice into english? If there's two of each, then which one is the better translation? Furthermore, is it just these two games, or has nintendo done this more than twice on the DS?

What's your opinion of the subject?

[Swamperon]

I think it possibly may have some reason to do with legal jargon and trademarked stuff. That has happened before such as with Working Designs NA translations differing to the EU ones (Shining Wisdom is a good example of this).

Or perhaps they felt the different translations would better suit their intended audience, factoring cultural differences etc.

The Professor Layton games' titles usually differ between NA/EU release, and I think for the Curious Village, the names of the puzzles were completely changed as well.

i.e. NA = Diabolical Box, EU = Pandora's Box. My guess would that the US is not as familiar with Greek mythology as Europeans are, hence the change.

[PapaStu]

Pretty much what Swamperon said.

Just look at Harry Potter. All the books were 'Americanized' for their US publishings, even though they were written in English. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone vs. Sorcerer's Stone. Hell go to Canada, your PlayStation Harry Potter game is titles Philosophers and not Sorcerers.

[God-Zilla]

wow, that is awesome, I never knew that... for some rpgs or games you are reallly a fan of, i could see it being pretty cool to have different translated versions in your collection...

[Julio III]

Just look at Harry Potter. All the books were 'Americanized' for their US publishings, even though they were written in English. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone vs. Sorcerer's Stone. Hell go to Canada, your PlayStation Harry Potter game is titles Philosophers and not Sorcerers.

Yeah, I initially read them in American (due to my sister using Amazon.com by mistake instead of .co.uk) and some words were confusing. I did learn that "bangs" means "fringe" though. As the books went on, they changed less and less. There were quite a lot of changes in the first book.

I didn't know that Another Code/Trace Memory had two translations though, I just thought it was the title. I did know they changed some puzzles in Professor Layton. Makes me sad to own the American one. In general, if given the choice, I would prefer the English translation - there are differences, particularly in spelling. For example, PapaStu above used "Americanized" where I would write "Americanised".

[Bojay1997]

I believe Flower, Sun Rain has two English versions as well. Not that surprising really. Nintendo expends a lot of resources to localize games for the major European languages, so making some changes for the UK market really is not that time consuming. I also don't think you will notice much of a difference on Another Code. I have both and the changes are subtle.