Retro Game Super Translation Selection Paperback – June 3, 2017

This book reminds me a lot of Mangajin, a niche Japanese language and culture magazine published in the mid-90s. Being a doujin translation about an already-niche subject, if you aren't a retro game fan or a linguaphile - with at least some knowledge of Japanese - then this book probably won't interest you.

Fun read with a lot of detail and nice little touches. It does what it says on the cover.Caveat though that I think is worth mentioning. The paperback is printed in black and white which is pretty disappointing due to the book's heavy use of screenshots. This was not stated anywhere in the product description which led to some disappointment. To be fair, you can see this if you click the picture preview, but it didn't occur to me that a book of this nature would be printed this way. I won't dock any stars because I could have foreseen this if I was a little more attentive, but I think it should have been clearer. The ebook version looks to be in color so I would recommend that instead.

this book is all about explaining how certain phrases found in some games were translated... how the Japanese often use words and phrases they think are American ... which often end up meaning something the totally different, or opposite even, when they localize it for American games... ... the author goes on and on about... in japan, this means this... but in america it means this ... so when we read this... it was a flawed translation of this ... which was intended to mean this... but ended up meaning that...i was hoping for some tips on translating Japanese games, but found nothing of the sort... a small, short book, which doesn't cost much... if this sort of thing interests you, then by all means buy it, as i have seen nothing else like it out there...

This book is for hardcore retro gamers such as myself. I read it through over a week, and laughed out loud for some of the translations. When family would ask what I found so funny, once I told them, they thought I was the biggest nerd on the planet. So that’s why I say “For Hardcore Retro Gamers Only”.

Very interesting look into how translations during the 1980s and 1990s went. The author looks at quirks and clever localization both for games from Japanese to English, and from English to Japanese, with context and explanations to elaborate on why the translator did what they did. Very recommended!

An interesting and light read. As a fan of games from Japan it's interesting to see what changes are made when things get translated.

Excellent read ! Definitely recommend it to those who are interested in the game localization and practices to check out.

This book was localized (translated) by HardcoreGaming101 and it probably shouldn't have been. If you are expecting HG101 quality analysis, you're not getting it here.While the translation itself is fine, the meat of the book is fluff. The author spends most entries guessing at why some translations are the way they are. No research, no interviews, just a linguistics lesson that is mostly a shot in the dark. You aren't leaving with any insight if you are fluent in Japanese, forget it if you don't understand Japanese at all.As a Japanese book, it would be better, but this has been turned into an English book and that's also where it stumbles. Most of the commentary is from the perspective of a Japanese game player and was not flipped over to a Western perspecitve. HG101 simply translated and moved on. Some of the commentary will seem odd because it's from the angle of a Japanese person and it really should have been adjusted for English release.I would skip this book, even if you are a fan of HG101.

Great book that has a lot of interesting information about the translations of classic or obscure video games! Nice to finally see the history and information behind the translation of japanese to english in wonderfully compacted book.

Libro que recoge múltiples curiosidades de juegos de 8 y 16 bits sobre traducciones curiosas-erróneas del japonés al inglés. Curioso y poco más (sirve para amenizar conversaciones o preparar exposiciones sobre lo retro como material auxiliar).

Wer sich bei japanischen Videospielen für die Feinheiten der offiziellen Übersetzung in die englische Sprache interessiert, kommt mit diesem Buch voll auf seine Kosten. Das Buch vermittelt in den kompakten Rezensionen vieler namhafter 8- und 16-Bit Videospiele außergewöhnliches Expertenwissen zur Lokalisation (teilweise auch zu damit verbundenen popkulturellen Unterschieden), das man afaik so schnell nicht finden wird bzw. zu lesen bekommt. Selbst wer das eine oder andere Spiel schon durchgespielt hat, wird sicher noch neue oder witzige Details bemerken. Da der Fokus (zumindest für mich) auf dem Text liegt, stört es mich auch nicht, das alle Seiten der gedruckten Version "nur" in Schwarz-Weiß sind. Wer unbedingt Farbe benötigt sollte besser die Ebook Version kaufen, ich bevorzuge aber die Haptik eines "echten" Buchs. Abschließend noch eine kleine Spoiler Warnung: Vereinzelt beziehen sich Text-Analyse und Screenshot auf das Ende des jeweiligen Spiels!