Gratuitous English/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Gratuitous English in Video Games include:

  • As a rule of thumb, in almost every Japanese or East Asian fighting game, when your character is K.O'ed and the words "K.O" appears, it's ALWAYS spelled or announced as K.O. instead of Knock-out, since it's impossible to pronounce that word in many Asian languages.
  • SNK may well be the kings of this trope, as any foreign character in their games will have Engrish in their quotes, with Terry Bogard of Fatal Fury being this trope incarnate ("R u OK? BUSTAAAAAAH WOLF!") To be fair, they also have examples of Surprisingly Good English as well, with Wolfgang Krauser (also of Fatal Fury) being the best example.
    • Iori Yagami of King of Fighters has an image song, "Kaze no Allegory", where he sings "Don't break my soul, woah oah tonight".
    • Krauser, unlike other SNK characters, has been voiced by English-speaking actors in almost every game he's been (Michael Beard in Fatal Fury 2 and Fatal Fury Special, and B.J. Love in KOF and Real Bout games).
    • RAWKET LAWNCHAIR!
  • On the subject of the Rockman.EXE series: in the original Japanese, Eleki Hakushaku (Count Zap) often spoke in gratuitous English. There, we got such gems as "Yeah! Rock and Roll!" and "God Damn." Of course, the dubs have no way of translating.
    • In the X series, all the games after X5 use Gratuitous English in the names of the bosses. This ended up with atrocities like Metal Shark Player, Infinity Mijinion, and Tornado Tonion.
      • The boss names in the Japanese versions of Xs 1-5 use Gratuitous English as well—it's just they started translating the names more literally from X6 onwards.
    • The names of X's weapons are also this trope. This became... interesting once he started calling his attacks in later games.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog's most recent incarnation (as appearing in Sonic Adventure and Sonic X) loves to use Engrish phrases such as "OK," "All right," or "Don't mind!" whenever he beats Eggman or accomplishes some other important goal.
    • When he beats Big Foot in Sonic Adventure 2, he says "Hey guy, take care!" This was left unchanged in the English voice acting.
    • Or when he ranks badly, he may say "Notmydaaay!" Not to mention Shadow's "Cah-ohs... CONTROL!" when executing his famous time-stopping move. And then there's the shuttle countdown... in ENGLISH, even with Japanese turned on.
    • For a laugh, turn Sonic Adventure on to Japanese voices, and put Sonic as the narrator for the menus. You get things like "How to pray wiv Nakolz (Knuckles)!" "How to creer (clear) the game!" "Serectcha characturr!" "How to pray wiv E-Wah-Oh-Two Gammer!" and many more.
    • When he said "Shit" in Sonic X. He does this a lot in Sonic X. His most commonly used phrases are "Don't mind!" (Wasei-Eigo for "Don't worry about it."), "All right!" and "Let's go!".
      • While Kanemaru Jun'ichi's pronunciation isn't that bad, it does sound quite hilarious, particularly when Sonic screams "I GOT THE LIZARD!" in one episode (he actually says "I can't believe it!"). Interestingly, this seems to be a character trait; in one episode, when Chris asks Amy where Sonic went, Amy says he went away, "but he told me to tell you 'See you later'." She says the "see you later" in English. Sonic's English phrase "Never give up!" became a kind of Determinator Catch Phrase for one episode, being used by Sonic and then later by Chris both when attempting something daring.
      • Knuckles's "SHABERU KUROO!" (Shovel Claw) in the anime.
    • This best e is the horrible garbling of "You Made It!" / "YUU MEIREH!" Sonic spouts when you beat one of the Tails levels in Sonic Adventure 1.
    • There was an advert in Japan for Sonic Adventure which was narrated by one of the characters. Sonic's version began with Sonic yelling, in English, "Hallo, ebrybodayyy! Mah name is Sonic! Sonikku za Hejihoggu sa!" pronouncing his name as corresponding to the Japanese way. At the end, he closes with "Ore wa Sonic! * Makes strange clicking noise* Sonic the Hedgehowg!" pronouncing it in (mostly) the English way.
    • And come to think of it, all the character names are in English. Sonikku za Hejjihoggu (Sonic the Hedgehog), Mairusu "Teirusu" Pauā[1] (Miles "Tails" Prower), Nakkuruzu za Ekiduna (Knuckles the Echidna), Emī Rōzu (Amy Rose), Biggu za Kyatto (Big the Cat), Kurīmu za Rabitto (Cream the Rabbit), Dokutā Egguman (Doctor Eggman), Shadou za Hejjihoggu (Shadow the Hedgehog), Rūju za Batto (Rouge the Bat), Shirubā za Hejjihoggu (Silver the Hedgehog) and the list goes on and on and on and on... The only one that's any different in Japanese is Nack the Weasel, who was originally called Fangu za Sunaipā (Fang the Sniper).
  • All the characters from Castle Shikigami 2 speak in horribly butchered english and make so little sense that it falls into the So Bad It's Good category. Especially notable because the voice actors were native English speakers who had to read the Engrish(Though sometimes they would correct it).
  • Chipp Zanuff from Guilty Gear is supposed to be an American who doesn't know Japanese, but due to the Translation Convention of the game he speaks it most of the time anyway. This is balanced by his large amount of gratuitous English, usually when swearing or surprised ("HOLY ZEN!"). The example here also points out his inversion in gratuitous Japanese. Like in that example, on the rare occaisions he's actually using Japanese, rather than it being an effect of the Translation Convention, it's random nonsense that makes no sense in context—he actually shouts "sushi" during one of his attacks, for another example.
    • In addition, about 75% of the attacks in the games are called out in English. This ranges from the good (Chipp and Sol Badguy call their attacks with Surprisingly Good English for the most part) to the laughable (Venom's Double Head Morbid: "DOUBAH HEAD MORBIDOH!").
    • The PlayStation 2 version of Guilty Gear X had pretty terrible English, every single fight. "Are you ready? Let's go! Let's enjoy a great time!" And... "Heaben o' Hell. Doo wan. Lez rock." This was replaced by better a better English speaker in the English version of Guilty Gear XX...at least until Accent Core, where they replaced the old speaker with a worse one for some infathomable reason when the original/#Reload/Slash speaker was perfect.
      • You also get a lot of this in Guilty Gear's spiritual successor BlazBlue. Try performing Ragna's "Gauntlet Hades" and watch how the Japanese voice actor mangles the phrase. And don't get me started on "The Wheel Of Fate Is Turning". Of course, you can set the game to English voice actors as well.
      • GAUNTORETTO HAHDEHZ! GORILLA FATE IS TOINING!
      • IZOCHI SUPAA KURASH!
    • The same developer gives us this in their Fist of the North Star fighting game: "The Time of Retribution. Battle (1,2,etc). Decide the Destiny!" Probably one of their better attempts.
  • In a similar vein, Sodom from the Final Fight and Street Fighter games is an American who's trying to be Japanese. He actually inverts the trope because he never speaks English, but instead speaks Gratuitous Japanese by mashing English words together that sound like Japanese phrases. For example, when trying to say "shoushi senban" (meaning "truly pathetic") he says "SHOW SEA SEND BANG!"
  • One Japanese Kirby Super Star Strategy Guide featured a Great Cave Offensive comic (it read left-to-right a la a Western comic book) at one point, that featured a fedora-wearing Kirby with oddly masculine features in a nonsensical Indiana Jones spoof. The kicker? The people writing the guide apparently wrote it in Japanese first, then translated it into English themselves—as a result, we got gems like "More SKINNY, less ATTRACTIVE to my baby!", "Gra'ma said, NO PICK up EVIL", and, best of all, "SHIT!".
  • This often extends to names, too: in Final Fantasy VI, the name Tina was considered exotic. If you don't recognise them, they were somewhat thankfully re-translated into English when they were translated, so the character became Terra. And then there's the whole "Claude and Alice" rumour.
    • Then there's Siegfried, who abandons battle with some gratuitous Spanish. "Adios Amigos!"
    • The entire Final Fantasy franchise in general LOVES it self some Gratuitous Foreign Language. The names of almost everything- titles included- are pronounced the same way in Japanese as English. Example: "Barret Wallace" is pronounced roughly "Bayrlet Walrus."
  • In an interesting gaming parallel, the SSX series of made-in-Canada snowboarding games features a Japanese character, Kaori, who speaks in a 50/50 mish-mash of fluent Japanese and extremely accented gratuitous English. Given the lack of other non-English-fluent characters, the makers were apparently trying to jointly appeal to trendy Japanese audiences and American fans of Japanese culture. Interestingly, this lack of fluency doesn't impede her interaction with the other snowboarders at all, even a romantic interest.
  • The X-Men arcade game has many plainly spoken engrish phrases, including "Pyro will burn you to toast!", "I am Magneto, Master of Magnet!", "Magneto is in another place" and the (in)famous "X-Men, welcome to die!" as spoken by Magneto. While not exactly engrish, he also makes the ridiculous insult of "X-chicken!"
    • More X-Men engrish: the first Japanese theme song produced when the 90's animated series was brought to Japan has a few random English phrases. The most obvious one is at the end where the singer practically screams with much gusto the line "CRY FOR THE MOON!"
  • The Japanese version of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike has the memorable "Let's Blocking" intro for the parry practice bonus stage. (Blocking is what parrying is called in Japanese, but the incongruous "let's" is what makes it TV Tropes Made of Win Archive.
    • The Japanese track of Street Fighter IV has a lot of this when calling attacks and giving introductions. Particularly amusing are Balrog (the boxer), who shouts nothing but Engrish in the Japanese track, and El Fuerte, who is Mexican.
    • Also of note is Rolento's victory phrase in Street Fighter Alpha 2/3: MISSHON KONPURIITO.
  • Ness and Captain Falcon in Super Smash Bros. use gratuitous English when calling their attacks. Super Smash Bros Melee retained this, but also inverted it with Marth and Roy speaking Gratuitous Japanese.
    • In Brawl, Lucas and Zero Suit Samus avoid this by having American voice actors—even in the Japanese version.
      • Ditto the narrator in all three games.
    • Then again, Ness comes from Eagle Land, so I suppose it's justfied...
  • Inverted in Resident Evil Extinction, where a Japanese subway sign sports nonsensical kanji.
  • This warning from Do Don Pachi and other early Cave Shoot'Em Ups.
  • Super Mario Sunshine has "SHINE GET!" (The "get" was wiped from the North America releases, though.)
  • The opening Theme Song to the American release of Rune Factory: a Fantasy Harvest Moon contains nothing but word salad Engrish. See for yourself.
    • The carries on into the sequels, of course.
  • In the Japanese version of Tales of Vesperia, villain Yeager speaks in a rather peculiar manner, randomly interjecting English words and phrases where Japanese would have sufficed, such as "Come on, boy!", and "Oh my god...". Naturally, his manner of speaking was completely changed in the English dub ...into Gratuitous German!
    • Karol has a somewhat unusual case in that the names of his arts in the Japanese dub are half Japanese and half English in their pronunciation (Examples being Houshuu Thunder and Kasshin Heal Stamp), perhaps to reflect his childish nature.
  • In the Japanese Tales of Symphonia, two of the main characters were named in Gratuitous English: the healer was named Refill, and her brilliant little brother was named Genius. These were thankfully changed to Raine and Genis for the English translation, although some fans use them anyway.

There once was a young elf named Genius
Whose English name was God's gift to limerick writers...

  • Any Tales Of game will feature this, for this reason: While most weapon techniques are three-to-five kanji compounds, spells are generally named in English. Now remember that the series has had voice acting since the beginning, and, well... faastueido! fiafurufurea! shirufu! And for the exceptions who have their tech names in Gratuitous English, this applies again. There are also a few examples of Gratuitous French and Gratuitous German techs, as well.
  • The opening video of the videogame Dote Up A Cat is totally Engrish.
  • In Capcom's Sengoku Basara series, Date Masamune frequently uses heavily-accented English phrases whenever it's time to kick ass in the original Japanese version, you see?
  • The Persona games have a weird relationship with this trope:
    • Persona 2 features the famous "LET'S POSITIVE THINKING!"
    • Persona 3 and 4 however, feature much gratuitious English in almost all their vocal songs, most notably the intro screens and battle music... except it's surprisingly good. There are plenty of parts where words are misemphasized or mispronounced, but if you know what they're trying to say, it actually makes sense.
  • In the Japan-only Tetris the Grand Master 3, if your game ends prematurely in Master or Shirase mode...

"EXCELLENT -- but...let's go better next time"

  • Arcade game Twinkle Star Sprites starts off with a shout of "TUWINKERU SUTAH SPURAITO".
    • Which isn't all that bad, but there are characters named Load Ran and Really Till.
  • A number of the songs from Katamari Damacy are loaded with Gratuitous English, including the Title Theme Tune "Katamari On the Rocks" ("Don't Worry, Do Your Best / Picnic kibun Feels So Good / Suteki na Afternoon / Furachi no Midnight, Yeah!") and "Song for the King of Kings" from We Love Katamari ("Everyday, Everynight / Kimi to ousama no Rainbow, Yes!")
    • Although, since this is Katamari we're talking about, it sorta makes sense.
  • The voice clips in the American versions of Cooking Mama are entirely this, ranging from simple stilted-sounding R/L inversion ("Look, a swarrowtail butterfry!" in Gardening Mama) to more awkward sounding phrases ("DON-TUH WARRY, MAMA WILL FEEX EET" and "WUNDAFAH! EVEN BEDDAZEN MAMA!" in Dinner With Friends)
    • Cooking Mama 2 has "Great! Yuu gayvid yua best effah!" ("Great! You gave it your best effort!") "Don warri, Mama will fix zis" and "Triffic! Even bettah zan Mama!"
    • DO NOT MIND
  • Averted by Knights in The Nightmare. The Japanese version is fully voice acted in English, and while the delivery is often highly enunciated for the Japanese audience, leading to alternate cheese and ham, it's still good English with a good accent. Atlus even saw fit to leave it in during localization, probably for the occasional Narm Charm.
    • Sadly, this only holds true for the voice acting. The Japanese version of the game also featured a lot of English text, including such instant classics as "How to Reinforce Least Knight" and "Touch the Box to Be Defeated Enemy".
  • The item shop in Tears to Tiara is called "The Good Folk" and is run by an Honest John of an Elf.
  • "Welcome to MOTHER3 World." Also, the voice clip played when you name your characters is Itoi himself saying, "OK desu ka?" (Is this OK?) According to Itoi, he was tricked into saying it by Hirokazu Tanaka (who had a tape recorder behind his back).
  • The attack names in Eternal Sonata are mostly in gratuitous English (Even on the English language track, which just has the English voice actors say the original phrase), with Chopin getting lines in gratuitous French and Italian. Fortunately they make a reasonable amount of sense.
  • Gunbird: "Ganbahdo!"
  • In the PS game "Speed Power Gunbike," the game over screen happily informs you that "Anergy empty! You all over!"
  • In the Japanese versions of Snatcher, JUNKER was originally an acronym for "Judgement Uninfected Naked-Kind Execute Ranger".
  • The MSX version of Metal Gear gave us such well named villains such as the "Shoot Gunner" and "Coward Duck". The sequel, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, isn't much better with the likes of "Black Color", "Ultrabox"(named after the New Wave band Ultravox) and "Night Sight".
    • "Black Color" was supposed to be "Blackcollar", after a novel about NASA ninjas (essentially). He is one...supposedly.
      • But the point is that "Black Color" was how the name was spelled in the actual game itself. Many people assume its a misromanization by the fan-translators, but that's how it was spelled in the actual Japanese game (all the bosses had their names spelled in roman script).
  • The Neo Geo shooter Blazing Star, and it's memetic "YOU FAIL IT! YOUR SKILL IS NOT ENOUGH" screen. Then there's the female announcer who yells English phrases such as "BONUS!" with hilarious results.
  • tee hee [dead link], over 1000 rules of game.
  • This is more or less the mode of international communications in eRepublik.
  • EXEC_CUTYPUMP/. from Ar Tonelico 3 is a strange mixture of Japanese and English.
  • The Starry Sky series. This is just a sample.
  • Lampshaded in The Simpsons Game, which features a level parodying Japanese RPGs entitled Big Super Happy Fun Fun.
  • The very name "Donkey Kong" is perhaps the most famous example of this trope.
  • In the French version of "Team Fortress 2", one can hear the Spy scream, "Oh my God", in English as part of his Jarate responses. What makes this strange is that he says that phrase in French in the original English version and all of the other languages the game was dubbed in.
  • From Do Don Pachi DaiFukkatsu Black Label's Arrange mode: "Just a couple more shots desu!"
  • The Japanese version of the "Cheer Readers" game from Rhythm Heaven Fever includes such lines as "OK, don't mind!" and "Let's everybody go!"
  • Very prevalent in the Japanese dub of Xenoblade Chronicles while the characters are calling their attacks. Only Dunban and Riki are exempt from this, due to having Japanese art names.
  • Misha's "Bush Cheney 2004" shirt from Katawa Shoujo is probably meant to parody this trope.
  • This is fairly common in the song lyrics in Deardrops and Kira Kira. It's pointed out that some of the band members have no idea what they actually mean.
  1. ↑ Shouldn't it be Purawā?
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