Suikoden is a great JRPG with lousy translation work; that said, Suikoden II is an even greater JRPG with lousier translation work. The proof is in the published work. This is the PlayStation 1 era, meaning there’s no way to patch the game and cover up caught mistakes. I did this for Suikoden after I beat it and figured I might as well snap some slanted cell phone shots of poor grammar or translating problems as I went through Suikoden II all over again. I did not expect to take so many photos. Truth be told, I grew lenient as I played, and so the following is not every bit of wonky wordsmithing I saw.
All right, let’s do this my fellow grammar geeks.
The joke here is that the true Hodor would never say such a thing. Simply “Hodor.”
Since, y’know, YOU ARE PRISONER.
I immediately found it strange that, for every shop in Suikoden II, the words “buy” and “sell” are lowercased while everything else is not.
Maybe Nanami meant an Estate spy?
You really don’t see many people using the form Its’ these days…
Um…what?
At this point, not even the makers of Suikoden II can remember how to spell their main villain’s name.
Maybe you’re too quick at writing these pre-cook off blurbs.
Wrong. I know not that name. There is only McDohl. There can be only one.
“This is home I make my living” sounds like something you’d want to shout angrily. THIS IS HOME, I MAKE MY LIVING!!!1!1!!!
Remember when they got Luca Blight’s and McDohl’s names wrong? Well, let’s add Jowy to the list.
YOU ARE EYES.
Some time after defeating Neclord, things got weird. Any time I ran away from a fight, the game replaced Hodor’s name with one of the enemy’s names. Thus…ZombieSlug.
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I’ll probably restart Suikoden III early next year. Here’s hoping the translation work got better once the series hit a new console platform. Here’s hoping.
Grinding Down 
I enjoyed this post! I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest stickler on grammar, but I’m always quick to notice glaring inconsistencies. I suppose that comes part and parcel with being someone who enjoys writing and reading so much.
Thanks, Matt! I don’t think most current day games are this bad translation-wise, but I still see plenty of spelling/grammar errors in AAA titles. If only every company would hire me to freelance edit…
You forgot to add “It looks like something is supposed to to be stuck into this depressed area” (sic) 😀
There’s nothing wrong with the last one
If your level is significantly higher than the monster’s level, the ‘escape’ button becomes ‘release’ which have 100% rate of success, and the text mentions that the monsters are the one who’s escaping
The bottom one is the dialog put forth by the game when you RELEASE mobs from combat. “such-and-such mob” was let off easily. I can’t remember the exact wording of the command, but you could basically fight, or run, or bribe, release or autofight. Pretty standard fare. As far as the “PcDohl” one, this was a known glitch whereby saved Suikoden 1 data (first letter of S1 hero’s name became 1st letter of hero’s last name in s2) imported into Suikoden 2 would determine what the last name was. After the first go round with this issue, my OCD tendencies forced me to name the S1 hero “Marius” to get the right name in s2. Thus endeth the lesson; yes I’m an uber-geek, older than dirt, I remember when consoles had to be cranked like a Model-T to start…