Here’s the official translation of the Latin at the end of SSBB. The localization team that worked for the game take a lot of liberties when translating from Latin to English (with verbs in particular).
| I’ve heard legends of that person. How he plunged into enemy territory, how he saved his homeland. | Audi famam illius. Solus in hostes ruit et patriam servavit. |
| I’ve heard legends of that person. How he traveled the breadth of the land, reducing all he touched to rubble. | Audi famam illius. Cucurrit quaeque tetigit destruens. |
| I’ve heard legends of that person. Revered by many–I, too, revere him. Feared by many–I, too, fear him. | Audi famam illius. Spes omnibus, mihi quoque. Terror omnibus, mihi quoque. |
| Now that person stands with me. Now, my friends are with me. Some of them were once my foes. Some, my mortal enemies. | Ille iuxta me. Socii sunt mihi qui olim viri fortes rivalesque erant. |
| And as we face each other in battle, locked in combat, we shine ever brighter. | Saeve certando pugnandoque splendor crescit. |
For those of you at home, please write this down in your workbook in the space provided.
Congrats to She Who Reads–no relation to The Ghost Who Walks–for getting the literal sense better than the translators. But don’t be too hard on the localization team; they’re translating into English something that was translated into Latin from Japanese. Or, I suppose they could be translating an Japanese ur-version directly into English and forgoing the Latin entirely.
I wonder if a Japanese original accounts for the imperatives that the official translation renders
as first person statements. Anyone out there know enough Japanese to speculate? Is there a special form of the declarative that’s rendered as an imperative in Japanese?
Still, we’ve come a long way since the original days of Nintendo’s NES localization teams’ inadvertent hilariosity.
For extra credit, you may now translate the following Nintendisms into Latin:*
Eyes of skull has a secret. –Old Man, Legend of Zelda
[Update from Vampire Brad Pitt: Oculi calvae arcanum habet.]
Uh oh, the truck have started to move! –Solid Snake, Metal Gear
[Update from She Who Reads: Heu, autocarrum movere inceperunt.]
The vest isn’t 100% against heat. –A duck that runs a store for some reason, Milon’s Secret Castle
The president has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president? — The head of the Secret Service, Bad Dudes
Fight, MegaMan! For Everlasting Peace! — Narrator, Mega Man
[Update from Fort Lesley J. McNair: Pugnate, MagnumHominem! Per pacem semper durando!]
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*Extra extra credit for translations that preserve the bad grammar of the original.