M2EB Update: Fourside

Cheers for M2EB.

One thing I’m not 100% on — was Pokey called Porky in Mother 2, and then it was changed in the localisation?

His name could’ve been translated into several things, the translators just wound up choosing the wrong spelling.

Yay! I love M2EB updates.

Is Aloysius a character from To Kill A Mockingbird? I don’t recall anybody by that name but of course it’s been ages since I’ve read it. Could you be thinking of Atticus?

It’s been 9000 years since my high school English classes so I don’t remember :X

In EarthBound, Mr. Spoon speaks with someone on the phone named Mr. Fork, which is kinda funny. In MOTHER 2, who does Mr. Ricebowl speak with on the phone?

I’ll get to that when I get to Summers, but since you asked, his name is Mr. Chopsticks.

Head of the Japanese Monopoly Association… Itoi’s really done a bit of EVERYTHING, hasn’t he??

After I first saw this, it always bothered me how EarthBound’s letters aren’t slanted. It looks like they just put the tiles there with no regard for the little design on the sign…aww.

Wouldn’t lack-toes intolerant be a double negative, therefore making you intolerant of lacking toes?

An interesting read, as always!

When I first played Earthbound the coffee thing sounded like a stronger reference to the fact kids were walking into a bar than if they just left all the alcohol in (instead of caffeine). The fact that everyone was talking as if they were obviously avoiding alcohol made it stand out a lot more…

And this instance of red cross removal reminded me of a M2EB-related tidbit – altough my memory could be betraying me, the SSBM Onett has a hospital with the red cross symbol, whereas the SSBB Onett has the red cross removed.

M2EB was the first EB site I ever stumbled across back in the late 90′s, it makes my heart happy to see it’s still being worked on. =)

In that update you mentioned Monotoly being changed to Monotoli but said you weren’t sure why the change was made. If I remember correctly, I read in a few different places that Monotoly resembled “Monopoly” too much, causing the translators to alter the spelling to be on the safe side (monopoly fits in context, sure, but there is the oh-so popular board game that shares the same name).

I guess this could be chalked up to being a rumor, but considering all of the other references to American pop culture, it makes sense in my book.

Wow, when first played EB, I always kept calling Monotoli “Monopoly”, and was very upset when his sprite looked nothing like the Monopoly guy.

On the topic of that board game, wasn’t there a Monopoly tournament reference Fobbies Are Borange?

I’m very surprised how many curse words were in the MOTHER 2 version of Fourside!

In reference to why the Punk salesman guy says “Mod-boy jerk! You can’t do me like that!”, I believe it’s just a reference to the British movement in the 60s of two rival youth groups/clicks, the sharply dressed and usually more well off Mods with their scooters, and the grungy, motorcycle riding Punks….check out The Who’s album and movie Quadrophenia for some examples.

Also worth noting on that score is that “Quadrophenia” could be translated as “four-sided.”

Urgh I hate how they changed bar to Cafe, Bar seems way more natural.

For the shows I’ve been to, SS has been floor seats and S is balcony, and A and B type seats are respectively behind them.

Not all theatres offer SS seating, and often when they do, they are only available to fan clubs. So out of S, A and B, S is the best kind of seat, but it’s probably a balcony rather than a box.

(noted as I just looked at the Twoson page: if a place doesn’t actually have SS seats but does have boxes, then I guess the S would be boxes, A would be floor and B would be balcony.)

Cool to see the changes site being updated. I’m going to send Mato a scan of the GamePro review of EB tomorrow. It makes the EGM one look like the New Yorker! I don’t even think they made it to Threed.

I have a question. When the status menus were being shown, the numbers that displayed how much money you had are bigger and bolder in the Japanese version, but are smaller and more compact in the English one. Why was this? Did you use smaller dollar amounts in M2 compared to EB, or was it just a font change?

I’m not sure what you mean, but it’s just a simple case of the English version using a different font. The English font also uses variable width, the Japanese font is fixed width, which makes it seem bigger in general too.

OMG!!!…Mato typed up a swear!

Mato, I’m consistantly impressed by the amount of new things you keep finding to say about the Mother series. You’re able to make a game that came out a good number of years ago seem like a living entity and a constant source of content. You’re an inspiration!

Also, Geldegarde is as you may have guessed:

‘Gelde’ is german for money, just like ‘gelt’ means gold.

‘Garde’ means ‘guard’. It also means ‘custody’ in french. Mr. Moneyhoarder.

I guess ‘Monotoli’ works in English because it sounds a bit like ‘Monopoly’ and it also sounds a little Italian, and, uh, thanks to Hollywood we associate Italian Americans with organized crime

Yay, updates! I love learning about all the little cultural/linguistic factoids that went into M2′s translation – it’s so fascinating. Kudos to you for your continued work on the site!

(Hmm, reading about the alcohol-turned-coffee issue reminds me of how reluctant I was to drink coffee as a kid – I guess that was partially thanks to EarthBound! It helped convince me that coffee was an icky “adult” drink )

Gah, Harvey beat me to one name reference.

The other one is Aloysius. I don’t recall him being in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but I have some other ideas. I may be stretching this a bit, and going into some dangerous waters, but stay with me on this.

First, the name Aloysius is generally seen as a rich man’s name. I think that’d be fitting, since he does talk about loaning Ness’ dad money and has a pretty arrogant attitude.

Next, the first part of his name may remind some people of the world “alloy,” a mixture of metals. This may not seem like much, but it did lead me to check out the name here: http://www.behindthename.com/name/aloysius

So it’s a form of Louis, a French name. Several examples of people with the name are royalty. One was part of the crusades (which many now view as a way of increasing the state’s cash flow), one was called “The Sun King” (the sun is sometimes a symbol of gold, like in old school alchemy), and a monarch that was beheaded…

Now, back to the name itself. It’s a French name and a catholic one at that (France is generally seen as a catholic country). Historically, protestants’ beef with catholics is the catholic’s percieved “idolatry”… of gold statues.

Taking into account that Pokey’s dad gets to his positon because of his faith in his son, I think there is a small chance the name is used to show him as an arrogant gold worshipper

“I wonder if there’s something to the name Geldegarde”

It means “goldguard” in German. He’s a miser. He hoards money, hence the name.

Wow, great work as always. As for the solitaire/Monopoly thing, I can kind of appreciate what the localizers did since they are implying that he lost money in a single player game. A little tenuous, but that’s the first thing that came to my mind.

What fredmcnanner said about Fobbies Are Borange is the first thing I thought of when I read the Monopoly reference. Those guys really took that joke and ran with it, didn’t they?

What Robert said is a good point, too. I always thought it rather absurd to have a tournament comprised of a one-player game. Especially when you’re trying to unlock things in Fable 2 Pub Games, but that’s a different point. I never thought of the “strip solitaire” point until Mato brought it up, though. Thanks a lot…

I have to say, I personally suspect they changed Monotoly to Monotoli because…it looks better. It sounds like an Italian name instead of a somewhat fake looking name. I don ‘ t think any references to organized crime or corruption were intended, just making the game a bit more believable/immersive for an American audience.

And yet, there are such things as solitaire tournaments, beleive it or not. Most forms of solitaire have a devised “scoring” method (for instance, in “Klondike” solitaire, every card removed from play increases your score), and it’s a simple matter to have all tourament players play hands of solitaire and eliminate those whose cumulative scores are below a certain percentile.

I guess ‘Aloysius’ was probably just chosen because it sounds a little pompous, a little slick and greasy.

I think i may have a theory as to why they called it “Monotoli” instead of “Monotoly”. it could be the whole Monopoly theory…but don’t quote me on that.