zephiX, did you write this?
Peculiar Translations of PS2 Manuals - Kingdom Hearts (16.1.2026)
You can check out the full scan of the manual on Archive.org
I have a not-so interesting history with this game. It was one of the more "elusive" games when I was growing up, stumbling upon a gameplay video of Halloween Town from the first game on YouTube when I was trying to find more movie clips instead. My reading comprehension, especially in English, was no good back then (was like 8), but I still remembered what it was, just not by name.
And when I got a Nintendo 3DS, realizing that I can browse the e-shop like a year later, found that there was a new game made for the system and it even came with a free demo, I was ecstatic and immediately downloaded it. This was the closest I could get to playing it, this series wasn't that common to get in our local gamestores (or atleast I think), so finally trying this game was sensational and I couldn't stop replaying the demo over and over again, using the satisfying Flowmotion mechanic to go around Traverse Town and beating up bad guys.
Few years passed by, sold my 3DS, wasn't really into any good games, just played CS:GO with my friends at the time and few years ago, when I was lucky to get a ahold of the PS5, started to look around more games I could get for the system and found The Story so Far and KH3 for like 30 bucks. It was a no brainer, I can finally fullfil something I wanted to do for a long time. Was a rought start, I'll admit, but when it finally clicked, the games were really magical.
With me beating almost every game at this point (Melody of Memory is the last one), the series having an influence on me and my creative work would be an understatement. That appreciation let to getting all of the original releases, even finally getting the one for the 3DS and I found something reeeeaaaally interesting.
I knew that some releases on the PlayStation 2 were translated to local languages, thought this was more relegated to sports games like FIFA, but no, I found a copy of Kingdom Hearts that was translated to my language, along with other ones from neighboring countries. What was even more surprising, was that they made a GIGANTIC error right on the back side of the boxart:
Don't worry, it is an almost literal translation of the English description, apart from the final sentence, mainly the phrase "Aby porazil zlosyna Heartlesse", and it implies that the "Heartless" is an individual and is the main antagonist of the game, which is just factually incorrect. Even more infuriating is that the translation underneath this one GETS IT RIGHT, LIKE COME THE FUCK ONNNNNN.
(rough translation: evil creatures called the Heartless)
Had to look deeper into this, because there is no way that they didn't have that information at the time. I wanted to see what they did to the manual and how much damage was done, but noone was willing enough to make a scan of it and finding a black box copy was impossible to find for a reasonable price. Thought that getting the Platinum Hits (Greatest Hits for NTSC-U) would give me a black and white manual, but I luckily found a scan of the Spanish release that was in color. So I bought that version instead.
From the start, it doesn't sound that bad, it's just technical stuff for the console itself, what I was more interested in was the descriptions to each main characters. Lo and behold, the heartless are not a singular person:
(Original: Mysterious beings that hunt Sora relentlessly. There are several types of Heartless, each one more menacing and malevolent than the last.)
My asssumption now is that the team for localizing/translating boxart and manuals at the local Sony offices were separate, because I don't think this kind of mistake would happen otherwise. Anyways, the main thing from this translation job that I'm getting is that they made the terms too literal.
It may be that since the eastern block of Europe just got out of the Iron Curtain recently and most out of words from English we use nowadays were not engraved into the gamer lingo yet or it was mandated for it to be understandable, we can only speculate.
Moving on, there are still some bits and pieces that are odd in my opinion and I would like to go over them. Like Donald not getting his local name (Kačer Donald), instead just relegated to the untouched entry, apart from the Hungarian section, for some reason.
(Original: Court Wizard and loyal servant to the king. He embarks on a journey to carry out the missing king's orders. A feisty, impatient magician.)
The one underneath this represents my point about the terms being too literal, it talks about attack combos, but it instead says attack combinations, which is still correct, but it doesn't sound like it.
But sometimes, it flip flops between finding the right words for the stuff and just giving up and leaving it as is. Why did they had the need the translate "Scan" which, by the way, got translated into "X-Ray" instead, but they left out Ether?! Atleast set your priorities straight man, goddamn.
At last, this one got me the most, in this section magic use is explained, how to use it and what spell does, but the description for Blizzard is by far the funniest thing in all of this. It basically says that the enemies get hit with a fucking slushy
If you don't believe me, here is the result when you search up the term in question
I know, I know it's not what they meant, but just imagine if Sora just spawned and hurled a double gulp cup into a group of enemies. Now that would be a game of the year contender, maybe even of the decade.
In conclusion, this was still that inbetween period for us and when we got to the 7th generation of consoles, it was finally up to par with the rest of the continent. I have some more local releases in my possession, and next time we will look at Final Fantasy X, but I gotta finish it before doing that, but it'll be pretty soon.