Pasokon Retro is our regular look back at the early years of Japanese PC gaming, encompassing everything from specialist ’80s computers to the happy days of Windows XP.

Battletech, aka Mechwarrior, for the X68000 Japanese PC

Developer: Cross Media Soft Released: 1992 Japanese PCs: X68000, PC-98 (Image credit: Cross Media Soft)

Games get tweaked to suit local tastes all the time. Japan’s Ryuichi Naruhodo will always be better known to English speakers as Phoenix Wright. It just made more sense to rename the Ryu Ga Gotoku series Yakuza in 2006. Street Fighter gave itself a Vega/Balrog/Bison name swapping headache back in 1991 that it still hasn’t recovered from. Final Fantasy 14’s entire world, from the names given to its monsters to the grand speeches made by the heroes who slay them, is filled with hilarious puns and clever turns of phrase that only work in their localisations, thanks to the skill of the translators who wrote them.



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