Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii: English translations of Japanese games lose ‘flavour’ because it’s ‘a simple language’
The intricacies of Japanese dialogue are lost when translating to English, he says
Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has said that Japanese games typically lose some “flavour” when they’re translated to English, because of the language’s relative simplicity.
In an interview with Famitsu, Horii was speaking with Paranormasight writer and director Takanari Ishiyama about the release of his latest game Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse.
Ishiyama – who previously worked on Dragon Quest X – noted that the game supports English and Chinese as well as its native Japanese, but explained that while he was meticulous about the language used when writing the game, he was worried that if he was too particular about it the meaning might not be conveyed when translated to another language.
“When it comes to English, the flavour tends to get lost in many ways,” Horii replied (as translated by Automaton). “Things inevitably end up sounding simplistic.”
Ishiyama went on to give an example of the numerous first-person pronouns people can use to refer to themselves in Japanese, such as ‘ore’, ‘boku’ and ‘watashi’.
In Japanese, women tend to use ‘watashi’ to refer to themselves, whereas men change between ‘watashi’, ‘boku’ or ‘ore’ depending on formality or age.
In English, however, people only use ‘I’ regardless of gender, age or the formality of the setting. Horii said he believes this removes some of the “flavour” when translating from Japanese to English.
“I’ve come to accept that English is a simple language, so there’s no helping it,” Horii told Ishiyama, though he did stress that voice acting can help with this.
“The addition of voice acting has been a positive development, as it allows us to convey character through vocal tone and delivery,” he said (via machine translation).
Last year Horii noted the major difference between his Dragon Quest series and its most popular alternative Final Fantasy.
While Horii said he didn’t consider Final Fantasy to be a competitor, he did keep an eye on the series to see what it offered, and concluded that the main difference was that the protagonists in Final Fantasy games spoke to each other, whereas in Dragon Quest the player controls a silent protagonist.
In November 2025 Horii was recognized by the Japanese government in its autumn honours by receiving the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for his work on the iconic role-playing game series.
Horii is the first game designer to receive the honour, which is awarded to those recognized for distinguished service to the state in various fields, except military service.
