Video games are made by teams of dozens, if not hundreds of people, and that means that every aspect of a given game has likely passed through many hands before it gets revealed to the public. Still, sometimes it takes an outsider to see the obvious. This was the case with the battle menu for the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and the results are quite amusing.
Back in June, John Ricciardi–the co-founder of notable localization company 8-4–joked in a tweet that translators should change the battle menu of the eighth Yakuza game to spell SEGA. Well, as a recent behind-the-scenes video revealed, it appears that the localization team took Ricciardi’s advice.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon was awesome. Excited to see it in English for the first time! BTW, not too late to change “More” to “Etc” or “Extra” to make the menu options basically spell out SEGA pic.twitter.com/kcUoim06hC
— John Ricciardi | BLACK LIVES MATTER (@johntv) June 11, 2020
Mission complete – awesome job, @RGGStudio @SEGA @TriggerRedd #SEGA #Yakuza https://t.co/8sfqK036Dm pic.twitter.com/tjJuAPq2ZS
— John Ricciardi | BLACK LIVES MATTER (@johntv) July 31, 2020
As you can see from the two above tweets, the “More” option has changed to “Etc.,” which means it now spells the name of the game’s publisher. It’s a nice touch, and one that fits in well with the goofy, self-referential tone of the franchise.
