The Actual News:
OK, I’m only about 30 minutes into the new DLC, but it’s also almost midnight, so I’ll just share just a few little tidbits of Galarian words that I’ve seen so far. They include…
- Avery’s name is spelled ea4jQy9
- Since his Japanese name is セイボリー Seiborii (or Seiborī), it’s likely the final i is dropped, or—because both i characters use different Galarian letters, maybe 4 represents normal i while 9 represents long i (ī). This makes me wonder if different vowel sounds in other words are given a similar treatment.
- The dojo’s logo is Mrq^f^
- This might be Mustard’s Galarian name. However, when compared with his Japanese name マスタード Masutaado (or Masutādo)—since romaji of their Japanese names form the basis for their Galarian names—there doesn’t seem to a connection.
- The word on the entry mat is BR
- The words on the Master Mustard’s jacket is D+OX ZU24+o
- This text has appeared on both a presentation by Chairnman Rose…
- …as well as a t-shirt you can buy called “Night Shade” (see right)
- The various brushed scrolls have the following written on them:
- J1!6 — seen on multiple “junk text”
- WIoP — seen in the Battle Café’s trash bin(???!!)
- KLRE — partially seen on the tshirt “Dynamax Band”
- 3DAL
- 712n — this one is seen predominantly on the haircut shops… er… salons. Maybe it means “HAIR”? (Insert your own old guy hair jokes here.)
- Words on the wooden display:
- X3
- M15I6
- ROPH2
- 3poon
- …wait a second, this is all just junk text too!
- A Galar League (GA9A4 BECWVE) poster in the living room where Hyde is hanging out in has QRA73VEJ written beneath it; this has been seen in other League posters, but not as a single word.
- A box of snacks on the living room table has LBRS KTYCRW written on it; individual parts of that name have appeared as junk text too.
- The Nintendo Switch next to the TV in the living room says…. “Nintendo Switch” written on it in Latin characters. No Galarian this time!
- A notice on the cork board above the computer Hyde’s using says CRW93.
Aw jeeeez, more junk text. It’s even more obvious because it’s clear they made a typeface to create the writing on the wooden slabs (good gravy, my Kingdom for a copy of that font file!)… but the brushed scrolls almost look like someone drew them by hand… but those might just be generated text as well.
I guess then maybe I need to work out a list of text which is pulled from a list of “Galarian Lorem Ipsum” words that the game asset artists pull from, versus a list of words which were deliberately written to be something specific, such as a character’s name or the word “Pokémon” (?wru#wt).
But what’s interesting about the junk text is like… it isn’t used very randomly. Like, imagine if the junk text as written “ABCD EFG HIJKL MNO”, every time I see the junk text, it’s almost always like “ABCD” or “EFG HIJKL” or “HIJKLMNO”, basically using either the whole words, or combining the whole words into one word… and it’s almost never something like “ABCD MNO”, “CDEF GHI” or “CNOEFIJ”, where the letters are completely randomized or the words start from a different part of the chunk, although some exceptions do apply. My point is, even if it’s junk text, there is still some order and consistency involved. It’s almost as if there is a master list of “Galarian Lorem Ipsum” that they pull from, or maybe even an internal program that spits out “Galarian Lorem Ipsum” text for the artists to use, so they don’t even need to think about what they’re actually writing to begin with. The use of an internal program isn’t a surprise to be honest, seeing as the recent Nintendo hacks have revealed all kinds of internal programs that Nintendo and Game Freak have used for stuff like Legal Pokémon Checking (for tournaments) and Pokemon ID designing.
Anyways, I’m now chasing after the Slowpoke, and there doesn’t seem to be any text to see here, so I’ll call it quits for now. See you next time!