Storyline text and attempted translations from...

ゼルダの伝説：神々のトライフォース
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods

...copyright 1991, 1992 Nintendo. This game is known as "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" on the other side of the Pacific. The images used are also from the game. Don't go claim them as your own or anything silly like that. This document is not intended for any commercial purpose, real or imaginary. It exists primarily out of curiosity about both the Japanese language and the changes between the Japanese and English versions of the game. If you're interested in the game, go out and buy it if you haven't already... a summary of what happens can't compare to actually playing it. One of my first SNES games, and still one of my favorites...

General Comments

I've kept the layout of the original text as much as possible. Any exceptions are noted.
Lines that are colored like these are my comments.
If I don't like how I translated something, I've put a * after it. A (*) stands for something that I can't figure out even well enough to guess.
Anything in this color is background information the dialog doesn't explain.
I've gotten sick of trying to come of with Enlgish approximations of name suffixes, and it doesn't seem right to drop them, so I'm just leaving them as is. If you need an explanation, go here: name suffixes.
Most of the narrative dialog ("You found a bomb! You can blow stuff up!") could as easily be translated as first-person ("I found a bomb! I can blow stuff up!") as it can third-person. After initially deciding against first-person, I changed my mind, because the tone sounds like a young man—like Link—talking, and not like narrative.
I've left out the "did you get all that?" sort of thing that's at the end of most of the longer speeches.
Just for clarity, "overworld" refers to the main outdoor area, and "labyrinth" refers to an indoor monster-infested area, usually with a boss monster.

Recent Updates

? (never recorded the date) - Story text revised and redivided into pieces that are easier to manage. Minor revisions to boss guide.

18 Nov 2006 - Formatting improvements and some other minor fixes.

16 Sep 2006 - I finally figured out a good equivalent for one of the old man's lines on the mountain when Link first meets him (悪いことは言わない), after having seen and heard the same phrase elsewhere and applying the principle of context.

19 Mar 2006 - Boss guide added. That was a wonderful waste of time, but at least I learned a few things about how the game works.

28 Dec 2005 - Item information added, and some minor corrections in the main text.

Opening Sequence
A House in the Middle of the Night
Hyrule Castle: Saving Princess Zelda
The Church
Kakariko Village
Bewilderment Forest
Hyrule Overworld
Building by the Eastern Temple
First Crest: Eastern Temple
Back to Sahasralah
Interlude
Second Crest: Desert Temple
Interlude
Third Crest: Hera Tower
The Master Sword
Hyrule Castle
The Dark World
Level 1: Temple of Darkness
Interlude
Level 2: Swamp Temple
Level 3: Skull Woods
Level 4: Blind's Hideout
Interlude
Level 5: Ice Temple
Level 6: Misery Mire
Interlude
Level 7: Turtle Rock
Level 8: Ganon's Tower
Showdown with Ganon
Ending Sequence
Item Information
Boss Guide