this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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The "language" that the n64 used was basically in a totally different language family than what PCs and later Nintendo consoles use.
Think of it as if the N64 spoke Japanese, while PCs speak Spanish. There's a lot of things that don't translate cleanly from one language to the other, you can't just feed it into google translate and expect what comes out the other end to make sense, you're going to need someone who understands both languages to go over it, rewrite some of it to make sure all of the nuance is coming through, add some asterisks and translation notes to explain some concepts that don't really have a direct equivalent in the other language, etc.
Later Nintendo consoles spoke something more like Portuguese or maybe even Mexican Spanish instead of PC's Castilian Spanish. They're much more similar languages that translate more directly and some things may not even really need translation as long as both parties slow down, speak clearly, and maybe throw in some hand gestures here and there, and google translate will get you like 99% of the way there, without the translator needing to add as many explanatory notes.
All those translation notes are what the emulator is doing, and the N64 to PC emulator has to do a lot more interpreting than the Switch to PC emulator.