In terms of character count, it takes fewer characters to convey an idea in Japanese than in English. You see this in NES/SNES-era game translations. Both vers

In terms of character count, it takes fewer characters to convey an idea in Japanese than in English. You see this in NES/SNES-era game translations. Both versions of the game had to use the same number of characters. So the level of detail in English is quite low compared to the original. Recently, modders have hacked the English versions of the games to add variable-width fonts to achieve more true translations. Breath of Fire 2 is a good example.