This makes me really sad.

Fun explanation time!

The reason MISSINGNO. exists has to do with how the game tries replacing your character’s data with the Old Man’s data during that capturing tutorial. Your character’s name is stored in the same area where encounter rates would be, if I’m not mistaken.

No, you’re right: it’s something of a conversational quirk in Japanese where it’s common to repeat a phrase of what someone said. Say someone says, “I got a promotion”, the other person could simply respond with, “Promotion?”.

Indeed, it gets annoying to read.

AUTHENTICITY! /sarcasm

This article touched on something rather important: most fan-translators end up making the entire cast sound identicle, with really bad word crufts like “It can’t be helped” or other Nihonisms that are total eye-vomit to read. Ted Woolsey and Alex Smith make stuff that actually stands out as translations, feeling…