> Just translate the thing.

But which thing? Language transmits information, intent, tone, sound and many other layers. Usually, there is no way to transport all of it to the target language, and the translator must choose what to sacrifice.

Japanese prose doesn't intend to be boring, and its target audience isn't bored by it. If you translate it in a way that sounds boring to an English audience, you aren't maintaining the intent of the author.

The famous example is Tina from FF6, a name exotic and exciting for a Japanese audience, but commonplace and boring for Westerners. Keeping such a word means missing its point.

I don't think this is really all that ambiguous. The 'thing' being the intent of the original author. Renaming Tina to Terra makes perfect sense in the context you mentioned. Renaming 'Sacred Alcohol of Stamina' to 'Van Buren Coffee' is a complete butchery of a translation done for somebody to be able to show how witty they are by adding a reference that basically nobody will get, and is still a butchery even when you know the reference.

This change is contradictory and nonsensical because alcohol plays a central role in Shadow Over Innsmouth, so the original item being an alcohol makes more sense. Also, this ignores the possibility that there might be other influences on the work, and that maybe the original name was intentional for other reasons. Or maybe the game was just poorly made and this is just covering over that.

The more infamous changes of older games at least reflected the localization standards of their era, and that the changes were done out of commercial or technical necessity. For this one the translator basically just admitted that they were bored.