“I’ll be lost in the hills later” is my favorite quote from the whole game. So irreverent; so bizarre; so funny. I played through LADX again recently, and was curious about the very same thing, so I looked into it – and would you believe it? It’s a perfect translation. It makes for a surprisingly interesting analysis, however…
Japanese:
いずれ やまで そうなんするッスよ。
そのときゃあ たのむッスよ！
English:
I’ll be lost in the hills later, so keep a look out for me, hear?
A literal-ish translation of the Japanese line goes a tad more explicit in the first line, and a tad less meta in the second:
Hey, I’m gonna be marooned in the mountains later.
When that happens, I hope you’ve got my back!
That’s the interpretation that the English translator went with, and I think that’s the best possible choice they could have made. In fact, Japanese players remark upon the exact same thing: “Is he prognosticating his own downfall…?” However, here’s where it gets interesting…
The word izure can indeed be used as “later”, and that’s the most natural interpretation – but there’s a fringe possibility that it was meant as “one of these days”. A literal translation with that interpretation in mind might be:
One of these days I’ll get stuck in the mountains.
When that happens, I hope you’ve got my back!
With that reading, Papahl isn’t prophetic (“I see in my crystal ball…”) or masochistic (“aww yeah, I’m goin’ out to get lost in the hills”) – rather, he’s just not confident in his mountaineering skills. “I’m overdue for something bad to happen up there”, essentially.
It is, however, not unlikely that the writer intended for the line to be quite meta – it would fit in with the rest of the game, wouldn’t it. Kirbies and Richards and Goombas and all that. Even if the line was intended as the more sensible, less obvious interpretation, however, I’d argue that it’s a perfect translation: I subscribe to the idea that a translation should reflect not the intent of the author – the author may have had all manner of grand plans that they failed to execute on – but the experience afforded to the original audience. Since both the Japanese- and the English-speaking audience react to this line in precisely the same way, it couldn’t have worked out better.
As an addendum, by what appears to be sheer coincidence, the English translation captures almost the exact same ambiguity – since “lost” is weaker than sōnan (“marooned”), it leaves the possibility open that it’s a playful, self-deprecating way to say “I’ll be going to the mountains”. I don’t think that was intentional, but it’s fortuitous!
As for “one cold hombre”, that’s just a bit of flavor from the translators. I’d say it’s fairly well-supported by Papahl’s voice in the original, if perhaps a bit overly idiosyncratic (again, as evidenced by the fact that it stands out like it does). The original line is fairly straight-laced: Anta, tsumetai hito ssu ne…; “You’re a cold one, ain’tcha…” I see what they were going for!
palette for LA93, which gave it warm pinks and blues. These palettes don’t always look good—even when the GBC itself 
