[Rodimus Primal]

As I said last week, progress on the next update has been going quite well. I am currently play testing to iron out any mistakes I may have made and I am confident that it will be worth the wait.

I am also thinking about the choice swear words I used in the script(Leo calling Kefka an utter bastard in Thamasa, and Kefka calling Celes a vicious bitch on the Floating Continent) and whether I should make an optional patch to tone those words down a bit.

[lexluthermiester]

As I said last week, progress on the next update has been going quite well. I am currently play testing to iron out any mistakes I may have made and I am confident that it will be worth the wait.

I am also thinking about the choice swear words I used in the script(Leo calling Kefka an utter bastard in Thamasa, and Kefka calling Celes a vicious bitch on the Floating Continent) and whether I should make an optional patch to tone those words down a bit.

IMHO, bastard is passable but going back to the OG Woolsey implementation would likely be better. However, "bitch" is out of the question and should not be in the main patch. The insult "witch" would do much better and would be, ironically, true.

[Rodimus Primal]

IMHO, bastard is passable but going back to the OG Woolsey implementation would likely be better. However, "bitch" is out of the question and should not be in the main patch. The insult "witch" would do much better and would be, ironically, true.

With both scenes, the language is certainly punched up and perhaps toning them down might be better in general. Leo originally says "Shut up, Kefka! I oughtta..." on the SNES, so it took out the insult Leo gave for a threat instead. I opted for both, expanding the dialog. The GBA version has him say "Y-You're insane..."

Leo:
Kefka!
You utter bastard!
I oughtta..."

Maybe it would be for the best to mince my choice of insult to the GBA there:

Leo:
Kefka!
Y-You're insane!
I oughtta..."

Originally Kefka called Celes a vicious brat on the SNES, so I could always revert it to that.

[Dzumeister]

are 'bitch' and 'bastard' from the Japanese script?

[Rodimus Primal]

are 'bitch' and 'bastard' from the Japanese script?

Not really. It's more of a generally rude speech that gets translated in anime and games as various different English insults. I've seen many animes or Japanese shows with subs say everything from "Damn you!" "Why YOU!" "You bastard!" etc. Not to mention that it is even more difficult to translate as its kind of an incomplete sentence in structure (which is very common as I have learned).

Still, as uncensored as it goes, I think toning it down might be for the best.

[lexluthermiester]

No worries. You have done such a grand job with this effort over the years, one or two little issues are not a big deal.

[Xaliphe]

To me, Kefka calling someone a brat fits much more with his character than a more serious insult like bitch.

[Rodimus Primal]

That's what I kind of thought too.

As of right now, I am fairly certain that I finished what needs to be done, but I need another pair of eyes if anyone wants to play test.

[aorin1]

How does this uncensored version compares to the vanilla Japanese translated patch?

[Rodimus Primal]

How does this uncensored version compares to the vanilla Japanese translated patch?

Are you referring to the old Sky Render translation which was heavily analyzed by Mato along with the original SNES version, GBA, and Google Translate? I'd say many leagues better. Especially considering that Sky Render himself has been very critical over his own work in recent years. This isn't a dig at him at all as I started this project using that as one of MANY references when I analyzed the script.

My goal for Woolsey Uncensored was to not only be more accurate and uncensored, but to keep the same memorable lines that many people still quote today. People refer to these as Woolseyisms, as he made some colorful choices in localization in not only Final Fantasy VI, but Chrono Trigger as well. Of course many modern translations tend to take these famous lines out, which always feels off to me.

It's kind of like Han shot first or Luke's original "You're lucky you don't taste very good" with later releases making Greedo shoot first, "Maclunky" or Luke says "You're lucky to get out of there." Fans have been very vocal about things like that.

With Final Fantasy IV, "You Spoony Bard" was in the original US translation, and has since been in EVERY SINGLE release of the game since. In Legend of Zelda, "Its dangerous to go alone. Take this." is also a famous quote too. These are things that should never change.

With Final Fantasy VI, however, this was not the case. When Ted Woolsey originally translated the game, he only had a mere 30 days to do so, and he had to get around Nintendo of America's strict family friendly guidelines. But his choice of words made more with less, and gave for some hilarious and fun lines that fans today still talk about.
"Son of a Submariner!"
"Call me a treasure hunter or I'll rip your lungs out!"
"He'd slit his mama's throat for a nickel."
"I'll create a monument to non-existence."

Many fan translations always make it a point to remove these famous localization choices and I never liked that at all. The original fan translation saw fit to make them a bit more vulgar, and some of the terminology was either incorrect or a bit too literal. Instead of Espers, they call them Phantom Beasts. They spell Kefka with a C

The GBA was re-translated by Tom Slattery. He was certainly a fan of the game when he was tasked with doing so, as many a time he used an SNES line since it still worked. It even made a point to make fun of the fan translation with the spelling of Kefka in one line of text. However, my biggest issue with that version, is the famous Woolseyisms were changed to a much drier text. "Son of a Sandworm." "I'm a treasure hunter and don't you forget it." The GBA is also the official one currently used in later ports of the game, much like how Chrono Trigger uses the DS translation. But many have been asking for a way to get the OG translations into those versions of the game.

To me, I'm very old school and nostalgic. I have a soft spot for Super Nintendo games of my youth. My endeavor with Woolsey Uncensored was to keep those vintage lines, clean up the translation, uncensor the graphics, fix bugs were necessary, and make the best vanilla version of Final Fantasy VI. And I think I've accomplished just that by staying true to the projects goals. I've made a lot of script improvements over the years and the community here has, for the most part, been very accommodating. I will admit, I'm not perfect, but so many have helped with this project (here, Slick, and on FF6Hacking) and I'll always be appreciative of that.

Sorry for my rambling wall of text. But after many years working on this, despite having moved onto other important things IRL, and to answer your question, I think this is the best way to play the original game.

[lexluthermiester]

To me, Kefka calling someone a brat fits much more with his character than a more serious insult like bitch.

Agreed!

[Rodimus Primal]

Agreed!

I concur. In fact, its among the many changes to the next update.

[Idkbutlike2]

With Final Fantasy IV, "You Spoony Bard" was in the original US translation, and has since been in EVERY SINGLE release of the game since. In Legend of Zelda, "Its dangerous to go alone. Take this." is also a famous quote too. These are things that should never change.

To this day I wonder where the Japanese lady (I think?) who first translated FF4 into English found such an apt word to describe Edward.

[Spooniest]

Ms. Kaoru Moriyama. Although, Ted Woolsey seems to have maaaybe worked as the equivalent of an intern with her on it, if I recall correctly. I do think I read that working on the script of FF4 was his first job with Squaresoft, under Ms. Moriyama.

To me, I'm very old school and nostalgic. I have a soft spot for Super Nintendo games of my youth. My endeavor with Woolsey Uncensored was to keep those vintage lines, clean up the translation, uncensor the graphics, fix bugs where necessary, and make the best vanilla version of Final Fantasy VI.

I suppose, like you, I am also rather nostalgic for the SNES days (that can hardly be denied and is practically a prerequisite for frequenting RHDN, eheh). However, whereas you describe your goal as "make the best vanilla version of Final Fantasy VI," I took a bit more of a chaotic good approach and wanted to make a double brownie chocolate version of it.

See, games didn't matter much to me after about 2000 or so. I kind of dropped that thread of my life and moved on to music, poetry, singing and writing. It wasn't until about 2010 that I started really getting back into gaming, and by that point, I'd done tons and tons of reading and writing, and was in the middle of doing a lot more, too. Stand Guard was my first foray into romhacking and I felt like I approached it with more passion than brains. The original pass of the script was in Courier New font, had different swearing than Sky Render's script and generally was governed only by what I felt like I would have written for the characters to say, that means what they convey in the Woolsey Script. It also lifted lines in places from non-SNES versions, which I thought worked. There were also a lot of places (mostly the NPC dialogue) which seemed like they were fine as they were. (Edit - The current version is much more toned down.)

But to me, I was already restricted by many factors, being time, knowledge of how the SNES hardware worked and how FF6's program worked, the amount of bytes which FF3usME allows you to input, and what was clearly in need of editing ("The Atma Weapon was an monster," et al). I didn't feel like I could confidently say that I was doing any kind of work which would stand out (there were already 3 or 4 passes at the script clunking around) if I restricted myself any further, and I, as a writer of fantasy myself, didn't feel like if Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase were just dudes like me who like games and fantasy stories and Yoshitaka Amano's art, that they would have said "But it's supposed to say x."

I'm reminded of a story my dad told me, about how a friend of his (who was also a guitarist like him) had met a guitarist who'd played on a Steely Dan record, and had told him that he had learned the solo he'd played on a specific song note-for-note. The guitarist (it might or might not have been Jeff "Skunk" Baxter) replied to him "Why wouldn't you have just done your own thing?"

So that's kind of my governing philosophy as a creator... I don't like to repeat what's already been done if I feel I can come up with something different. Whether it's any good or not, I don't feel qualified to judge, but what's more important to me is that it stands out from what already exists, or the time investment isn't meaningful to me.

I'm sorry to go on and on. Just thinkin' about stuff and junk. Tl;dr I feel like the apple to the orange (or vice-versa) I guess.

[Rahlzel]

@Rodimus, I've recently found this project of yours and I absolutely love it. I dare say it breathes new life into a beloved game I played in my youth. Thank you for this.

My only nitpick is very subjective and has to do with the renaming of many items, spells, and monsters. I've decided to follow a walkthrough for the first time in order to grab most of the items, Rages, and optimal stats/equipment/Colosseum stuff I can to maximize efficiency. I believe all of the renaming you've done is in good faith and relevant to the rest of the series, but I've found it makes following walkthroughs very difficult when I'm needing to Google lots of different items and monsters in order to find their other names, and then I can compare them to the items I'm seeing in-game.

I hope this question hasn't been asked before (there doesn't seem to be a quick way to search 55 pages of a forum thread here), but I'm wondering if there's already a version that includes your bug fixes, addons, and updated Opera changes but retains all the original names for items, spells, and monsters. If not, it's not the end of the world. I'm still having fun and it's a minor hiccup, and something probably only unique to me. Just curious if it's right under my nose in this zip file.

Thanks again!

[Rodimus Primal]

Ms. Kaoru Moriyama. Although, Ted Woolsey seems to have maaaybe worked as the equivalent of an intern with her on it, if I recall correctly. I do think I read that working on the script of FF4 was his first job with Squaresoft, under Ms. Moriyama.

I suppose, like you, I am also rather nostalgic for the SNES days (that can hardly be denied and is practically a prerequisite for frequenting RHDN, eheh). However, whereas you describe your goal as "make the best vanilla version of Final Fantasy VI," I took a bit more of a chaotic good approach and wanted to make a double brownie chocolate version of it.

See, games didn't matter much to me after about 2000 or so. I kind of dropped that thread of my life and moved on to music, poetry, singing and writing. It wasn't until about 2010 that I started really getting back into gaming, and by that point, I'd done tons and tons of reading and writing, and was in the middle of doing a lot more, too. Stand Guard was my first foray into romhacking and I felt like I approached it with more passion than brains. The original pass of the script was in Courier New font, had different swearing than Sky Render's script and generally was governed only by what I felt like I would have written for the characters to say, that means what they convey in the Woolsey Script. It also lifted lines in places from non-SNES versions, which I thought worked. There were also a lot of places (mostly the NPC dialogue) which seemed like they were fine as they were. (Edit - The current version is much more toned down.)

But to me, I was already restricted by many factors, being time, knowledge of how the SNES hardware worked and how FF6's program worked, the amount of bytes which FF3usME allows you to input, and what was clearly in need of editing ("The Atma Weapon was an monster," et al). I didn't feel like I could confidently say that I was doing any kind of work which would stand out (there were already 3 or 4 passes at the script clunking around) if I restricted myself any further, and I, as a writer of fantasy myself, didn't feel like if Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase were just dudes like me who like games and fantasy stories and Yoshitaka Amano's art, that they would have said "But it's supposed to say x."

I'm reminded of a story my dad told me, about how a friend of his (who was also a guitarist like him) had met a guitarist who'd played on a Steely Dan record, and had told him that he had learned the solo he'd played on a specific song note-for-note. The guitarist (it might or might not have been Jeff "Skunk" Baxter) replied to him "Why wouldn't you have just done your own thing?"

So that's kind of my governing philosophy as a creator... I don't like to repeat what's already been done if I feel I can come up with something different. Whether it's any good or not, I don't feel qualified to judge, but what's more important to me is that it stands out from what already exists, or the time investment isn't meaningful to me.

I'm sorry to go on and on. Just thinkin' about stuff and junk. Tl;dr I feel like the apple to the orange (or vice-versa) I guess.

We all have different philosophies on how we handle our various projects, and here on RHDN, that certainly rings true. You've often said Stand Guard was more to be your own fun take on the script and that itself is commendable.

@Rodimus, I've recently found this project of yours and I absolutely love it. I dare say it breathes new life into a beloved game I played in my youth. Thank you for this.

My only nitpick is very subjective and has to do with the renaming of many items, spells, and monsters. I've decided to follow a walkthrough for the first time in order to grab most of the items, Rages, and optimal stats/equipment/Colosseum stuff I can to maximize efficiency. I believe all of the renaming you've done is in good faith and relevant to the rest of the series, but I've found it makes following walkthroughs very difficult when I'm needing to Google lots of different items and monsters in order to find their other names, and then I can compare them to the items I'm seeing in-game.

I hope this question hasn't been asked before (there doesn't seem to be a quick way to search 55 pages of a forum thread here), but I'm wondering if there's already a version that includes your bug fixes, addons, and updated Opera changes but retains all the original names for items, spells, and monsters. If not, it's not the end of the world. I'm still having fun and it's a minor hiccup, and something probably only unique to me. Just curious if it's right under my nose in this zip file.

Thanks again!

The zip file actually include a document detailing the changes from the SNES version, to the GBA version, and to Ted Woolsey Uncensored. This was to make it easier for people who were only familiar with the SNES names of monsters, items, and spells. Like the Music Player patches, I've thought about making additional optional patches for some who desire it, which would include a B-Button dash removal, and one that reverts most of the names back to their original SNES counterparts. Exceptions would of course be for things like Phoenix Down (as Fenix Down is clearly wrong).

[Rahlzel]

The zip file actually include a document detailing the changes from the SNES version, to the GBA version, and to Ted Woolsey Uncensored. This was to make it easier for people who were only familiar with the SNES names of monsters, items, and spells. Like the Music Player patches, I've thought about making additional optional patches for some who desire it, which would include a B-Button dash removal, and one that reverts most of the names back to their original SNES counterparts. Exceptions would of course be for things like Phoenix Down (as Fenix Down is clearly wrong).

I understand. I've seen that document. Maybe keeping that file open would be a good compromise for what I'm doing. On a side note, I personally very much prefer having B-button dash without needing Sprint Shoes, but I'd love a version that has all of the original item/monster/spell names for nostalgia and walkthrough reasons. But that's just me, and of course it's different for others. And even then I agree that the obvious typos should be fixed (RMOVE, Fenix, etc).

I'm very new to rom-hacking, what is involved in having two different text versions (that also allows for the bug fixes + addons + Opera) - a "typos fixed, everything else left alone" version, and the current version? Is that a buttload of work to manage? In any case, what you've done already is brilliant and much loved. Thank you again.

[Idkbutlike2]

Ms. Kaoru Moriyama. Although, Ted Woolsey seems to have maaaybe worked as the equivalent of an intern with her on it, if I recall correctly. I do think I read that working on the script of FF4 was his first job with Squaresoft, under Ms. Moriyama.

Looks like he didn't actually work on FF4, judging from this Player One Interview. The "blows wizard" comment is hilarious, though.

[lexluthermiester]

Exceptions would of course be for things like Phoenix Down (as Fenix Down is clearly wrong).

Agreed. The whole idea is the feathers of a Phoenix bringing someone back from the dead.

[Rodimus Primal]

After playing through my changes, I am completely satisfied with the numerous revisions I've done to the script. This amounts to quite a large amount of lines being expanded upon in places. That being said, I honestly feel that this will finally bring Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition to where it always needed to be.

I made the decision not to make any additional patches for this project (FOR THE TIME BEING). I know some may want the B-Button Dash removed, or to have the original SNES names for monsters, items, and spells. I may in the future create those patches to distribute separately, but for now that would be very time consuming to make - time which I do not have currently.

Version 3.0 is now submitted for approval. I am eager to hear from those of you anticipating playing it. Of course, while I did proofread as best as I could, I often say I am not perfect and I will correct any grammar or spelling errors found.