[Burger]

And the purpose of this isn’t to be all “my translation is the true ultimate translation har har!!!”

Oh, I know, I didn't mean to imply that. Just trying to make a general observation. I mean, you ARE making a point of getting the meaning in the translation close to what was actually said in the original, and tossing in all these things everyone KNOWS aren't accurate just feels like it's at odds with that, and something that'll create distrust in the rest of the translation.

(this seems to be a recent trend in general - these "accurate-but-not-TOO-accurate" retranslations that retranslate old games that had shoddy translations but make sure to keep all those presumed-to-be-memorable mistranslations from them. It's like there's some sort of unspoken rule that you're not ALLOWED to accurately represent what the Japanese original really was like because nostalgiacs get offended at the idea people might read something other than the specific line/term they read when they were kids. I dunno. It's weird. I'm rambling.)

Again, there will be two patches, one that strictly adheres to canon terminology, and one that doesn’t (Garland won’t knock you all down in that one).

I think I missed that bit earlier. That's cool.
(not sure if calling it "canon terminology" is the right phrasing, though. As I said, Square themselves aren't super consistent about what they're calling stuff in English. Even Garland doesn't talk about knocking people down in EVERY official English translation)

[Heaven Piercing Man]

And hell, it's not THAT long ago where a rom hacker that would've suggested using names like "Firaga" in a translation hack of an FF game would've been bombarded with all kinds of accusations of unprofessional orientalism and screamed at that neither Square nor any other real translator would've ever considered using such nonsensical word salad in a translation over the sensible "Fire3".

Eh, these "hEr nAmE iS mAdOnNa" cultists should be ignored.

[91-MPH]

I still think the Elf Prince should call the Light Warriors, Crystal Bearers for the canon patch instead of "Crystal Warriors," because Crystal Bearers is a term used in the Final Fantasy series.

[Neon Streetlight]

Oh, I know, I didn't mean to imply that. Just trying to make a general observation. I mean, you ARE making a point of getting the meaning in the translation close to what was actually said in the original, and tossing in all these things everyone KNOWS aren't accurate just feels like it's at odds with that, and something that'll create distrust in the rest of the translation.

(this seems to be a recent trend in general - these "accurate-but-not-TOO-accurate" retranslations that retranslate old games that had shoddy translations but make sure to keep all those presumed-to-be-memorable mistranslations from them. It's like there's some sort of unspoken rule that you're not ALLOWED to accurately represent what the Japanese original really was like because nostalgiacs get offended at the idea people might read something other than the specific line/term they read when they were kids. I dunno. It's weird. I'm rambling.)

I think I missed that bit earlier. That's cool.
(not sure if calling it "canon terminology" is the right phrasing, though. As I said, Square themselves aren't super consistent about what they're calling stuff in English. Even Garland doesn't talk about knocking people down in EVERY official English translation)

I completely agree, Burger. So many translations go ALMOST all the way. I’ve never felt certain terms or phrases were untouchable, but many do. I’m glad there will be two patches for this!

[Heaven Piercing Man]

I think these lines should be kept for localization flavor as long as they don't take the place of the actual original content. For example, modern FF4 translations keep the "spoony bard" as a throwaway line completely apart from the rest of the Tellah rant against Edward.

Honestly, I dunno what to think about Garland's line. I'm fine with whatever, it's so harmless.

because nostalgiacs get offended at the idea people might read something other than the specific line/term they read when they were kids.

People here will kill me for this but it's really annoying how people are so attached to the OW THE EDGE "shadow slits momma's throat" line that they pretty much apologize to themselves if they have to change it, even though the original line was supposed to be ironic considering what we see in the dreams.

And when the GBA port of Tales of Phantasia got an official translation, people hated on it (just like FF6 GBA got lots of hate when it came out) because there were no "fuck like a tiger" DeJapisms, and then claimed "censorship"

[vivify93]

I hate to be that asshole goes "to be fair," but...

To be fair, Tales of Phantasia GBA's translation is just so flat and rife with errors. Kangaroo, Sneaker, Milard, extremely literally-translated lines, confusing the Scarlet family for some invented woman named Scarlet, recognizing "Rhea" but not "Demeter", poor voice acting, etc. DeJap's goes in the opposite direction, though; it makes random things up to try and sound edgy and funny. I don't like it.

[Thirteen 1355]

ToP GBA translation is one of the worst I know in RPG history. Although, so is DeJap's, in a different way. It's not a case of 'the SNES version was loved, that's why the GBA one is considered bad'. As pointed out above this post, there were lots of huge errors in the GBA translation.

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Hm, at least some of those like Kangaroo were the Cupertino effect.

[vivify93]

Cup of tea effect or not, it still slipped through unprofessionally into the final localization. It's abhorrent. Phantasian Productions' translation of Tales of Phantasia is probably the best one out there. You have a point where fans complain about simple name changes (Cless Alvein to Cress Albane--we all saw it coming, come on.) but not on the script as a whole. It's pretty much bland trash.

This thread isn't about Bowne-Global Solutions' butchering of ToP nor is it about DeJap's butchering of ToP. Let's get back on topic.

[Chaos Rush]

Good news is that I'm 84% done with the script (FF1 has half as much text as FF2 and 1/3 as much text as FF3). Up to this point, I've written without trying to save space in mind. I reached 75% before maxing out the available space in FF1's text compile area, however I was able to free up some space again by optimizing the DTE table, and have now reached 84%. Bad news is that I've used up space again, so now I'll have to revise what I've written to use shorter phrases. With that said, don't expect the English in this to be as profound as Ted Woolsey's, but I'll prioritize making sure that all information expressed in the original script is retained. Luckily it won't be as shoved-in as FF3 was.

[svenge]

I'm really looking forward to this one, regardless of whether it's 100% re-translated or only 99.44% (i.e. keeping a couple lines from older official releases).  I've been making do with the "Restored" hack up to this point, but all the graphical changes it features just don't sit well with me.

[Chaos Rush]

Here is the release of v0.99 of the English translation of Final Fantasy!
Link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ootp2qqrh0jwbp7/FF1Translationv0.99.zip/file

Please patch to a Japanese Final Fantasy ROM for Famicom, Rev B. There is also an optional font patch included for using the font from the original NES localization, which you apply AFTER one of the main patches.

Please keep in mind that I was somewhat limited by space, so not everything is worded as beautifully as I'd like it to be, but all things considered I didn't have to compromise the script too much (as opposed to FF2 and FF3).

All NPC dialogues, story text, shop text, and item descriptions have been retranslated (mostly) from scratch.

There are two versions:

1. Default Edition
This is the default version. It strictly adheres to the terminology used in the GBA/PSP/iOS remakes of Final Fantasy. If you're a long-term fan that wants to see stuff like Garland's famous line from the original NES version retained, then this is the version for you.

2. Chaos Edition
This is an alternate version that uses alternate terminology for some names in order to be closer to the original Japanese text (maybe the power/force thing is debatable, but that's my own choice that I've thought hard about and I think 'force' fits better than 'power'). These changes have been made:
Oxyale-->Aquair
Four Fiends-->Chaos Four
Fiend Orb-->Chaos Orb
Fiend of [Element]-->Chaos of [Element]
Power of Earth-->Earthforce
Power of Fire-->Fireforce
Power of Water-->Waterforce
Power of Wind-->Windforce
Warmech-->Deathmech

Screenshots (Default Edition):


Screenshots (Chaos Edition):


And lastly, here is an example of the optional US font patch, which is compatible with either edition:


I am aware that people would like to see this script ported to the Final Fantasy Restored and Grond's Final Fantasy hacks, and I will be working on porting it soon (shouldn't take very long). I just wanted to get something out before the weekend is over. Once that is done, then I will do an update for FF2 and FF3, then I would like to port the FF1 and FF2 translated scripts to the FF1 and FF2 multicart. In the farther future, I may try to port the scripts to the Wonderswan Color versions of FF1 and FF2.

Special thanks to Disch for his US FF1 disassembly (even though I'm working off of Japan FF1, the offsets are similar and the routines are basically the same), Lenophis for the FF1 DTE battle implementation which I ported to Japan FF1, and Team dCode for their Bigram Analysis tool which I used to make the most optimized DTE table possible for the script.

Since this is v0.99, I am going to wait until v1.0 before submitting it to the main site. I have not yet implemented expanding the player character name limit for FF1, hopefully I can do that by v1.0.

[Neon Streetlight]

Here is the release of v0.99 of the English translation of Final Fantasy!
Link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ootp2qqrh0jwbp7/FF1Translationv0.99.zip/file

Please patch to a Japanese Final Fantasy ROM for Famicom, Rev B. There is also an optional font patch included for using the font from the original NES localization, which you apply AFTER one of the main patches.

Please keep in mind that I was somewhat limited by space, so not everything is worded as beautifully as I'd like it to be, but all things considered I didn't have to compromise the script too much (as opposed to FF2 and FF3).

There are two versions:

1. Default Edition
This is the default version. It strictly adheres to the terminology used in the GBA/PSP/iOS remakes of Final Fantasy. If you're a long-term fan that wants to see stuff like Garland's famous line from the original NES version retained, then this is the version for you.

2. Chaos Edition
This is an alternate version that uses alternate terminology for some names in order to be closer to the original Japanese text (maybe the power/force thing is debatable, but that's my own choice that I've thought hard about and I think 'force' fits better than 'power'). These changes have been made:
Oxyale-->Aquair
Four Fiends-->Chaos Four
Fiend Orb-->Chaos Orb
Fiend of [Element]-->Chaos of [Element]
Power of Earth-->Earthforce
Power of Fire-->Fireforce
Power of Water-->Waterforce
Power of Wind-->Windforce
Warmech-->Deathmech

Screenshots (Default Edition):


Screenshots (Chaos Edition):


And lastly, here is an example of the optional US font patch, which is compatible with either edition:


I am aware that people would like to see this script ported to the Final Fantasy Restored and Grond's Final Fantasy hacks, and I will be working on porting it soon (shouldn't take very long). I just wanted to get something out before the weekend is over. Once that is done, then I will do an update for FF2 and FF3, then I would like to port the FF1 and FF2 translated scripts to the FF1 and FF2 multicart. In the farther future, I may try to port the scripts to the Wonderswan Color versions of FF1 and FF2.

Special thanks to Disch for his US FF1 disassembly (even though I'm working off of Japan FF1, the offsets are similar and the routines are basically the same), Lenophis for the FF1 DTE battle implementation which I ported to Japan FF1, and Team dCode for their Bigram Analysis tool which I used to make the most optimized DTE table possible for the script.

Since this is v0.99, I am going to wait until v1.0 before submitting it to the main site. I have not yet implemented expanding the player character name limit for FF1, hopefully I can do that by v1.0.

Congratulations!! Can’t wait to try it out. Reading those screen shots, “Chaos Four” sounds funny to me. Maybe it reminds me of the Fantastic Four or something. My vote goes to “Four Chaos.” Thanks for the alternate edition!

[svenge]

Forgive me if I missed the answer earlier in the thread, but does your patch for FF1 (JP) have any bug-fixes, or is it a straight re-translation?

[Special]

It's a straight re-translation.

[KingMike]

And since you mention FFVI and its names, Square has flipflopped back and forth between calling the purple octopus the accurate "Orthros" or the inaccurate-but-it's-what-I-grew-up-on-so-it's-better "Ultros" ever since the game got released, with neither name having established itself as "what he's going to be officially known as in English from now on". The names of actual main character names may have come to be regarded as sacred, but everything else seems to be pretty free game as far as preserving the inaccuracies people are used to go.

One point for for Ultros, whether or not it's more accurate, is that it sounds so over-the-top cheesy just like the character.

[darthvaderx]

About FFIII, what was lost from the old translation (with expanded memory) to this new one?
Depending on the larger content, would not it be preferable to stay with the old one because I will only use in the emulator?

[Chaos Rush]

About FFIII, what was lost from the old translation (with expanded memory) to this new one?
Depending on the larger content, would not it be preferable to stay with the old one because I will only use in the emulator?

The old 2016 version was more or less a straight up script port of the DS version. The new version just rewords things to fit. I prioritized retaining information expressed in the original script, so nothing was “lost” except smoothness of language. Stuff like “Thanks!” instead of “You have our eternal gratitude!” for lines that were just “arigatō” in the Japanese version, “there’s a town south” instead of “there is a town south of here”, etc.. Sometimes sentences were rewritten to express the same information but in a different order or stuff like that. The old one has bugs in some spell animations that freeze the game that come from using the mapper patch, so I don’t recommend it. I think this is the last time I’ll talk about the 2016 version, it’s not coming back.

[darthvaderx]

Thanks, so I definitely go with the new version.

[Bregalad]

I think this is the last time I’ll talk about the 2016 version, it’s not coming back.

I'm glad to hear that ! I didn't like the idea to change the mapper of FF3 to fit more text.

PS: When it comes to the upcoming FF1 patch, is there no way to make text less packed and more readable (like in the japanese original) - be it by splitting dialog boxes of 8 lines into 2 dialog boxes of 4 lines, or making the font shorter ?