[Cavery210]

I would like an optional patch for a B Button run, as it really speeds up the game for me.

I would also like to see some changed spell names in the Chaos Edition so that they are more faithful to the Famicom version:

Focus - Shape
Sleep - Sleepel
Temper - Strike
Focura - Shara
Scourge - Clouda/Cloudkill (Clouda is a literal translation of the spell name, while Cloudkill is the name of the D&D spell it was based on)
Firaga - Figa
Teleport - Telepo
Thundaga - Thunga (Name only used in the Famicom version)
Warp - Dezone
Cure - Care
NulShock - BarThndr (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
NulBlaze - BarFire
Cura - Carera
Diara - Adia
NulFrost - BarCold
Vox - Vocal
Curaga - Careda
Healara - Healra
Diaga -  Dadia
Exit - Datelpo (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
Invisra - Invira
NulDeath - BarMagic
Curaja - Carega
Healaga - Raheala
Diaja - Gadia
NulAll - BarAll
Mythril - Mithril (as in the Lord of the Rings metal)
Crosier - Khakhara (A Budist ringed staff used in prayer, original Japanese name was Shakujo, which was Khakkhara's Japanese pronounciation)
Vorpal - Sharp
Jolt Tonic - Awakening
Pirate - SeaBandit
Buccaneer - Pirate
Sahagin - Sahuagin (Named after the D&D monster)
WhiteCroc - Whitedile
Ochu - Otyugh (Named after the D&D monster)
Remorazz - Remorhaz (Named after the D&D monster)
BlackFlan - B.Pudding
Rhyos - Gorgimera

[Neon Streetlight]

Chaos, how can I best get you grammatical suggestions/fixes? It might be easier to just dump the script into a text file.

I noticed a few tiny things in Cornelia, and then the king states “I’ll have a bridge to the continent built up north” which should probably read “I’ll have a bridge to the continent up north built” or something to that effect.
July 22, 2019, 05:30:41 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Chaos, how can I best get you grammatical suggestions/fixes? It might be easier to just dump the script into a text file.

I noticed a few tiny things in Cornelia, and then the king states “I’ll have a bridge to the continent built up north” which should probably read “I’ll have a bridge to the continent up north built” or something to that effect.

Found an elf that states “No one knows where the Astos, king of the Dark Elves, is hiding.” I believe it should read “No one knows where Astos, King of the Dark Elves, is hiding.”

[svenge]

It's a straight re-translation.

Ah.  Is it compatible with FF Hackster Companion, which provides an interface to bug-fix some of the original game's underlying issues?

EDIT:  I noticed something in the FF1 patch that might need to be addressed.  The shop dialog "X will be the cost" is all well and good when buying, but it seems rather out-of-place when selling.  If the same string needs to be used for both scenarios, then perhaps "X will be the price" would be a better all-purpose choice.

[Chaos Rush]

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 ?

Well it’s not “upcoming” anymore, it was released yesterday.

To answer your question, Square didn’t implement scrolling text boxes until FF2. I’m sure with some work it could be backported to FF1, but also it would kinda make the way Garland’s/Chaos’s dialogue is setup even weirder than it already is, not to mention I’m not a magical NES hacker that can implement anything. Not saying I’m against seeing FF2-style text boxes implemented though, I just feel like that’s something that would break the boundary between translation and hack, especially with how NPC’s like endgame Garland is setup with his “movement” being designed with FF1’s single text box system in mind.

I would like an optional patch for a B Button run, as it really speeds up the game for me.

I would also like to see some changed spell names in the Chaos Edition so that they are more faithful to the Famicom version:

Focus - Shape
Sleep - Sleepel
Temper - Strike
Focura - Shara
Scourge - Clouda/Cloudkill (Clouda is a literal translation of the spell name, while Cloudkill is the name of the D&D spell it was based on)
Firaga - Figa
Teleport - Telepo
Thundaga - Thunga (Name only used in the Famicom version)
Warp - Dezone
Cure - Care
NulShock - BarThndr (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
NulBlaze - BarFire
Cura - Carera
Diara - Adia
NulFrost - BarCold
Vox - Vocal
Curaga - Careda
Healara - Healra
Diaga -  Dadia
Exit - Datelpo (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
Invisra - Invira
NulDeath - BarMagic
Curaja - Carega
Healaga - Raheala
Diaja - Gadia
NulAll - BarAll
Mythril - Mithril (as in the Lord of the Rings metal)
Crosier - Khakhara (A Budist ringed staff used in prayer, original Japanese name was Shakujo, which was Khakkhara's Japanese pronounciation)
Vorpal - Sharp
Jolt Tonic - Awakening
Pirate - SeaBandit
Buccaneer - Pirate
Sahagin - Sahuagin (Named after the D&D monster)
WhiteCroc - Whitedile
Ochu - Otyugh (Named after the D&D monster)
Remorazz - Remorhaz (Named after the D&D monster)
BlackFlan - B.Pudding
Rhyos - Gorgimera

This is something I may consider for future updates, but also I believe that some names are localized for good reason. Sure that logic might conflict with making the Chaos Edition patch in the first place, but I think stuff like this is something that needs to be considered on an individual basis.

The monsters using D&D spellings I understand, but I’m not a fan of changing the spell names to the point where stuff that was consistent in the Japanese FF trilogy is no longer consistent in the English translations. That, and just because a term in the Japanese version was based off of an English word doesn’t exactly mean the word itself would work in English. But again, stuff like this is something I’ll consider carefully on a case-by-case basis for the next update.

Also 海賊 means pirate, sure if you break up the kanji you get “sea bandit” but by all means it refers to the same thing that the English word pirate refers to. Of course, I’m aware that Buccaneer being called パイレーツ in the original doesn’t help the situation of how to differentiate them in English.

Chaos, how can I best get you grammatical suggestions/fixes? It might be easier to just dump the script into a text file.

I noticed a few tiny things in Cornelia, and then the king states “I’ll have a bridge to the continent built up north” which should probably read “I’ll have a bridge to the continent up north built” or something to that effect.
July 22, 2019, 05:30:41 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Found an elf that states “No one knows where the Astos, king of the Dark Elves, is hiding.” I believe it should read “No one knows where Astos, King of the Dark Elves, is hiding.”

For now I don’t mind you just posting it here, but I can provide a text dump sometime later this week (I work full-time in front of a computer now, so I’m not exactly eager to get on my PC when I get home for health reasons. Typing this from my phone lol)

A couple things I want to say:
* space is limited and influenced how phrases were written
* I’m in a situation where English is not my first language, but it also happens to be my “best” language (hopefully saying that doesn’t open a can of worms about whether I should even be doing these projects lol), so there may be some grammar mistakes here and there.

I appreciate any typo corrections, and encourage you to find more and I will gladly update them!

Ah.  Is it compatible with FF Hackster Companion, which provides an interface to bug-fix some of the original game's underlying issues?

EDIT:  I noticed something in the FF1 patch that might need to be addressed.  The shop dialog "X will be the cost" is all well and good when buying, but it seems rather out-of-place when selling.  If the same string needs to be used for both scenarios, then perhaps "X will be the price" would be a better all-purpose choice.

It’s probably not compatible because the offsets in FF1J are completely different from FF1US. As for the price thing, I’ll change it in v1.00.

I expected there’d be typos in the current version (v0.99), hence it being v0.99 and not v1.00 lol. Thank you all for playing, and please continue to give feedback even if it seems like I disagree sometimes! I read all of it and give thought to all of it.

[Burger]

NulShock - BarThndr (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)

The "Ba" series of spells I'm fairly sure are a reference to Wizardry, which used the "Ba" prefix to mean "anti" (ie the life spell was called "Di", so the death spell was called "Badi" because death is anti-life). I've seen the "It's short for barrier" thing before, but I think it's actually just a guess.

(Multiple other errors in there too. The Japanese name of Cure isn't "Care", for instance, it's ケアル, which is the English word "care" (ケア) with an extra ル added to the end to make it more than just the English word. A lot of the Japanese spell names work like this, it just sort of got lost in translation)

This is something I may consider for future updates, but also I believe that some names are localized for good reason. Sure that logic might conflict with making the Chaos Edition patch in the first place, but I think stuff like this is something that needs to be considered on an individual basis.

The monsters using D&D spellings I understand, but I’m not a fan of changing the spell names to the point where stuff that was consistent in the Japanese FF trilogy is no longer consistent in the English translations. That, and just because a term in the Japanese version was based off of an English word doesn’t exactly mean the word itself would work in English. But again, stuff like this is something I’ll consider carefully on a case-by-case basis for the next update.

As I said earlier, there IS something inherently silly about retranslating a game to give people a closer approximation of what the original Japanese game was like, but also making a point of keeping various random stuff from old English translations.

(Also, I don't think the Final Fantasy series is really the best place to make the "names were localized for a reason" argument considering how inconsistent its translations have been)

Also 海賊 means pirate, sure if you break up the kanji you get “sea bandit” but by all means it refers to the same thing that the English word pirate refers to. Of course, I’m aware that Buccaneer being called パイレーツ in the original doesn’t help the situation of how to differentiate them in English.

I'd say "Buccaneer" is actually the best way to handle this. Consider the way actual Japanese players at the time would've reacted to these names. They'd reach the boss battle against the 9 かいぞく, and they'd see that word the exact same way an English-speaker would've seen the word "pirate". Then they'd get the ship and run into a random battle on the sea against a group of パイレーツ, which they'd have seen as "a word that means the same as かいぞく, but isn't actually that word". And what word would English-speakers have had the same "a word that means the same as pirate, but isn't actually that word" reaction to seeing? Well, if you look up the word pirate in a thesaurus there's a couple potential options here, but I think "buccaneer" is probably the one closest associated with actual literal piracy.

[svenge]

I would also like to see some changed spell names in the Chaos Edition so that they are more faithful to the Famicom version:

Focus - Shape
Sleep - Sleepel
Temper - Strike
Focura - Shara
Scourge - Clouda/Cloudkill (Clouda is a literal translation of the spell name, while Cloudkill is the name of the D&D spell it was based on)
Firaga - Figa
Teleport - Telepo
Thundaga - Thunga (Name only used in the Famicom version)
Warp - Dezone
Cure - Care
NulShock - BarThndr (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
NulBlaze - BarFire
Cura - Carera
Diara - Adia
NulFrost - BarCold
Vox - Vocal
Curaga - Careda
Healara - Healra
Diaga -  Dadia
Exit - Datelpo (Best it could fit without squishy tiles)
Invisra - Invira
NulDeath - BarMagic
Curaja - Carega
Healaga - Raheala
Diaja - Gadia
NulAll - BarAll
Mythril - Mithril (as in the Lord of the Rings metal)
Crosier - Khakhara (A Budist ringed staff used in prayer, original Japanese name was Shakujo, which was Khakkhara's Japanese pronounciation)
Vorpal - Sharp
Jolt Tonic - Awakening
Pirate - SeaBandit
Buccaneer - Pirate
Sahagin - Sahuagin (Named after the D&D monster)
WhiteCroc - Whitedile
Ochu - Otyugh (Named after the D&D monster)
Remorazz - Remorhaz (Named after the D&D monster)
BlackFlan - B.Pudding
Rhyos - Gorgimera

For the love of God, please do not incorporate these proposed changes!  It's one thing to re-translate the script to increase its fidelity to the original Japanese, but renaming the long-standing English conventions for commands/spells/etc. sacrifices far too much in terms of usability to be justifiable.

[Chaos Rush]

As I said earlier, there IS something inherently silly about retranslating a game to give people a closer approximation of what the original Japanese game was like, but also making a point of keeping various random stuff from old English translations.

That’s true, but also does not apply to what we are talking about here. We’re not talking about “Four Fiends” or meme-Garland here, we’re talking about monster and spell names which are almost completely different between NES FF1 and GBA/PSP/iOS FF1, so this isn’t a case of “keeping various random stuff from old English translations”.

[Bregalad]

Well it’s not “upcoming” anymore, it was released yesterday.

To answer your question, Square didn’t implement scrolling text boxes until FF2. I’m sure with some work it could be backported to FF1, but also it would kinda make the way Garland’s/Chaos’s dialogue is setup even weirder than it already is, not to mention I’m not a magical NES hacker that can implement anything. Not saying I’m against seeing FF2-style text boxes implemented though, I just feel like that’s something that would break the boundary between translation and hack, especially with how NPC’s like endgame Garland is setup with his “movement” being designed with FF1’s single text box system in mind.
This is something I may consider for future updates, but also I believe that some names are localized for good reason. Sure that logic might conflict with making the Chaos Edition patch in the first place, but I think stuff like this is something that needs to be considered on an individual basis.

Well congratulations on releasing the retranslation (wow, that was sure a quick project) !
And I understand that FF2-style scrolling text is out of the scrope of FF1 and not in the spirit of "play the game as the original was" (especially with the dialogue with Garland at the end, which would make no sense if scrolling was possible). But the font in the original was also spaced with 2 lines (instead just one) and had only 4 lines of text. Well, it's an impossible choice...

[Chaos Rush]

But the font in the original was also spaced with 2 lines (instead just one) and had only 4 lines of text. Well, it's an impossible choice...

Yup, I’m aware of that - to be clear, the new translation isn’t inserted into US FF1, I’m directly modifying Japan FF1, as such I modified the text display routine for the NPC text boxes to display single-spaced lines like US FF1. However, for shops, menus, etc., I left the Japanese version’s two-line breaks because I felt the text space was sufficient enough in those and I couldn’t figure out how lol, even implementing DTE was a nightmare

As for how I was able to do it relatively quickly, I was on vacation until last week. I’m not on vacation anymore and am working full-time, so don’t expect me to pump out projects that fast anymore lol. Will still continue to work on improving these, of course.

I do want to port and adjust the new script to the WSC version, and that’ll hopefully not be as restrictive with text presentation and space. So maybe some people should wait for that version

[Burger]

That’s true, but also does not apply to what we are talking about here. We’re not talking about “Four Fiends” or meme-Garland here, we’re talking about monster and spell names which are almost completely different between NES FF1 and GBA/PSP/iOS FF1, so this isn’t a case of “keeping various random stuff from old English translations”.

I'm just talking in general, I don't even know which particular names you're using for various things. It just seems weird to do an "accurate retranslation" and then specifically look to what earlier official translations decided to randomly rename various things. Especially when we're talking about a franchise that has never had a very consistent English localization.

Get what I mean?

[Neon Streetlight]

Found a glitch - When all characters are positioned and I go to cure the poison (either with magic or an item), the “poison” text gets all wonky. The “Po” of the last character shows up on the right side, but the “ison” shows up on the left side of the screen. Both overlap with the window.

[Chaos Rush]

I'm just talking in general, I don't even know which particular names you're using for various things. It just seems weird to do an "accurate retranslation" and then specifically look to what earlier official translations decided to randomly rename various things. Especially when we're talking about a franchise that has never had a very consistent English localization.

Get what I mean?

As mentioned before, the aim of this isn’t to be all “here is my ultimate super-accurate FF1 translation that’s totally better than SE’s official translations”, this is more like “here is what a translation from a half-Japanese dude who lived in Japan for a little bit and then grew up in the US who likes ROM hacking, programming, and translating as a hobby would be” and also these are meant to “be to the English remakes of FF1-3 as the original Famicom trilogy is to their own Japanese remake counterparts”. I’m not trying to be all “I think this is the true meaning, so I will rename all of the items my way because SE is completely wrong!!” and break continuity with the rest of the games in the franchise.

SE has kept their FF1 localization pretty consistent in the last three releases (GBA, PSP, iOS), and I’m confident that whatever they port it next to will retain the terminology used in the aforementioned three versions. And, having played FF1 in both English and Japanese, I think SE’s choices makes sense. The only choices I disagree with is the few lingering things from the originals NES localization - particularly “Four Fiends” and “Oxyale”, but that’s a different topic. FF1 isn’t exactly an advanced piece of literature - it’s a simple story, the Japanese in it isn’t that complicated, and the script doesn’t even take itself seriously at times. So many people looking into “the true meaning of the original Japanese” when really it’s not that deep, and the original NES localization wasn’t exactly a mess either.

“Chaos Edition” isn’t meant to change things to the point where continuity is broken (i.e. items/monsters that reappear in FF2 and FF3 no longer being consistent). It’s pretty much just to maintain the name connection between the final boss and the four monster things, as there was a name connection in the original game.

Sorry if I’m jumping around from point to point with little connection, but also the reason why in Chaos Edition I called the Oxyale “Aquair” instead of the 100% super literal and accurate “Air’s Water” is for the same reason why I said sometimes localization needs to happen for a reason (also “Oxyale” doesn’t seem to reference anything about water at all hence why I wanted to rename it). If you translate everything word-for-word using the exact dictionary definitions of everything, then you end up with really awkward and unnatural phrases. If you go this route, at what point does it stop being a translation and become the Japanese game in romaji? I’m not trying to go that route here, even with “Chaos Edition”. I’m sure someone that has studied Japanese extensively might look at something and go “this is wrong!”, and while I’m not one to tell someone who is right or wrong, I just hope people can respect where I’m coming from and why I think localization happens for a reason.

I think in English. English is my “main” language. However, I talk to my mom in Japanese. When I talk to my mom, I don’t “translate” to English, instead I convey the same information to my mom using cultural equivalent phrases. If I directly translated from English intentionally, then what I say is very awkward. Likewise when conveying the same information to my English-speaking dad, I say what is a natural and appropriate way to convey that information in English. Now, not to play devil’s advocate, but due to my life situation my Japanese probably sounds like English-to-Japanese Google Translate, and I use English loan-words to fill in my vocabulary gaps, while on the other hand my English grammar isn’t 100% perfect, but the point I’m trying to make here is that this is the exact reason why I believe localization happens for a reason: so you can get the same reaction out of two different audiences.

And one last thing I want to say is, I started these projects with FF2 and then onto FF3 because hacks like Grond’s FF and FFRestored already existed, and to my knowledge those hacks brushed up the NES script by comparing with the GBA version. The result is somewhat different from my new translation, but those hacks are still perfectly functional - and great - versions of FF1. After finishing FF2 and FF3, I decided to do FF1 just because of a “might as well completely the trilogy” thing, NOT because “All previous translations are completely wrong, here is my ultimate ultra-accurate translation!!!”. Yes I retranslated all of the NPC dialogue from scratch (as opposed to FF2 and FF3 where I edited the GBA/DS scripts to reflect the content of the original Famicom scripts), and I used the monster and item names from the GBA/PSP/iOS versions because that’s exactly what I did with FF2 and FF3, so likewise I should do it like that for FF1 as well.

v1.00 of Chaos Edition might change some more names, but it’s something I will look at on an individual basis and will use my own judgement. I am prioritizing maintaining continuity throughout the entire trilogy.

With all that said, I’ll eventually release my new text editor when it’s ready (it’ll be compatible with the whole trilogy). People can make all the addendums they want if they disagree with a choice of mine.

Disclaimer: what I said was not directed solely at the person I replied to, but rather just my various thoughts on the “literal vs natural” debate that comes up in translation-related topics. I really don’t want to discuss this topic anymore. These projects, for the most part, are done lol.

I’m sorry for this long post, this ended up way longer than I wanted it to be, and the disjointed-ness of it is due to me adding paragraphs in-between.

Found a glitch - When all characters are positioned and I go to cure the poison (either with magic or an item), the “poison” text gets all wonky. The “Po” of the last character shows up on the right side, but the “ison” shows up on the left side of the screen. Both overlap with the window.

Can you post a screenshot? Wondering if it’s in-battle or in the overworld.

[Neon Streetlight]

As mentioned before, the aim of this isn’t to be all “here is my ultimate super-accurate FF1 translation that’s totally better than SE’s official translations”, this is more like “here is what a translation from a half-Japanese dude who grew up in the US who likes ROM hacking, programming, and translating as a hobby would be” and also these are meant to “be to the English remakes of FF1-3 as the original Famicom trilogy is to their own Japanese remake counterparts”. I’m not trying to be all “I think this is the true meaning, so I will rename all of the items my way because SE is completely wrong!!” and break continuity with the rest of the games in the franchise.

SE has kept their FF1 localization pretty consistent in the last three releases (GBA, PSP, iOS), and I’m confident that whatever they port it next to will retain the terminology used in the aforementioned three versions. And, having played FF1 in both English and Japanese, I think SE’s choices makes sense. The only choices I disagree with is the few lingering things from the originals NES localization - particularly “Four Fiends” and “Oxyale”, but that’s a different topic. FF1 isn’t exactly an advanced piece of literature - it’s a simple story, the Japanese in it isn’t that complicated, and the script doesn’t even take itself seriously at times. So many people looking into “the true meaning of the original Japanese” when really it’s not that deep, and the original NES localization wasn’t exactly a mess either.

“Chaos Edition” isn’t meant to change things to the point where continuity is broken (i.e. items/monsters that reappear in FF2 and FF3 no longer being consistent). It’s pretty much just to maintain the name connection between the final boss and the four monster things, as there was a name connection in the original game.

Sorry if I’m jumping around from point to point with little connection, but also the reason why in Chaos Edition I called the Oxyale “Aquair” instead of the 100% super literal and accurate “Air’s Water” is for the same reason why I said sometimes localization needs to happen for a reason (also “Oxyale” doesn’t seem to reference anything about water at all hence why I wanted to rename it). If you translate everything word-for-word using the exact dictionary definitions of everything, then you end up with really awkward and unnatural phrases. If you go this route, at what point does it stop being a translation and become the Japanese game in romaji? I’m not trying to go that route here, even with “Chaos Edition”. I’m sure someone that has studied Japanese extensively might look at something and go “this is wrong!”, and while I’m not one to tell someone who is right or wrong, I just hope people can respect where I’m coming from and why I think localization happens for a reason.

I think in English. English is my “main” language. However, I talk to my mom in Japanese. When I talk to my mom, I don’t “translate” to English, instead I convey the same information to my mom using cultural equivalent phrases. If I directly translated from English intentionally, then what I say is very awkward. Now, not to play devil’s advocate, but due to my life situation my Japanese probably sounds like English-to-Japanese Google Translate, and I use English loan-words to fill in my vocabulary gaps, while on the other hand my English grammar isn’t 100% perfect, but the point I’m trying to make here is that this is the exact reason why I believe localization happens for a reason: so you can get the same reaction out of two different audiences.

And one last thing I want to say is, I started these projects with FF2 and then onto FF3 because hacks like Grond’s FF and FFRestored already existed, and to my knowledge those hacks brushed up the NES script by comparing with the GBA version. The result is somewhat different from my new translation, but those hacks are still perfectly functional - and great - versions of FF1. After finishing FF2 and FF3, I decided to do FF1 just because of a “might as well completely the trilogy” thing, NOT because “All previous translations are completely wrong, here is my ultimate ultra-accurate translation!!!”. Yes I retranslated all of the NPC dialogue from scratch (as opposed to FF2 and FF3 where I edited the GBA/DS scripts to reflect the content of the original Famicom scripts), and I used the monster and item names from the GBA/PSP/iOS versions because that’s exactly what I did with FF2 and FF3, so likewise I should do it like that for FF1 as well.

v1.00 of Chaos Edition might change some more names, but it’s something I will look at on an individual basis and will use my own judgement. I am prioritizing maintaining continuity throughout the entire trilogy.

With all that said, I’ll eventually release my new text editor when it’s ready (it’ll be compatible with the whole trilogy). People can make all the addendums they want if they disagree with a choice of mine.

Disclaimer: what I said was not directed solely at the person I replied to, but rather just my various thoughts on the “literal vs natural” debate that comes up in translation-related topics. I really don’t want to discuss this topic anymore. These projects, for the most part, are done lol.

I’m sorry for this long post, this ended up way longer than I wanted it to be, and the disjointed-ness of it is due to me adding paragraphs in-between.
Can you post a screenshot? Wondering if it’s in-battle or in the overworld.

For some reason, I’m having trouble figuring out how to post a screenshot here. Being a total spaz! It is in the overworld though. Looks like the text is wrapping because it’s too long a word or something.

[Chaos Rush]

For some reason, I’m having trouble figuring out how to post a screenshot here. Being a total spaz! It is in the overworld though. Looks like the text is wrapping because it’s too long a word or something.

Ok! I’ll look into it this weekend. Please continue to post anything else you find, I appreciate you taking the time to play this.

Felt like I said too much in my previous post... I guess I just don’t want to go into this debate territory that I see with discussions on FF4 and FF6. I guess that’s what happens when the game did have a localization during its original time, unlike FF2 and FF3.  No wonder why people never argue about FF2, FF3, and FF5 lol.

[Ramdemann]

I have an unusual problem with Final Fantasy III, When I try to start the game after taking a break it changes the Header ID I think it's called?

For instance, The first time I play it I get this - C74ED9C6-00000000

Then when I come back another day I get this - C74E96C6-00000000

The D9 becomes 96.

This prevents me from saving because the emulator thinks the game is different from the save file and it keeps switching back and forth every time I boot up.

What would cause this?

[Burger]

Disclaimer: what I said was not directed solely at the person I replied to, but rather just my various thoughts on the “literal vs natural” debate that comes up in translation-related topics. I really don’t want to discuss this topic anymore. These projects, for the most part, are done lol.

If I was annoying you, I apologize for that. My intent was just to add my own two cent to the already-ongoing discussion about translation philosophy.

[KillerBob]

Sorry if I’m jumping around from point to point with little connection, but also the reason why in Chaos Edition I called the Oxyale “Aquair” instead of the 100% super literal and accurate “Air’s Water” is for the same reason why I said sometimes localization needs to happen for a reason (also “Oxyale” doesn’t seem to reference anything about water at all hence why I wanted to rename it). If you translate everything word-for-word using the exact dictionary definitions of everything, then you end up with really awkward and unnatural phrases. If you go this route, at what point does it stop being a translation and become the Japanese game in romaji? I’m not trying to go that route here, even with “Chaos Edition”. I’m sure someone that has studied Japanese extensively might look at something and go “this is wrong!”, and while I’m not one to tell someone who is right or wrong, I just hope people can respect where I’m coming from and why I think localization happens for a reason.

Does it necessarily need to reference water? (I don't recall the details of the quest involving it.) The less specific "liquid" may be a better alternative here. I'm not suggesting that you should rename it Liquid Air though, but forms of "liquid breathing" appear in many fantasy and science fiction novels and films etc. Maybe you can get inspiration from there to come up with a good sounding English term for the item if you're not happy with Oxyale or Aquair.

[AdamDravian]

Does it necessarily need to reference water? (I don't recall the details of the quest involving it.) The less specific "liquid" may be a better alternative here. I'm not suggesting that you should rename it Liquid Air though, but forms of "liquid breathing" appear in many fantasy and science fiction novels and films etc. Maybe you can get inspiration from there to come up with a good sounding English term for the item if you're not happy with Oxyale or Aquair.

It's well known that FF1 was heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, so I would bet that the "item" in question was inspired by the D&D spell Airy Water, which basically creates an area around the caster which allows the caster and those close to him  to breathe and move freely through water, as if they were on land.

[Burger]

It's well known that FF1 was heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, so I would bet that the "item" in question was inspired by the D&D spell Airy Water, which basically creates an area around the caster which allows the caster and those close to him  to breathe and move freely through water, as if they were on land.

It's くうきのみず in Japanese, which is the logical way to translate "Airy Water" into Japanese, so yeah. Direct reference Straight borrowed term.

I know it's kinda dickish, but I can't help but chuckle at how the above "localization needs to happen for a reason" thing turned out to be arguing that an English term that was translated directly into Japanese shouldn't be directly translated into English. Reminds me of that one SNES Wizardry translation patch that renamed all the spells because "the original names are just meaningless syllables that wouldn't mean anything to English speakers".

[Chaos Rush]

It's くうきのみず in Japanese, which is the logical way to translate "Airy Water" into Japanese, so yeah. Direct reference Straight borrowed term.

I know it's kinda dickish, but I can't help but chuckle at how the above "localization needs to happen for a reason" thing turned out to be arguing that an English term that was translated directly into Japanese shouldn't be directly translated into English. Reminds me of that one SNES Wizardry translation patch that renamed all the spells because "the original names are just meaningless syllables that wouldn't mean anything to English speakers".

To be fair I was using Oxyale as an example, and wasn’t what my whole localization happens for a reason point was about - I was talking about items, spells, and monsters as a whole. The context in-game is that Oxyale is a thing naturally produced in Gaia town’s spring, and only the town faerie can extract it. It’s an item and not a spell, so it may or may not be based on the spell. I haven’t been dickish at all and have been explaining my logic, situation, and thought process, so I would appreciate it if we could continue this discussion in a respectful manner.

With that said, on the topic of names based from D&D, I hardly know anything about it so forgive me on that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using the SE spellings in the default patch, but would you guys be okay with using the D&D spellings in the Chaos Edition patch? Because it’s not much different from later localizations of FFIV renaming monsters to be spelled correctly based on how they’re spelled in the mythologies that they’re based from.