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.
Poll
Topic: Final Fantasy NES Trilogy Translations (Read 55990 times)