[KillerBob]

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.

Interesting, I'm aware of its huge influence on FF, 99% of the bestiary was ripped straight from D&D for example, but didn't know about that Airy Water spell. Neat.

[Chicken Knife]

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".

This point piqued my interest enough to respond. I think there actually are times where an English word used in kana shouldn't necessarily be reproduced as the same English word in a translation. Case in point, the 2 mummy enemies in Dragon Quest 2 use the standard Japanese word for mummy "Mirra" for the weaker and the English word "Mummy" (it's kana equivalent) for the stronger one. This creates a translation problem because you naturally want to use Mummy for the stronger but then what do you do with the weaker? They made the silly choice of Mummy Man in the original loc. But my philosophy is about keeping in mind that Mirra was the common word to the Japanese audience and Mummy was the exotic one. Therefore we translated Mirra as Mummy and chose a more exotic name "Embalmed" for Mummy. I hope that illustrates my point that a translator should understand that English words in Japanese are usually designed to sound exotic and straight translations fail to reproduce that.

[Burger]

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.

I know, I know. I'm sorry, I just found it a bit amusing. No hard feelings, I hope.

But yes, if it's called くうきのみず ("Airy Water") in the original, and is an item that lets you breathe under water, then it's definitely a term nabbed straight from D&D just like 80% of the other terms in the game. That kind of coincidences don't happen.


On the topic of D&D names, one name I don't think any official translation ever got right is the enemy バレッテ, which was called "Ankylo" in the original NES translation and "Baretta" in most (all?) later English FF games. I'm not sure where they got any of those spellings from, but the correct one is supposed to be "Bulette".

This point piqued my interest enough to respond. I think there actually are times where an English word used in kana shouldn't necessarily be reproduced as the same English word in a translation. Case in point, the 2 mummy enemies in Dragon Quest 2 use the standard Japanese word for mummy "Mirra" for the weaker and the English word "Mummy" (it's kana equivalent) for the stronger one. This creates a translation problem because you naturally want to use Mummy for the stronger but then what do you do with the weaker? They made the silly choice of Mummy Man in the original loc. But my philosophy is about keeping in mind that Mirra was the common word to the Japanese audience and Mummy was the exotic one. Therefore we translated Mirra as Mummy and chose a more exotic name "Embalmed" for Mummy. I hope that illustrates my point that a translator should understand that English words in Japanese are usually designed to sound exotic and straight translations fail to reproduce that.

Agreed. If you scroll up a bit, you'll see I made that exact same point for the enemies かいぞく and パイレーツ, agreeing with the choice to translate かいぞく as "Pirate" and パイレーツ as "Buccaneer":

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.

(I think the two of us are pretty much on the same page as far as translation philosophy and attitude is concerned, and I quite like what you're doing with your Dragon Quest retranslations)

[KillerBob]

On the topic of D&D names, one name I don't think any official translation ever got right is the enemy バレッテ, which was called "Ankylo" in the original NES translation and "Baretta" in most (all?) later English FF games. I'm not sure where they got any of those spellings from, but the correct one is supposed to be "Bulette".

My guess is that Square Enix USA purposely avoid going with the original D&D names when they can for various reasons, just like they avoid using the term "Mithril". The prominent D&D influence was successively being phased out until it basically became its own thing in later titles but many names were of course still there for the SFC trilogy at least. If I recall correctly, the Mist Dragon in FFIV is also a D&D monster.

[Chaos Rush]

I will admit that since I don’t know jack shit about D&D, which has a huge influence on FF1, I’m probably not the best person for choosing new names for these items.

In the “Default Edition”, I am keeping the SE spellings, that’s a given, and I used them as they were listed on the FF wiki for the terms as they’re spelled in the PSP version.

However, in “Chaos Edition” I am open to using the D&D spellings for anything that originated from it, since in this case the source material was in English to begin with.

Would it be possible for someone to provide a list of what came from D&D and how to spell it? I can even provide a list of the Japanese item & monster names later today if it helps.

[Burger]

My guess is that Square Enix USA purposely avoid going with the original D&D names when they can for various reasons, just like they avoid using the term "Mithril". The prominent D&D influence was successively being phased out until it basically became its own thing in later titles but many names were of course still there for the SFC trilogy at least. If I recall correctly, the Mist Dragon in FFIV is also a D&D monster.

I'm fairly certain that back when the original NES translation was done, some American guy took a look at the monster names, went "crap, these names are all stolen from D&D, they might sue", deleted them all, then had someone else come up with all-new names based purely on what the monster looked like, with zero knowledge of what the Japanese name had been. It's really the only way we could've ended up with the Cobra being renamed "Asp" and then the later (non-poisonous) Anaconda enemy being renamed "Cobra".

But the later official translations restored so many D&D terms and names I'm pretty sure the only reason we ended up with stuff like the Bulette being renamed Baretta was that the translator just didn't realize where the name was taken from and what the spelling was supposed to be.

[KillerBob]

I will admit that since I don’t know jack shit about D&D, which has a huge influence on FF1, I’m probably not the best person for choosing new names for these items.

In the “Default Edition”, I am keeping the SE spellings, that’s a given, and I used them as they were listed on the FF wiki for the terms as they’re spelled in the PSP version.

However, in “Chaos Edition” I am open to using the D&D spellings for anything that originated from it, since in this case the source material was in English to begin with.

Would it be possible for someone to provide a list of what came from D&D and how to spell it? I can even provide a list of the Japanese item & monster names later today if it helps.

Looks like someone has already done the job for you, found this great spreadsheet after some searching around: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At-tjvq02iYddERoeUNtejJ3NWxlamxTX0J4SGxteWc
Don't know if it's complete, but it sure looks like it.

I'm fairly certain that back when the original NES translation was done, some American guy took a look at the monster names, went "crap, these names are all stolen from D&D, they might sue", deleted them all, then had someone else come up with all-new names based purely on what the monster looked like, with zero knowledge of what the Japanese name had been. It's really the only way we could've ended up with the Cobra being renamed "Asp" and then the later (non-poisonous) Anaconda enemy being renamed "Cobra".

But the later official translations restored so many D&D terms and names I'm pretty sure the only reason we ended up with stuff like the Bulette being renamed Baretta was that the translator just didn't realize where the name was taken from and what the spelling was supposed to be.

Yeah, I agree. Didn't know that they restored the D&D terms in later releases. I guess I was wrong then.

[BlazeHeatnix]

FF1 had a very D&D feel to its story and setting. Re-releases gave the text a more traditional high fantasy FF feel. I hope this one has a bit of tongue-in-cheekyness to its script.

[John Enigma]

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).

My question is how will you be doing this?

[Chaos Rush]

My question is how will you be doing this?

I make my own tools, and my tool already supports any version of FF1 as long as I have a table file for it.

[John Enigma]

I make my own tools, and my tool already supports any version of FF1 as long as I have a table file for it.

Right. I forgot.

Does your tool also support FF II (NES), and FF III (NES), or do you have tools for these specific entries?

[Chaos Rush]

Right. I forgot.

Does your tool also support FF II (NES), and FF III (NES), or do you have tools for these specific entries?

I haven’t added support for FF2 and FF3 yet (hence why the tool hasn’t been released) but I’m planning on doing it so I don’t have to maintain three text editors. I’ll get to it when I have time to update the FF2 and FF3 translations. I do have older tools for FF2 and FF3 but I don’t recommend using the FF2 one.
July 27, 2019, 07:41:12 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)The upcoming v1.00 will have these changes reflected in "Chaos Edition":

Four Fiends   --> Chaos Four
Fiend Orb   --> Chaos Orb
Power of Earth   --> Earthforce
Power of Fire   --> Fireforce
Power of Water   --> Waterforce
Power of Wind   --> Windforce
Warmech      --> Deathmech

D&D-BASED TERM CHANGES:
SQUAREENIX(abv.):   D&D:
Oxyale      --> AiryWater
WargWolf   --> WorgWolf
HillGigas   --> HillGiant
IceGigas   --> FrostGiant
FireGigas   --> FireGiant
Sahagin      --> Sahuagin
SahaChief   --> SahuaChief
SahaPrince   --> SahuaPrnce
Bigeyes      --> Flo[ti]ngEyes
Bloodbones   --> BloodyBone
GigasWorm   --> GiantWorm
Hellhound   --> HellHound
Ankheg      --> Anhkheg
Remorazz   --> Remorhaz
KittyTiger   --> Tiger
B[la][ac]kFlan   --> B[la][ac]kPuding
Baretta      --> Bulette
DsrtBaretta   --> DsrtBulette
Tyranosaur   --> T-Rex
Ochu      --> Otyugh
Neochu      --> Neo-Otyugh
FireHydra   --> Pyrohydra
Rhyos      --> Gorgimera
Mindflayer   --> MindFlayer

In order to maintain continuity with the FF2 and FF3 translations, I am choosing not to rename "Mythril" to "Mithril". I'm also not going to rename any of the spells for the same reasons. If there are any more D&D references, then I am willing to rename them for "Chaos Edition" as long as they don't conflict too heavily with later FF's. At this point, if anyone has any issues with the terminology in either patches, then I recommend making your own addendum patch once I release my text editor. My goals are to preserve the continuity present in the Japanese Famicom trilogy in these English translations, hope you guys understand.

I may or may not release v1.00 this weekend but I'm not sure yet.

EDIT: Also, huge shoutout to NeonStreetlight for reading over the script and making small changes to fix typos make things flow more naturally, and these changes will be in v1.00 for both editions. They will be added to the credits.

EDIT: v1.00 has been submitted in RHDN's queue. Let's hope it goes through without any issues.
July 28, 2019, 04:45:26 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Looks like FF1 was approved to the database and the page is up now: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/4868/
I've also submitted v1.01 to fix a small typo in the Chaos Edition patch.

In addition to that, I've ported the translation to Final Fantasy Restored, and have submitted it to RHDN as an addendum to Final Fantasy Restored. Here are some screenshots:

Since FFR has an expanded DTE table, I had a little extra room in the text space, so I was able to expand some of the text for clarity (but not that much), therefore the script port is not 100% identical. None of the item or monster names have been changed since they were near-identical anyways. The shop text and story text was mostly unchanged, because FFR's text area was repointed all over the place so my text editor wasn't fully compatible with it (mine is designed to pack everything exactly where the original text area is for each bank), and any small changes in those areas were done for consistency and was done via hex editor.

[svenge]

I noticed a strange typo in the "Default Edition" of 1.0 in which the Leather armor is spelled "LePther" in the shop, but is spelled properly in the armor equipment menu.

[Neon Streetlight]

I noticed a strange typo in the "Default Edition" of 1.0 in which the Leather armor is spelled "LePther" in the shop, but is spelled properly in the armor equipment menu.

Actually, I believe “LePther” is canon.

Lol nice catch!

[Chaos Rush]

I noticed a strange typo in the "Default Edition" of 1.0 in which the Leather armor is spelled "LePther" in the shop, but is spelled properly in the armor equipment menu.

I think it’s because the way DTE is implemented in menus isn’t 100% perfect (works fine in the overworld dialogues though)... for some reason it occasionally displays the wrong tile. I’m not on my PC right now so I can’t post my ASM notes, but it’s something I want to fix for a future update. Right now a temporary “fix” is to just compile the string with no DTE compression. I’m sorry about this!

On a different note, I’m afraid this script can’t be ported to Grond’s Final Fantasy, as it turns out that hack shifted around a lot of the text and the new translation won’t fit in the smaller space for NPC text that GFF uses.

As for Final Fantasy Restored, I’ve managed to port over the new translation to it and have already submitted it to RHDN and it is waiting approval.

[Masaru]

i found a bug where the stats menu are bad positioned in the chaos version, i don't know if it's because of the font patch or if there it's another thing
https://imgur.com/TxncsOK

[John Enigma]

On a different note, I’m afraid this script can’t be ported to Grond’s Final Fantasy, as it turns out that hack shifted around a lot of the text and the new translation won’t fit in the smaller space for NPC text that GFF uses.

The only solution would be to message @Grond to see if he can try implementing your script to his hack, but I highly doubt he's currently here, considering the last time he interacted here was in 2015.

[Chaos Rush]

i found a bug where the stats menu are bad positioned in the chaos version, i don't know if it's because of the font patch or if there it's another thing
https://imgur.com/TxncsOK

Thank you for reporting this, I will fix it for the next release!

@everyone I apologize for the glitches present in the initial release, I will prioritize fixing them for v1.1! In addition to that, I’ve been working with NeonStreetlight to polish up the script even further. Hopefully I can get the update out during this week, as well as providing an optional b-button dash patch.

[Neon Streetlight]

Thank you for reporting this, I will fix it for the next release!

@everyone I apologize for the glitches present in the initial release, I will prioritize fixing them for v1.1! In addition to that, I’ve been working with NeonStreetlight to polish up the script even further. Hopefully I can get the update out during this week, as well as providing an optional b-button dash patch.

I’m excited about the next release. We’ve really managed to squeeze a lot out of the limited space to capture the meaning of the original game while keeping it sounding natural and consistent.

[Chaos Rush]

v1.11 has been submitted to the RHDN queue! All typos should be fixed by now, and any unnatural translated-ey English has been smoothed over thanks to the help of NeonStreetlight. Also, the DTE ASM routines have been perfected, so the glitch where sometimes the wrong letter shows up in the text has been fixed. And lastly, the error regarding the slightly misplaced "Agility" text in the stats screen has been fixed.

In addition to that, the Final Fantasy Restored script port v1.11 script has been submitted to the queue as well. This also updates the title screen very slightly:

AE for AstralEsper, the author of FFR, and CR for Chaos Rush. I made this small change to help indicate much quicker if it was patched correctly.

I've also began work on expanding my unreleased text editor AirshipText to support FF2 as well (I want it to support the whole trilogy):

I'm a lot better at coding now than I was in 2015, so this will be a lot more stable than CastleFynn. I think I might end up redoing the FF2 translation on a fresh Japanese ROM for the sake of cleaner data and also refining the script a little further. I want to update FF2 before porting both FF1 and FF2 to the multicart.