[KingMike]

Not a fan of those squish tiles, you should definitely go with abbreviations in situations like those, equipment also have little icons associated with them like the shield symbol, you could simple leave "LeatherShield" as "Leather" and the shield icon would make it obvious to the player.

Yes, that was how the official localizations, at least up through FFL3 did it anyways so I don't think it would be out of place.

[Queue]

Abbreviations create jargon (above and beyond whatever terminology you already have to learn to understand the game). While aesthetically dubious, the "squish tiles" allow retaining full words where otherwise purely technical limitations would necessitate placeholders (abbreviations) that have to be learned and are themselves aesthetically unpleasant.

Wanted to make sure there was a voice in favor in the hopes you won't ditch the "squish tiles."

[svenge]

Abbreviations create jargon (above and beyond whatever terminology you already have to learn to understand the game). While aesthetically dubious, the "squish tiles" allow retaining full words where otherwise purely technical limitations would necessitate placeholders (abbreviations) that have to be learned and are themselves aesthetically unpleasant.

Wanted to make sure there was a voice in favor in the hopes you won't ditch the "squish tiles."

Seconded.

[Chaos Rush]

So I understand and not confuse whats actually happening with my wishful thinking.

You are going to release the translation again but without the expansion and mapper change?

So it just plays with the original Rom configuration just with a re-translation like how your Final Fantasy II re-translation was done?

YES.

I am going through the original Japanese script, re-translate it myself from scratch using as little words as possible, and then check the DS script for context and make edits. I dare say that the results of this will be more accurate than any previous translation so far (not that accuracy was the main issue of any of the previous translations).
(For instance, combing through the script I’ve already restored a specific reference to the final boss “Cloud of Darkness” that the talking Earth Crystal does, where the DS translation didn’t catch the final boss namedrop and instead had the Earth Crystal say “darkness that threatens this land”)

I think, I won’t start a new thread until it’s finished though. Not sure how long it will take, it’s not something that will be done in a week but it’s also not something that will take months either. Let’s just say my tools that I’ve already developed for FF3, combined with having archived the entire FF3 FC Japanese script AND the entire FF3 DS English script is making this go pretty quickly.

[Thirteen 1355]

Would a version that's more console-compatible also be a version that's more compatible with various other ROM hacks (Maeson, Job Improvement)?

[Chaos Rush]

Would a version that's more console-compatible also be a version that's more compatible with various other ROM hacks (Maeson, Job Improvement)?

It would depend on whether or not those patches alter text data. If they alter purely mechanics data, as in if they work with the Japanese version of the game, then they should work with this too. If they alter any text, then it would probably still work but the altered text might not show correctly and/or it might overwrite text data of the translation.

[EvoW]

I wonder why the Beholder has a different sprite? That is based off of the EYE enemy in FF1, right? So what is up with that?

[Vanya]

Which enemy are you referring to exactly?

As far as the FF1 Eye enemy, it has a different sprite in the US version because the original sprite was based on the Dungeons & Dragons Beholder enemy which is actually copyrighted material. Square didn't want to tangle with TSR when they brought the game over to the US.

Fun fact, Final Fantasy is HEAVILY INSPIRED by D&D.
Everything from the classes to the spells and enemies is directly interpreted from those found in the D&D books of the 80s.

[AsheManosse]

WOW, I realize I am soooo far behind on this topic, but this just made 2020 a little better!

What a time warp... I started the technical conversation over "MMC3 mapping and 512KB for PRG" original hardware issue back in 2017, and now wandered my way back here to see the conversation continued a year and a half ago...  it looks like this was fixed/completed back in June 2019!

I just spent WAY too much time reading every page and update on the new thread topic where FFIII English Translation was restarted ( https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=28719.0 ) and I cannot thank Chaos Rush and any other contributors enough for making a new path forward for an excellent English translation that will work on real hardware.

...Time to "get good" again and figure out how to take the new FFIII and flash it to a real cartridge to play on my NES!