Final Fantasy Discussion Thread

[Ultimetalhead]

There's a really good orchestral remake out there somewhere. I've heard it before and it's pretty awesome. Not the same charm of the original of course, but I think it would fit better with a more polished game.

[j]

the only thing they would need to do is maybe add spoken dialogue (Not sure how I feel about that)

Oh shit, I'm sure they would do this, and I'm almost as sure that it would be a bad thing.

I could probably count on one hand the video games I've played that had good voice acting.  For some reason, it's almost always poorly done and detracts from the game for me.  I have no problem at all reading all the dialogue in a game, especially if it means I don't have to listen to a terrible, over-the-top "interpretation" of it.

-J

[Sam]

Couldn't agree more, for example I thought the spoken dialogue in FF10 was pretty bad. Would've much preferred reading it than hearing it. I normally just read the subtitles anyway

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Man, I just got a PS3 and naturally as a die hard FF fan, the first game I got for it was FFXIII. I'm digging the battle system, the music and the graphics a lot, but the story and the whole dynamics of the game seem to be somewhat lacking. It's way too linear, no world map, just follow a straight path until a 10 minute long cinematic kicks in, with an occasional boss battle.

[yorost]

Basically, the game repeats the offenses of X but not quite as badly.  When you get to chapter XI the game really becomes awesome for awhile, with open exploration and some side things to discover.  Shame the whole games wasn't built like that chapter.

[Rina]

Man, I just got a PS3 and naturally as a die hard FF fan, the first game I got for it was FFXIII. I'm digging the battle system, the music and the graphics a lot, but the story and the whole dynamics of the game seem to be somewhat lacking. It's way too linear, no world map, just follow a straight path until a 10 minute long cinematic kicks in, with an occasional boss battle.

Yeah, I've played a little bit and that disappointed me severly. The graphics blow my mind though.

[Ultimetalhead]

the only thing they would need to do is maybe add spoken dialogue (Not sure how I feel about that)

Oh shit, I'm sure they would do this, and I'm almost as sure that it would be a bad thing.

I could probably count on one hand the video games I've played that had good voice acting.  For some reason, it's almost always poorly done and detracts from the game for me.  I have no problem at all reading all the dialogue in a game, especially if it means I don't have to listen to a terrible, over-the-top "interpretation" of it.

-J

I'm in the camp that was okay with the voices from XIII, and I think as long as they used the Advent Children cast for the remake, I'd probably be okay with it. There's a lot of potential for disaster though. I'd hope that Square would be extra careful with this though, being the most popular FF and all.

[j]

the only thing they would need to do is maybe add spoken dialogue (Not sure how I feel about that)

Oh shit, I'm sure they would do this, and I'm almost as sure that it would be a bad thing.

I could probably count on one hand the video games I've played that had good voice acting.  For some reason, it's almost always poorly done and detracts from the game for me.  I have no problem at all reading all the dialogue in a game, especially if it means I don't have to listen to a terrible, over-the-top "interpretation" of it.

-J

I'm in the camp that was okay with the voices from XIII, and I think as long as they used the Advent Children cast for the remake, I'd probably be okay with it. There's a lot of potential for disaster though. I'd hope that Square would be extra careful with this though, being the most popular FF and all.

Yeah actually, I didn't think the voices from XIII were too bad.  But the writing of the dialogue wasn't exactly superb.

Vaan alone in XII drove me up the wall.  And X's voice acting was pretty weak too overall, I thought.  Haven't seen AC; I assume it's better in that department?

Basically, the game repeats the offenses of X but not quite as badly.  When you get to chapter XI the game really becomes awesome for awhile, with open exploration and some side things to discover.  Shame the whole games wasn't built like that chapter.

I sort of agree.  I wasn't very impressed with the game's supposed pocket of "non-linearity".  It seemed kinda poorly conceived and shallow; maybe even tacked on.  Pretty much all there was to do was run around a huge area and hunt monsters.  After playing such a huge portion of the game one way, it was weird for the scope to so drastically change all of a sudden regardless.

Also, IMO X had the superior story.

-J

[AcidLameLTE]

X definitely had the better story.

[ehra]

I'm going through FF10 again now, this is actually my first time replaying it. Knowing what happens ahead of time definitely puts a lot of the conversations in a different light.

[NecessaryPain]

The voice acting in X was pretty solid. It's just Tidus that lets the game down with his dumb-ass voice.

FFXII had the best voice acting, easily. Although Vaan is yet another pretty boy who is there purely to please the japanese school girls.

FFXII, simply put - was pure garbage and the worst in the series by a long stretch. Totally rubbish storyline followed by the worst ever set of playable characters.

Vanille.....words can't even explain. 

I actually think Square have lost their way completely. Which is a damn shame.

[NecessaryPain]

Why does Square not realize that by remaking VII they will literally make back 3 times what they spend on it?

I don't ever want to see an FFVII remake.

Ever.

Square don't have what it takes anymore. They will absolutely ruin the FFVII universe.

They already have infact. AC and CC were bad enough.

This is just ridiculous. The question isn't if Square "has it" anymore. The story was already written, the game is already DONE, the only thing they would need to do is maybe add spoken dialogue (Not sure how I feel about that) and give the graphics the facelift of the millennium. AC and CC were spinoffs, but this is the exact same fucking game.

That and, how many times have they remade the first 6 games? Remember what terrible disasters they were that ruined their respective universes?

How is it ridiculous? They've already expanded on the FFVII universe by adding new places in Advent Children.

The game has already been milked enough without the current version of Square-Enix messing things up by remaking the original game. Don't fool yourself, this will be a full on remake. If you think a graphics and audio expansion is all you're going to get then you are sadly mistaken.

The battle system alone will be completely turned on its head, along with new locations and storylines. Ugh. Just thinking about it annoys me.

I'm a die hard FFVII fan and think the game should never be touched. Forgive me for not trusting the intentions of Square Enix, after that last masterpiece of a game (FFXIII) 

[Ultimetalhead]

Again, I think you're being a TAD ridiculous. Look at the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes on DS. What are they? Graphical and audio overhauls, with voice acting, pretty much? Yeah, thought so. There's no reason for them to change anything about the game, other than the graphics and the audio, so it would be exceedingly stupid if they did so.

So stupid that I'm really not worried about it. Any company would be able to see that they would get serious flak if they changed the battle system or any of the core gameplay/story elements.

[j]

The voice acting in X was pretty solid. It's just Tidus that lets the game down with his dumb-ass voice.

FFXII had the best voice acting, easily. Although Vaan is yet another pretty boy who is there purely to please the japanese school girls.

FFXII, simply put - was pure garbage and the worst in the series by a long stretch. Totally rubbish storyline followed by the worst ever set of playable characters.

Vanille.....words can't even explain. 

Auron was the only main character voice in FFX I thought was decent.

In XII, Vaan's voice acting was HORRIBLE.  Hard to listen to.  Didn't help that his character was crap too.

XIII had mostly decent voice acting.  I didn't like Fang's or Vanille's voices, but for once the bad voices were the exceptions.

Any company would be able to see that they would get serious flak if they changed the battle system or any of the core gameplay/story elements.

Yeah I agree.  I don't think they'll make any major changes to mechanics or anything.  Although they might try to tweak/refine some algorithms, like they've done with practically every other remake.

-J

[ehra]

And as for Squeenix having "lost it," the Kingdom Hearts series alone tells me they can still make fantastic games.


edit: To be fair, it's not completely out of the ordinary to think that they might change some of the story in FF7 to better incorporate the spinoffs they've done since. They did as much with Chrono Trigger; the PS1 remake added a scene at the end where Luca finds a baby who she adopts (Kid) and the DS version has a bonus boss and a new scene at the end that handwaves the "why isn't Magus out looking for Schala?" plot hole from Chrono Cross (he apparently gives up all of his memories at the end of Chrono Trigger now).

[Ultimetalhead]

As long as such things were included as a bonus, and not as the main story, then I fail to see why they would be a problem.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

X definitely had the better story.

For real. FFX's story was good and kept me interested. So far in FFXIII, I'm not really *hooked* to the storyline.

[ehra]

As long as such things were included as a bonus, and not as the main story, then I fail to see why they would be a problem.

Because it's still a part of the game and is now official story/cannon, regardless of if you have to go a little out of your way to see it. Heck, some of my favorite parts of FFVII were "bonus content" (the Zack and Vincent backstories), and I'd think some amount less of the game if it weren't for them.  I don't get why it wouldn't be understandable for someone to be upset if a game's story is changed in an effort to account for spinoffs that they didn't like.

If it's in the game then it's in the game, if I ignored any part of a game I didn't like then I'd love every one 

[Perpetual Change]

Final Fantasy X is better than XIII in nearly every possible way aside from graphics.

[AcidLameLTE]

I would say that XIII's exploration bit was a lot better than X's exploration. If that makes any sense...

I thought X's voice acting was alright for the most part. I mean, it wasn't brilliant by any means but I thought it was certainly acceptable for a game.

[NecessaryPain]

Again, I think you're being a TAD ridiculous. Look at the Final Fantasy III and IV remakes on DS. What are they? Graphical and audio overhauls, with voice acting, pretty much? Yeah, thought so. There's no reason for them to change anything about the game, other than the graphics and the audio, so it would be exceedingly stupid if they did so.

So stupid that I'm really not worried about it. Any company would be able to see that they would get serious flak if they changed the battle system or any of the core gameplay/story elements.

You are comparing a DS remake to a PS3 game.

There is going to be far more things included in a PS3 version as they will try and justify the remake. All this crap about Zack and Genesis - things that just weren't meant to be in the game - will be all over the place here.

New side-quests that connect with CC and AC. It's going to be horrible.

Yeah, maybe i'd like to see a graphics and audio overhaul. But it just won't work out like that. Square will make every attempt to include new dialogue, side-quests, locations, battle systems - whilst forgetting what made the game great in the first place.

Expanding on FFVII was huge mistake to begin with, and i'm more than happy with the original masterpiece.

I just don't trust Square to pull this off anymore. Ask me 5 years ago and maybe i'd agree with you.

[j]

Square will make every attempt to include new dialogue

To be fair, FFVII *desperately* needs its dialogue re-translated.

-J

[Perpetual Change]

I would say that XIII's exploration bit was a lot better than X's exploration. If that makes any sense...

I thought X's voice acting was alright for the most part. I mean, it wasn't brilliant by any means but I thought it was certainly acceptable for a game.

The thing cool about X is, also, if you stuck through it too the end the characters actually grew and became a helluva lot less annoying. I can't really say the same about XIII. Seems, in that game, most of the real interesting stuff was cut out and thrown into the in-game encyclopaedia. A shame.

Square will make every attempt to include new dialogue

To be fair, FFVII *desperately* needs its dialogue re-translated.

-J

True. Certain parts don't even make sense 

[j]

-J

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Things like those give videogames a peculiar charm and appeal.

[Perpetual Change]

Apart from the Aeris/Aerith mistranslation, I recall some pretty big mistranslations that actually messed up the plot. For instance, it's said in the English version that the Ancients traveled from planet to planet when really the original just read that they traveled from continent to continent. Also, those dumbasses in black are not copies of Sephiroth, but of eachother (like the Clone Army in Star Wars), which is also fumbled in the original, where you're lead to believe that they're all supposed to have the same DNA as Sephiroth. It seems the translators generally did a good job of making the dialoging interesting, but they really dropped the ball on some of the more complex elements. But then again there's stuff like this from Honeybee:



"I see. So that'll how you'll fool them."
"Hmm...So that's how you fooled them."

[NecessaryPain]

I really don't see that as a big deal at all.

You get the general idea of what everyone is saying. A few misplaced words and sentence structure isn't all that important really.

[ehra]

If what PC said is true about the hooded/numbered guys and the Ancients is true, I'd say that goes a bit beyond  "a few misplaced words and sentence structure." 

[j]

If what PC said is true about the hooded/numbered guys and the Ancients is true, I'd say that goes a bit beyond  "a few misplaced words and sentence structure." 

Yeah, I just posted that line because it's always the first thing I think of.  Along with the "Tuff Ring" or however it's misspelled.

But I think PC is right, because even though it's been a long time since I played it, I remember reading something along those lines before (i.e. that the translation was responsible for some of the plot inconsistencies).

-J

[NecessaryPain]

If what PC said is true about the hooded/numbered guys and the Ancients is true, I'd say that goes a bit beyond  "a few misplaced words and sentence structure." 

it's not that big of a deal really though, is it?

Most of the translation is fine.

Room for improvement, though, yeah.

[Perpetual Change]

Room for improvement for sure. Here's another thing I found while surfing around:

Apparently somewhere in the game, I think during the flashback, Sephiroth says something to cloud like "SOLDIERS are exposed to mako. You're different from the others, you're still human" which leads the player to believe that Cloud is different from the SOLDIERS, who've lost some basic human element. The clarity of the original, which said something like "SOLDIERS like yourself are exposed to mako. You're different from normal people, but you're still human." They also say Tseng was "done in" by Sephiroth in translation, when in the original they just say that Sephiroth hurt beat him up. I think that's important. Sephiroth, for some reason, didn't kill Tseng when he had no problem killing anyone else. Like I said, the issue is the clarity. The translators don't seem to have understood certain lines, so just translated them to what they thought they meant.

There's also a ton of instances where names were just not translated correctly at all. Here's some more goodies I found:


https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII/Glitches_and_errors#Translation_errors_and_typos

   Note: Most of the translation bugs were fixed in PC version.
    * When Cloud first meets Aeris after he falls through the roof of her church, the young girl tells him he gave her a fright, since he almost fell on her. However, since Japanese being somewhat ambiguous with its lack of any personal endings for its verbs, Aeris, still referring to the church, proceeds to give Cloud a good telling-off about how scared she was when the church almost fell on her.
    * If you talk to the sick man in the slums, Aeris tells Cloud the following: "This guy are sick."
    * The player can choose "Off course!" or "No, way!" when asked if they want to continue in the Battle Arena in Gold Saucer.
    * Jenova's only line was a typo: "Beacause, you are... a puppet."
    * In one of the cliff caves you find an item labeled "last elixir," however there is no such item in the game and one will not appear in your inventory. Most likely this was a mistranslation of "megalixir."
    * Barret's Ungarmax Limit Break is meant to be Angermax

I remember that god-damned elixer  

That said, NP, FFVII was still a vast improvement over what Square had done before. Wanna see a real bad translation? Just turn to the PG'd SNES versions or (eek) Final Fantasy Tactics. I'd say FF7 was the first game where Square approached it with actually some desire to do an "OK" job.

[j]

That said, NP, FFVII was still a vast improvement over what Square had done before. Wanna see a real bad translation? Just turn to the PG'd SNES versions or (eek) Final Fantasy Tactics. I'd say FF7 was the first game where Square approached it with actually some desire to do an "OK" job.

FFT was God-awful, yeah.  But Square's SNES games were all well-translated, as far as I can remember.  Quality-wise, that is: no rampant plot holes created, proper English grammar, etc.  Much better than FF7 in that regard.

But they were definitely heavily and unnecessarily censored at times.

-J

[Perpetual Change]

FFT was God-awful, yeah.  But Square's SNES games were all well-translated, as far as I can remember.  Quality-wise, that is: no rampant plot holes created, proper English grammar, etc.  Much better than FF7 in that regard.

But they were definitely heavily and unnecessarily censored at times.

-J

Not even close. One person alone had a month to translated FF6, more of less by himself.

You may be referring to "re-translated ports" on the PSOne, DS, or PSP. FFIV's original "FFII" translation is terrible. FF6 as "FFIII" is almost as bad. Apart from rampant errors, mispellings, abbreviated names, and failure to translate the names of many items/monsters correctly, the games are "censored" much in the same way as Dragonball Z's english translation was. Any allusion to "Killing" or "Death" was basically PG'd On the other hand, Kefka seems to have taken on a new personality as a result of being handled so oddly. He's a lot funnier in the English translation than he is in the original, from what I've heard. I guess translating "you can burn to death!" as "welcome to my BBQ" would do that.

There are also many points of plot confusion, from what I've heard, but I'm not familiar enough with that game to go into it.

[j]

I've only played the SNES versions.  And I guess I'm not referring to accuracy with regard to the original Japanese.  I'm saying that the dialogue, plot, etc. on its own makes enough sense, and isn't riddled with grammatical errors and stuff.  For example, Kefka's character may not be faithful to what it was originally supposed to be, but in the context of the English game by itself, there's nothing inconsistent about it.  To my knowledge, there aren't any significant plot issues in either game stemming from the translation.

FF4 had more of a problem with abbreviations, but I don't remember it being too big an issue in FF6.

As for item/monster names, again, a lot of them are different.  But I don't recall a single item name being nonsensical in FF6.  Monsters were another story, I guess, I hadn't thought about that.  Lots of weird stuff in that department.

And I agree, the censoring was totally ridiculous, but I don't think it did much of anything to muddle things up.

-J

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah, FF6 doesn't seem to suffer from that problem. Despite all the translations "errors" there's no real translation disasters unless once you get passed the intentional censoring.

My feeling on that is this: nearly the entirety FF6 was translated by one guy: Arthur Woosley (I think). He butchered some names here and there, but you can tell he understood the plot well enough. FF7, on the other hand, was way bigger than FF6. Definitely too much for one person alone. With FF7, there was likely a translation "team" that divided sections up. The people on this "team" probably knew the story well enough, but not as completely as Woosley knew FF6. After all, not only is FF7 a lot bigger than 6, but the plot is a lot more convoluted.If half a dozen people worked on translated FF7, I'm sure one of them actually had little to know idea about what the game was actually about.

Of course, this is ALL speculation on my part  

My overall point is just that while FF7 is far from perfect, it was still the first time Square really went out of their way to at least try to translate the game accurately, without any censorship or numbing down of the plot. They didn't completely succeed, but just look how all the games after it (except for Tactics of course) have done.