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Final Fantasy's Lost Translation, Greatest Hits

Posted by simoniker on from the fantastical-naming-headache dept.

nixon66 writes "You may have seen the 'lost' Final Fantasy game, the Japanese Final Fantasy II for NES, debut in the U.S. as part of the recent Final Fantasy Origins PlayStation re-release, but interestingly, Square did try to localize the game much earlier. Lost Levels has a new feature up about the abandoned translation of Final Fantasy II for the NES back in 1991. They talk with the translators, Kaoru Moriyama and Ted Woolsey, about the factors that led to Final Fantasy IV for SNES being called Final Fantasy II in the States." Elsewhere, RPGamer reports that four SquareEnix PlayStation 1 titles have just been re-released as Greatest Hits for a $19.99 price point, including Final Fantasy Chronicles, Final Fantasy Anthology, Vagrant Story and Xenogears, and they clarify: "Final Fantasy Anthology includes Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI (originally released in North America as Final Fantasy III), while Final Fantasy Chronicles contains Final Fantasy IV (originally released in North America as Final Fantasy II) and Chrono Trigger."

10 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Why does it matter? by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Fan translation by Neo Demiforce was done well as was FF3.

    The translation community has had these games for years. Why it makes "such a story now" lands a question mark on me.. unless Square paid slashdot for advertising.

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    1. Re:Why does it matter? by nixon66 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because this was an original Square translation that never saw the light of day. It's not a fan one (which has better English and is more polished) but done internally and never unleased to the English speaking world till Square came back and did a re-translation for their Origins release.

    2. Re:Why does it matter? by dasunt · · Score: 2, Informative

      [Karma Whore]

      DemiForce Final Fantasy (and other) translations, or, for other games/parties, why not try Zophar's collection of translations?

      [/Karma Whore]

    3. Re:Why does it matter? by Wildfire+Darkstar · · Score: 2, Informative

      The developer room, IIRC, wasn't removed because of the inclusion of the "Porn Mag." It was removed because the US translation of the game was based on the Japanese rerelease of the game as "Final Fantasy IV Easy Type," which removed the developer room, as well as making numerous tweaks to the game engine, removing a slew of battle commands, and generally accounting for the majority of the (non-graphical) changes between the Japanese and US iterations of the game.

      And I think you have FF3 and and FF2 confused: FF2 was the one with your "adaptive stat balancing device" (good description of it, BTW); FF3 had traditional experience-based levels, and the major contribution of that particular game was the introduction of a changable job system into the series.

      --
      Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
  2. Re:Clarify? by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not all that bad. Basically, Final Fantasy IV was released as Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy VI was released as Final Fantasy III. When Final Fantasy VII came out, they decided to use the original titles for that and all future releases, which lead to the US finally getting FFII and FFV, as well as the remakes of FFIV(II on US SNES) and FFVI(III on US SNES) with their original titles.

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    -PainKilleR-[CE]
  3. Re:Distrubuted computing and Final Fantasy by Gr33nNight · · Score: 2, Informative

    America Japan FF1 (NES) = FF1 (famicom) FF2 (famicom FF3 (famicom) FF2 (SNES) = FF4 (super-famicom) FF5 (super-famicom) FF3 (SNES) = FF6 (super-famicom) FF7 (PS1) = FF7 (ps1) Got it?

  4. Re:Interesting little read by ElleyKitten · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm surprised you think FF3 won't come over here. I mean, they've re-released the all the other pre-sony FFs over the past couple of years, why not 3? Also, I saw on the magicbox not to long ago that FF3+Secret of Mana is their next project once they finish Front Mission First. =)

    --
    "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
  5. Lost LOST Final Fantasy Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Fan site FFCompendium.com has details (translated from an RPGamer image) of a Final Fantasy game that went into immediate development following the success of Final Fantasy IIIj in Japan. This was tenatively going to be called Final Fantasy IV and actually be on the Famicon, but it was abandoned and the true Final Fantasy IV was developed for the Super Famicon instead. Quite some interesting details, it looked like they were really going to push the envelope with this and the internet community now dubs it Final Fantasy 3.5. All details here: http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/ff3half.shtml

    1. Re:Lost LOST Final Fantasy Game by nixon66 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Lost Levels already covered this last month in this article. Final Fantasy IV for the NES was only a mockup. The internet community does not dub it Final Fantasy 3.5. No, only FFCompnedium does. Check out the article though, its a great read.

  6. Re:The Rom? by TheRedEye · · Score: 3, Informative

    Or gee, maybe it's the exact version referred to by the article and the screenshots, which explains quite clearly that the game is complete and playable, with goofy Engrish.