Slashdot Mirror
Final Fantasy's Lost Translation, Greatest Hits
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."
To me, "polishing" means they make it politically correct along with generic nationalization. The ripped FF4 a new one, and took away much of the nuances of
FF6.
On FF4, not one mention of "death" could be told. It was "off this world" or somesuch pap. Cid was much more true to form in the Japanese, as he cussed a bit when it made sense. And that's not to mention they ripped out the whole developer room because of the "Porn Mag".
I'm not some sort of fanboy or somesuch tripe. My main point was "What's the big deal". Square had their chance and they blew it. I've had the translation since '99 or so.. It's a decent game.
FF3's better in that they forgo the "levels" and go towards an adaptive stat balancing device. Great to prototype as another game.. It'd work wonders on games like NWN or oter RPG's.
It can take more space to elaborate on such things, but don't forget - RPG text boxes are of a specific size, there are significant memory constraints, and there is a ton of inconsequential dialogue that also has to be translated.
The art, at least back with cartridges, was in making the whole thing fit together in a fixed space, yet still get the same point across. Of course, with CDs and more recently DVDs, it doesn't matter so much now.
Anyone else notice the ROM linked to at the bottom. That can't be very legal even if the game was never officially released...
unf.
Asia gets an American PC game like once a year (Koreans are still playing Counter-Strike and Starcraft while Americans drool over upcoming Half-Life 2 and Doom 3). Vice versa, American rarely gets the non-ultra-catered-mainstream console game from Japan (Vib Ribbon, we recently got Dance Dance Revolution like 3 years late, and FINALLY Final Fantasy II and III for the NES)
I still think it great that a game made originally in 8-bits 15 years ago, is now capable of being played on one of the most modern consoles (PS2). Not only does the game still exist, and still have some of the odd quirks, or secrets, and a bit of originality, but it has now become a greatest hit. As for Anthology, I still think FFVI was is the best in the series. When it came out on the PS1, I liked the cinematic sequences, the art, and the cancel button doubling your walking speed. But I was annoyed with the loading time involved. I wonder why the SNES was able to show Sabin's Bum Rush attack with enough FPS to almost put someone in Epileptic shock, yet on the PS1, you barely notice the flashing... Though I am concerned about one thing, one of the greatest things was the music CD that came with the original Anthology. I wonder if the Greatest Hits version will have the audio CD?