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."

Comments

Re:Interesting little read

[Kyouryuu]

Yes, but in the bounds of a cartridge-based format, translation is not quite so simple. Japanese rarely translates directly into English without difficulty and in order for it to make sense, translators often have to stylize the text for that specific region. Things that this tick off the ever-critical otaku and ultimately put Woolsey at the butt end of their insipid wrath.

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.

The Rom?

[jpmoney]

Anyone else notice the ROM linked to at the bottom. That can't be very legal even if the game was never officially released...