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

Why does it matter?

[Creepy Crawler]

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.

Re:Why does it matter?

[nixon66]

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.

Re:Why does it matter?

[dasunt]

[Karma Whore]

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

[/Karma Whore]

Re:Why does it matter?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

You're familiar with how the Japanese and American versions differ and you don't call yourself a fan?

Re:Why does it matter?

[Wildfire Darkstar]

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.

Re:Clarify?

[PainKilleR-CE]

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.

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.

Re:Distrubuted computing and Final Fantasy

[Gr33nNight]

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?

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...

Re:The Rom?

[musikit]

from the looks of it, the rom looks like the prototype version of the FFII that square was originally going to release but abandoned. which means (i donno but could) that some of the text is in Japanese or doesn't make sense in english.

Re:The Rom?

[TheRedEye]

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.

Re:FFIII was the best!!

[musikit]

And I'm installing XI as we speak.

No!!!!!! Don't do it!!!!!! The game kicks ASS and i barely found enough time to finish writ...

Re:Interesting little read

[ElleyKitten]

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. =)

Re:Distrubuted computing and Final Fantasy

[Rayonic]

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?

I've got some extra line-breaks if you need them, guy.

Lost in translation

[MMaestro]

Admittedly the game industry was different in the past than it is today but, why do so many games never seem to cross the Pacific Ocean?

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)

Re:Lost in translation

[cgenman]

Theory 1: The American gamer is very different than the Japanese gamer.

This theory holds some weight. While DDR was a worthy title to bring over, there are many somewhat inferior dance games that did well in Japan yet are flailing in US arcades. Would a Dating Sim fly over here? Or an Air Traffic Controller sim? How about a game where you chop vegetables? Some of the games released in Japan just lack that kind of fantastic escape from real life that American gamers crave. And what about American games based around Basketball, or the endless run'n'shoot games? They still sell in Japan, but hardly as well.

Theory 2: Translations are a pain.

This one also holds weight. Many american games are created with 8 bit characters in mind... Designers would make bitmaps out of fonts and use that in game, with special spacing and formatting. Cramming Japan's significantly longer characters into a fixed space may not be practical, especially if the designers gave the text bank a fixed size. Likewise physically cramming english into a Japanese textbox is difficult, as while english is a slightly faster spoken language, it is a much longer written one. And you can forget about fitting anything else into a native chinese textbox.

Theory 3: Developers won't do it, publishers are afraid.

When you push 80 hours a week to make the perfect game... polish it, craft it, love it... you generally don't have the energy or desire to go back and do a translation. Publishers handle them for this reason, and publishers exist to hedge risk. If a game is released in one market, a foreign publisher will generally not pick up the tab until it is obviously a hit. Counterstrike fits this bill nicely. Savage did not. Publishers have such a backlog of hits waiting for translation that they can pick and choose, and they choose the winners.

Re:Lost LOST Final Fantasy Game

[nixon66]

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.

Final Fantasy Anthology & Origins

[Karplusan]

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?

Re:Distrubuted computing and Final Fantasy

[BMonger]

It's rather sad that my parent post went from +4 funny to -2 overrated...