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Man I hate it when they take a perfect game and then ruin it by changing important classic lines.
Like locke's and Kefka's although i'm happy they kept the self help book line in. But still

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Son of a Sandworm!?

what is that it does'nt even fit the scene. especially since the orignal line was so much better,
Why did you do this Square?

It's been a long time since I came by here (a long, long time) but I wanted to put my two cents in on this...

The new translation is just plain better. In fact, I'm disappointed that it wasn't redone from scratch. And this is coming from a fan since '94 (who stealthily opened her Christmas present early that year ). I'm just not blinded by nostalgia. Of course, back when I was 14 I didn't notice that the characters had some lines that were so wrong for them it wasn't even funny, but over time I started to wince at things like "call me a treasure hunter or I'll rip your lungs out!" and especially "he'd slit his momma's throat for a nickel". Perhaps they make the game seem more edgy, but they do so at the expense of characterization. I always thought Locke and Edgar were more refined and more tactful than that.

Other things I don't miss: Locke having an initial bad impression of Terra ("This better not have anything to do with that Magitech-riding, Imperial witch!!!") and Setzer being an Imperial sympathizer ("The Empire... evil?"). Both are examples of plain old translation error skewing our perspectives on the characters.

That said, I miss son of a submariner. Likewise I'm glad that self help book is still in (as a unit I believe these two Kefka lines are equivalent to spoony bard in campiness). I lament that Kefka still says crud and darn, and I doubt we'd still be seeing such depths of lame if we got a whole new translation.

Of course there are things in the new translation that were just bad ideas, like "Magitech weapons of destruction", which get 5 head smacks out of 5. I really don't care for this ''Gestahlian Empire" business, either - while I am all about elevating the language, it's too pretentious somehow. (And I'm an expert on pretension. ) But still, the changes to the translation are the best reason to purchase FF6a. Why? Because you get less Woolsey and more Sakaguchi.

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"Cavefish is delicious, but only if cooked."

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Other things I don't miss: Locke having an initial bad impression of Terra ("This better not have anything to do with that Magitech-riding, Imperial witch!!!")

Actually, in the ground up translation from... Sky Render, I think he was, he was MORE vulgar, and went so far as to call her a "bitch." All of Kefka's campyness in the original was really just Ted covering up his swearing. So the new translation, aside from casting Nostalgia aside, doesn't even do it at the expense of accuracy.

In actuality, Woolsey didn't do as bad a job on the translation as you think. At least script wise. The changes to the enemy and weapon names in Woolsey's version were definitely not appreciated, but script-wise, the changes were MOSTLY just him cleaning it up.

FFVIa just completely butchered the script. (Although they went to the correct weapon and monster names.) They just replaced old campy with new campy. I'd be more impressed if they had put the script back to it's actual translation. It wasn't really a "bold move" for them to just insert new lines over the old ones. So, if anything, I'd say Sakaguchi had LESS to do with FFVIa than the original. Most of the text changes in VIa were just clarifications to get around the inherent Engrish that ultimately comes with many games from Japan of that era.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
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Actually, in the ground up translation from... Sky Render, I think he was, he was MORE vulgar, and went so far as to call her a "bitch." All of Kefka's campyness in the original was really just Ted covering up his swearing. So the new translation, aside from casting Nostalgia aside, doesn't even do it at the expense of accuracy.

I'll take Woolsey over the fan translation any day. It was obviously the work of students (I know from experience), and the change you cite on the line is only proof. In the original Japanese, Locke expresses nothing but interest towards Terra, and it's clear from the dialog that the Returners have been hoping to win her over for some time. I can go over the grammar in-depth if you want.

The fan translation was the product of an assumption that the Japanese was a lot harsher and that the official translation sufficiently conveyed the intended meaning (so they could piggyback off of it), neither of which are true enough to make the exercise worthwhile.

The fact of the matter is that most of what's changed in FF6a is making up for things that Woolsey overlooked, misinterpreted, or intentionally altered. Unfortunately, it's only a stopgap measure.

This post has been edited by Shiva Indis on 4th March 2007 09:27

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"Cavefish is delicious, but only if cooked."