[FF7PC-98] Beacause - FF7 Retranslation (Merged into Reunion, use that instead)

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"How is our son doing Grandma"

"He is fine, granddad"

No grandma and Grandad that I know would ever talk like that in private, but they aren't supposed to anyway.  It is just a Japanese thing which shouldn't be carried across :)
 
So could someone explain to me why Reeve is Scottish? Im confused because in AC and DoC cait sith has a Scottish accent while Reeve does not. In the original game he did not come off as Scottish to me either. In DoC it confused me why Reeve and cait sith sounded different, but i figured it must be because cait sith is a robot and not controlled (meaning instead on being controlled directly with a remote, cait sith would have artificial intelligence), which explains why everyone was so sad when the first one died. But then does that mean Reeve wasn't controlling cait sith to steal the keystone but was giving orders instead? So what does Reeve really sound like?

Sorry for the rambling i just have always been confused about that. And to make matters worse, the first Reeve you run into in DoC is a robot...   ???
 
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Reeve's native dialect is Scottish (at least "out of town, like Japanese instructs) like his parents. When he controls Cait he uses that dialect.  All other times he uses a city accent like those in Midgar.  Later in the story he is controlling cait while also in the room with heidegger and scarlet.  Scarlet and heidegger have no idea what Reeve is on about, because he is talking in a scottish accent (kansai in Japan) to Cloud aboard the highwind. (He is therefore speaking in scottish in front of heidegger and scarlet in this scene)


Heidegger makes comment that Reeve is talking crap, and Scarlet makes comment that his accent sounds funny.  This whole scene was completely lost in translation in the original and makes absolutely no sense.

The doc and spin offs have retconned Cait and Reeve, and should just be ignored.

The only reason Scottish has been chosen is because it is different and because Cait Sith myth originated in Scotland.
 
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Ah, that makes sense. One more thing though, what's up with cait sith at the temple of the ancients? Why is it so dramatic when he dies? Does cait sith have A.I. or is he always manually controlled?
 
That again was badly translated...  the light hearted tone is more to do with the idea you are losing a party member which you then find out later you are not.  This was deliberate because it sets you up for a greater fall when Aerith dies for real.  Clever writing.

The temple scene is badly translated though and gives the impression that Cait is a person who will die...  in the actual translation he makes mention that he is just a mechanical toy who is expendable.  Cait is not alive... it is just a robot that Reeve uses to talk through and who is controlled by Reeve.  In my opinion the silliest character in FF universe... because as a main arc character you cannot suspend disbelief to him.  This is the whole reason that one of my mods aims to write him out of the story completely in favour of a human Shin-Ra Spy.
 
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Okay people... need your help.  We are left with a tricky decision to make.

Do we stick to accuracy here.  The game calls the hole down into the planet a "Great Cavity".  The "North Crater" or sometimes just "Crater" is the opening to the hole, the part you see on the world map.

An accurate and none literal sounding way around this is to call the hole "Great Chasm" and also keep the crater.  The full title would then be "Great Chasm, Crater" as a field name.

"North Crater" and "Great Chasm" would be seen in dialogue.

The bad thing about this is the confusion it may create for people.  My option would be to call all references to that area "Great Crater"

What say you?
 
I like Great Cavity.  Gives the feeling there's a hole where there shouldn't be.
 
Here

This is the completed (or as near to it as it ever gets) documentation.  It would be good if a few people could go through this, point out anything they don't like, ask questions, or make any other comments.  I understand it may take ages, but I am the poor sod who had to make it and research it.

oh and Intelligence > Intellect.  Intellect is much better in game too.
 
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I am now running through entire game up to where we are at...  (Junon)...  I have made extensive changes to the earlier dialogue... which I made when I was naive.  Sounds better now and the beginner's hall is a vast improvement.  It is lookin' f*ckin' good.  8)
 
I'm only going into this much detail because you asked for it very specifically. I super duper respect what you guys are doing, and I'm afraid I'm sounding a bit like a squeaky wheel cause 90% of what I say are potential corrections and such. So uh, just thanking you again for doing this awesome thing before I go into this. XD

Meena Wallace - Unless there's a specific reason for romanizing her name as Meena, I'd go with Mina. That spelling looks more natural and maintains the pronunciation. I recognize you might have gone with Meena to maintain a more "exotic" feel though, as much of the names in Squaresoft/Enix games attempt to carry.

Tifa's Father - I recommend changing this to Tifa's Dad. Papa is rather informal - not keeping it exact makes sense because of how childish "papa" is in English, but Father carries a more formal feeling. I'd only have used it if the Japanese said "otosama" rather than "papa" - or even "otosan", but not "papa".

Pagoda of the 5 Masters - I'd go with Sages or Wise Men - I agree that Mighty can be dropped, but looking at other translations of this sort of thing, Sages or Wise Men feels more accurate.

All W/Double with the "Double" Lost - Did you remove the "Double" due to space constraints? I feel like too much is being lost if you lose the double. W is used to mean double in Japanese slang, which I suspect you know. If you can put it back in, I think it would be better. But I may be arguing too strong for literal over context with this.

Wheelie Advance - I think Attack should be kept instead of a change, but that's total opinion. XD

As for the Cavity, Crater, Chasm thing... I actually think you should keep Cavity. There's an implication with Cavity, an implication of not only a hole/chasm but of an infection. Given the game, it might do to keep that implicaton.
 
Thanks for your input!

Meena Wallace - Unless there's a specific reason for romanizing her name as Meena, I'd go with Mina. That spelling looks more natural and maintains the pronunciation. I recognize you might have gone with Meena to maintain a more "exotic" feel though, as much of the names in Squaresoft/Enix games attempt to carry.
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Yeah, Mina is probably right...  I changed to Meena to avoid the confusion with "Elmina"
Tifa's Father - I recommend changing this to Tifa's Dad. Papa is rather informal - not keeping it exact makes sense because of how childish "papa" is in English, but Father carries a more formal feeling. I'd only have used it if the Japanese said "otosama" rather than "papa" - or even "otosan", but not "papa".
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Luksy also flayed me for this one... but seeing "Dad" in a dialogue box telling you which character it is strikes me as odd.  Tifa does call her father dad, but these are the dialogue box headings.  It would be like seeing a dialogue box of "Granny" instead of "Grandma".

Pagoda of the 5 Masters - I'd go with Sages or Wise Men - I agree that Mighty can be dropped, but looking at other translations of this sort of thing, Sages or Wise Men feels more accurate.
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Mighty was dropped only because of space limits.  There is a character limit.  Sages... not so sure. The people in the pagoda are masters of various techniques and Sage is usually changed in western games.  In FFX Sage was changed to Maester for example.

All W/Double with the "Double" Lost - Did you remove the "Double" due to space constraints? I feel like too much is being lost if you lose the double. W is used to mean double in Japanese slang, which I suspect you know. If you can put it back in, I think it would be better. But I may be arguing too strong for literal over context with this.
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If you mean like "Double machinegun", yeah the weapon I removed to just machinegun.  In menu, Double Item etc are maintained.  I have not changed the materia names (although I did consider using "dual").   Which ones do you mean specifically?

Wheelie Advance - I think Attack should be kept instead of a change, but that's total opinion. XD
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I will look at the move some day... when I get some time haha

As for the Cavity, Crater, Chasm thing... I actually think you should keep Cavity. There's an implication with Cavity, an implication of not only a hole/chasm but of an infection. Given the game, it might do to keep that implicaton.
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Your vote is so counted.  Obesebear also agrees with that.  I and luksy... not so much :P  Although I do agree the choice of Cavity may very well be as intended as you say.  This is a tough one!
 
On the Double thing, I actually totally just checked on the machinegun and then decided to cover any other omissions that apparently weren't there. Dual would be a good compromise, in my opinion! It feels wrong to lose it completely.

If you do end up changing it from Cavity, I'd go to Chasm so that it remains separate.
 
Japanese apparently does not even need to be literally grandma grandad, it just means old.

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Honeybee Manor------------------------------Old Man“Heeh…”------------------------------Old Man“Heeeh…”------------------------------Old Woman“What's wrong? You keep sighing…”------------------------------Old Man“Heh… It's just…”------------------------------Old Woman“It's not about the room again,is it?”------------------------------Old Man“Heh… well, I know our son must have spent a bomb renting all this for us,but…”{NEW}“…A Big round bed… gorgeous tub. I'm just not used to it,that's all…”------------------------------Old Woman“Oh,stop it will you? It doesn't get much better than this below city.”{NEW}“People would bite your hand off to come here.”------------------------------Old Man“Oh yeah… What's the name of that company our son works for?”------------------------------Old Woman“You've not forgotten again,have you?”------------------------------Old Man“Heeh… I'm surprising myself these days …”------------------------------Old Woman“It's the Shin-Ra Company… Shin-Ra! The biggest company in Midgar!”------------------------------Old Man“…It must really be something!?”------------------------------Old Woman“Of course it is!”{NEW}“He's doing really well. Told me he'd been made head of a whole department.”------------------------------Old Woman“It's thanks to him that we're here.”{NEW}“You should be grateful.”------------------------------Old Man“Aye,you're right.”------------------------------Old Woman“Should we go bed?”------------------------------Old Man“Yeah,we need the sleep.”------------------------------Old Woman“Night,love.”------------------------------Old Man“Good night.”------------------------------Old Man“…Zzz…ghh…Zzzz”------------------------------Old Woman“…Zzz…Zzz…”
This will be sent to Lex now.

Oh and for a laugh... the original:

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Honey Bee Inn------------------------------“…wheez…”------------------------------“Phew…”------------------------------“What's wrong, Grandpa? You keep sighing.”------------------------------“…wheez…puff… You know, Grandma…”------------------------------“Is this the room?”------------------------------“…whew… I know our son rented this for us and all, but…”{NEW}“It's too nice for us. Big round bed, gorgeous tub, I just can't get comfortable.”------------------------------“Don't worry about it. It's a high class neighborhood, in the Big City.”{NEW}“You keep complainin' and we'll get in trouble.”------------------------------“Hey Grandma. What's the name of the company our son works for?”------------------------------“Oh, Grandpa. Did you forget again?”------------------------------“…heave… It's getting worse…”------------------------------“It's Shinra, you know, Shinra, Inc.? It's the biggest company in the city.”------------------------------“If it's the biggest company,  it must be something.”------------------------------“Yeah. It IS really something.”{NEW}“He's doing well, and he told me that he's been promoted to department head.”------------------------------“Oh…thanks to him we're  able to stay in a room like this.”------------------------------“Yeah, I'm really grateful.”------------------------------“Well, you wanna go to sleep?”------------------------------“All right…”------------------------------“Good night.”------------------------------“Yeah, good night.”
 
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I always make it a point to read the originals before I read your re-translation, every time I do this I catch a glimpse of how hard this project must be, Its like cracking the damn Da Vinci code, anyway brilliant work so far, looking forward to playing the game and understanding what the hell half the people are talking about.

Just out of curiosity can you explain to me how the hell the translation for the guard scorpion got so messed up? Attack when the tails up? ummm... OK *BOOM* -.- my first Final Fantasy 7 experience.

Also to join in on the vote I also agree with Cavity. As mentioned before this implies that it is not supposed to be hear and actually sounds like damage has been dealt.
 
I have no idea how they got the "attack while the tails up" , more than likely they were rushed.  The Honeybee Manor quite clearly is rushed and the translator had no context to go on.  Most of the game was rushed it seems, and not read through or amended.

As for Cavity... I agree it is a much more faithful description, but seeing "Great Cavity" all the time in dialogue may end up sounding very unnatural.

"Everyone, let's head for the Great Cavity"

"Everyone, let's head for the Great Crater"

If I were a person referring to the north crater (the entrance is called crater) I would be inclined to say crater and not refer to the actual hole that exists within the crater.
 
I assume it was a typo. If you replace that exclamation point with a comma, it makes far more sense: "Attack while its tail is up, it's gonna counter attack with its laser!"

Although given the one-line-at-a-time limitation they have in battles, they really should've sacrificed the character and personality of the original dialogue for the sake of clarity: "If you attack while its tail is up, it's gonna counter attack with its laser!" Not quite as fluid, but far better for the player.
 
The Japanese isn't ambiguous either.  I used something like

"Watch out! If you attack when the tails up, it'll counterattack with a laser"
 
Well I suppose Great Cavity does sound a little off if you use it in a conversation, could you not change the name of the entrance to Great Cavity Entrance? I mean sure it may not be as accurate but I think it has a nicer ring to it.

Also they could have said "Don't attack while its tails up, it will counter attack with it's laser".
 
No because then you have a massive contradiction.  What is used must be for the whole game.

Also they could have said "Don't attack while its tails up, it will counter attack with it's laser".
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That would still be bad English because that would be:

Don't attack while its tails up. If you do, it will counterattack with a laser"
 
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Doi, I can be an idiot at times =P

In that case I'll change my vote to Great Crater. Simply because Great Cavity does sound strange in conversations.
 
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