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If you look at the western interpretation of a Bastard sword, it's just a fairly regular looking sword but if you look at Eastern interpretations it looks bigger with a very large blade. In FFVII's case Bastard would have been correct.

Western:
bastardsword.jpg



Eastern:
japbastardsword.png
 
But tough call on that one as buster sword has become a staple of ff7 'religion' so to speak.
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My point exactly.

Buster Sword also gives it more individuality. Bastard Sword is kind of a general sword type; you may as well call it "Broadsword". Buster Sword isn't, so it sounds more like the name of a specific sword rather than the class of swords to which it belongs; it sounds more like a proper noun than a common noun.
 
That complicates matters....but still BOF seems to use the accepted, and FF7 had no limit and this sword hasn't appeared in earlier FF's?  has it?

If not then I think we can just about go with Buster....
 
But tough call on that one as buster sword has become a staple of ff7 'religion' so to speak.
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My point exactly.

Buster Sword also gives it more individuality. Bastard Sword is kind of a general sword type; you may as well call it "Broadsword". Buster Sword isn't, so it sounds more like the name of a specific sword rather than the class of swords to which it belongs; it sounds more like a proper noun than a common noun.
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It's no longer a type of sword, but is now the name of Cloud's sword.    I don't know if ya'll have Hardee's or Carl's Jr in England, but here they call the hamburgers "Thick Burgers".  It's not that the burger is thick, it's just the name of that particular burger.

Also, in your translation haven't you changed other things that are now considered to be canon?  If so you may as well go with Bastard.
 
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ravager_(Final_Fantasy_Tactics_A2)

also uses バスタード

There isn't enough evidence to suggest bastard is correct....it could be either as it stands and even FF games seem to have used バスタード and not バスター  I will do some more digging.  As it stands I will keep Buster but add a note :)
 
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although ff12 has a bastard sword, that firstly resembles a bastard sword a lot more than the buster sword and also from ff12,


gilgamesh has the buster sword (albeit a fake)

%27s_swords.jpg


200px-FF12Gilgamesh.JPG


and as mentioned above it has become more the name of the sword rather than the type. it is unique.
 
Hi everyone, I've been working with Dan on the translation (although not nearly as hard or as often as I would have liked) just thought I'd chip in my two sen.

Maybe a little bg info on me might help first, I live and work in Japan and a small part of my work is translations (although hardly ever fiction), I have a degree in Japanese and a level 2 JLPT (hopefully I'll have the 1 later this year, I flunked it last December ;D ). I'm not trying to turn this into some kind of e-penis post though, I've met many a person with no qualifications who can do a far better job than me, I just want you to know that I'm not talking crap all of the time!

First off it isn't our intention to do a literal translation, I hope this will be clearer when we start doing the actual dialogue, in fact some of the dialogue in the menus and world map that we have redone isn't literal at all.

So far a few of the monster names, weapons, items etc have been kept close to the Japanese for a few reasons, e.g. some are wholly Japanese concepts like Hachimaki or Uchide mallet for which there is no exact English equivalent (i.e. we don't use "spy" in the place of "ninja"), and quite a few we just have no clue, which leads me to another point.

There is a huge amount of evidence that the original translator(s) were rushed, had poor communication channels, were incompetent or more likely a combination of these. Some of the English suffers from poor grammar - "This guy are sick" - (usually indicates a rushed job), being out of context -"Cloud, that one!"- (i.e. was translated as a block of text by people who hadn't even seen the game), and at times is just plain wrong -"Zauger's cup"- (I don't know what to say) and a lot of the monster names (no communication with the original creators). Bizzarro Sephiroth is a personal favorite  ;D

This isn't to say that the original translation should be binned, most of the characters were very well characterized and I think we'll be keeping a lot of the original flavor and text.

As sadly we can't just phone Nomura & co. (well I suppose we could try, probably wouldn't go down very well!), for some of the (non-dialogue) material we have no choice but to do a 1:1 with the Japanese because that's all we're left with. Very often the original translation's solution was to just come up with something that sounded similar, which I don't think is necessarily a better way of doing things at best, but more importantly it eliminates any concept of what should be considered the English "canon".

There are so many holes in the original translation that it is very hard to take any of it at face value; why should any of it be automatically considered "official"?

We also have far, far more information available at our fingertips than the original translators would have had, which has allowed us to catch many more references to people, places and mythology than the original translation, not to mention far more input and criticism, both very important as we can and have definitely been wrong about many things (and I hope it keeps coming).

At the end of the day this is just another community mod; hopefully the finished product will be as close as possible to the original without sounding like a 5th rate fansub. Again without a direct line to square we can't be sure on some things, but with so many clues in the original translation suggesting the same, I don't see how it can be worse.

The best thing is of course this in no way alters anything, love it or hate it you're free to install or ignore it as you please.

I'll answer any questions to the best of my abilities.

(sorry for the constant edits, crappy grammar here and there)
 
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Welcome and thanks for giving a little bit more insight into what you are doing. Like i told seifer before I will hold judgement until i actually see the translation in effect. And we do appreciate the way you explained it. It is far more helpful then things like this:

Yes I am arrogant, but that is needed here in order to get this done, it is how I have always operated and it is efficient to taking notice of 100 voices telling me conflicting things about what they want and do not want.  There is 1 vision here, the original vision.  If people don’t like it, they can go tell Nojima, Nomura, Sakaguchi, Kitase or create their own fan translation, but it isn’t ever going to be “better” than mine, because mine was made to the original vision and was done by listening to Japanese people and speakers and 1000 hours of research.  I would point out that at the moment, I know more about this games non dialogue than any other person on the globe apart from the original creators.  No I am not joking.
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The biggest thing I dislike about it is the unwillingness to stick to things that are now staples in Final Fantasy.  It's been over 10 years since this game came out, so if SE is still using (Cure instead of Care.. just kidding guys  :-P) I personally think it should remain.   Soft use to be and is once again Golden Needle, so changing it makes sense.  Religious and Cultural references that the translators missed also makes sense.  But like Qhimm said, I think keeping the FEELING of the game is paramount (see Tina vs Terra)

Anyways, I think a lot of us just got a bad taste in our mouths when all the drama about this happened months ago.

I do genuinely look forward to thoroughly reviewing every last change ya'll made before installing it  :D
 
Well to be fair the English versions of Square games aren't exactly a bastion of consistency, some things seem to change name with each FF.
 
Luksy has pretty much covered it.  We aren't intending to do a literal mess up of the dialogue.  In fact, the world map dialogue was virtually unaltered.  There will be a lot of the game that is left alone simply because it works and works well.  I am already thinking about things Sephiroth said in PSX version which were taken away in PC "Without giving one whit in return"  I think these things sounded good. Some of the dialogue is completely fine.

It has never been our intention to paste over the cracks, we have to fill in the holes and this means that yes, some of it will be different, but at least it will still sound better and be as it was intended.  I understand that Tina does not sound as good to a westerner as Terra, but if people start deciding names of characters on a whim, we lead ourselves down a slippery slope.

I don't think anyone here would be happy if Cloud was "Claude" in France, or "Klauss" in Germany or any other name....  His name was chosen from english...and when you get rid of that, you degrade the purity of the game.  Well imho it does.

Som of the references that are kept are extremely cool and when you look them up you get it.  Same way that the first time you looked up Odin you understood why he was on a deformed horse.  There are so many mythologies incorporated into FF7 from Japanese through to Scottish myths.  

The full list of changes are already available at my forum, although there are a few holding us up from releasing it at this moment.  One of them is what to use for

Mako Reactor No.1

Choices

Mako Reactor No.1
Mako Reactor 1
Mako Reactor #1

and:

District No.1
District 1
District #1

Small things like that I have asked people which they prefer.  When we do release this mod part 1 it will be given a release number, because I am sure more things will crop up and small mistakes will need correcting.  I want you to know that we respect the original text and do not plan to butcher it all.  We respect the game and the storyline and I respect the fact some people will simply not touch this mod with a barge pole :)

The release will never be perfect.  I knew going into this that the best we could hope for with non dialogue was around 95% (We mark things in fuchsia when we simply haven't got a clue what they are) and that dialogue is subjective.  I didn't realise just how much japanese leaves to the translator dialogue wise and it will be a different kind of problem to what the non dialogue has been.

In fact the process we had with Buster Sword here on the forum is exactly the same as the ones me and the translators (especially Luksy) have.  We go over these things again and again, and then see if there is anything else it could be, and see which is more likely given logic, common sense and evidence.

Have a look: 

http://break-off.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1003
 
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AFAIK, Cloud is Clad in french :P

Also, as cool as some of the references can be, why should we have to look up every other word in a game? wouldnt that heavily detract from the gameplay experience, porting over to wikipedia or google or whatnot whenever we dont get something?
 
Well not all references are foreign....given that they mixed them, a lot are english, take knights of round :P  It doesn't really detract and of course the description is the most important thing.  When you look at Uchide Mallet, you see what it does, then if you want to know what it means you open google.  The original was no better.  Some of the names they made in place of the actual ones are just as baffling, and in fact, some seem to be complete nonsense.

Cornucopia > うちでのこづち > Uchide Mallet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchide_no_kozuchi ]

And on Cloud, if they did change to Clad, that is my point....it just loses all its meaning and background.  I think it is a poor way to operate, I am sure there are those that disagree.  I understand Enix will want to localise a lot of things because they want a game to sell, but when has the sales had anything to do with what is more correct?  I understand their point of view but it is based on a need to sell more and to get the game more popular and not preserving the essence of what the game is.

It is the same with the easy battles....maybe what Square need to do with a remake of VII is have 2 translations and 2 difficulty modes...I don't like being dumbed down and dragged down just because of mass market appeal.
 
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AFAIK, Cloud is Clad in french :P

Also, as cool as some of the references can be, why should we have to look up every other word in a game? wouldnt that heavily detract from the gameplay experience, porting over to wikipedia or google or whatnot whenever we dont get something?
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The purpose of an effective translation is to make the native speakers of the receiving language have to do *less* looking up in order to understand the essentials, although I've convinced myself that Seifer's project prioritizes staying true to the original Japanese references. I.e. not sacrificing original concept for cultural coherence; effectively an English "port" of the Japanese names and dialogue.

In a normal translation, you'd take the things that are obvious to native japanese speakers, and change them so that they'd be obvious to English speakers, even if that changes the original concept of the name.

Seifer is trying to (as I've gathered) maintain every reference and name concept from the original, even if that means that English speakers will have to do more googlizing.

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@Seifer, if that's a correct reference, then i believe the Uchide no Kozuchi is referenced twice in the game--counting the enemy skill "Magic Hammer". Unless that was also different in the Japanese version.
BTW, if Square did a remake, I'd rather have an option for Japanese dialogue then a second English translation.
 
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Shouldn't the name of this topic be changed or something?
 
Magic hammer is in english

マジックハンマー
majikkuhanmaa

Uchide mallet is japanese and references that myth.
 
Seifer is trying to (as I've gathered) maintain every reference and name concept from the original, even if that means that English speakers will have to do more googlizing.
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Aka he is preserving and protecting the original culture instead of turning it into English/American bullshit. I know that both Seifer and I are tired of Americans and Englishmen raping other cultures, you loose so much information if you change what doesn't sound cool in english into something that sounds cool but degrades the story or the characters.

I think all of you fanboys and girls should look at your game, and find what square has taken from other cultures and look more into the source material. When they made Final Fantasy VII or came up with it. They were picking parts from every great work of fiction or religion that exists. Midgard for example is a direct ripoff of the world of humans in norse mythology. If you break down Midgard you get Middle garden. Garden could be translated to world. So it's the world in the middle. The world between Asgard, (the world of gods) and hell.

And that is what they call the big city. The midgard zolom is something that the translators just dumbed down. Because the audience (Americans and Canadians) wouldn't see the connection between midgard and the midgardsorm. Midgardsorm is Midgards orm...orm is the word for snake or serpent in swedish. Making the literal english translation Midgard's serpent. Midgards zolom which may sound cool isn't the right translation.

Also If we break down Midgard, midgardsorm. Becomes the serpent of the world. That is the great snake Thor couldn't lift because it circled around the entire world. You should not dumb something down because the target audience can't understand it. Final Fantasy VII is a perfect example of raping cultures and mythology to cash in money fast. Hardly a work of art, it's a good game. Fun to play etc, but if you are not a 12 year old american. And a part of one of these other cultures that the japanese in this case raped. It's very offending.

What the japanese basically did, they toook the great stories from norse...hindu...christian and nature religions. Made a drama out of it, featuring villains dressed as goths and heroes being emos. Put in the average schoolgirl into it, made a cute puffy little marhmellow. Dressed the characters so they would appeal to the target audience...12-17 year olds...probably a bit higher. This is something you can't see, Final Fantasy VII isn't a original piece of art. It's a money sucker...

What makes the game great is what it rips off. The whole lifestream idea is a direct ripoff of some tribes religion living in the fillipines. I don't remember exactly, Sephiroth is a direct rip off of the angel Lucifer that was banished from Paradise by god. And wants to overthrow god and become a god himself. (Now you all know where they got the angel wings from.) Many many names has been taken directly from norse religion. For example Alfred, who I read in Seifers list of changed names. Isn't really a english name at all. I think Seifer already know this.

Alfred is a viking name. That could be broken down into All fred. Meaning all peace, maybe not what Square was looking at when they made the character. But still it's a example of something the english culture has indeed taken from the norse culture. The whole idea about Jenova, the name itself is taken from christianity. The alien idea isn't very original but it's something the american culture has spewn out. And it's not such a big deal maybe...Allien comes to my mind. And it makes sense as well, I think 2-3 of the alien movies were made just before they made Final Fantasy VII.

A coincidence, no it's not. They were movies popular at the time, and Square stole it. With sephiroth they have ripped of Frankensteins monster as well. And Dracula with Vincent. It's amazing how in every part of the game you can see traces from about every religion and culture in the world. Nanakati and the little mountain village they took from the Native american indians. The pyramid that the black materia is stored in. Again something they stole from Mayan/Egyptian culture.

If you look at the big cratar, which is suppose to represent hell. And lucifer on the last plane, Cloud IS VERY SIMILAR TO Dante. Dante too lost his wife because of his sins, and he wanted revenge on lucifer and traveled through hell to reach and kill lucifer and free his wife. Exactly what Cloud is trying to do. Sephiroth is not a original creation, or villain. No american created work of fiction is very original at all.

I can go on forever, so many things they ripped of making this game. I want all fanboys/girls to understand this. Final Fantasy VII is a game that has ripped of most of the epic stories of the world. Combined it with fashion and cute emo boys and school girls. To make it appeal to the target audience....btw why do you think Final Fantasy VIII takes place on a school?

When Seifer is translating or correcting the games original creation. He doesn't just make the game better. He also is giving better credit to the cultures the original creators of the game ripped of. Making it possible for maybe some fanboy or girls out there to discover some work of fiction that is even greater than the abomination that is Final Fantasy VII.

Yes personally I think Final Fantasy VII is a mess. But I give credit for Seifer for continuing on the translation. And fixing the errors that is in it. So at least what the original creators made makes sense not only sounds cool. You should stop talking shit on Seifer because he is changing what your bible sais. Your bible...as bad as it is. Is in need of some fixing. You should be grateful for him fixing it. If I would be Seifer I would not even post it here.

I encourage you to go out and find better art or create art yourself. Religion is a waste of time as is Final Fantasy VII. Maybe I should not be too harsh on you, I mean Final Fantasy VII contains so much religious and mythological references that it's probably very easy to become a believer...but remember you won't live forever. And any illusion what so ever is a waste of life. Even your lifes to some extent are illusions...but I won't completely slay you.

Just do me a favor and thank Seifer for making this translation ok??
 
This is where I fundamentally disagree with Hermoor's criticism about FF7.  I feel that yes it uses other stories and ideas and it references many mythologies but so do most stories.  It is very very hard to be completely original and FF7 is pretty dam n original on its own even if certain stories may have been done before or slightly familiar.  Every single story can be made to look as though it is copied, when that isn't the case.  Every pit could be called hell, every sky heaven, every idea can be said to be something else when in reality it isn't.

I also disagree with the emo goth issue. I think anyone who likes this game for those reasons needs a slap, because the game is supposed to be dark and supposed to be a new story, it is not supposed to conform to some awful sterotype, even if it has been hijacked as such.

I do agree with Hermoor that the original cultures should be preserved.  The midgar Zolom however was not deliberately changed, it was a mistake by a translator who simply did not have a clue what the romaji meant or what the katakana was referencing.  It was corrected in future instalments.

And alfred was actually probably referencing this >

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

I notice the katakana looks more like Ælfrēd so it probably is intended to be written in the old way.
 
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