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

[DLPB_]

yes we are.  I have devised a way for his zo to yo to be kept... well localised.

You are late,eh?

No matter what, yeh.

These dudes are stubborn,heh

They won't give in,yo

Gave it some personality.  It isnt literally zo to yo but that wouldnt work. I also haven't gone overboard with it.  Even when the dialogue does in japan.  Basically now he has the habit of using eh,heh,yeh and yo.

If you can think of something better, run it by me.

[knightsoftheround]

To follow up my question on the dialect: Excellent! Good to know!
To add something on the Leno tic: Oh wow, good job. You guys are like my heroes.

[WInd Owl]

What about "..., see?"

「……おねえちゃん こいつ、なんだか変だぞ、と」 → "Hey lady, this guy's pretty strange, see?"
「考え中だぞ、と」→ "I'm thinkin', see?"
「ま、いいかぁ。お仕事お仕事、と」→ "Eh, whatever. Back to work, see?"

Just something I thought of, not sure if it's better than what you have or how well it extends to the rest of his lines. It's just as obscure as 「…、と」 (I've never seen another character talk like that ever), and also has a gangster/thuggish nuance to it.

[DLPB_]

He does use 3 variants though?

[WInd Owl]

In the Japanese, you mean?

I've only played up to around the end of the first disc, but I can't think of any examples. He often uses ぞ before the と but if he does something weird with his speech it's always with 「、と」 as I recall.

Do you have any examples?

[DLPB_]

no, but I do recall it being zo to and yo. Unless it is zoto and yo?

[DLPB_]

What is the nature of that tic anyway?  Is it just a speech issue he has?  How does a Japanese person interpret it?

[WInd Owl]

Well, I'm not Japanese, but to me it's like...

The normal use of that particle is when quoting something, usually in a narrative voice.
「家の中で走ったらだめだよ」、とお母さんが言いました。 → "Don't run in the house," the mother said.
In this case it could even just be like ～、とオレが言ってる. Who knows.

That, combined with the interjection 「おっと」 (which I imagine the end of his sentences having the same tone as), to me kind of gives off this lazy, detached impression. Like he's constantly distancing himself from the situation.

I wouldn't really call it a speech issue so much as a gimmick the writers gave him to make him more memorable. Lots of characters have similar oddities about their speech.

EDIT: For what it's worth, this is what FFDic has to say about it:

「～ぞ、と」という独特の語尾の元ネタは何かあるんだろうか?

• 大変マイナーな上に元ネタである、という確証は持てないが、二見書房の攻略本「ソロモンの鍵　裏ワザ大全集」に「～ぞ、と。」という言い回しが何回か出てくる。
• 1980年代中盤に片岡鶴太郎が使っていた口癖。これも元ネタかどうか確証は無いが。

I'm not familiar with either of those references, but that's about all I could find about its origin/impression.

[DLPB_]

I will pass that to Luksy tomorrow.  He has been a busy chappy today!     And thanks!  I will look into it, be sure.

[knightsoftheround]

For what the original localization and comparisons to it is worth, Wind Owl's assessment of the speech tic does seem to summon up a vaguely similar sense of character.

Comparing the original to your retranslations, it does seem the original release can be used to get at least very broad senses of the character in most cases (Barret(t) not really as much, because while the broad sense of the character is there its really hard to pick out among the... manner of speech decisions, but overall).

As a result, the ", see?" suggestions feels a little... too thug-like for Leno's character. He's a Turk, not a common gangster.

[DLPB_]

Luksy says (13:38):
 yeah Leno's speech is just something they added, you could legitimately come up with anything else as long as it's constant
Daniel says (13:38):
 cool!
 that settles it
Luksy says (13:38):
 I mean obviously making him talk like a retard isn't on

I agree that "see" doesn't work. Heh,eh and yeh seem to do it justice.  in VIII they made Raijin use "ya know" in X Wakka uses "Ya" a lot.  I will be thinking about this.  Any suggestions welcome.

[Covarr]

"get it" or "got it", perhaps? Not too far away from KH's Axel's "Got it memorized?" but not so overt that it feels like a blatant shoutout.

[WInd Owl]

Completely unrelated, but I made a JWPce dictionary file out of your spreadsheet for my own convenience. The only issue is that I had to replace all the '/'s (in URLs etc) with '\' because there's literally no way to have a slash character. It looks really stupid, but at least it works.

The first entry (which serves as dictionary info) gives you guys full credit and links to the spreadsheet.

Here's the link, in case anyone else wants it.

(Instructions: Extract it to your JWPce program files directory, then in JWPce go to Utilities → Dictionary → Options → Dictionaries → Add → Browse for the file → make it look like this → hit OK)

[DLPB_]

Status "Brink-of-Death" has become "Critical".  In game you never see this status anyway since yellow text is the indicator instead.

[Livesey]

I may be wrong but doesn't "brink of death" appear under the status menu?

[DLPB_]

It does but what I meant was it is never used.  The yellow text superseded it.

[DLPB_]

I may have to redo the ending FMV due to slightly dodgy localisation, especially the use of Planet and not planet.  Planet starting with a capital letter has no basis at all other than an original choice and it looks stupid.  Like AVALANCHE and SOLDIER and JENOVA SYNTHESIS do.

[knightsoftheround]

I'm not objecting to the change, but I'm not sure lower casing Planet is correct. The way its talked about in game... implies a capital. Naturally this wouldn't show in Japanese due to kanji. The capital implies a sort of importance and/or reverence. Maybe do it on a case by case basis? Like, Barrett would't use a capital (at least at first) but Bugenhagen (I forget if his name was wrong in the localization) and the Cetra might?

[DLPB_]

Perhaps but it looks stupid in English.  No one capitalises planet that way...

[WInd Owl]

That's because if they were to capitalize it, they'd just say "the Earth." Theirs isn't called Earth.

[DLPB_]

Well I can't call their planet "planet"  that would be retarded, same as I can't called President Shin-Ra President  It doesn't work in English at all

[knightsoftheround]

It actually DOES work in English, and without looking stupid. You'll see it in fiction books sometimes, and it serves the exact function of implying more importance and/or reverence and/or special meaning etc. It doesn't look stupid at all. You can /hear/ a capital in how a person speaks, that tiny little extra lilt of import.

Look at these two seemingly identical sentences. Odds are your mind will do something more with planet in one than in the other, an implied importance. Obviously inspired by the game, but not to my memory directly lifted from it:

"The Cetra fought Jenova to protect the planet."
"The Cetra fought Jenova to protect the Planet."

It's similar to the difference between "god" and "God". Think about how God isn't the entity's actual name, but it's a way to reference a specific figure without using the name (which in some sects is considered blasphemous) but still give it more import than you would with a lower case.

But I will stop pushing for it now, I just wanted to leave those final arguments for it. XD

[DLPB_]

Yes but you tell me another fiction or book that capitalised 'planet'?  God is a completely different issue and current thought says that it has no right to be capitalised either.  (religious types do it for respect).  I do not capitalise god in ff7 either.

The dialogue itself and story make planet important.  It doesn't need capitalising and it simply doesn't look very good in dialogue.   The creators of VII should have given their planet a name.  The same as giving President Shinra a name other than President. The fault lies at their end.

[Covarr]

Whether it's important or not is entirely irrelevant. It's capitalized if it's a proper noun, name, or nickname, it's not if it's just a regular noun or word. Consider this sentence: "I love you, Dad, even though you're not my real dad." In the first usage, it's being used as a nickname or title. The second time, it's just a plain noun. It's specifically the context in the sentence that dictates whether it should be capitalized or not.

The Bible does the same with the word "god". In many cases, it's used as a proper noun, as in "And God saw that it was good." but when it's not, it's not capitalized, as in "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". Heck, if you want a more clearly related example, look at the word "earth". Typically, when it's preceded by "the" it's not capitalized, such as "After years of nuclear war and destruction, the earth was barren and the land no longer fertile", but when used as a name it is, "He got tired of living on Mars, so he went back to Earth."

For "the planet" you have a bit more freedom. If it were used side-by-side with a named planet, as in "Mars, Venus, and The Planet", it would definitely be capitalized, but in every other context it's just a matter of whether you consider "The Planet" to be an object or a name. Lowercase is probably better, but it certainly wasn't wrong in the original translation either (unlike JENOVA, which was obviously wrong).

tl;dr - This specific case is a matter of preference. Neither is wrong, but all lowercase is probably a little more right.

[DLPB_]

I would leave it as Planet if it didn't stand out like a sore thumb and the sentence

"We are fighting for the Planet" strikes me as...  dodgy.  To say the least.