Please tell me what you didn't actually understand by the words "Retranslation Project" or "Faithful to Japanese Game" or "More accurate" ?
I think no one is questioning any of these things, except perhaps that "more literal translation" would be equal to "more accurate" or "more faithful". Furthermore, as stated many times elsewhere, no one is questioning that the existing PC translation could stand to be improved. In fact, plenty of people are saying that many of your changes are improvements.
I don't think there should be a PC version, the PSX version is the only proper way of playing the game
If I applied this logic elsewhere we wouldn't have qhimm's.
Actually, that last one is pretty much your logic when it comes to the translation. You don't agree with some of the choices of the PC translation, and your conclusion is that
any liberties taken during translation can only serve to lessen its quality compared to the original. It is at this point that you will find people disagreeing with you.
Personally, I would argue that if you want the exact original intended Japanese experience, you are pretty much resigned to playing the game in Japanese, and first becoming well versed in Japanese language and culture as necessary. For your translation to be experienced they way you intend it, this requirement unfortunately doesn't go away, as literal translations sometimes won't make sense unless you know Japanese. I will get back to this.
"Mog > Moguri, doesn't sound right, more so considering they've been called Moogles/Mogs in many other english language FF games."
Canon has been thrown out. If you read the link you will see why it is called Moguri. Moogle and Mog are mistakes. The japanese chose the name from their own words and no one has the right to go against that. It is their name. When you create a work of fiction what you choose is yours. No one has the right to butcher it.
Whoa there, steady boy. First of all I believe translation enjoys special status under copyright law, under which Square were the ones to commission an official translation and
you are the one illegally butchering the original work. Second, Moogle and Mog are also their
choices for their English version of the story, which is certainly of no lesser value than your elevated opinion. Moguri is a clever Japanese word play combined from their words for "mole" and "bat" (whose traits the Moguri share), with the added bonus of sounding like "Mowgli", strengthening existing connotations for child-like things and animals. How much of this comes through when you as an English speaker see the word "Moguri"?
Translation usually entails conveying the original meaning as much as possible, not the original spelling or whatever (that might more closely be called a transcription). I personally consider both Mog and Moogle to be quite good translations, seeing as how you will quickly give up conveying all of "mole-like, bat-like, small child-like thing" with a single word in English -- both Mog and Moogle borrow from the original Moguri, but turn it into a more natural-sounding word for English-speakers with a "quirky" feel to it. And apparently Square-Enix agrees, considering they're sticking with the translation despite ample opportunities to change it for something better (c.f. Aeris / Aerith).
"Remove > Degeon, keeping Remove or using Banish or Dismiss would have been better, Degeon isn't a "real" word, it doesn't sound like a word used for taking someone out of a fight."
Degeon is De dungeon. It has been a staple of the series before and it is consistent in Japanese version too.
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_V_Enemy_Abilities
Although this is definately one I will be bringing up again with the team and others, make sure it is accurate. It certainly isn't Exit or banish or X zone.
And yet time after time
professional translators opt for exactly "Banish" or similar. Your opinion on this matter comes through as highly arrogant, arguing that you alone are fit to decide what an "accurate" translation is, even in the face of heavy disagreements from most people you mention it to.
The critical point in this kind of translation (which you seem to be missing) is "will people understand this word when they see it?". "Degeon" in particular apparently requires you look it up in a specialized encyclopedia before you understand its meaning, which I must admit sounds like a textbook example of a failed translation, especially when its intended use case is to be easily understandable in a small game action menu.
"Slash all > Cut all, Barrett and Vincent use guns that neither slash nor cut, Attack All would have been a better choice there."
If the Japanese had meant that they would have used it. The Japanese are not stupid, they know what cut is and what attack is and they know the difference. The names are all designed for cloud. There is no mistake here.
Unfortunately, the Japanese word for "cut" has the extended general meaning of "cut down" as in attack, damage or kill, something its English counterpart doesn't share to the same extent. It also has the benefit of being instantly understandable to any Japanese (including kids) and is shorter than the more generic words for "attack", and thus will more easily fit into the menu. So "cut" in Japanese is indeed a generic term and is not designed specifically for Cloud -- you wouldn't use it specifically for guns, but it is definitely appropriate to describe a generic attack in a world where a majority of weapons are blades. Of course, the original translation makes the same "mistake" of going for the more literal term even though the generic one matches the use case better.
If you have any other queries, you know where I am. And believe me when I say, I have had 3 japanese people working with me on every single change with others looking through the document and raising issues. Nothing has been gone into half assed and some things went to a vote.
I have no doubt you've had access to good Japanese resources, but your suggested translations makes me wonder if you had access to any good Japanese-English
translation resources, as opposed to people who know how to use dictionaries. People who know Japanese don't necessarily know how to translate well into English -- my mother tongue is Swedish and I know a fair amount of English, that doesn't mean I can translate either of those well into Japanese. I can certainly respect your willingness to preserve any names as much and as precisely as possible, but it's way too easy to go too far with this reasoning, and you end up with something that is really only meaningful to you yourselves (since you translated it, you already have all the necessary background information).
My heartfelt recommendation if you really want to improve the translation is to utilize test subjects; people with no Japanese skill that have as little background information as possible (at best, barely having played the game), and running proposed translations past them. The more of the intended meaning they figure out without you telling them, the better the translation is.
To author of this thread:
If you like canon however flawed, or you don't like accuracy, or you don't like this mod, do not install it. No one is forcing you. Some people appreciate the work that is going into this and the dedication I am giving the project and respect for the original vision. Pathetic threads like this reflect on you badly.
Let me clarify that I am in no way saying your work is bad. On the contrary, I would love to play through the game with your patch in effect, because it would let me see various Japanese details more easily than playing through the Japanese version. However, the reason it would work is because in my head I'm translating the various oddities back into Japanese, where it suddenly makes sense. To an English-speaker that didn't take part in your background research, this can't happen, and so I fear your translations will look considerably stranger than any "butchering" in the existing version.
The bottom line is this: This is a Japanese game and was written by people who did not intend what has now become canon in English. I am restoring it to how it should be. Please keep your insane fanboyism to yourself and remember that this is a game, not the Bible.
I'm sorry, but unless you're actually in frequent contact with the original FF7 writers, this is just plain arrogant. Square commissioned and approved the original English translation, which should at least account for something. In hindsight it can certainly be improved, and you are free to translate it differently (though not necessarily release it, see copyright issue above), but to put forth that you alone know "how it should be" would essentially disqualify you from any translation work in the professional world. The one who treats the subject matter as the Bible-whose-Word-must-not-be-corrupted-lest-you-face-the-Wrath-of-the-Lord seems to be you, and the irony of you accusing your more liberal-spirited (not to mention more polite) opposition of that very thing is enough to cause aneurysms.
If you're aiming for "accurate" in the sense that "minimum amount of detail lost, even if it means requiring people to be familiar with Japanese in order to understand it", then you're on the right track and can safely ignore any criticism from here. The problem is that most people perceive your goal as making a perfect translation that conveys additional meaningful detail that was lost in the existing translation, while still making perfect sense to people who only know English. That is not where you are heading, and I think you can avoid a lot of criticism by being more clear with your goals and being a bit more humble about the whole thing.
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) because I wonder how.