MAIN NOTES
A note on language:
The installer allows British English or American English. I personally don't like how the British English has been messed about with over the years but that's just me 
There is 1 exception, however- some words ending "ise" are infact fully acceptable as -ize. This change is not an Americanisation and it is technically more correct when dealing with words of Greek origin. Words ending -yse like Paralyse are exempt from the rule. Unfortunately, since many words in english retain "ise", even in America, it seems like bad practice dividing words up and this would only lead to perceived inconsistencies. Thus, -ise will be preferred for all words.
A note on Sources:
It became clear very early on, that official sources are sometimes incorrect. Ultimania/Omega is considered the main authority for FF7, but it still has "Midir" as "Mideel" along with other spellings which are very suspect (like Elena, Zack). I do not believe that these spellings have been verified by Nomura or the other main staff, and the English for them is likely chosen from mistakes made by the English translator Michael Baskett. The idea that he only made the "Aeris" mistake in the character names, given the massive number of other mistakes, is far fetched. He had no contact and no sources to draw upon when translating. It is far more likely that the mistakes have become canon. Since we do not recognise canon and are endeavouring to make an accurate translation, the sources have been carefully studied and what we feel to be correct has been used. Sometimes there was a vote. The installer allows those who believe Baskett to be some perfect god, or who think it is sacrilege to change the accepted flawed canon, to keep the original names.
Last Order may have had numerous plot holes, but as a resource for spellings it is actually pretty good and it was written with Nojima onboard. One thing it immediately cleared up was that Nibelheim is actually Niblheim, a 1 letter change from the norse Niflheim. The e is not there.
These decisions can be reversed if there is written proof from the main creators of what their intentions were regarding spelling or if they make it clear why they feel it necessary to throw out the correct spellings just because 1 man got them wrong originally. ==========================
Since this project is changing English canon of the series and of FF7 it has obviously drawn major criticism from some fans. Generally, these criticisms tell me they haven't read this thread properly because then they would realise that the installer offers a choice to keep the original canon. However, anyone who is smart enough will realise that what they originally received the first time round was not intended in the slightest and was full of mistakes. Why anyone would want to keep these mistakes, simply because they grew up on them, is a mystery to me.
With "canon", one has to realise that every language has its own, and thus the original vision is watered down and inconsistent from place to place. This is the whole point of why we threw canon out. Some are very angry that we have used "Moguri" and not "Moogle", but look at other countries and you will see they have correctly used "Moguri" and so forth. It ended up Moogle simply due to an initial mistake; a mistake that has not been corrected.
The main argument I see against sticking with canon is this:
If you made a novel and then found out that your mythology had been changed, your references has been changed, your character names had been changed, a character's personality had been changed- I am guessing you would not be happy with that translation. To create something that a western audience understands and sounds good is the aim of a good localisation. Changing facts and characters is not localising... it is being unprofessional.
People who think we should make 100 allowances to appease fanbase are not thinking straight. No one has the right to butcher another person's work. There are French, German, Japanese and Chinese cultures in Final Fantasy VII, among others. These need to be preserved, the same way they are in Japanese game. Taking things away from the game is diluting the genius and art of the game itself, as well as blatantly ignoring the writers' wishes.
Most criticisms of this project are unfair, and border line crazy. I have had people demand that I leave plot mistakes, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, and even Midgar Zolom. The general theme seems to be that these people want a retranslation project to not be a retranslation project. To quote one person, "I grew up with the original localisation, however bad it was, and so did millions of others. We loved it. I cringe at text changes, however more accurate they may be."
I still remember the whole "Aerith" debacle, which rages to this day. Aeris sounds better but the writers were not happy that their character name was wrong in the English game. They made sure that was changed. Rather than people accepting their wishes on the matter, they instead jumped up and down demanding that their preferences supersede the authors.
Arguments based on nostalgia or on canon are flawed and counter productive. Fanboyism is a mental illness.
On with the posts:
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Qhimm:Also I don't think anyone was questioning that if the Japanese version used an existing concept and the original translators were too daft to realize the reference (instead outputting a nonsense name that doesn't convey anything), then it is naturally an improvement to fix it.
However, even here there is normally a balance to strike; Japanese people often choose foreign names only for the "cool" feeling they evoke, and directly translating that into something that sounds dull or just weird in English means the feeling is lost. This is often just as important as the literal meaning of the original word, and it is the translators job to try to strike a balance when there is no translation that is both literally, connotationally and emotionally accurate (i.e. most of the time).
In my opinion, a perfect example is the translation of Chrono Trigger's Schala and Janus -- the original Japanese had them as "Sarah" and "Jack". The names sounded cool to them and enhanced the foreign and out-of-place feel of the ancient Zeal kingdom, but had those names been used as-is in the English version, they would have accomplished the complete opposite and detracted from the experience. To us, Sarah and Jack are completely normal names and would have made Zeal feel less of an advanced magical kingdom and more of a kid's show on TV (aired after Barney the Dinosaur). Instead, the translator invented new names (though based the originals) that evoked roughly similar feelings in English audience as the original names did to Japanese people, and credit should go to him for that.
The other point to consider is that when Japanese people put in references to Japanese culture in their writing, it is meant to be easily recognizable (like references to English culture are to us). Retaining it as-is may be more accurate and can sometimes make the text more interesting (primarily to people interested in Japan though), but the translator should always be aware that by doing so, the nature and focus of the sentences shifts as well. For example, turning a trivial cultural reference (the Japanese reference as seen by Japanese people) to an intricate one (the Japanese reference as seen by non-Japanese people) can make the speaker sound more intellectual or alter the intended feel of the sentence altogether.
This retranslation project clearly aims for a very literal translation, and this should be kept in mind when viewing it. Since no changes are being made to accommodate the target audience, it thus remains Japanese. Playing it will not give you the original Japanese experience unless you are well-versed enough to play it in an fully Japanese mindset -- and if you can do that, you might just want to play the Japanese original in order to avoid any confusion.
DLPB:Well to be honest Qhimm, I think you are being a bit unfair and over the top when it comes to which names we have chosen and what we have actually done. I don’t quite know what you mean when you say too literal, as the changes we have made are better than the original, more accurate and very often more intelligent because they conform to the whole meaning behind them and not some mistake and that is what tons of these are, let’s not be in ANY doubt about that. A lot of these mistakes have been corrected in FF’s after VII including Midgardsormr.
Having seen some of the changes (I am still not sure if you have read the full document)I can tell you that a lot of these are simply mistakes and have nothing whatsoever to do with “making it sound better”. I don’t understand how you can believe that this shoddy translation was done on purpose when all evidence suggests that the vast majority were done because Baskett didn’t have a clue. The fact a lot of these have been corrected in future installments says a lot about it.
However, even here there is normally a balance to strike; Japanese people often choose foreign names only for the "cool" feeling they evoke, and directly translating that into something that sounds dull or just weird in English means the feeling is lost.
I would say that most names have a good logical background, usually in mythology. Half of these names won’t be obvious to a Japanese person because they too would have to research what they mean. They would have no more idea what a Midgardsormr (corrected in FFIX for example) is than we do before we look into Norse. That is 1 example. There are hundreds. I am afraid it all breaks down and becomes a disaster if we start dictating what is or isn’t acceptable. Cloud and strife are chosen specifically to refer to Cloud’s mental state being clouded, and strife as ‘in trouble’. Changing his name takes away from this and does not add to it. Unfortunately every other country needs to know English to get that background but so do the Japanese. For the most part FF7’s monsters and names were made from English words. That is how they chose to do it.
This is often just as important as the literal meaning of the original word, and it is the translators job to try to strike a balance when there is no translation that is both literally, connotationally and emotionally accurate (i.e. most of the time).
Again, the literal word is often completely acceptable. Not always, which is why we have had to leave Death Blow, even though it means “certain kill” or “Special Technique”, but a lot of them needed no such adjustment.
Luksy (Main Translator):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 Grin ). 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 Grin
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.
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Qhimm:
Jumping back to the topic, I doubt anyone else was thinking that someone chose the word "Midgar Zolom" just because it "sounds cooler to dumb yanks". As has been mentioned, the original localization team probably had very little resources for (or interest in) researching cultural references, were probably dumbstruck by the massive amounts of strange katakana, and in the end just chose something randomly. What I was talking about earlier was about replacing cultural references that made no sense to foreign audiences (like Moguri), but Norse mythology is well-established in the Western world (it is Western culture), so there's no reason not to preserve the reference.
* FF7 contains a myriad of concepts and references from a wide range of religions and cultures. Building upon existing ideas instead of inventing everything yourself is a cornerstone of not only all literature, but of all civilizations. Referencing existing stories adds familiarity and depth to a new story without having to explain yourself, much like the concept of using idioms. (I wouldn't want to read any story that invents everything from scratch; in fact, I would assume it worse for the effort, and be surprised if it was even readable at all)
* Localization is a very difficult task, of which translation is but one piece of the puzzle. Languages and cultures do not match 1:1, so clearly some hard choices need to be made where you have to prioritize what's most important to convey. Sometimes this can mean it's warranted to change even names and other seemingly "constant" terms, if it means the overall feeling is better preserved. (I stand by my personal opinion that Schala and Janus were good examples of this)
DLPB: * FF7 contains a myriad of concepts and references from a wide range of religions and cultures. Building upon existing ideas instead of inventing everything yourself is a cornerstone of not only all literature, but of all civilizations. Referencing existing stories adds familiarity and depth to a new story without having to explain yourself, much like the concept of using idioms. (I wouldn't want to read any story that invents everything from scratch; in fact, I would assume it worse for the effort, and be surprised if it was even readable at all)
And no one is arguing with that so far so good....
Localization is a very difficult task, of which translation is but one piece of the puzzle. Languages and cultures do not match 1:1, so clearly some hard choices need to be made where you have to prioritize what's most important to convey. Sometimes this can mean it's warranted to change even names and other seemingly "constant" terms, if it means the overall feeling is better preserved. (I stand by my personal opinion that Schala and Janus were good examples of this)
Well first I have asked that you read the document and I don't think you have so far? But in any case, there is a distinction between dialogue and non dialogue. The reason FF7 has a lot of English sounding names is because they were taken from English words, and thus no localisation was needed. The so called localisation that has been done has not been very good. As Luksy stated FF English is hardly the Great Model of consistency. Phoenix Down doesn't sound like anything compared to Phoenix Tail (and yes I know down is referring to feathers); I really can't see why anyone would want the former. Nostalgia isn't a good enough reason.
The ultimate irony and logic against canon is that had our localisation been used from the beginning, the same people arguing against the changes would now be the same people telling me "I don't like zolom what on earth have you chose that for!?", "I don't understand why you are changing canon."
It all breaks down.... when you think about it.
Luksy:Jumping back to the topic, I doubt anyone else was thinking that someone chose the word "Midgar Zolom" just because it "sounds cooler to dumb yanks". As has been mentioned, the original localization team probably had very little resources for (or interest in) researching cultural references, were probably dumbstruck by the massive amounts of strange katakana, and in the end just chose something randomly. What I was talking about earlier was about replacing cultural references that made no sense to foreign audiences (like Moguri), but Norse mythology is well-established in the Western world (it is Western culture), so there's no reason not to preserve the reference.
Well Moguri was kept in the Spanish and Italian versions of localized games, but in any case by that logic Chocobo should have been changed to something like Chocoba in English seeing as it's (allegedly) taken from a Japanese snack called Chocoball. I don't think the English translators were aiming to change Moguri to better fit a western audience, surely they would have done the same for many other things? Or more to the point why didn't the Italian translators of FFIX call it "Talpistrello" or something similar?
* Localization is a very difficult task, of which translation is but one piece of the puzzle. Languages and cultures do not match 1:1, so clearly some hard choices need to be made where you have to prioritize what's most important to convey. Sometimes this can mean it's warranted to change even names and other seemingly "constant" terms, if it means the overall feeling is better preserved. (I stand by my personal opinion that Schala and Janus were good examples of this)
As I said before IOHO a lot of the "hard changes" in the original translation (let's call it the OT from now on
) seem to be rushed and / or poorly researched, and not changed because they fit the target market better.
* Regardless of being originally correct or not, canon does matter. Buster swords, spoony bards, sons of submariners, when a term "sticks" then that will be what triggers nostalgia later on, not a "corrected" translation.
What is your opinion on FFT and the PSP remake? Surely you wouldn't argue that the PS1 version had a superior translation because it came first and established "canon"? I haven't met anyone who thinks so (although the PSP "olde speake" is a little OTT at times), why should FFVII not be subject to the same process?
The reasons for following the Japanese as close as possible is we have no contact with the original creators; every decent translation ever made is, I think, done with constant consultation and / or supervision from the original author(s), we don't have this luxury. If Nomura could tell us that a lot of the creature names were thought up under the influence of a particularly bad acid trip we'd be delighted.
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Obesebear:So, to sum this up for everyone.
This translation is ignoring EVERYTHING past and present, and attempting to translate the game as if the original creators were perfectly fluent and knowledgeable in both Japanese and English.
Luksy:We're not ignoring everything, and we know that the original creators are certainly not fluent in English, this really isn't a good tl;dr of what we're about, sorry.
Let's see to sum it up as I see it:
* Translators had limited contact with creators, limited resources and limited time (and at times it seems limited talent) which resulted in
* a dodgy translation, in more ways than one which lead to
* the dodginess being repeated because no one could be bothered to contest it
FFT is a prime example actually, the PSP version shows what can be done in the hands of competent translators (I'm not saying we're competent! That of course will be for you to decide).
DLPB:Simply not true. A lot of the stuff isn't changed AT ALL. And when it comes to dialogue, 80% of the world map dialogue was unaltered. All that is being changed is mistakes, some of which even square have decided to correct in games after VII.
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Edit. Shademp sent this to me.
http://www.1up.com/features/squaresoft-localizationIt turns out I and Luksy were correct... Michael Baskett was the LONE translator, who had a real nightmare because of lack of communication and ridiculous file editor.
