History LostInTranslation / FinalFantasy

* At one point, Elmyra recalls the young Aerith saying her husband had returned to the Planet - "I asked if she meant a star in the sky. But she said it was this planet." Baffling, unless you know that Japanese uses the same word for both "planet" and "star" (「星」''hoshi''). It also causes some of the symbolism concerning stars, planets and meteorites to be muddled because English has no way of referring to them all as the same concept - for instance, Tifa's concern over whether the stars can "hear us" is supposed to be a reversal of the 'You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet' motif, but it doesn't come across.
** This discrepancy is also why some of the remake's story decisions--[[TheEndingChangesEverything particularly the ending]]--have [[BrokenBase been so contentious]] among Western fans, while being near-universally accepted among Japanese players. In the last chapter of ''Remake'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: the planet has a "singularity" within the Lifestream which "connects all the threads of space and time," facilitating the existence of [[TimePolice the Whispers]]; their eventual defeat by the party creates ripple effects which alter the past, forming an AlternateTimeline in which Zack survives his final stand]]. To Japanese audiences, this revelation felt perfectly reasonable, but many Western fans saw it as an AssPull which conflicted heavily with the established lore of ''FFVII.'' This is because most Western languages firmly distinguish between "stars" and "planets": a "star" is made up of burning gases which eventually deplete and collapse into a black hole, which is a concentration of gravity with a five-dimensional "singularity" in the center (which can facilitate interdimensional travel). "Planets" meanwhile, are made mostly of rock or gas, but do not burn like stars and thus, never collapse into black holes with singularities. To Japanese audiences, ''Remake'' 's revelations felt sensible because their language already conflates planets with stars:「星」''hoshi''. To many Western fans however, the revelation that [[spoiler: the Lifestream has a singularity which can manipulate the spacetime continuum]] felt nonsensical and out of left-field, since the world of Gaia had always exclusively been referred to as "the planet" in Western translations, and there had been no explicit indication ''elsewhere'' in the ''Compilation'' that [[spoiler: altering past events]] was even possible in ''VII'' 's world.

** This discrepancy is also why some of the remake's story decisions--particularly the ending--have been so contentious among Western fans, while being near-universally accepted among Japanese players. In the last chapter of ''Remake'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: the planet has a "singularity" within the Lifestream which "connects all the threads of space and time," facilitating the existence of [[TimePolice the Whispers]]; their eventual defeat by the party creates ripple effects which alter the past, forming an AlternateTimeline in which Zack survives his final stand]]. To Japanese audiences, this revelation felt perfectly reasonable, but many Western fans saw it as an AssPull which conflicted heavily with the established lore of ''FFVII.'' This is because most Western languages firmly distinguish between "stars" and "planets": a "star" is made up of burning gases which eventually deplete and collapse into a black hole, which is a concentration of gravity with a five-dimensional "singularity" in the center (which can facilitate interdimensional travel). "Planets" meanwhile, are made mostly of rock or gas, but do not burn like stars and thus, never collapse into black holes with singularities. To Japanese audiences, ''Remake'' 's revelations felt perfectly sensible because their language already conflates planets with stars:「星」''hoshi''. To many Western fans however, the revelation that [[spoiler: the Lifestream has a singularity which can manipulate the spacetime continuum]] felt nonsensical and out of left-field, since the world of Gaia had always exclusively been referred to as "the planet" in Western translations, and there had been no explicit indication ''elsewhere'' in the ''Compilation'' that [[spoiler: altering past events]] was even possible in ''VII'' 's world.

** This discrepancy is also why some of the remake's story decisions--particularly the ending--have been so contentious among Western fans, while being near-universally accepted among Japanese players. In the last chapter of ''Remake'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: the planet has a "singularity" within the Lifestream which "connects all the threads of space and time," facilitating the existence of [[TimePolice the Whispers]]; their eventual defeat by the party creates ripple effects which alter the past, forming an AlternateTimeline in which Zack survives his final stand]]. To Japanese audiences, this revelation felt perfectly reasonable, but many Western fans saw it as an AssPull which conflicted heavily with the established lore of ''FFVII.'' This is because most Western languages firmly distinguish between "stars" and "planets": a "star" is made up of burning gases which eventually deplete and collapse into a black hole, which is a concentration of gravity with a five-dimensional "singularity" in the center (which can facilitate interdimensional travel). "Planets" meanwhile, are made mostly of rock or gas, but do not burn like stars and thus, never collapse into black holes with singularities. To Japanese audiences, ''Remake'' 's revelations felt perfectly sensible because their language already conflates planets with stars:「星」''hoshi''. To many Western fans however, the revelation that [[spoiler: the Lifestream has a singularity which can manipulate the spacetime continuum]] felt nonsensical and out of left-field, since the world of Gaia had always exclusively been referred to as "the planet" in Western translations, and there had been no explicit indication ''elsewhere'' in the ''Compilation'' that [[spoiler: altering past events]] was even possible given the established lore.

** This discrepancy is also why some of the remake's story decisions--particularly the ending--have been so contentious among Western fans, while being near-universally accepted among Japanese players. In the last chapter of ''Remake'', it is revealed that [[spoiler: the planet has a "singularity" within the Lifestream which "connects all the threads of space and time," facilitating the existence of [[TimePolice the Whispers]]; their eventual defeat by the party creates ripple effects which alter the past, forming an AlternateTimeline in which Zack survives his final stand]]. To Japanese audiences, this revelation felt perfectly reasonable, but many Western fans saw it as an AssPull which conflicted heavily with the established lore of ''FFVII.'' This is because most Western languages firmly distinguish between "stars" and "planets": a "star" is made up of burning gases which eventually deplete and collapse into a black hole, which is a concentration of gravity with a five-dimensional "singularity" in the center (which can facilitate interdimensional travel). "Planets" meanwhile, are made mostly of rock or gas, but do not burn like stars and thus, never collapse into black holes with singularities. To Japanese audiences, the ''remake'' 's revelations felt perfectly sensible because their language already conflates planets with stars:「星」''hoshi''. To many Western fans however, the revelation that the Lifestream has a singularity which can create omni-temporal ghosts and manipulate the spacetime continuum felt nonsensical and out-of-leftfield, since there had been no explicit indication elsewhere in the Compilation that altering the spacetime continuum was even possible in ''FFVII'' 's world.

* Cloud's {{Catchphrase}}, 「興味ないね」( ''kyoumi nai ne''), was inconsistently translated as "not interested", "don't really care", "don't care", "not my thing" etc. The result ended up diluting the idea that Cloud even had a catchphrase in English. His later appearances all strictly translated this line as "not interested", which accurately reflected the translation and made it a proper catchphrase in English. However, many English-speaking fans assumed this was a retroactive attempt to {{flanderiz|ation}}e his disaffected attitude. It wasn't; it had been part of his character from the very beginning, only becoming an issue because it was so inconsistently translated the first time. That said, the English phrase "not interested" is more harsh than the Japanese; ''kyoumi nai ne'' is rude, but the ''-ne'', which softens the tone, and the playful alliteration on ''nai ne'', both indicate that Cloud means it with cheeky humour rather than just coldness.

* Squall's {{Catchphrase}} is probably one of the most famous examples of this - in the English, it's "...whatever". In Japanese, it's "''warukkata''", which means something more like "...sorry" or (perhaps more literally) "...my bad". It does have the same youthful, slightly rude connotation as 'whatever', but the change overall makes Squall a lot less like he has NoSocialSkills (the intended reading) and a lot more like he's just heartless and nasty. Opinions about Squall between Japan and English-speaking regions tend to be [[AmericansHateTingle very different]] because of this.

* A joke which also doubled as a ShoutOut to Domino's & Pizza Hut was lost in the English translations (both in the original ''and'' the ''Remake''). This is because Mayor Domino's assistant was simply named "Hart" in English, when in fact his Japanese name (「ハット」''Hatto'') is a pun on the name "Hut." Between that and Barret's description of Midgar as a "rotting Pizza" on account of its overall circular shape, and you have a joke that the localizers perhaps thought was just a little [[JustForPun too punny]] for English-speaking audiences. The Remake brought it back with the mayor being named Domino again. And the real life Malaysian Domino's Pizza twitter account [[https://twitter.com/DominosMY/status/1258017283298844672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1258017283298844672%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegamer.com%2Fdominos-reimagines-midgar-as-a-pizza-in-a-final-fantasy-vii-inspired-tweet%2F posted a picture of Midgar as a pizza]] after the game came out.

* For the English, French, and German speaking players, the name of one boss in the game had to be changed twice due to this. As part of the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII Crystal Tower]] storyline, the enemies are named and designed as one big shout out to ''FFIII''. However, at the end of the Labyrinth of the Ancients dungeon, players face a boss distinctly based off of ''FFIII''[='=]s version of Titan. Problem is, there's already a Primal being and a related Summon named Titan. Japan can get around this, because in ''FFIII'', they used ティターン which is based on the Greek pronunciation (Tea-tahn) for the ''III''/Crystal Tower boss, and タイタン (English pronunciation: Tie-tun) for the Primal and Summon (and every other boss by that name in the series). However, for the other major languages, they can't do this, as regardless of pronunciation, it would still be spelled Titan. The English localization team came up with a solution, and got special permission to use the name of one of ''FFIII''[='=]s Titan PaletteSwap[=s=], Acheron (named after a river in the underworld of Greek mythology), for English, French, and German.\\

* At the end of the ''ARR'' Hildebrand questline, a character refers to an incantation which saved the day as being wielded "not by a Warrior of Light, but by a Gentleman of Light", which in English seems to come completely out of left field. In Japanese, the term for "Warrior of Light" is "光の戦士" (Hikari no Senshi), which is only one character off from "Gentleman of Light"'s "光の紳士" (Hikari no ''Shin''shi) rather than one whole word off.

* Another woolseyism led to Sephiroth Copies being referred to as "Sephiroth Clones". This wasn't itself a bad move, since 'Copies' sounds silly, but the Clones aren't real 'clones' but a made-up {{Magitek}} concept. It ended up confusing the already convoluted plot as players attempted to find CloningBlues tropes that weren't in the story.

* The SignatureMove of the Cactuar enemy was translated as "Blow Fish" in the SNES version of the game, because it wasn't clear at first that the name was a reference to the Japanese rhyme kids say along with a PinkySwear. Idiomatically, that reference is used as a general term for a blowfish, so presumably Ted Woolsey thought that it was referring to the slang term for the animal rather than the childhood rhyme it referenced. Later games (and later releases of ''Final Fantasy VI'') caught on and used "1000 Needles" for the attack instead (though the fact that it [[FixedDamageAttack always does 1000 damage]] should have been a clue).

* The localization completely obscures an important detail which is made more explicit in the original Japanese. The "Sephiroth" whom appears for all the present-day story up until the FinalBoss is ''not'' the actual Sephiroth, but JENOVA parasites with his physical appearance; carrying out his will (and possibly Jenova's herself). Sephiroth's ''actual'' body spends the entire game stuck in the Northern Cave, having washed up there sometime after Cloud threw him and Jenova's head into the lifestream in the Mako reactor at Nibelheim. The "Sephiroth" whom the party spends all of disk 1 pursuing was actually the headless, shapeshifting JENOVA body which broke out of Hojo's lab in the Shinra building. This is the reason why so many of the Sephiroth encounters end in the party fighting JENOVA--they are meant to represent what the "bodies" morph into when fought. ''All of this'' is conveyed far more clearly in the Japanese text; while it is still present in the English localization, it is barely noticeable because it's consigned to ''only two sentences'', with Cloud even saying: "I'll explain later," only to never do so.

* The localization completely obscures an important detail present in the Japanese. The Sephiroth whom appears for all the present-day story up until the FinalBoss is ''not'' the actual Sephiroth, but Jenova parasites with his physical appearance carrying out his will (and possibly Jenova's herself), while Sephiroth's actual body spends the entire game stuck in the Northern Cave. This is the reason why so many of the Sephiroth encounters end in the party fighting Jenova, they are meant to represent what the "bodies" morph into when fought.

* The Western fandom has a [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation different view]] of the main girls than the Japanese ones based on their clothes designs having slightly different connotations for each country. Since casual basic fashion for young women in 1997 Japan is more cutesy than in the West, Aerith's pink outfit and bow comes off as down-to-earth (while still well-put-together and special), while Tifa's cropped tank, leather skirt and Doc Martens marked her out as being the one who was really interested in fashion (and a bit alternative). In US 1997, Tifa looked like a casual low-maintenance girl-next-door type in old boots, while Aerith came off as being unusually girly and wholesome. Cue people who loathe her for being a TastesLikeDiabetes princess type... although that has mostly fallen by the wayside as the fanbase has matured and realized the script doesn't portray her that way.

* [[CommonKnowledge Contrary to the popular consensus]], Cloud and Tifa were ''not'' childhood friends when they were growing up in Nibelheim. Both admit at various points throughout the game that they didn't know each other very well at the time, with Cloud having been a loner with a crush on Tifa from afar but who was not a part of her circle of friends, while Tifa didn't pay much attention to Cloud until he invited her out to the water tower and explained that he was leaving to join SOLDIER. The confusion stems from the fact that the Japanese word for "tochildhood friend" (「幼馴染み」 ''osananajimi'') more closely translates to "someone whom you just so happen to have known since childhood," without necessarily implying any close interpersonal connection. A closer translation of ''osananajimi'' in the context between Cloud and Tifa might be "acquaintance", in that it's someone you know of but personally know very little about or have no emotional connection with.