Final Fantasy general

Why is that unusual?

...this will be a pagetopper.

Proud Clod is a really awkward, goofy name for a superweapon.

Based on a reference in XIII, it was apparently meant to be the "Proudclad."

It's the same sort of mistake as Aerith being rendered as Aeris, but the results are much sillier-sounding- Atleast in the US, "clod" is somewhat outdated slang for "idiot."

Aeris at least is fairly understandable as a romanization, all things considered.

Reno's name is also not really what I would call a big mistake either, since the name makes sense and sounds alright regardless if you with L or R.

I dunno. Given who's piloting it when you fight it, I think "Proud Idiot" is kind of fitting in a way. I think it was called "Proudclad" in Record Keeper too.

edited 16th Jan '17 12:26:39 PM by Customer

At least there are no Y-Burns?

Pulse: That's funny.

I'm assuming this had to do with space limitations or something but that's really embarassing.

Whoever translated Final Fantasy V for the PSX misinterpreted "Wyvern" as "Y-Burn".

edited 16th Jan '17 12:36:48 PM by MightyMatilda

Aeris and Ex Death are both cases of having an affection for the mistranslation

Exdeath is suppose to be Exodus infact in every other instance the Japanese is Translated to Exodus... but Exdeath fits The Saturday morning cartoon villain vibe his going for

Hell they translate Exdeath name as Exodus in the OAV legend of the crystals 'granted it has a villain named Deathgyunos and Ra DEVIL so Exdeath isn't out of place

Remember Bartz... She's Jailbait!

There are things like PsychoHeds (yes, really), where space limitations are to blame, but "Y Burn" is written with a space in the game, so it's the same exact number of characters as Wyvern. So someone thought this was somehow accurate.

edited 16th Jan '17 2:39:59 PM by lu127

Exdeath's stayed as it is, but Aerith got changed. Maybe they just like the th sound.

The same game had "Sucker" (a squid enemy) translated as "soccer", and Karbaros (probably a Cerberus reference) translated as Karl Boss. It's really obvious that someone involved in the translation wasn't really paying attention, the Japanese for those words was likely in katakana (which is used for words of non-Japanese origin and is sort of phonetic) and the translator probably sounded them out and didn't care enough to double check with anyone.

edited 16th Jan '17 2:50:33 PM by Zendervai

I think part of it is that a Big Bad named Exdeath is extremely in line with the tone of V.

The Esper based on him in Ivalice is Exodus, at least.

edited 16th Jan '17 3:08:29 PM by Pulse

I quite like the name Proud Clod. I can't used to Aerith though. Aerittthhhh. Just sounds like a lisp.

If there's ever a localisation we can trust it's XII.

One of the reasons why XII is one of my favorite games in the series, incidentally.

With good localizations, translators have time to playtest a bit to see what the characters, monsters, items, etc. look like. It can be pretty obvious when translators aren't given that luxury.

Changing Reno to Leno sounds like a case of the translator being too eager correct "mistakes", which is something that makes me wary of fan translations. It looks like they took name spellings from an old Japanese guide book that came out around the game's release. They also took the spellings Yrena, Zeng, and Zax from there too. I can see why they did this, but all official material later on, for Advent Children and Crisis Core, keeps consistent with the English version's spellings. I guess if you really want to translate the game as if you were there at the time with no English version to already work off of, but it seems rather pointless to me.

I've looked through what other name changes they the retranslation made, and for every change I could agree with there's one I find questionable. And I few I think are outright wrong. Like changing Spirit Lance to Holy Lance when the Japanese was Longinus, or changing First Ray to Fast Ray. In general, reading stuff from the fan translators gives me more an impression that they were looking for mistakes, trying to dig up obscure references, and trying to translate things literally, as opposed to focusing on making sure the text was well written and accurate to the original feeling.

It is not. Exodus is spelled as エクソダス (ekusodasu). Exdeath is spelled as エクスデス (ekusudesu). It's possible the word "exodus" helped inspire his name, but it's not the same thing. His name has always been spelled Exdeath in Japanese material.

It's actually supposed to be Karabos, the ancient Greek word for lobster.

Japanese companies actually caring about the quality of their work outside of Japan is also quite recent.

Like I've heard that the translation peocess for Xenogears was a nightmare because the lead translator was undermanned and did not have the resources to adequately proof-read the script or recognize the various religious references made in the text.

I've said this many times before but, while localizers can't save a garbage japanese script, what they can do with a decent to GREAT script is pretty substantial if you give them the right resources and freedom.

It's a real tough job, since you often have to make changes and they might not be changes everyone agrees with. There are times when otherwise competent translators make bad choices, and people seem to use that as an excuse to say translators should never adapt anything and be as literal as possible even though that will create an inferior product.

In my opinion, being a good writer yourself is often a good skill for a translator to have, if only to get a feel for HOW to adapt things.

edited 16th Jan '17 4:05:23 PM by Draghinazzo

So, I've been playing Mobius Final Fantasy and it's a lot of fun.

Anyone here also play that? What are your thoughts on that game?

Can I just say that these days I find it a bit silly whenever I hear Exdeath?

I can't help but think on my mistress.

SE owns the manga rights, She might show up as a crossover character in one of the mobile games with Red eyes

Ever since Dissidia, Exdeath brings two things in my mind: treeeeeeeeees and Cloud of Darkness. Because Voidshipping is just too hilarious in its absurdity.

Eh, I would have prefered if she appeared in something like my hypothetical Square Enix vs Capcom game.

THE VOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIID.

V had really fun villains, you have to admit. They're not deep or complicated but they make things interesting whenever they're around.

edited 17th Jan '17 1:42:42 PM by Pulse