To support and attack Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions

[swordianmaster]

This came up in a reply to lynxara's journal, where I took the side of some of my close friends on IRC nowdays (won't mention names, you know who you are) who view the new translation as horrible due to the name changes, and then almost seemed to backpedal on the issue. I figure posting this is the best way to clarify my view on things, as well as on the "remake" philosophy as a whole.

See, Final Fantasy Tactics? Made no sense. Try as you might, reading through fanfiction, original Japanese canon, all of it... the whole thing seemed like Xenogears with worse writing. blah blah blame yourself or God blah blah demon creatures blah blah killing the almighty saint/god blah. Yes, all of that (save the 'blame yourself or God' line, which got a minor rewording) is in the remake.

Why is the retranslation so different? Because that's no longer the focus of the story. Only two people seem to truly know what the Zodiac Stones do, and that's Ramza - from the firsthand experience of seeing multiple people destroyed by them, and several (Reis and Malak/Marach) saved by them - and Vormav/Folmarv. It's no longer a thinly-shrouded tale of religion being evil and god must die and blah de blah.

It's a tale of a class struggle, and the lengths that people will willingly go to in order to obtain power. Delacroix used the stone, knowing it could corrupt him, and ended up being simply another pawn. Weigraf was given the stone by Folmarv's lackey under the pretense of giving him proper vengance and allowing him to fulfill his desire - though Weigraf was then overtaken by the stone completely, totally oblivious to the last moment of its ill effects.

It's never so obvious as it is with Delita, though. In the original Final Fantasy Tactics, Delita was just... this guy. It was damn near impossible to figure out (in the English version) why he decided to become a Holy Knight under the Blackram division, why he chose to go after Princess Ovelia, why he eventually became king. In the retranslation, all of that is clarified, and the story becomes just as much about Delita's rise to the forefront, his movement from surrogate brother to Ramza to the "hero" of the Lion's War, as it is about Ramza's behind-the-scenes action, working to stop Folmarv and the Knights Templar from using the Zodiac Stones to end the war in their favor.

No, the story isn't my problem. The name changes are just... some of them are highly stylized and hard to swallow - Eagrose (instead of Igros) and the Siedge Weald (instead of the Sweegy Wood) are particularly jarring, but there's nothing inherently wrong with them (which reminds me - is "grogh" a legitimate alternate spelling for "grog"? If not, then "Grogh Heights" totally is a step backwards, as the hill is known for its alcoholic grain) ... but the proper names of characters strike me as a "what the fuh?" motion.

Some of them, again, are simply stylizations that are hard to swallow: Argath (Algus), Rapha (Rafa), and Marach (Malak) are simply different romanazations, though the name "Marach" makes me twitch involuntarially - which I suppose isn't much different for me, since Malak sucked that much to begin with. Others, however, seem to just make no sense - Why is it "Orran" Durai? Last I checked, 'Olan' was actually a name, whereas 'Orran' was the type of noise a GAAATSU-filled anime character would yell in his katas. Balmafula/Valmafra suffers from crappy-arse name no matter what, so she is a non issue, of course, but what's with the extra letters, as well? Couldn't "Zalbaag" and "Orlandeau" stayed "Zalbag" and "Orlandu"? Are the extra vowels that necessary? (Oddly, I like "Elmdore" better than "Elmdor" - it serves the same purpose as Draclau -> Delacroix of making you think that this background character is actually a good guy at first)

And finally, we get to skill/class/ability retranslations.

Most of these are for the better. Instead of Priest and Wizard, we have the classic Final Fantasy White and Black Mages (magi?). "Arithmetician" is a bit clunkier than "Calculator", but is a better description of the job itself. "Fell Knight" was likely a change made to distinguish from the new PC class of Dark Knight, and many of the custom PC squire-replacement job classes are for the better. (I much prefer 'Sword Saint' to 'Holy Swordsman', and 'Skyseer' and 'Netherseer' are more appropriate for Rapha and Marach than 'Heaven Knight' and 'Hell Knight', as they aren't really knights at all).

The skills are hit-or-miss - mostly hit, with a few exceptions. I dislike how they renamed Meliadoul's skillset; while it's much easier to figure out which item a given Divine Sword skill destroys (the skills are named Crush [Item Type]), they lose a lot of the flair of the original's translation. In addition, WHAT IS WITH THE SILENT K. I hate hate hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE HATE </kefka> the spelling "Magick". And it's all OVER the place in FFT. Argh. Most jarringly, though, I just recently got Cloud. Most of his Limit skills are untouched, but the one and only change makes no sense.

They renamed "Braver" into "Brave Slash". This would actually be an improvement if he were a character original to Tactics, but he isn't. He's an FF7 character put into FFT as a cheap cash-in at the time. Why not keep with what the FF7 translation was for the skill? Cloud is from a different world, a world that is poorer translated. Why not keep that a constant?

Aside from that, though... FFT is $40 I should not have spent ($40 that put me much further than that much in the hole in the grand scheme of things) but I do not regret having the game one bit.

Comments

[bikerwalla.livejournal.com]

Aleister Crowley is to blame for the spelling 'Magick'; at the turn of the 20th century, illusionists and sleight-of-hand masters were everywhere. He wanted to emphasize that what he was doing was actual ritual manipulation of arcane forces, rather than "stage magic".

Then it got picked up by Gardner and his students in Wicca, and from there went into popular use.