She explains the anatomy of Midgar - there's a "top plate" 50 meters above ground, supported by a main pillar. There are additional pillars built to support each section, one pillar per sector, each sector built around a Mako Reactor which provides it with electricity. The Sectors used to be independent towns with their own names, but as they were swallowed into the Midgar sprawl, those names were lost, as each sector became referred to only by its number, from 1 to 8.
It's a Floating city. It's the trope that existed in FF1 (Minus Space Station Implications), all reimagined as something made by a corporation using that motif to try and sell it as the greatest city in the world.
I dunno, something about how it's an older fantastical trope reimagined through a dieselpunk setting speaks to me in a way that I can't say every location here does. I fucking love Midgar so, so much.
One thing I loved about FFVII is how they managed to keep character individuality despite being able to have each character take any role. Like the characters in FFVI, any character could be your main melee bruiser, or they can just as easily be your white mage, or whichever role you want to slot them into. Between their weapon types, limit breaks, and personalities each character manages to stay distinct.
Personalities sure, but thats something that I feel is just... a game should just be doing that. The weapons kinda, but at the same time there's only two mechanical things they affect (Attacking from the back row and attacking aerial enemies), so it never feels like something that has much weight to me even thought it is distinguishing characters. This is me however having spent years before playing 7 seeing games that would come before and after it do something similar, so again this is likel my weird position having an influence on how I see the game.
Limit breaks I'll get into later. I think it's a system (like another later one) that's almost perfect... save for one notable bugbear I have about it.
Berserk Man, Berserk Man
Berserk Man hates Particle Man
Also, is Midgar technically Dieselpunk? I always saw that aesthetic as derived from WW1, the Interbellum, and WW2 (basically everything post-steam pre-atomic).
Eh, I guess as with any -punk subgenre, the important thing is that FF7 at least gets the 'punk' part right
Oh, also, since I've been playing the modded version with the "Beacause" fan retranslation, I feel like I should go into commentary on some translation stuff I've been seeing there, in comparison to what Omicron is seeing which is the iconic original text... put together by a single guy with only two weeks.
I guess you could call it "Report from the Reunion" if you want a snappy name.
The moment to moment changes in dialogue and description aren't the most worthy of note. Generally, what you have is a bit more considered and literal translation aiming to convey the nuances and "information delivery" exactly as (or at least as perceived) in the original Japanese. Take, for instance, the very first conversation with the Avalanche team (we'll get to name changes, don't worry, but I guess to throw it in front there's a preference to spell Avalanche and Soldier as just proper nouns, because they're not acronyms and were mostly likely only spelled in all-caps because the game's original Japanese fonts only had uppercase Romaji and the translator took that as intentional when he just started translating line by line):
What in the original translation is rendered as Jessie asking what an Ex-Soldier is "doing with them" is more specifically asking why he's joined Avalanche. Biggs also specifies that he quit Shinra, not just leaving Soldier, which I'm pretty sure serves as a slightly earlier name drop of our antagonist megacorporation.
Or how about in the Reactor entrance, when we get our introduction to what Mako is and why it's bad? There, Barret in the original translation asks bluntly if Cloud has ever been in a reactor before, while the retranslation makes it a more roundabout "You've been in a reactor before, right?" He also specifies in the retranslation that most people have "no clue" about what Mako really is.
Okay, so this is basically uninteresting word by word stuff, I'll spare you. If you want more line by line breakdowns of the original Japanese that sure motivated the creation of Beacause, you can just look up Tim Rogers's series "Let's Mosey" (spoilers in the later episodes, obviously, but like the first two cover only what's in this LP so far, if you want to follow along) for Kotaku which apparently just does all that.
What's more important to note mechanically is something I've noted about just the way the retranslation works: it frequently breaks up dialogue into multiple text boxes to make room for the expanded, more literally-translated script. Fascinatingly, this is something that Final Fantasy VII's original engine apparently always had the power to do: Square seemed to have a pretty good sense that they wanted to do a massive international market push for Final Fantasy going forward (no more skipping games for release) and the engine was built pretty flexibly to let any developer or translator do some simple scripting to insert new dialogue boxes. This would be a godsend for any translator because Japanese is extremely compact in written form, while English often isn't, so this could theoretically free them from the tyranny of character limits forcing whole emotional nuances out the window. However, the harried official translator of FF7, who I don't think has ever been officially identified (Ted Woolsey has left the building; no more big personalities like that in the translation process), didn't have the time for tools and care like that, so for most of the game we are apparently still subjected to character limits. The Reunion has no such limitations, but of course you can get into the romantic notion of something being lost there... I think I'm going to end up playing a considerably slower paced game than you, Omi, even if I end up getting more information.
But now on to the real meat of stuff that raises eyebrows about any translation: names!
FF7 has a long list of names and transliterations that have sparked fan arguments for years, as I'm increasingly learning digging into The Reunion's documents and Discord. The fact is that most of these have seen no intervention from Square Enix over the years, and they in fact seem surprisingly loyal and trusting to the poor overworked bastard they originally got as a translator; I'm pretty sure there's only one major name where they've put their foot down and forced a change on in all future spinoffs and the Remake, and I'm pretty sure everyone here already knows what it is.
But we're not here yet, so let's start with where The Reunion is starting fights. The Reunion in fact has three optional text replacement settings that will go back and change back names in three categories (names, places, and series-staple things) to their "canon" selves. I'm actually going through these with a fine-tooth comb and adding as I come across things in the translation where maybe the original rushjob was fine or more fun. It's actually a kind of fun research game in itself!
So, to start (aside from the aforementioned all-caps organizations) we have a massive one: Shinra, or should I say, Shin-Ra Electric Power Company.
Yes, apparently based on the logo alone The Reunion decided to translate our main antagonists into a hyphenated phrase. I hate this one and it went immediately into the "change it back" file. It makes one of the most common proper nouns in the game into a chore to read, making the name seem like something you always have to over-emphasize instead of it rolling off the tongue. The logo is never that clear a texture in-game anyways and Square Enix changed it instead of the name in the Remake for a reason.
So, for one I don't mind as much... Barret has acquired an extra t and become Barrett. This is apparently based on some pre-translation Japanese materials showing it spelled that way, but also... it does suddenly convey the etymology of his name (the Japanese transliteration of the English word "bullet") through informed cultural references. "Barrett" is a relatively widely-known for gamers firearm manufacturing company, known for high caliber anti-materiel rifles. It's also just a way more common spelling of the same English name. I can live with this.
Now, for a minor terminology difference... Midgar's "Sectors" are retranslated as "Districts" and the "no." in front of Mako Reactor numbers is removed. These were apparently naming elements introduced as a light punch up from the translator knowing this was supposed to be a sci-fi ish game... and you know what, I like them too. These also get activated on the change-back system (well, not the "no.", I think that's a bit too hard to work with a simple text replacement system this works on, but "Sector" definitely better conveys that this a dark, militarized city where the corporation has basically corralled everyone).
Ohhhh, and here comes some real fun that will probably be the bulk of my commentary on translation choices: enemy names. There's a lot of them, and apparently cultural references and puns abound in the list that result in some very debatable translations.
So to start, what are we calling these bog standard troops? The answer in the original Japanese is a kind of uninspiring... "Guards". Yeah, these are basically named in a way to convey that they're the modern-fantasy equivalent of guys with big round helmets and long spears shouting "stop, thief!" The original translation actually accomplished a fairly fine punch-up here by calling them "MPs", as in military police, which fits the setting pretty nicely by implying these are just the law enforcement branch of a larger Shinra Army.
However, that kind of contradicts the material itself, and especially the Remake where author intent seems clearer that these guys are literally just militarized cops, part of Shinra's "Peace Preservation" or "Public Security" department. They're not quite military personnel because Shinra relies on the robots or Soldier to do actual military things. The Remake will call these guys "Security Officers", but that's kind of a mouthful.
Personally? I went into the basic encounter list of the retranslation mod ("Guard" is way too broad for the text replacer, it might catch some other simple things in the script like the verb form or generic references) and renamed them and their variants "Security". A shorter and snappier phrasing of the Remake option.
Then, what do we call these weird blue-suited guys with claws? What they even are has apparently been very ambiguous and freaked people out for years. Are they robots? Trained monsters? Just guys acting weird? The Remake's Enemy Intel option (and giving them dialogue) clarified, finally, that they're normal Human beings given cybernetic suits and "pharmacological agents" to turn them into superior troops for Public Security. Their name, however, is complicated.
Their original, "pure" name in Japanese is "Sentō-in", which a little research reveals to me to be the actual legal-military term "combatant". This is what The Reunion's retranslation goes with. The original translation, however, calls them "Grunts". Why the sudden slide from legal terminology to slang? Well, this might actually be an area revealing that the translator did not have a bad understanding of the terminology even if he was rushed. "Sentō-in" is not just a legal term, it's also common terminology in Tokusatsu shows for the basic costumed henchmen that heroes like Kamen Rider or Super Sentai beat up. Given their weird movements and full-body suits, these enemies are almost certainly references to that archetype, and calling them "grunts" was actually a fairly smart attempt to convey context to an American audience whose only mass exposure to Tokusatsu superheroes at that point, with much less internet access than we have today, would have been the first few seasons of Power Rangers. The Remake, in comparison, really loses something by just trying to make them threatening and calling them "Shock Troopers".
I, personally, can go either way on Combatant vs. Grunt because the former does have a much more technical ring to it and sound like the kind of anodyne, benign terminology a corporation would apply when creating drugged up cyborg cannon fodder. I decided it wasn't worth making any changes in the files.
For these little guys, the changes are minor. In the original, that turret looking thing is a "1st Ray", while the Retranslation decides the original kana were supposed to mean "Fast Ray", and the Remake decides that it should be more literal and call it a "Sentry Ray" (all the fixed weapon emplacement enemies are going to be renamed to variants of "sentry" to fit with the trope of "sentry guns", but both translations for the original game just call them by the type of gun they are). The floating eye thing is basically the same in both versions: "Mono Drive" or "Monodrive"; pick your poison on what spacing makes it look snappier.
This boss's name in both translations is "Guard Scorpion", although the Remake decides to go off the rails by calling it "Scorpion Sentinel". I leave it up to everyone if that's an okay change for the fun of alliteration.
Without old-school random encounters, what we have is a series of guards rushing to intercept Avalanche in groups of two or three at a time and getting obliterated by this twink just walking through them.
Notably, because battles aren't using pre-rendered backdrops, their backgrounds are much simpler and more sparse than the rest of the game - but that in turns means the game can move the camera around, which it does with glee; every battle has a cinematic affect as the camera swoops around the battlefield, zooms in on opponent, changes the perspective, and so on. Here's casting Bolt:
Reminds me of when the mainline Pokémon games went 3D. Suddenly the game designers went "OMG, we have angles now!" and the camera started zooming all over the place.
On the other hand, nuclear reactors involve water pools that glow blue from Cherenkov radiation, which this could be a reference to - it might be water around the actual Mako drainage/engine. Unclear at this time. But, notably, this green glow is similar to the embers around the Flower Girl's face in the intro.
Okay, so this is where I might as well get into something that always makes me uncomfortable with FFVII's purported environmental themes, and might as well get into it now that we're frontloaded with Mako Reactors and the moral dimensions of eco-terrorists bombing this infrastructure.
FFVII is extremely of its time and home country in basically focusing its environmental/anti-corporate politics on an anti-nuclear screed. The '80s and '90s were rife with this imagery of the problem of pollution being glowing green stuff released from giant power plants run by evil old men and their amoral nerd technocrats.
Now, in America on the online left of the Millennial and Zoomer generations, I get the sense that this has basically been properly understood as a bad depiction that didn't get at the real problems. We know now that the real pressing emergency when it comes to the environment and the health of the biosphere is climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear is, even if in the hands of the same greedy energy corporations and raising questions of waste disposal, basically on the same scale of minimal carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated as any of the more "wholesome" power sources like solar and wind. When people refer to FFVII as a game about bombing fossil fuel companies or pipelines or whatever, we're projecting our new politics onto the game and the past.
But in terms of content and background? I think it's hard to avoid that FFVII's intended parable is that nuclear power is poisoning the planet and is the target that needs to be beaten to save it. The blue-to-green glow of Mako resembles Cherenkov radiation and just the terminology of reactors and imagery of these big evil smokestacks (evaporative cooling towers on real nuclear plants) is meant to all evoke the 20th century environmentalist terror at big industry and working with fundamental forces "beyond our station". In Japan and Europe, anti-nuclear politics are still very animating on the nominal left as parties like the German Greens brag about shutting down all their countries' reactors (to be replaced with annihilating swathes of countryside to extract the dirtiest-burning coal on the planet) and the Japanese left, always out of power but vocal, calls for similar closures out of fears of repeats of Fukushima.
And I have some discomfort at specifically calling the latter case and this game out because... well, as an American, Japan is the one country I grant some understanding to in terms of not criticizing their anti-nuclear reflexes. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki create some instinctive groundswell to associate anything even smelling of the atom with full body burns, radiation sickness, destroyed cities, and the United States. I think it's still dumb on an objective societal planning level to write even civil power generation off like that, but that is the sort of thing where people can be forgiven for prioritizing history and feelings over rationality.
With the Euro Greens, though, I'm fine calling them ecofascists and useful idiots for the coal and oil lobbies.
Read through this with a big smile on my face. Some of the bits that I would have commented on have already been brought up by other people. To expand on this though:
Select is called "Assist" on the controls. Press it in battle and it'll open up the tooltip Etranger mentions (which should really be default on) but you can also press it outside of battle and it'll bring up arrows over entrances and I think ladders, while a second press will put an icon over your character's head (or was it the other way around). You don't need to press them for every screen or battle at least, they'll stay on once turned on, so that's nice.
Haven't played VII so I don't have anything to say for the moment, but one would think that tail line would have been corrected sooner than later for later versions. If I had played during the first years of release and that was what I had to expect from the translation (dunno how it was for the Spanish version) I would have returned the game to the shop, fuck the memes.
Or how about in the Reactor entrance, when we get our introduction to what Mako is and why it's bad? There, Barret in the original translation asks bluntly if Cloud has ever been in a reactor before, while the retranslation makes it a more roundabout "You've been in a reactor before, right?" He also specifies in the retranslation that most people have "no clue" about what Mako really is.
This is one of those 'they actually translated it right the first time' bits, much like a lot of your post, AFAICT; there isn't really any way to ask questions directly in Japanese that isn't perceived as, like, brutally impolite, and while Barret's fairly direct that's probably not presented with direct questions in the original Japanese. Next you're going to tell me they kept in all the repetition of what people just said by the other person in the conversation that's a staple of standard Japanese (and why the Codec calls in Metal Gear Solid are so fucking long and tedious and memeable).
Honestly reads like the Retranslation is just... bad?
Unrelated, I think a fascinating comparison with Final Fantasy VII's aesthetics is the original Wild ARMs, which was released about a month before FF7. It retains the 'traditional' top-down isometric 2D look for the overworld/non-combat sections, in a way that looks very GBA Harvest Moon, with pseudo-3D effects on the sprites and backgrounds. Instead of increasing in detail in combat, you end up with little sorta chibi blob people and low-poly monsters. The spritework is beautiful, though, and the whole game fit on 1 disk, as opposed to FFVII's 3.
Next you're going to tell me they kept in all the repetition of what people just said by the other person in the conversation that's a staple of standard Japanese (and why the Codec calls in Metal Gear Solid are so fucking long and tedious and memeable).
So it looks like you didn't install any of the QOL mods the thread recommended, which means this is going to be a worse experience than the pixel remasters.
I'm not here to see you suffer needlessly, so I'm out. See you in ff8.
I mean, it's a Final Fantasy game? The only one so far that could be described as 'needless suffering' is FFII, with its weird opaque levelling scheme and bonkers scaling. Unless you just dislike JRPGs, in which case you're in the wrong thread anyway.
So it looks like you didn't install any of the QOL mods the thread recommended, which means this is going to be a worse experience than the pixel remasters.
I'm not here to see you suffer needlessly, so I'm out. See you in ff8.
I mean, it's a Final Fantasy game? The only one so far that could be described as 'needless suffering' is FFII, with its weird opaque levelling scheme and bonkers scaling. Unless you just dislike JRPGs, in which case you're in the wrong thread anyway.
I think "you wiped to a boss? OK, go back three hours and do the whole dungeon again" can be fairly described as needless suffering, as was discussed a few times before.
I haven't played FFVII, so it's entirely possible the placement of save points is much more sensible, though. Certainly, the first one being right before the boss room is encouraging.
Quite possible! I'll admit I went and checked the wiki for a few of these to make sure of what they were supposed to be, and that said it was a wins drake, but I can also see it being Syldra.
I think "you wiped to a boss? OK, go back three hours and do the whole dungeon again" can be fairly described as needless suffering, as was discussed a few times before.
I haven't played FFVII, so it's entirely possible the placement of save points is much more sensible, though. Certainly, the first one being right before the boss room is encouraging.
Admittedly it's been at least a decade since I played FFVII in full, but from what I remember save point placement is generally fine? I mean just for comparison, FFV/FFVI are the most recent games with save points and have generally had one near bosses, so FFVII probably keeps to that philosophy.
I think "you wiped to a boss? OK, go back three hours and do the whole dungeon again" can be fairly described as needless suffering, as was discussed a few times before.
Just get good at Slots and OHKO everything bro, it's ez.
But honestly, having replayed most of 7 over the past few months, the saves are decently placed. It helps that this isn't a very hard game overall, so the frustration from reloading mostly comes from having to mash through textboxes or redo the actually challenging content: the minigames.
Just get good at Slots and OHKO everything bro, it's ez.
But honestly, having replayed most of 7 over the past few months, the saves are decently placed. It helps that this isn't a very hard game overall, so the frustration from reloading mostly comes from having to mash through textboxes or redo the actually challenging content: the minigames.
Thats not the real challenge Omi will face. The real challenge is the sitting through the "devs drunk on newfound creative freedom of new medium" tedious late game attack animations, IIRC
FF7's save points are generally reasonably spaced, from what I recall of playing it about ten years back. Granted, I was turbo-grinding so I never actually lost a given fight, but anyhoo.
Thats not the real challenge Omi will face. The real challenge is the sitting through the "devs drunk on newfound creative freedom of new medium" tedious late game attack animations, IIRC
Thats not the real challenge Omi will face. The real challenge is the sitting through the "devs drunk on newfound creative freedom of new medium" tedious late game attack animations, IIRC
COUNTERPOINT: Every single rasterized VFX and super bitcrushed sound of of a summon playing out, all while the combat theme goes wild in the background is pure nostalgic bliss injected directly into the pleasure centers of my brain.
