I am extremely curious what will happen to the EN script of the game if the leaks around a Remaster are legit.
On the one hand, we know that the Squeenix EN of today is clearly in continuity with Reeder and Slattery's approach to WotL; a lot of its dialogue is reminiscent of XIV's writing style.
On the other hand, there seems to be a lot of little nuances that have been papered over by the WotL translation applying the same archaic, theatrical writing style to all dialogue for most of its characters. I would be wholly unaware of these nuances between which characters get assigned the more theatrical style in Japanese and which don't without your overview, and the fact that 'launching into a Shakespearian soliloquy' is something that characters do sometimes in a very noticeable way, rather than being their basic, default way of speaking at all times, is really interesting and could be brought out in EN with a slightly different approach to the translation as well.
It's really helping me see why Return to Ivalice was framed around the device of a theatre troupe! This sounds like a play someone is performing!
A lot of the poetry in the dialogue is through using certain techniques common in Shakespeare's plays, and probably in theatre plays in general.
An example is repeated phrases. The Shakespeare example is Shylock's soliloquy in Merchant Of Venice, where he goes "has not a Jew eyes" etc, and "if you X us do we not Y". In FFT, the example that comes to mind is Argath's speech to Milleuda, where he goes "From the moment you were born, to us nobles you are X" twice. Oddly enough both the PSX and WotL translations seem to ignore that repetition, choosing to rephrase each sentence.
There's also a lot of rhetorical questions followed by firm statements. Stuff like "on seeing this, do you not doubt?" or "Have you never thought about X?". Hence my comparison with Richard III: "Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her, but I'll not keep her long."
The only reason I can't quite say it's
totally Shakespearean is the lack of poetic meter. Which is understandable, given the multiple languages involved.
Final Fantasy Tactics really does feel like it's written deliberately to evoke a stage play. (Or a musical, as was suggested.) To the point where if this is not actually intended, I would be
very surprised. FFXIV going with the Majestic Theatre Company as the framing story now makes perfect sense, with the knowledge of how the FFT script is written. I'd even recommend everyone reading or playing along with FFT to always imagine and keep in mind how it's a stage play, reading the dialogue in those terms; the tone is
that clear.
I've been a little disappointed with both the PSX and WotL translations for flattening the tone, lower for PSX and higher for WotL. Because as you mentioned, different characters speak in different ways, and sometimes the same character speaks in another tone depending on whether they're in the spotlight orating to the audience. I don't like the PSX translation because it removes
all of the theatrical flair, but the WotL translation also turns certain minor NPCs (eg the nameless bandits) into caricatures; they're demented panto characters going "wee moppets" and "don't be leaving no squealers behind".
I know I keep bringing up Chrono Trigger, but it does have a positive example of different tones of faux-archaic speech: the updated (ie not SNES or PSX, but the ports to DS, mobile, and PC) translation has NPCs in the Middle Ages time period speak in the faux-archaic style, but knights and civilians speak entirely differently, as do knights and common soldiers. It's the difference between the high "What fevered fantasies writhe within your addled mind?" and low "I've no time to suffer fools".
Personally I'm guessing the hypothetical remaster of FFT will likely stick closely to the WotL translation, entirely because it's already there. Maybe they'll add in the ability chants, since we know some of them have been translated for FFXIV Return To Ivalice. Which is a shame, because I'd love to see another reworking of the script to take into account the different speech styles between the characters.
Did you oplay the 24-man raids of FFXIV Stormblood?
Omicron has technically played the FFXIV Return To Ivalice raids, but he also
remembers basically nothing about the story.
www.cavesofnarshe.com
