I mean going purely by the NPC naming conventions, Alexandria is basically quirky fantasy not-Germany.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I mean going purely by the NPC naming conventions, Alexandria is basically quirky fantasy not-Germany.
- Location
- Spain
Or they were all deployed to different places to have the highest chance to find the runaways.
After all they probably wouldn't be expecting that some rando thieves could win against elite agents, so why sent all in one group?
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- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
Hm, and in that hypothesis, perhaps Zorn and Thorn were roaming around, summoned somehow once this Black Waltz found them, and arrived during the combined time spent unconscious and then fighting to observe the end? Though that'd require them to have some means of remote communication, which I don't know if they do... though, actually, given the party was inside the cave, maybe it was something as simple as the Black Waltz sending up a magical flare outside.
Hm. Actually, I wonder if another of them was at North Gate, and just didn't spot the party there? Though if Alexandria had other forces present, maybe they'd not have bothered.
- Location
- Malaysia
Alexandria's side of the North Gate is ominously calm, if they are indeed currently at war with Burmecia. Not even a guard in sight too. I'm not sure if that's because of the console limitation or Alexandria is confident that no Burmecians will ever breach the gate.
Sure they have the Ice Cavern, the Mist and the Evil Forest as bulwarks against aggressors from the north, but to provide literally zero guards is highly suspicious because someone needs to report if there is a break in there.
Also, how high up is Alexandria to not be touched by the Mist at all? We haven't seen any indicator of the city being protected by any magical defenses outside of the Bomb Cannon.
Sure they have the Ice Cavern, the Mist and the Evil Forest as bulwarks against aggressors from the north, but to provide literally zero guards is highly suspicious because someone needs to report if there is a break in there.
Also, how high up is Alexandria to not be touched by the Mist at all? We haven't seen any indicator of the city being protected by any magical defenses outside of the Bomb Cannon.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Music notes:
This update covers two new themes (I'm not counting the regular fight or boss fight music) which I'd like to talk about a little bit.
The first is the Overworld Theme "Over the Hill." Arguably the best Final Fantasy overworld theme (VII gets an honorable mention with its soaring melodies contrasted with dark and brooding themes. As does FFVI World of Ruin, for distilling desolation into a haunting music track). The name is fitting, as it evokes a sense of gentle rolling hills, seas of swaying grass, of content exploration on a pleasant sunny day. The instrumentation is wonderfully mellow and is perfectly chosen to convey peaceful serenity. It's not flashy, but it doesn't need to be.
The Ice Cavern also has a really neat track. I love the intelligent of percussion to evoke the sense of an echo-y cavern. This is also a trach which does such a great job of showing how rests can be just as important as pitches/sounds because of the space the rests create. About the only thing I'm not...particularly keen on for this track is the use of the synth which I can only describe as, "the goose sound from the Mario Paint music creator." It's a very particular 80s sample and I have no idea why Uematsu was like, "This. This is exactly the sound I need to restate the melody which will complete this track." But that being said...it kinda works? I can't think of anything to replace it that wouldn't be worse. So, uh, good job Uematsu I guess
This update covers two new themes (I'm not counting the regular fight or boss fight music) which I'd like to talk about a little bit.
The first is the Overworld Theme "Over the Hill." Arguably the best Final Fantasy overworld theme (VII gets an honorable mention with its soaring melodies contrasted with dark and brooding themes. As does FFVI World of Ruin, for distilling desolation into a haunting music track). The name is fitting, as it evokes a sense of gentle rolling hills, seas of swaying grass, of content exploration on a pleasant sunny day. The instrumentation is wonderfully mellow and is perfectly chosen to convey peaceful serenity. It's not flashy, but it doesn't need to be.
The Ice Cavern also has a really neat track. I love the intelligent of percussion to evoke the sense of an echo-y cavern. This is also a trach which does such a great job of showing how rests can be just as important as pitches/sounds because of the space the rests create. About the only thing I'm not...particularly keen on for this track is the use of the synth which I can only describe as, "the goose sound from the Mario Paint music creator." It's a very particular 80s sample and I have no idea why Uematsu was like, "This. This is exactly the sound I need to restate the melody which will complete this track." But that being said...it kinda works? I can't think of anything to replace it that wouldn't be worse. So, uh, good job Uematsu I guess
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Ngl, if that's the level of criticisms you bring against FFIX, it may very well be the best mainline title.
I get that you believe it drops the ball, but you should probably wait until it hits the ground before you make your case, you look petty otherwise and unwilling to extend the game the benefit of the doubt.
Like, Garnet keeping mum about her reasons to arrange her own kidnapping? Makes perfect sense considering the heroes have just escaped several different mortal dangers and have only enjoyed relative safety for mere moments. I, too, wouldn't want to launch into what's sure to be an emotionally difficult conversation before at least reaching the village and getting to an inn.
It's possible, of course, that Garnet will continue keeping her secrets well past that point, which could become an actual problem, depending on her reasons or lack thereof and other characters' reaction... Which is when it would be perfectly appropriate to criticize the game.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Maybe monkey-people are resistent to mist-related afflictions, like the cold sleeping mist the Waltz used. Or it could be as simple as his Spirit being higher and thus the status effect lasting less; that'd be the explanation for certain characters recovering faster than others from particular status effects in battle. There's a multitude of possible reasons, the fact that we don't know them at the start of the game isn't a sign of anything other than our lack of knowledge about the setting and the character in what is the game first baby dungeon.
We know, from the introductory movie, that Alexandria is sitting on top of a waterfall. @Omicron didn't show it, but if the player turns around and looks at the evil forest once entering the world map, it can be seen that the forest is sitting at the bottom of a waterfall falling down into it. Alexandria is above the mist, that's how it doesn't get touched by it.
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- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
My inability to find a Japanese script for the game has led me to rather convoluted methods to alter my Steam version of FFIX to display Japanese. I've just started the game (again) myself, up to the very first save point (as Vivi before seeing the play), so it might be a while before I catch up.
Thankfully the Memoria mods seem to work with this Japanese script method, so I can have the benefit of JP text and the "do not bother me about the minigames" cheats.
In the meantime, a few mildly interesting notes:
Cinna and Marcus, as befits their role as "quirky minor side characters", have their own speech tics. Marcus is yet another "-ssu" character, which had been Wedge's verbal tic in previous games; to reiterate, it indicates a casual roughness, slurring the ending "desu" to simply "-ssu". English translations like to turn it into "dude" or "pal".
Cinna is a Japanese dialect taken to extremes for the sake of "quirky characterization". He uses "-zura" as the sentence ending, and "oira" to refer to himself, which makes it the Tokai-Tosan dialect. This is something of a middle ground between the "standard city" Tokyo dialect, and the "deep rural" Tohoku dialect. So Cinna would be the sort of person who says stuff like "I tell ya hwat" or "bless your heart", except he uses "-zura" all the time, so again it turns into caricature, like most of Final Fantasy's attempts at a non-standard Japanese dialect that isn't Kansai.
The play the Tantalus crew are performing is "君の小鳥になりたい", which the English script says is "I Want To Be Your Canary", while the Japanese script is "I Want To Be Your Little Bird", species unspecified. In English, Vivi's fake ticket is for "I Want To Be Your Crow", while in Japanese, it's "きみの子猫になりたい": "I Want To Be Your Kitten". Possibly the change is due to the difference in Japanese being just one kanji, "bird" for the real name and "cat" for the fake name. Meanwhile, "Canary" and "Kitten" have a much more noticeable difference at a glance than "Canary" and "Crow".
Also the first word is different between real and fake, but only in Japanese: 君 and きみ. Which is literally just the same word in kanji or kana, so I don't know if it's supposed to be another indication that Vivi's ticket is fake, because normally people would just glance at it and assume it's the same; think of it as case-sensitivity or lack thereof.
カバオ is the katakana for what is likely 河馬男, literally "hippo guy". The walkthrough I'm consulting says his name in English is "Hippaul", which works as well as any.
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While a bit different due to ATB vs MMORPG, we've seen Heat, Freeze, and Trouble in FFXIV too. The first two are relatively common mechanics in recent boss designs, usually called "Pyretic" and "Deep Freeze" (or some such variation on "Freeze"). Pyretic means "any action including moving will cause damage ticks", and Deep Freeze means "keep moving or taking actions or your character will freeze in place and not be able to take any actions". Boss encounters like to alternate between these two, often in quick succession, as well as make players have to deduce which mechanic is happening based on spellcast name or boss posture.
Trouble is likely 迷惑 "meiwaku", which is the generic word for "causing trouble" or "being a nuisance". This can range from "talking too loudly on public transport" to "dropkicking passers-by on the street" and more (ie stuff that have been charged under the Public Nuisance Ordinances). In FFXIV, this means "whatever mechanic the boss does will now emit from the player characters". In FFIX, replicating damage taken by self to other party members would fit the idea of "being a nuisance".
Thankfully the Memoria mods seem to work with this Japanese script method, so I can have the benefit of JP text and the "do not bother me about the minigames" cheats.
In the meantime, a few mildly interesting notes:
Cinna and Marcus, as befits their role as "quirky minor side characters", have their own speech tics. Marcus is yet another "-ssu" character, which had been Wedge's verbal tic in previous games; to reiterate, it indicates a casual roughness, slurring the ending "desu" to simply "-ssu". English translations like to turn it into "dude" or "pal".
Cinna is a Japanese dialect taken to extremes for the sake of "quirky characterization". He uses "-zura" as the sentence ending, and "oira" to refer to himself, which makes it the Tokai-Tosan dialect. This is something of a middle ground between the "standard city" Tokyo dialect, and the "deep rural" Tohoku dialect. So Cinna would be the sort of person who says stuff like "I tell ya hwat" or "bless your heart", except he uses "-zura" all the time, so again it turns into caricature, like most of Final Fantasy's attempts at a non-standard Japanese dialect that isn't Kansai.
The play the Tantalus crew are performing is "君の小鳥になりたい", which the English script says is "I Want To Be Your Canary", while the Japanese script is "I Want To Be Your Little Bird", species unspecified. In English, Vivi's fake ticket is for "I Want To Be Your Crow", while in Japanese, it's "きみの子猫になりたい": "I Want To Be Your Kitten". Possibly the change is due to the difference in Japanese being just one kanji, "bird" for the real name and "cat" for the fake name. Meanwhile, "Canary" and "Kitten" have a much more noticeable difference at a glance than "Canary" and "Crow".
Also the first word is different between real and fake, but only in Japanese: 君 and きみ. Which is literally just the same word in kanji or kana, so I don't know if it's supposed to be another indication that Vivi's ticket is fake, because normally people would just glance at it and assume it's the same; think of it as case-sensitivity or lack thereof.
カバオ is the katakana for what is likely 河馬男, literally "hippo guy". The walkthrough I'm consulting says his name in English is "Hippaul", which works as well as any.
-----
While a bit different due to ATB vs MMORPG, we've seen Heat, Freeze, and Trouble in FFXIV too. The first two are relatively common mechanics in recent boss designs, usually called "Pyretic" and "Deep Freeze" (or some such variation on "Freeze"). Pyretic means "any action including moving will cause damage ticks", and Deep Freeze means "keep moving or taking actions or your character will freeze in place and not be able to take any actions". Boss encounters like to alternate between these two, often in quick succession, as well as make players have to deduce which mechanic is happening based on spellcast name or boss posture.
Trouble is likely 迷惑 "meiwaku", which is the generic word for "causing trouble" or "being a nuisance". This can range from "talking too loudly on public transport" to "dropkicking passers-by on the street" and more (ie stuff that have been charged under the Public Nuisance Ordinances). In FFXIV, this means "whatever mechanic the boss does will now emit from the player characters". In FFIX, replicating damage taken by self to other party members would fit the idea of "being a nuisance".
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now you say this as if Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV hadn't come out in 2016 as a full-fledged 1h50 animated movie with a (limited) theatrical run
i'm guessing people memory holed it along with much of the game
Weirdly enough, no! The tutorial ATEs get the flashing ATE signal, but it has grey highlights instead of blue, and it launches automatically immediately after appearing. So you can't skip them, though you can tell the moogle big bro "thanks that'll be all" immediately after the dialogue menu opens if you're on a replay.
So some ATEs are unskippable. Weird system.
Yeah, this is something I brought up in the past during VII and VIII. Both games explicitly have in-setting means of accessing magic that are part of the reason why the playable characters are so powerful. In fact, "using GF Junctions in combination with paramagic" is explicitly why SEEDs are so powerful.
But because that means full character customization, including the possibility of no character knowing any magic, the game doesn't have protagonists use magic in cutscenes. And that's... Weird and frustrating, because within the narrative, having access to that magic is why they're so powerful. But as soon as we quit combat, all our characters are just decently athletic teenagers.
It's a problem with the construction of the game's narrative, in my mind, and why having characters who are explicitly mages and so can be written to use magic to solve problems in cutscenes is much more satisfying.
It's weird, no lie.
I was initially going to shrug it off as like, "well, now that Trance has been established, I guess everyone can just do it with no explanation required," but in fact there is an upcoming scene which has a character go into Trance at a dramatically chosen time very soon! They could have had Trance unlock for characters based on narrative concerns (for instance, Steiner could have unlocked Trance against Plant Brain after seeing Garnet unconscious and captive), but they decided to just do a weird middle ground where it unlocks simultaneously for everyone but some characters do also get a particular scene for it.
That's a fair point that I hadn't considered, mainly because it seemed pretty clear that Black Waltz N°1 was going to kill everyone except Garnet, Steiner included. But it theoretically could have also saved Steiner while he was at it. And even if it hadn't, Zidane going "btw there was a spooky black wizard that was trying to abduct Garnet but also it was definitely trying to kill you as well you shouldn't work with them" would have been a weird line to thread.
See, I'm curious. The VII and VIII map didn't use fog. The VIII was also clearly more elaborate than the VII one, but... Is the IX map that much larger than the VIII one that they had to use fog for hardware reasons?
I'm wondering this because some places are fog-free, like that mountain we just landed on at the end of the last update. And the name "Mist Continent" suggests that there are other continents that aren't covered in Mist.
So to what extent is it a hardware trick, and to what extent is it just a narrative choice? I'm curious to find out as we go further.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
I was waiting for you to get to the next town after the Ice Cavern before mentioning this, but now that you have, it should no longer be a spoiler to say that you can, sometimes, choose which ATE to watch.
Usually, you can trigger new ATE by moving between areas, and this will usually also allow you to watch any ATE you didn't choose to watch. However, less noticeable is the fact that some ATE are exclusionary; if you don't choose to watch them, or you move certain areas, you are no longer able to watch them. This matters because certain ATE (especially those which are "missable" in this manner) will modify certain areas (such as which dialogue and which hidden items you can find there) if you watch them before you reach that area.
So... ultimately, the ATE system is a way for the player to make choices that affect their environment alongside with deciding how much incidental lore they're interested in learning. While the mandatory ATE are just plot events.
As for whether that's good or bad, it really depends on how much a player values the ability to affect the environment versus getting more story details.
The Remaster graphic make it real obvious that there is something REALLY fucky going on with Blank's face.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm more distracted by staring directly into the abyss that is HD Cinna. Those eyes look a lot creepier on a visibly fleshy face than they do in Vivi's shadows
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
In all fairness, I'm also using the Moguri mod (mostly out of habit, rather than because I particularly like it), which claims to HD upscale everything. From what I can tell, the majority of the upscaling is for the environment textures, so I don't know how much the critter textures (ie characters, NPCs, enemies) are changed.
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More notes from the Japanese script, up to just before the Ice Cavern:
I'm honestly not sure how significant this is. Here, Rat Kid is telling Vivi (as yet unnamed in this prologue) not to be so scared of falling.
The part which caught my attention is Rat Kid says "ビビんなよ", which is an unremarkable (if casual slang-y) way to say "don't be scared". And this is one short walk away from the scene where we get to name Vivi.
As mentioned before in this thread, Vivi's default name in Japanese is ビビ, which we've seen the French (and possibly other) translation transliterate as "Bibi". Thus, if I might read far too deeply into this, it's possible Vivi's default name is due to Rat Kid telling him "don't be ビビ (scared)", and then asking for his name. At which point Vivi might say his name is ビビ (Vivi/Bibi), because he is ビビ (scared) despite Rat Kid's assurances.
It's a weird and very Japanese play on words, and I don't know if it's just a coincidence. The naming screen does not draw any attention to it, and Rat Kid just goes "that's a weird name" no matter what the player names Vivi, even the default.
It's just a thing which has the faintest shadow of a possibility of being relevant, and I can't blame translators for assuming it's only a coincidence.
Garnet's speech patterns are very obvious, at least right now (up to the Ice Caverns, which I haven't done yet). She speaks very politely and formally, like the princess she is. Her personal pronoun is "watakushi", which is archaic and used largely in ceremonies with princesses, queens, and other female nobility. Her grammar also contains all the pretty formalities like "-kashira". The English translation makes her sound properly formal and aristocratic.
Meanwhile, Steiner talks like an old-fashioned and outdated military man. He clips the end of his sentences firmly rather than letting them trail off or slur, even when he's yelling at his subordinates to go put on some clothes. He uses "-de arimasu" and "-de aru", which is officious-sounding and pompous. He also uses "-nu" rather than "-nai" for negative statements, which again makes him sound old-fashioned.
Incidentally Steiner's "Master Vivi" is "ビビ殿": the "-dono" term of address is again old-fashioned, often used in pop culture by samurai and others of that time period.
Ruby's inexplicable "US Southern" accent in English is, as might be guessed, Kansai dialect in Japanese. If I had to guess, I'd place it at the faster-talking Osaka variation, rather than the gentler Kyoto. Her personal pronoun is "uchi", which is in katakana here (to indicate a rougher tone) but becomes hiragana in her Mognet letter later.
I suppose some speculation may be had on why Ruby has a Kansai dialect when nobody else on the Tantalus crew has one, even when Cinna and the orchestra members have a Tokai-Tosan or Tohoku dialect (the orchestra uses "oira", but not "-zura").
Speaking of Ruby's letter:
Ruby's dialect accent is still there in her letter, which seems to be toned down in the English translation. She also specifies she met "an interesting person" in the Alexandria 城下町 "joukamachi", which translates to "castle town": the part of the city around the castle/palace, but not involved in the castle as such. So the bits of the city Vivi was running around in the prologue, rather than Alexandria Castle.
Mosco's comment is not "sounds like a nice girl", but "That Ruby person has a strange way of talking." The way he says it implies Mosco read Ruby's letter as well, although I'm not sure if he did so while we were also reading it, or if he opens other people's post.
In English, Zidane says "I shall hereby do my best to kidnap you!", while in Japanese he sounds much more formal. It's a full knightly vow, which makes sense as something Zidane would be familiar with from the stage. He's clearly making a performance out of this, in a lighthearted way.
In the Japanese version of the game, area names have both Japanese and English names. So "Evil Forest" is what the devs intended 魔の森 to be, evidently.
The tutorial Moogles are "Mog-jirou" and "Mog-tarou". As in 二郎 and 太郎, which are name suffixes meaning "second son" and "first son" respectively. So Mog-jirou ("Moggy" in English, apparently) is the "student" to his older brother Mog-tarou.
This screenshot is also the impetus for my wanting to check the Japanese script, because of this bit:
In Japanese, this is 魔石力. Taken literally, it's "magic stone power".
Veterans of this thread may recognize the first two kanji, 魔石. Which has been, until now, consistently translated as magicite, courtesy of FFVI and Ted Woolsey.
I can imagine the dilemma translators would have here. 魔石力 is a term which has a straightforward translation, "magic stone power" or "magic stone" as the English translation seems to go with... but FFIX is a game which allegedly calls back to previous Final Fantasy games, as a nostalgia trip. Thus, "magicite" or "magicite power" would also be valid, due to FFVI, and "magicite" is a distinctly Final Fantasy term.
Now that I think about it, this does remind me of another Square game that did exactly that with unlocking your limit break super forms - Legend of Dragoon. In that game, you'll totally get party members who don't have access to the titular Dragoon powers for multiple hours of gameplay, maybe even a full disc, until finally story events come together to go "Here's your magical dragoon crystal" and they get their magical girl transformation sequences.
Which on one hand, story-gameplay itegration, that's nice! On the other hand, it's been forever so I can hardly confirm but I can totally see it being a pain to use party members who don't have access to their full kit, especially since Dragoon transformations are far more integrated than Trance/Limit Breaks are. IIRC, magic is also tied to Dragoon forms, so you don't even have spell access (including healing) without it. FFIX wouldn't have it anywhere near that bad, but I could still see party members getting passed over by players if they don't have their trance unlocked.
- Location
- Spain
Uhhh.... magicite in VI are the crystaliced souls of dead supernatural beings
And in IX you get magicite juice by killing monsters
Well, it seems you were wrong Omi. The party is leveling up by eating the souls of their enemies.
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- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
NGL, had to google that. I think I recall hearing about it once.Now you say this as if Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV hadn't come out in 2016 as a full-fledged 1h50 animated movie with a (limited) theatrical run
i'm guessing people memory holed it along with much of the game
I was actually really impressed by Kingsglaive's graphics when it came out if not so much the story.
Honestly, Adloquium, what would we do without you.
The obvious choice is to name Vivi "Rat Kid", purely out of spite.
The obvious choice is to name Vivi "Rat Kid", purely out of spite.
What is she supposed to say? "No Steiner, you're being a fucking idiot, obviously it's Alexandria that's gone to war?"
Everybody else realised what was going on, so it's not like Garnet is the only one who knows what Alexandria is doing.
And what is there to explain about not returning to the castle? She ran away, she obviously feels she has valid reasons for doing so, and again, everybody but Steiner knows that.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Those breakdowns are a delight as ever, @Adloquium. I'm glad they're back.
Unlike some of the "didn't even try" past efforts, it's notable to me that the game does take effort to have Garnet use a relatively sophisticated register, and then change it for a more casual vibe when requested, but that these are still fairly low-key in both respects. She does stuff like "use contractions" and "use will instead of shall," but I wonder if a more modern localization wouldn't have gone all in on having her talk in Shakespearian English and using thee's and thou's in her formal speech, then a more modern register in her casual speech.
Unlike some of the "didn't even try" past efforts, it's notable to me that the game does take effort to have Garnet use a relatively sophisticated register, and then change it for a more casual vibe when requested, but that these are still fairly low-key in both respects. She does stuff like "use contractions" and "use will instead of shall," but I wonder if a more modern localization wouldn't have gone all in on having her talk in Shakespearian English and using thee's and thou's in her formal speech, then a more modern register in her casual speech.
Somewhere in Japan, Koji Fox awakes in a dead sweat at the concept of a Final Fantasy with theatrical pretensions *not* having character that speaks like they just stepped onto the Globe Theater stage under the watchful eye of Queen Elizabeth. Realistically though, I don't know how well that would play off juxtaposed against everyone else; it'd honestly just make her sound like Urianger, who's intentionally meant to come off as a freakazoid. For it to work, I think you'd have to go the route of FFT WoTL and punch up the entire translation so that everyone is speaking in heightened dialogue, and that might kill the breezy charm of someone like Zidaine and muddle scenes where they *do* intentionally use more Shakespearean syntax like, well, the big play in the opening.
EDIT: You could probably split the difference and have her speak like she wandered out of a Regency era novel or something though and not lose the intended effect.
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daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A funny detail here is that Thee/You is the T/V distinction, so is she addressed people with Thee it has the same grammatical function as if she was the only one using Tu when everyone else is using Vous.
Thee and Thou are archaic, but they are almost definitionally less formal.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Figured I might as well get through the Ice Caverns, and have caught up to Omicron's playthrough.
I'm actually mildly impressed by the English translation of Garnet's speech thus far, especially since it seems to take into account the changes as she gets used to her travelling companions. As might be expected, she becomes more casual and direct, while also always being direct when speaking with Steiner. She still uses the princess-like speech patterns, but not quite as full of formal distance.
Making it Shakespearean would be tricky; Garnet doesn't really talk like the characters in FFT, since while she's polite and refined, she's also not really poetic in the same way Agrias was. The closest comparison would be Ovelia, perhaps raised one step; while Ovelia speaks like a lady trained in being polite in aristocratic company, Garnet speaks like she is polite as an aristocrat. It's a subtle and minor difference, and I can only describe it as how Ovelia sounds like she was taught, while Garnet sounds like she's naturally used to it.
Taking an example from just after the Ice Caverns:
Not only does Garnet use the "watakushi" personal pronoun, she also has the "-desu wa" (and later "-mashita wa") ending. In pop culture this is basically the starter pack for the Noble Rich Girl character type, who is perfectly suited for playing the Villainess Duke's Daughter and goes "o~hohoho". As we've seen, Garnet is a gentler sort, but she sounds like a typical noble girl.
(This line is when Garnet says "The only other worlds I've visited are in books", if it matters.)
So this line would become something like "My, I've only imagined such sights from the stories I read in my books." Extra additions of words and grammar to a simple statement, rather than a quicker and more casual sentence.
This is a good translation. Dagger says "ええ、やってみます", for which "I shall try" is a good equivalent; the beginning is a sound of acknowledgement, but refined, so perhaps an "Indeed" or "As you say" might work too.
Zidane's suggestion is "うん、がんばる", where the sound of acknowledgement is casual, equivalent to "yeah". がんばる is the standard "I'll do my best", but since it's just the word itself with no added grammar like subject or object, it sounds much more casual too. "Alrighty" is probably a bit too uncommon in my opinion, and I would have gone with "Yeah, got it". However, "Alrighty" is what Zidane thinks Vivi might say, so maybe he's giving an example from Vivi's vocabulary, rather than a generic "this is casual" example.
I'm actually mildly impressed by the English translation of Garnet's speech thus far, especially since it seems to take into account the changes as she gets used to her travelling companions. As might be expected, she becomes more casual and direct, while also always being direct when speaking with Steiner. She still uses the princess-like speech patterns, but not quite as full of formal distance.
Making it Shakespearean would be tricky; Garnet doesn't really talk like the characters in FFT, since while she's polite and refined, she's also not really poetic in the same way Agrias was. The closest comparison would be Ovelia, perhaps raised one step; while Ovelia speaks like a lady trained in being polite in aristocratic company, Garnet speaks like she is polite as an aristocrat. It's a subtle and minor difference, and I can only describe it as how Ovelia sounds like she was taught, while Garnet sounds like she's naturally used to it.
Taking an example from just after the Ice Caverns:
Not only does Garnet use the "watakushi" personal pronoun, she also has the "-desu wa" (and later "-mashita wa") ending. In pop culture this is basically the starter pack for the Noble Rich Girl character type, who is perfectly suited for playing the Villainess Duke's Daughter and goes "o~hohoho". As we've seen, Garnet is a gentler sort, but she sounds like a typical noble girl.
(This line is when Garnet says "The only other worlds I've visited are in books", if it matters.)
So this line would become something like "My, I've only imagined such sights from the stories I read in my books." Extra additions of words and grammar to a simple statement, rather than a quicker and more casual sentence.
This is a good translation. Dagger says "ええ、やってみます", for which "I shall try" is a good equivalent; the beginning is a sound of acknowledgement, but refined, so perhaps an "Indeed" or "As you say" might work too.
Zidane's suggestion is "うん、がんばる", where the sound of acknowledgement is casual, equivalent to "yeah". がんばる is the standard "I'll do my best", but since it's just the word itself with no added grammar like subject or object, it sounds much more casual too. "Alrighty" is probably a bit too uncommon in my opinion, and I would have gone with "Yeah, got it". However, "Alrighty" is what Zidane thinks Vivi might say, so maybe he's giving an example from Vivi's vocabulary, rather than a generic "this is casual" example.
- Location
- Somewhere between the stars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Please excuse me if i'm wrong, but that feels kinda weird. It's not like the ATE comes with a indicator of what they are going to have in them, besides the title name, correct? So as a new player, you'd not know whom this ATE is going to be about, nor what kind of enviromental change it's going to have. Being mostly a reader, this doesn't feel very inutive, though in gameplay perhaps that is different?
I guess it comes back to the idea that this was a game meant to be played with a guide? As far as i've understood from the comments i've read so far.
On that note, it's really interesting to see a protagonist who's actually pretty socially competent. We haven't had that in any of the 3D games so far, and the 2D sprites didn't involve that much character interactions to the extend that the more modern 3D games do. Though, in the same vein, the game so far seems to have had a pretty split opening between Steinar, Zeindar, Vivi, with Garnet coming as a secondary(I'm guessing on purpose, because we don't know if she's escaping just to be free, or if she got a greater goal/reasoning in mind and the game wants to be coy with that).