Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: "douglaslol"this ff have the onion knight or dark knight from psp?

Do not want.

Hi folks; first post!

Our webmaster approves of my humble attempts at sound novel translation and has invited me to the site.  You guys sure are devoted to this game; I'm looking at all the material on here -- wow!

I translated three of the sound novels almost a decade ago.  At the time I thought my work was really excellent, and still think so compared to the official PSX translation, but by today's standards it's just ordinary.  Still, check them out and see what you think:

www.geocities.com/tuffydabubba

(They were written using -- I think -- Netscape 4 or 5, so I hope the HTML is still OK.  You're supposed to be able to click on links and move to other parts of the same page.  You should also be able to listen to the music, if you have an ancient copy of Winamp and a minipsf player. ^_^;)

I'd love to put these things into a future "Complete" FFT.  I think they'd fit right in, and they were a lot of fun to play.  Questions, comments, and criticisms welcome!

Ah, it has no need to be in a future version, I'd say it would fit exactly with this version, the head leader of the project, Cheetah found the books on his own and reactivated them for us. (Sorry for repeating info. as seen in the sent PM)

Announcement: New Team Member

I would like to introduce everyone to our new translator Heian! We have known about and enjoyed his translations of the sound novels for some time, and I would go so far as to say that they inspired me to make this hack. I have been conversing with him for a while to see if he would join the team in the attempt to finally play these sound novels in English.

So lets here some feedback on the current translations so we can all make them the best that they can be for the final release.

And welcome, welcome, and welcome Heian. Great to see you here and I hope you enjoy it.

My hat is off to the new member of the team. I expect great things from you.

Do we have a general release time for the next update?

*applause*

>_>

Ah! Welcome! It's very nice to see Heian involved in this project. I read his translations ages ago & thought they were very good indeed.
I'd say the only thing that would be in order is to re-localize the wording to match the new style. Huzzah! ^_^

Awesome--more team members should mean even more progress, right? Congratulations Heian and the whole FFT:C team.

You bring up an interesting point Vanya. I'm not sure the books should actually try to emulate the old english style of the rest of the game for a few reasons.

1) Books generally have better grammar and used more refined language than speech.
2) The books are from different time periods often and thus the style of speech could be very different.
3) I think it would be more effort than it would be worth and might come off as more than a bit cheesy.

But I would like to hear what other people think and if Heian wanted to give it a try I would be very happy to see what he comes up with.

Some emulation of the speaking habits would be nice, but it certainly doesn't have to be overkilled.  If it can blend with the rest, it would be fine.  If it's not easy/convenient enough, then oh well.

I was thinking about point 2 when I wrote that, Cheetah. I think it is at least implied that all the books are from earlier time periods in Ivalice's history. You're totally right abut your other to points, though.

I'm so excited about this project I've put my own work on hold until it's done. ^_^

You put your own work on hold!? If you are going to do that then you might as well help us. Actually, I have a perfect task that would use your skill set perfectly Vanya. It would be relatively easy and non time consuming as well. Interested?

Sure. What's up?

Sweet, the books look great Heian, wonderful to see a new team member, I still can't wait to see this thing completed!

I'm flattered to see that people have read and enjoyed my work!  I had a lot of fun writing them, too; especially Tango's story in Nanai's Book of Lives.  It was a pleasure to figure out what you had to do in that story and then do it and get the very happy ending.  Mesa's sci-fi novel (er, "fantasy magience" novel) was a little too straightforward, and Oeilvert was unnecessarily difficult, with some arbitrary choices and too many dead ends.

I actually think the best candidate for a old-style-speech-based translation would be the one I didn't do, the Tales from Enavia.  That story has the feel of something set in one of the Ivalician castles that make up the main story, whereas the others (Nanai in particular, and possibly Mesa's) seem to take place in other, more technologically advanced, happier lands.  Might it not add to the atmosphere of the game to see these other parts of the world conversing in a modern register while FFT's part of Ivalice remains stagnant and archaic?

Oeilvert could go either way, though I have no idea how I could replicate Pablo's extremely cheesy French accent in an archaic style!

I'd like to keep them as they are -- author's pride in his original work, and all that -- but maybe have a go at doing Enavia in the WotL style.  I *love* that style; it really makes the game come alive.

I must confess complete ignorance as to how this project is actually being done.  Does someone have raw data files with the sound novel text still into Japanese, over which I could paste the English text?

I've got a full-time job and PhD courses to juggle, so I don't have lots of time to work on this stuff.  Any progress I make will be in fits and starts.

And Trismestigus, is that Hermes the Thrice-Great that you're named for? ^_^;

I couldn't find the quote online and am too lazy to actually look it up, so I paraphrase-
"My intended name was to be Trismegistus, to counter the unpleasant circumstances of my birth and my low lot in life. Due to the unfortunate drunkenness of my uncle in filling out my birth certificate, the name was truncated to Tristram, meaning sad, making my unfortunate future that much more palatable."
So to answer your question...yeah, mostly. I do love me some Thoth.
And in order to make this post at least a little relevant, I agree that since the books are from different time periods they wouldn't necessarily be written in the same affectation as the rest of the game.

I like your thinking Heian. I especially like the idea of trying Enavia in WotL style. Perhaps after you do you will see the other books slightly differently. It is a good thing you like the WotL style since it is a major part of this project.

Don't worry, we will do all tech work and save your time for concentrating on the translation bit. I will send you an email with the script in a format that should be pretty easy for your to understand and insert your translations. I will explain more in the email.

Agreed. That is a good plan for Enavia & the others.

As I mentioned to Cheetah on IRC, redoing Oeilvert in WotL style would be quite difficult, given all the French. Enavia would be a very fun one to localize, however.

Heian: I emailed you the info, tell me if you don't get it.