...copyright Squaresoft 1994. The images used are also from the game. Don't go claiming them as your own or anything silly like that. This document is not intended for any commercial purpose, real or imaginary. It exists primarily out of curiosity about both the Japanese language and the changes between the Japanese and English versions of the game. If you're interested in the game, go out and buy it if you haven't already... a summary of what happens can't compare to actually playing it. One of the best SNES games, best console RPGs, and (arguably) best games, period, ever... despite a number of odd bugs.

Recent Updates

27 Feb 2011 - I know I've made some changes to the monster data section, but I'm not sure what else might have changed since the last update.

21 Aug 2010 - Vastly improved monster data section. More revisions. Attack traits are now color-coded as well.

05 Sep 2009 - Some more revisions, an extra chapter or so of story text, some boss tactics. Also designed a new layout for monster data and converted a few to the new format. Let me know what you think.

07 Apr 2009 - Minor cleanup, mostly fixing misspellings. Also made the status effects page less ugly.

16 Jan 2009 - More sizable updates, this time with the storyline text fully redone from scratch to complement the redone battle text. Changeable names now appear as the default name in { } braces (unless I've missed some in the text already here). I made an effort to standardize terms ahead of time, so consistency shouldn't be a problem, unlike in all too many translations. Working from dumps affects the NA version text formatting considerably, because the raw NA script rarely uses manual line breaks, instead depending on the game engine to break lines up automatically (this is not good programming practice, by the way, but space considerations may have been involved). On that note, my translations now all have manual line breaks wherever appropriate, which makes the formatting look much nicer and also line up with the JP text better. In any case, all this results in at least minor changes to every last page in the section.

07 June 2008 - Scrapped "thaumaturgy" for 魔導 in favor of "sorcery", and gave the term its own section below. Added more details to item, skill, and magic information, Cleaned up formatting, various revisions. I took my dumps of the in-battle text, put them in a spreadsheet, and translated every line in it from scratch, mostly with better results than what I had previously done, so combat dialog is especially affected.

Storyline

Incomplete:

Non-Story Information and Translations

Weapons

Armors

Other Items

Spells

Genjuu (Espers)

Player characters and skills

Status effects

On 魔導, the Single Most Aggravating Term in the Game

魔導 (madou), in which the kanji mean "magic" or "demon" and "guide" or "derive", is a very common term in this game, but it's not in any normal dictionary. Throwing it in Babelfish gives "demon derived", and while the "demon" part seems off in this case, "derived" makes some sense.

A keyword search on Hatena gives 魔導師 as another word for 魔法使い or 魔術師 (both of which mean "magician"), but with more of an exalted or evil feel to it. That would make 魔導 a synonym for "magic", but with perhaps more of a grandiose or evil connotation to it. Furthermore, other Final Fantasy games often refer to magics as 白魔導 (white magic), 黒魔導 (black magic), and so on.

Since it basically means "magic" but is used as a distinct term with a subtly different meaning in this game, any decent translation needs a distinct and subtly different term in English too. I went with "thaumaturgy" for quite a while, or "thaumaturgic" or whatever form was appropriate. It's a less common synonym for "magic", and while Magitek is less cumbersome, there's no "tek"nology in 魔導. I never really liked the term, though. Additionally, as pointed out by OrdosAlpha, thaumaturgy literally refers to the working of miracles, so is perhaps not the best choice for what the Empire is doing (though the term actually has nothing to do with the Empire and everything to do with the Genjuu). I basically just wanted a general word that means "magic" without actually using the word "magic", and while "devilry" or "the occult" might be more appropriate, the connotations are too obvious in my opinion. Most other possible terms are either too specific (augury, conjuring, etc.) or too colloquial (hocus-pocus, etc.).

And then it recently (late May 2008) hit me: Sorcery (with the adjectival form "sorcerous"). Duh. It means "magic" but is a distinctly different word, it has no strong or obvious connotations, and it's both more familiar and less cumbersome than "thaumaturgy" (not to mention easier to spell, no pun intended). The term is especially apt here since it has an association with wielding supernatural powers by the aid of spirits.

Various Notes

• I've kept the layout of the original text as much as possible. This now includes halfwidth katakana where appropriate. The JP version text normally has a hanging indent after the first line by the same speaker, but will often remove the indent partway through longer blocks of text after the message window clears. I mirror that usage, while the NA version text doesn't use handing indents at all.
• Lines that are colored like these are my comments, gold denotes actions and such that the dialog doesn't explain, and this teal is for messages from the game (e.g., "You got a potion").
• If I'm not too comfortable with how I translated something, I've put a * after it. A (*) stands for something that I can't figure out even well enough to guess.
• Trying to come of with English approximations of name suffixes doesn't work too well, and it doesn't seem right to drop them, so I'm just leaving them as is in most cases. If you need an explanation, go here: name suffixes.
• Characters shown in color in a heading are required at that point, and those in black and white are available but not required. Only the characters present at the beginning of the section are shown in the heading. It is possible for there to be no required characters and/or many optional characters, but the party must always have at least one and no more than four members. Since experience points are divided among characters, traveling with a smaller group can be useful, but there's also safety in numbers. Your choice, except when the game forces a particular party on you, which is rare after the first part of the game.
• Since your party can vary, so can the dialog. There are places where I'm missing dialog because not everyone who could have spoken up was with the group when I played through. I'll try to go back and add the other possibilities later, but right now I'm just trying to work through the game. Script dumps help with this problem, but don't give any information on when the text appears, so it's still an issue.
• The section headings indicate the setting, not the scene; the links in the contents are the reverse.
• Original (JP version) text, my translation, and the official English (NA version) translation are displayed side-by-side in columns for easier viewing, and to allow comparisons.

I make several references to the now semi-infamous "evade bug". The short explanation of the bug is that when the game decides whether an attack hits or misses, it *always* checks magic evasion even when it *ought* to check (physical) evasion. As a result, most attacks against most monsters will always hit (since the vast majority of monsters have 0 magic evasion), all bonuses to evasion are completely worthless (greatly limiting the usefulness of shields), and characters with high (at least 128) magic evasion are nearly invulnerable because they dodge everything that can be dodged. The same bug also prevents 'darkness', other status ailments, and accessories from affecting hit or evade rates.

Credit goes to Terii Senshi's Algorithms FAQ on GameFAQs and to Lord J's FF3us Multi Editor (which also works on the Japanese version) for some of the more detailed and technical information on items, magic, and so on, and to Brian Bennewitz's Translhextion as my preferred text dumping program.

E-mail comments, corrections, etc.

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