Almagest's ROM Hacking Blog

Sorry I took this long to post this. Not only I had to take 150 screenshots or so of this game, but I had to edit each one of them and convert them all to .png format. Some of the screenshots had to be taken again because I forgot to turn off ePSXe's bilinear filtering (I intend to post some of these at Romhacking.net also, and according to their rules, screenshots must be in native resolution and without any filters).

Well, here's the infamous "father/dad" scene. This specific part of the official translation felt so unnatural it turned into a joke.

"No, genius, I mean your mom!"

Fei sounds so stupid here, lol. But was this part truly accurate?

グラーフ

「ふふふふ。

　……似ておるな。父親に。

Guraafu

「Fufufufu.

......Niteoru na. Chichioya ni.

"Fufufu" is typical villain laughter, but at times it can represent a girl giggling ("tee-hee"). 似る (にる, niru) means "to resemble/look like".

フェイ

「父親？

　親父？

　お前、親父を知っているのか！？

Fei

「Chichioya?

Oyaji?

Omae, oyaji o shitteiru no ka!?

Both 父親 (ちちおや, chichioya) and 親父 (おやじ, oyaji) mean "father", but there's a little difference between these two. 親父 is like calling one's father "old man", like Tidus does in Final Fantasy X. In Japanese, Tidus calls his father "oyaji" ("my old man"). So Fei's line is quite accurate, and that is the problem. So I had no option but to change it.

New version:

I think I'll miss the original line though. lol

And below's an example of blind translation:

Which Gear, Fei? What are you talking about?

Fei's supposed to be talking about the Gear he's piloting in this image, Weltall, but the original sentence in Japanese had no pronouns indicating distance (aka demonstrative pronouns).

フェイ

「その為に……

　俺をギアに乗せる為だけに村を襲った

　というのか！？

Fei

「Sono tame ni......

Ore o Gia ni noseru tame dake ni mura o osotta

to iu no ka!?

As you can see, there are no この (kono, "this"), その (sono, "that") or あの (ano, "that") in the sentence above. They're supposed to be next to a noun (e.g. このギア, kono Gia, "this Gear"). And below's the correction:

Another interesting difference I noticed was Citan's line below. It was hard to take a screenshot of it, because the game doesn't let you read it completely, despite there being a piece of code that lets you press X. I think it's a bug, I don't know.

Is Citan really being pessimistic here? Let's take a look at the original:

フェイ

「お前は……

　ラハンの！

Fei

「Omae wa......

Rahan no!

シタン

「やはり……

Shitan

「Yahari......

やはり (yahari) is something along the lines of "I knew it" or "as expected", so Citan was confirming his suspicions, and he somehow knew Graf. The translator(s) at Squaresoft didn't misread this line or anything, this change was done on purpose. Why? I don't know.

New version:

Citan is such a suspicious character, always acting strange and making such remarks.

I found this part weird at first. Is God a female? Any religious person in our world refers to God as "Him", never "Her". Did Graf really say "Mother God"?

フェイ

「俺の力が必要だと言ったな？

　力を得てどうするつもりだ！

Fei

「Ore no chikara ga hitsuyou da to itta na?

Chikara o ete dou suru tsumori da!

As you can see above, in Japanese, we don't actually need question marks to make a question. This led to numerous mistakes in the translation including "What!". lol

グラーフ

「知れたこと。

　母なる神を……

　滅ぼすのだ。

Guraafu

「Shireta koto.

Hahanaru Kami o......

horobosu no da.

母なる (ははなる, hahanaru) does mean "mother", and it's generally used to refer to Mother Nature or Mother Earth, but not exactly one's mother ("mother" is simply 母 (はは, haha)). The new version is:

And here's more:

Official version:

Fei sounds a bit like an atheist here, saying "your god". Or maybe, he simply doesn't share the same religious beliefs as Graf. But is Fei truly irreligious? Did he actually say "your god"?

フェイ

「か、神を滅ぼす？

Fei

「Ka, Kami o horobosu?

グラーフ

「そうだ神を滅ぼすのだ。

　それが我等が目的。

　我等が天命。

Guraafu

「Sou da Kami o horobosu no da.

Sore ga warera ga mokuteki.

Warera ga tenmei.

There should be a comma after "sou da". Even the Japanese script wasn't safe from typos.

フェイ

「ふざけるな！

　俺はそんなもんに手を

　貸す気はさらさらない！

Fei

「Fuzakeru na!

Ore wa sonna mon ni te o

kasu ki wa sarasara nai!

フェイ

「神だか何だか知らないが、

　そんなに滅ぼしたきゃ

　お前一人で殺ればいいっ！！

Fei

「Kami da ka nan da ka shiranai ga,

sonna ni horoboshita-kya

omae hitori de yarebaii!!

Fei didn't say お前の神 (omae no kami, "your god"), just 神 (kami, "God/god"). So he believes in the same god as Graf after all.

New version:

"To do someone in" is informal and means "to kill", so I decided to go with that.

And here's one more:

The same line in Japanese:

フェイ

「くっ……

Fei

「Ku......

This may have many meanings, but I think Fei was going to curse here, but he hesitated. One can infer that the swear word was くそ (kuso), which literally means "shit", but has the same impact as "damn" or "dang". The new version: