Final Fantasy VIII - Localisation Review (9)

This is an entry in a series of posts looking at the localisation of the beginning segment of the game, Final Fantasy VIII. You can find the first post here. Thanks for reading!

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	Japanese	English
Seifer 1	１９００時……あと３０分しかない！３０分で【海岸】まで！走れ！	1900 hours...We only have 30 minutes! You got 30 minutes to get down to the [shore]! Better run!
Selphie 2	あ！自分だけズル～い！	Heeey! Wait for us!
Zell 3	あいつ、オレたちをなんだと思ってるんだ！	Who the hell does he think he is!

1. Seifer's final remark in English uses the word "better" (as an auxiliary verb) to advise Squall's party to run. It comes off as a fairly light remark, as if Seifer feels that getting to the shore within this time will be a kind of game. In contrast, his Japanese dialogue is closer to a direct order (by using the imperative verb form). Literally, it would be, "Run!" I prefer the game's English because it compliments Seifer's previously established attitude of not taking the mission seriously.

2. The situation here is that upon realising the need to quickly get to the shore, Seifer takes the elevator alone without waiting for Squall's party. In the Japanese, Selphie reacts to this by exclaiming that it's unfair/sneaky of Seifer to ride the elevator alone. She uses the word zurui (ずるい), a term often used when someone does something selfish that seeks to only benefit themselves. It's tough to convey this in English as making her spelling spelled this out would be unnaturally verbose. For example, "Heeey! Riding the elevator by yourself isn't fair!" However, given that Seifer's behaviour occurs right in front of Selphie, I think it'd be fine to shorten her dialogue to, "Heeey! That's not fair!" I think such a translation comes closer to preserving Selhpie's criticism of Seifer that is present in the Japanese.

3. The English translation reverses the Japanese. It reads, "What does he think we are?" I can't come up with a strong reason for why the translation reserves the sentence's focus. Moreover, I think there is reason behind the way the Japanese focuses on Zell's complaint of Seifer's perspective of him. In the gameplay leading up to this point, Seifer frequently made light of Zell (calling him a chicken-wuss etc.), so this dialogue can be seen as Zell again airing this grievance he has towards Seifer. If I was the translator here, I would add to the translation I provided to make it read, "What does he think we are? Chopped liver!?" For anyone unaware of this expression,  Wikipedia notes that the expression "signifies frustration or anger at being ignored on a social level." Is this not a perfect fit for the situation!?

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	Japanese	English
Zell 4	おい、今のうちに逃げようぜ	Let's get the hell outta here!

4. First of all, I love the translation of the Japanese verb nigeyou (逃げよう) (the verb meaning "to escape" in its volitional form) as "get the hell outta here." I initially thought it would be preferable to use the word "escape" because using the game's terminology would more effectively nudge the player to escape from the battle, which is what is intended to happen in this situation. However, I checked the gameplay footage and found that after Zell delivers this line, a dialogue box appears and directly tells the player how to escape from battle, which is a big enough hint for the player. I don't think the translation is perfect though; it doesn't convey all the information of the Japanese. Zell says, "Hey, let's get the hell outta here while we still can!" I think this extra text exists for a reason; it alludes to the fact that the boss regenerates its health and will attack the party again. I think this nugget of information deserved to be included in the translation.

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	Japanese	English
Zell 5	壊れてなかったのか！？	I thought we already busted that thing up!?
Squall 6	かまってるヒマはない！行くぞ！	Forget it! Let's go!

5. Zell's remark is slightly more concise in Japanese. He just says, "It wasn't broken!?" To dig down into specifics, the Japanese uses an intransitive verb, whereas the English uses a transitive verb. I don't think this difference in verb is a big deal, but I do think that Zell's English dialogue is too long. The context for this comment is that Squall's party fought the above pictured machine and though they thought they had defeated it, the machine healed itself and attacked Squall's party again. I would prefer a conciser translation akin to what I provided at the start of this paragraph because it would convey a greater sense of surprise on Zell's part. Indeed, I think the Japanese is intentionally short as a way to convey this feeling.

6. This line provides an interesting contrast to the above point, because this time the Japanese contains the more verbose line. Squall says, "We don't have time to care about that! Let's go!" Given that Squall's party is in a race against time to get back to the shore and are also now being attacked by a machine they thought they had already destroyed, I think a shorter line is more fitting. Moreover, despite its brevity, "forget it" perfectly conveys the meaning of the Japanese.

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Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above points or Final Fantasy VIII's localisation as a whole, so please comment if you've got something to say. 

If you enjoyed this post, I bet you'll like the next post in this series:
http://www.localireview.com/2015/05/final-fantasy-viii-localisation-review.html