"One to be born from a dragon..." -- Let's Play Final Fantasy II

It's more like it's cool to know about and experience all the stuff we missed out on. I think any perceived persecution is just that.

Who said anything about "persecution"? I'm talking about asshats who made it their life's goal to lurk on RPG forums or in chatrooms and post things like, "Ah-ah, don't you mean Gilbert?"

Well, I now know what I'm going to do once you get EdwardGilbert in your party.

I have a friend who, before "Aerith" was the official translation, always changed Aeris to Aerith, because that's how it was in Japanese, despite Aerith sounding pretty dumb. It was the only name he'd change, because he wanted to go by the original. Seemed pretty silly to me, to get that worked up over it.

Yeah, those sorts are annoying. But then, pretty much anyone who takes a position of smug superiority is going to come off as irritating to those who don't agree with them. Hell, even to people who DO agree with them.

I have a decidedly more practical approach than most when it comes to old favorites. I've never held any game to be "sacred". Even the ones that gave me satisfying experiences as a child I refuse to look back on with rose-tinted nostalgia goggles. If a game can't hold up by newer standards, I won't keep it on a pedestal; I'll just keep my fond memories of it and acknowledge that it really would never be like the first time around for me again anyway.

I'm sure that sounds terribly depressing to some people. At least FF4 (and for comedy effect, FF2US) still holds up for me.

They should be beaten with a rusty Super NES. But personally, playing FFV for the first time made me incredibly sad I didn't get to play it in its proper context; I would have appreciated FFVI much more if I'd known what had come before in 1994.

i knew a dude who would only call ff6 heroine tina. i needled him all day forever about it, cause frankly, terra's a cooler name.

coolness is always the deciding factor for me.

it's hard with Sabin/Mash because both of his names are dumb!

Which is why Sabin should be named "Guile."

Their loss.

Meanwhile, latecomers like me get to sidestep the issue altogether. VIII was my first, so of course I'm going to want to look at it in terms of system rather than cinematography, where you can see a pretty linear progression up until IX.

Although, as I've said before, since we had no way of knowing that the Game Boy games weren't part of the overall series, those complicated things. I'd beaten Legend 1 before playing FF2, and then played Legend 2 in the lengthy wait for FF3. So I did kind of have the same distinction between "system" games and "cinematic" games, just with the GB games filling in for 3 and 5. To me, knowing nothing better, it felt as though Square had moved the FF1-style games to the Game Boy since that's what it could handle while the bigger games were on the SNES.

The worst (and they're all pretty awful people) are the ones who insist on the spelling "Marl". That's not... that's not even a name. Marle is.

I say Aeris because Aerith sounds pretty derpy.

To me it just thoundth like you've got a lithp.

It is sort of interesting to reflect on how the internet has affected the way we look at games, and their history and suchforth. I played and loved Final Fantasy back in the day. But when I read the article in Nintendo Power, their description of the ATB system made it sound like an action game, and so I avoided FFII (and the SNES) for quite a while.

I loved Final Fantasy Adventure, as was very excited about a tease for Final Fantasy Adventure 2 in the back of another Nintendo Power issue. When Secret of Mana eventually came out, I had no clue what it was and never played it.

All of my game information came from Nintendo Power and the Enix newsletters. Now, we have webpages teasing release information for a year before a game is released, and we can look up on message boards and news articles to see how it fits into the release history of a series, and what it'll be like and such forth.

Yup. I remember the first time one of the subbers who are anal about that got their hands on an episode of Gundam Seed, changing Asuran (a dumb name, but at least one that sounds somewhat normal) to Athrun (which sounds like you're spitting out a pumpkin seed). Sometimes aesthetics are supposed to trump accuracy.

Chun Li
Guile
Dan
Blanka
Ken
Ryu
Dudley
Cammy
Sakura
Vega
Zangief
Dhalsim
Mog Bison

... Oh dear.

My God, Setzer looks just like Lando. I'd never noticed it before.

I really don't have much of a problem with name changes these days. Gilbert to Edward's more of a six characters thing, but really ol' Eddie McGil's been called Edward long enough that switching him back to the Japanese name at this point would be weird.

While we're talking about name changes, I pretty much like the changes in the Dragon Quest games. Angelo? Easily superior, Kururu's a really stupid name. Robbin' Hood? Well, Kandar wears a hood and steals things, so it fits. Nevan? At least it doesn't sound like some kinda tea like Chamorro does. Ashlynn? More exotic sounding than Barbara. Nera? Kinda unnecessary given Flora, but what the hell?

Carver, though? I can understand why he got a name change, but yelling "HASSAN CHOP!" when he attacks won't be quite the same. Oh well.

I am so stealing this for when I do my embarrassing save files thread one day. (Preview: my friend was really into rap when he played FF3!)

Here's the right answers, Parish.

Practically every character could be named Tupac. Think of the possibilities!

Eh, what the hell? Crew named after Dragon Quest characters and monsters. It's not perfect, but it might be interesting.

*Or whatever he'll be called in DQVI DS. Could sub Psaro instead.

**I thought of doing Maribel, but I couldn't think of a compromise for six letters. Maybe (Mari).

Please tell me he renamed everyone into Wu-Tang Clan members.

And I like Balrog's lineup a tad more, but Han's closer to Locke than anyone else.

Okay, I'm going to have to fire up my cart and make this thread now.

No, sorry, those are terrible and don't map onto the characters' actual roles at all. And Padme didn't even exist when FFIII came out! What the hell!

See, I really did use a bunch of those names in my first playthrough of the game, without knowing anything of the plot, simply because I was at the deepest point of my obsession with Star Wars in 1994 and though "Vicks and Wedge" was a hilarious and amazing coincidence, not a legitimate (albeit mistranslated) reference. When Han and Leia became an item and Lando unearthed the Falcon, I knew I had chosen wisely.

Super NESes don't rust. After 100 years you can still use them as bullet shields without even disrupting the game they're playing!
I felt this way when I imported Seiken 3. Even though I got it only seven months after its Japanese launch and cruised through most of the game with walkthroughs, the fact that I couldn't read the text and didn't know anybody else for miles who had the game made me feel like I was still missing out. I did show it to whoever was interested and even lent it to a friend, but it's not the same as knowing that everybody in town who's interested in it is going to get it.