TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:20:00 GMT

It's rare that we give much thought to the good men and women who turn our video game text from "YOU LUCKY ARE WINNER!" to something dignified. But where there are exceptions, there is the potential for small wars. By far one of the most controversial names in game translation and localisation is Mr Ted Woolsey.

Ted Woolsey translated many of Square-Enix's best-known 16-bit works, including Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario RPG. To give you an idea of how divided gamers are over this gentlemen, consider that Woolsey hasn't done any substantial translation work since the death of the Super Nintendo but his name alone makes people jump up and down like testosterone-driven baboons.

TV Tropes has a long and rambling Wiki entry about Woolsey, his followers and his haters. For the sake of a quick crash course, Woolsey was (in)famous for adding his own voice to his translations. This "voice" gave us something to smile at in the place of Japanese puns we couldn't understand (except for purists who can't understand why we don't think sound-alike sushi name jokes are funny). His voice also added a good deal of depth to what was, for most of us, an epic story. Final Fantasy II US had an okay thing going with illegitimate moon brothers or whatever, but Final Fantasy III US--or Final Fantasy VI, if you prefer--took on themes that were unheard of and still go largely untouched by RPGs today. Woolsey had to convey Terra's identity crisis, suicide, unwanted pregnancy and the friggin' Apocalypse while keeping the game text family friendly.

Oh, and he wasn't allowed to make references to anyone dying, even though Kefka remains the only Square villian who killed people like bugs for the sheer joy of it.

Woolsey was especially grand at balancing his own jokes with the original source material. Working Designs' games, as well as some fan translations, often slash and burn the Japanese story for the sake of a cock joke. Excessive swears is usually a good indication of translators taking things a bit far. "Kuso" is an all-purpose Japanese curse that shows up everywhere, but it's relatively mild ("Damn" or "Shit", depending on your mood). Things rarely get raunchier than that. Contrary to popular belief, Japan is aware of which games and shows are meant for children, and it acts accordingly.

By the way, Final Fantasy VI Advance did an excellent job touching up Woolsey's translation while keeping its friendly ghost alive. I recommend it because Woolsey was forced to cut a lot of the game text due to space constraints. Admittedly, there's some stuff there you could probably do without seeing...like Emperor Ghestal's suggestion that Celes mate with Kefka to produce magic-infused progeny for his new Empire. Go ahead and take that one to bed with you.

Related Links:

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FMV Hell: Lunar, The Silver Star

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:07:00 GMT

Time once again for a brief look at the Sega CD games that made us women and men (if you're currently a twenty-something, I mean).

The full-motion video in games like Lunar, The Silver Star is unique stuff for a few reasons. First, it was an unfiltered assault of glittery, shojo-eyed anime during an age when most game localisers struggled to hide any cultural evidence that video games indeed come from Japan. Of course, Working Designs is still known for taking some, er, extreme liberties with their own translations and localisations, but by God that's another tome for another night. All you need to know is that Lunar saw its US release in 1993, ages before Pokemon made anime mainstream (bonus fact: anime became mainstream in Canada in 1996, thanks to Sailor Moon recieving an after-school time slot).

The intro for Lunar is also made special by its...lack of animation. Maybe we were too busy drooling on the television screen at the time, but when you watch Sega CD intros in today's age of a thousand frames per second, you begin to notice that the "cut scenes" that wowed us over a dozen years ago are little more than kindergarten-grade cut-outs with pinned, movable limbs.

I'm being a little cruel, however. Lunar might not be the best-aged RPG out there, but like Sonic CD, it contains a lot of heart. And the voice acting, though nothing spectacular, is still a few notches above the horrors that would assault us on the Playstation five years later.

Still, a friend of mine claimed that the singing practise scene in Lunar (about 5:40 into the video) beat the hell out of the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI.

I'm...I'm really not sure about that.

Related Links:

Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This Is Going
FMV Hell: Sonic CD

61 Frames Per Second : localization

TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"

FMV Hell: Lunar, The Silver Star