The Version Question

[Bolivar]

Ok so my girl finally beat FFV for the first time last night and she's ready to move on to VI. When she asked me which way she should play it, I told her it's like birth control, that we should sit down and discuss it, together (lol).

So I figured I'd shop the idea around here since I know a lot of people have had a lot of things to say about them.

So here's the thing. I wanna say the PS version is out because I want her to have a really great time playing it and the load times are terrible. She even tested out the intro last night and remarked "wow" on how long it takes to get to the menu, which I know can be a pain when you get into the meat of the game and you're constantly using potions, switching espers, and changing equipment.

But you can play co-op on the PS version which is a plus since I helped her beat FFV this weekend and it was a lot of fun.

Which is really the only reason to not get the GBA version. It's getting very expensive right now, and I can only imagine the price will go up as the game gets rarer. But she'd be able to take it with her, play it on a TV with the GBA player, and even not have to use the Gamecube controller b/c we just got the connector. Plus I've seen lots of praise on here for the translation, with the exception of the brutality in the Celes jail scene. Can I ask if the suicide scene is censored in any way either?

Mostly I just want her to enjoy the game, so I can do without co-op as long as the game isn't toned down that much.

My optimal decision right now is to get some kind of A/V cable for our computers and play the RPGOne translation by ChrisRPG(R.I.P.) and SkyRender. I haven't played the GBA version yet but I'm sure this will still be my favorite version of the game. It's an extremely literal translation that conveys how dark the game originally was in Japan. I'm guessing the SNES version had co-op in it, so this is a win win all around, I just know her TV only has yellow/white/red composite inputs and no S-Video so that may be a problem. So we'll see if I can find something at Radio Shack.

Thoughts?

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm going to suggest the GBA version for translation, cause the localization is really good. The only scene censored is the jail scene and that was due to world events at the time but the rest of the game is mostly uncensored with the exception of a few sprites (which is censored in most versions of the game). The game also has extra content like four new summons and the Dragon's Den dungeon. The downside to all this is the backgrounds for battles were spliced up a bit and the music quality isn't as strong as it usually is which is not a good thing for this game.

Because of that, I would recommend the ROM version. I'm a snob when it comes to translations and after playing the GBA version, I can't go back to the Woosley Script of the SNES/PS1 so the ROM wins out there. This version also doesn't suffer the downgrade in music quality or some of the minor splicing of the GBA version but it does lose out on the extras which I must say are well implemented into the game.

[blackmage_nuke]

Every version has something horribly wrong with them, your only solution is to play all 3 or learn japanese

[Dreddz]

I'd avoid the GBA version. The sound is butchered in that version. And if your like me, the music in FFVI is one of the main reasons to play it. I went through FFVI on the PS1 and I found it fine.

[Bolivar]

Wolf - thx for the deets, ROM version is sounding pretty good for the little factors you mentioned as well as the translation part. She can be a snob like that, too, and I guess I'm guilty as well because the literal translation really blew me away at times. I'd definitely recommend it if you haven't peeped it yet for the next time you're hungering for a playthrough. When the time comes pm me if you don't got it.

blackmage_nuke - i guess it's a good thing the RPGOne team made their efforts back in the day!

Dreddz - the music's definitely a big deal, to me it's arguably the strongest aspect of FFVI, and plays a big contribution to its only competition - the atmosphere. I could listen to the boss battle music all day.

[Wolfen]

The SNES translation isn't as bad as people make it out to be, and I played the Advance version first. I still feel like the Advance script is the better of the two, but since music is important to you, I suggest you get the SNES version.

[ChaosPearl]

Just asking for some clarification...

I'm looking to play through FF VI again for about the hundredth time and I'm debating which version to choose. Or rather, I sort of already decided -- or thought I had -- but now I'm questioning my choice.

I've completed the game many times on the SNES but alas my console finally bit the dust last year, and now my options are the GBA, the PSX, or the old SNES version via emulator. Or so I thought until I actually got myself an emulator* and a USB cable for my SNES controller, and realized there are a few other choices -- namely the original Japanese, the vastly entertaining dirty-jokes translation, and the literal translation by RPGone.

I started playing the RPGone version because I've heard a lot about censorship in the localizations and how the original Japanese game is so much darker and more intense, etc. I haven't had much time to play and right now I'm just escaping Figaro Castle on a chocobo. The thing is, so far I'm spectacularly unimpressed by the translation. I had gotten the impression that it was supposed to be superior because it's much closer to a literal translation from the Japanese, but what I'm finding is that literal translation often sounds awkward and sometimes just plain wrong in English. Phrases like "the magic-using woman" don't flow nicely at all, and an attack called "Make Numb" may be the literal meaning but it certainly looks dumb in a battle.

I guess what I'm looking for is reassurance that it really is worth it to continue playing this translation. I'm already frustrated that I have to sit tethered to my computer where it's cold and uncomfortable instead of playing whenever and wherever I want on my beloved Micro. Does this RPGone translation come into its own as the story progresses? Are the uncensored versions of the two controversial scenes with Celes very much darker and rougher? Does the storyline change in any way, or is it basically just putting the coarse language back in and removing epithets in favor of awkward-sounding literal translations?

I want to love this translation, I really do. I'm just not seeing anything that makes it worth spending hundreds of hours in the same computer chair and having my playing time so restricted.


* Which I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about, considering that I've paid hard-earned dollars for legal copies of every single Final Fantasy game ever released in English, including multiple versions of several titles. I think I've purchased the original game four times now, for NES, GBA, PSP, and cell phone.

[Roto13]

I guess what I'm looking for is reassurance that it really is worth it to continue playing this translation. I'm already frustrated that I have to sit tethered to my computer where it's cold and uncomfortable instead of playing whenever and wherever I want on my beloved Micro. Does this RPGone translation come into its own as the story progresses? Are the uncensored versions of the two controversial scenes with Celes very much darker and rougher? Does the storyline change in any way, or is it basically just putting the coarse language back in and removing epithets in favor of awkward-sounding literal translations?

Pretty much. Celes gets beaten in the original English translation anyway, and she just says some depressed things before leaping off the cliff in the "uncensored" version. But direct translations suck horribly. There's a reason localization exists.

Fun fact: You should be able to use your RPGOne save state with the standard version of FF VI if you do some clever renaming. You can just switch back for the suicide scene and then return to the original version without losing your progress.

Or you can just watch it on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3BWIEm_i2U)

[MJN SEIFER]

I'd say get either the Snes or PSX version - the best way to play an FF game first is the way we got them, even if you later get a better translated version.

[Roto13]

The PSX version makes the game less fun, though.

[MJN SEIFER]

The PSX version makes the game less fun, though.

How come? I find it fun...

[Roto13]

Because it stops to load every time you do anything and it's incredibly annoying. It gets to the point where you just don't want to have to open the menu at all.

[MJN SEIFER]

Because it stops to load every time you do anything and it's incredibly annoying. It gets to the point where you just don't want to have to open the menu at all.

Oh that... Never happened for me.

[Mirage]

Yes it did. It's impossible that it didn't. You might have lower standards of what is acceptable lag, however, or you might not have experienced the game without lag.

[Wolf Kanno]

The PS1 ports of the SNES classics usually are hated by fans more familiar with the originals. In comparison to other PS1 games at the time, the lag on FFIV-VI isn't so bad but for people who played the lag free versions on the SNES tend to notice pretty quickly. VI wasn't as bad as CT dear god...

[Mirage]

The PS1 ports of the SNES classics usually are hated by fans more familiar with the originals. In comparison to other PS1 games at the time, the lag on FFIV-VI isn't so bad but for people who played the lag free versions on the SNES tend to notice pretty quickly. VI wasn't as bad as CT dear god...

It is a bit worse than original PS1 games too, mostly because those games were made with the limitations of the disc based storage system in mind, and therefore had data such as the main menu stored in RAM at all times. FF4-6 however, which were programmed with a cartridge in mind, did not attempt to do that at all, because the game assumed it would get instant access to the data needed without access times worth mentioning. With a disc and considerably slower access times, that wasn't possible, but the game wasn't modified to take that into account.

While this is mostly guesswork based on newer sorts of storage types similar to what cartridges used, I would say that access times for a SNES cartridge could be as low as a millisecond (modern day SSDs can get below 0.1 ms). Compare that to a modern day hard disk, which are still at around 8-14 ms, and a 1x CD drive (found in the PS1) which has got at least 150 ms (that's a theoretical minimum, in many cases it could be more than 300 ms).

While a few milliseconds doesn't seem all that slow to most people, you gotta remember that it's 150 milliseconds *each time* the game needs data that isn't prefectly lined up after the previous chunk of data it needed. This quickly adds up to quite a bit of time.

[Levian]

The slow loading times on the PS were very noticeable and very annoying.

I've played all three versions and I'd recommend GBA.

[ChaosPearl]

Fabulous, thanks people. Don't know about the OP but I took everyone's advice and gave up my RPGone game for the GBA. The translation is so much better it hurts -- you can tell even in the opening scene!

I'm a little sad that the music quality sucks, but the sacrifice is well worth it for the ability to stuff the game into my back pocket and play it in the comfort of, well, anywhere I happen to be. I have the CD soundtrack anyway, I might just listen to that and play with the game volume off.

[MJN SEIFER]

I have a second model of the PS2 (the small grey one as apposed to the big black one), and the non-anthology version of FFVI if that makes any difference to there being a lag. I have heard talks about the lag before, and if it exists, I must have just managed to avoid it all this time.:p

[KainHighwind]

Fabulous, thanks people. Don't know about the OP but I took everyone's advice and gave up my RPGone game for the GBA. The translation is so much better it hurts -- you can tell even in the opening scene!

Yeah, I've checked out the well-known fan translations, thinking they were going to be amazing, and they didn't do much for me. I especially hated the font used for one of them (I forget which, but you could probably guess).

SNES version is still the best in my opinion. For what Woolsey's translation supposedly lacks in accuracy, it makes up in charm.

Oh, and FWIW, I played through the Anthology version on a PS2, and wasn't terribly bothered by load times. Some of the sound effect changes annoyed me, however, as did the misspelling of "Narche," but overall, I think it's a worthwhile version.


I'm a little sad that the music quality sucks, but the sacrifice is well worth it for the ability to stuff the game into my back pocket and play it in the comfort of, well, anywhere I happen to be. I have the CD soundtrack anyway, I might just listen to that and play with the game volume off.

FYI, there is a ROM hack available that offers improved sound. Just Google it. Of course you need a GBA flashcart to play it. I have checked it out, and it's an improvement. Maybe it's not an option for you, but I have a DS/GBA flashcart combo, and I must say it was a very rewarding purchase, for reasons like this.

Actually, the GBA version is going to be my next playthrough - It is a lot easier for me to play handhelds these days, because we have a six month old baby, and most of my gaming time takes place on the crapper. Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. The gaming, I mean. :p