FFVI Ultimania: Settei Shiryou Hen Translation Project

I've heard there are some Ultimania's for FFVI. From what little I've gleamed, it sounds like two of the books are nothing more than glorified strategy guides or lists of the items and monsters. I'm curious to know if one of them might have actually dealt with the story side of the game.

I mostly wonder cause a friend of mine has the old FFIII Unofficial Prima guide and that guide actually lists a timeline for the game that mentions things not really mentioned in the plot (such as the siege of Doma starting almost a decade before the game began) and other oddities.

Any links to translations would be much appreciated. :D

Maybe it was mentioned by some obscure npc character lost in translation, but i would also be interested in learning more useless facts about FFVI!

I'm skeptical cause it comes from an "Unofficial Guide" though so I was hoping to get some better info. Guess I have an internet project...

EDIT: A few curious things I found online. I'd take it all with a grain of salt til I find something more official but they are a good read anyway...

http://www.finalfantasyforums.net/fi...-vi-28231.html

I also learned that the back story of Edgar and Sabin was originally written by Soraya Saga (Xenogears and Xenosaga writer). There are a few odd things I've heard about the Figaro Bros. background.

There are apparently 8 different Ultimania/guides to VI, though most sound like gameplay books detailing stats and lists common from strategy guides.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

I also learned that the back story of Edgar and Sabin was originally written by Soraya Saga (Xenogears and Xenosaga writer).

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That's right. This is why the characters of Roni and Rene Fatima are in Xenogears.

More info I dug up but the source is from Gamefaqs, though the people talking sound a bit more logical about it.

Kekfa info and FF6 Ultimania plz - Final Fantasy III Message Board for SNES - GameFAQs

Here's another site that lists some of the details about the Figaro Bros. and the Kingdom of Figaro... Once again, I can't verify its accuracy but considering the article deals with the author Soraya Saga's work, I'm not surprised its this detailed... :eep:

Final Fantasy VI : BackGround History - Final Fantasy VI : A Complete History BackGround Forum - FanFiction.Net

Here's some links from another site, which actually details some of the information I started this thread with. It does not state where the information comes from so its validity is questionable.

http://moonreading.lunarpages.com/tr...opolitical.txt

http://moonreading.lunarpages.com/tr...rldhistory.txt

This link is a jumbled mess of a conversation at the FF wiki... It talks about some of the issues with this apparent "canon" backstory for Kefka. It was an amusing read if anything.

Talk:Kefka Palazzo - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research

Here's a link from FF Online. It doesn't reveal anything new that the links above didn't state but someone actually posted images from one of the VI Guides that supposedly reveals all this info. Looks like I'm going to have to break out my old Japanese text book and get to cracking. ;)

Spoilers: Strange FF6 plot details on Wikipedia - Final Fantasy Online Forums

I would like to just state right now that all this information is questionable as there seems to be some issue regarding sources for the translations and info. Take all of this with a grain of salt but it is fun for speculation purposes. :cool:

Sorry for the W-post but I found some new info...

So I finally got a hold of the Unofficial Prima guide to do some comparison to the other timeline I found. They are similar and different. I don't have a scanner I'm afraid so the best I can do is just type out my findings. The dates start from year 1000 and then go backwards to the year 0

1000 - The War of the Magi ends

980 - According to official Doma records, the war is lost.

735 - A conference for world peace convenes and the first constitution is drafted

685 - The Empire becomes an independent military power

600 - Doma samurai sign on with many factions as mercenary soldiers

308 - The Industrial Movement and the Renaissance begin.

202 - Figaro Castle is completed in the north country

199 - Narshe is formed after the discovery of a huge mineral source inspires a kind of "gold rush" frenzy

115 - Narshe establishes special political and commercial relations with other powers

84 - Figaro becomes even more dependent on the use of machines as the core of its society

72 - Agustra becomes the heir to the National Security Council

59 - The Empire undergoes a massive coup, orchestrated by Agustra's father

20 - Agustra's charismatic powers enable him to ascend to the Emperor's throne at age 52

18 - The first inventions by the Empire lead to the capture of the southern countries. The Magical Research Institute is formed.

12 - In response to a study from the Magical Research Institute, Kefka leads a major reorganization of the Empire

8 - Kefka introduces a prototype of magical armor and builds a second invasion around its powers. South Figaro captured (yeah I don't get that one either...)

7 - Edgar's father, the king of Figari, passes away and Edgar assumes the throne.

3 - Skirmishes between Doma and the Empire begin

2 - The Empire invades eastern Doma

0 - Frozen Espers are discovered in the depths of a Narshe coal mine.

Outside of a few errors in events and a few omitted references such as the founding of Doma in 1200, or Figaro's disastrous submerging event in 72 and its final success in 68. The timelines actually match up with the one I found earlier. Granted the Prima one has a few errors that may be in due to translation issues. The South Figaro being captured by the Empire in the Prima timeline is obviously wrong but the other timeline mentions that there is a riot in South Figaro instead due to the alliance made between Figaro and the Empire.

The whole thing sounds pretty good and it would be great to learn if this timeline is actually true and not some fan made BS. :roll2

I remember reading things like this a long time ago as well. But knowing me back then, I'd bet is was fan-made. Still, it would be nice to see if there's any legit info out there.

I'm starting to think the timeline may be accurate. Though the one I have linked to is probably the correct one whereas the Prima guide looks to be a poorly translated one. The Prima translated a few events in an odd way so they sound differently but once you compare them side to side you can see they basically mean the same thing. For instance, the Prima guide says Agustra (Ghestahl) became the heir of the National Security Council in 72 which comes off a bit ambiguous in my book. The other (possibly more accurate) timeline clarifies all this by saying Ghestahl was born in the year 72 and became the heir. The Prima version can be interpreted to imply he was born before that time but the other timeline flat out says he was born that year and that's how he became heir.

There are a few more situations like this in each timeline. The original one doesn't really conflict with the game history either. I can see the timeline being real because I honestly only expected it to be the only real new info from the source guide. I never expected to gain any real new insights into the characters which is why I'm usually very skeptical of any "abundance" of background information written about them.

UPDATE: I've confirmed the timeline is real. It appears in the Settei Shiryou Hen for FFVI :mog:

Just some minor updates.

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Kitase wrote in his blog at 1up.com about FF: Dissidia and began to talk about Kefka and how he really loved how he turned out. This in turn has him detailing the famous "sand on my boots" scene in VI which Kitase apparently ad-libbed into the game to give Kefka a more interesting intro and to foreshadow him having a few "screws loose" as he puts it. ;)

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I also found this interesting Blog/article from V-Jump magazine that apparently details some of the behind the scenes stuff for VI's development. Its all in Japanese and it looks like it also covers much more than just FFVI (almost looks like a timeline for Square titles) and while I have found some translations of the important info from this web-page; it comes from the FF Wiki and I know how most people tend to snub anything with Wiki in the title as being filled with nothing but fanfic garbage with no real info. So I'll just leave the article as is and let any helpful member who is bored and knows Japanese try to translate for the rest of us.

For what its worth, most of the details given on this web-page mostly contains ideas that didn't make it into the game.

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The back story for the Figaro brothers was turned into a Doujinshi by their author. She has gone on to say that the Doujinshi should not be considered canon. :ffviwag: :ffvilaugh:

Another minor update...

I have collected the Settei Shiryo Hen for FFVI as well as the other guides that make up the VI guide collection. I am planning on translating them sometime in the future and I figure I might as well post my results for everyone to see but I warn you this project is not in any way a high priority for me so updates of the translation will be very infrequent. My Japanese is rusty and my ability to read hiragana and katakana is basically non-existent at this point so this will be a time consuming process (wait a minute, I don't recognize that symbol... you've gotta be smurfing kidding me, is that kanji?!) for me.

What I can tell you so far about the guide is that the timeline is in fact real.

Attachment 31854

and that obviously the stuff on Kefka all those people have been debating about is false cause Kefka's entry in the book is quite short and doesn't feature a timeline whatsoever about his life. The amusing thing I've noticed, is despite her large role in the game, Celes Chere doesn't seem to get the same spotlight as the other characters do, usually relegated to being grouped with Gau, Relm, and Strago. This is only odd cause Setzer and Shadow get more billing than she does despite serving minor roles.

Here's how the book is broken up:

-Prologue
-Glossary
-Characters

• Character Relationships
• Character spotlight - 4 page spread
• Tina (Terra)
• Lock
• Edgar
• Mash (Sabin)
• Shadow
• Cayenne (Cyan)
• Setzer
• 1 page spread
• Celes
• Gau
• Relm
• Stragus (Strago)
• Mog (2 pages!)
• Sub-Characters
• Kefka/ Ghastra/Banon/ Imperial soldier

-System Guidance (what settings does is in the menu screen)
-World section

• World Map
• History of the World
• Timeline of the world -(see above posts for a translation)
• International Situation (has its own timeline as well)
• Narche
• Figaro
• South Figaro
• Mt. Kolts
• Doma
• Section on Magitech machines
• Blackjack schematics
• Chocobos

-Genju (Espers) and Magics

• Ramuh
• Siren/Bismark/Carbuncle
• Fenrir/Ifrit
• Shiva/Catoblepas
• Odin
• Midgar Zolom/Unicorn/Phoenix
• Bahamut
• Valigarmanda/Maduin/Golem
• How the Genju system works

-Monsters and Items

• Deathgaze/Unnamed Amano monster
• Dadaluma/Owzer (I don't understand why he's here either)
• Ghost
• Typhon/Ultros/Unnamed Amano monster
• Magna Roader/Number 0247

-System Guidance on Back attacks and Pincer Attacks
-A list with illustration of all the different weapon types
-A list with illustrations of all the armor types
-A short list of some of the Relics
-System Guidance on how to use Relics
-A closing sequence of screenshots of Narshe with hiragana txt
End of book.

A good chunk of this book has probably already been translated by the sites I found above at least in consideration of the timeline, world events, and city info. The rest of the stuff I'm not expecting much in terms of new info in concern of the characters or the espers.

Fascinating!

Good news, bad news, and really bad news.

Good News: I've scanned 2/3rds of the Settei Shiryou Hen, I'm just missing the section on Summons and weapons.

Bad news: The scanner died on me, which is why I didn't get everything. Chances are, I may not have time to finish this book and start on the rest until later. Also, because I didn't want to destroy the book to get better pictures, the pictures will sometimes show the fold of the book and may cut out some of the artwork. For the most part, the character files section has actually been available on the net for years so getting better versions of those pictures won't be a problem.

Really Bad news: The stupid scanner converted everything into a PDF file that apparently nothing likes. I can't upload them here nor on photobucket. So it may still be a few days before I can upload the pictures.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

No I hope your scanner stops being a pain soon! I'm interested to see this information :D

This is the first batch.

These photos are huge... just to let you know. :D

(SPOILER)
http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Intro.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/Contents.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Relations.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Tina1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Tina2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Lock1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Lock2.jpg

Part 2

(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/Edgar1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/Edgar2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Mash1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/Mash2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/Cayenne1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/Cayenne2.jpg

Part 3

(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/Shadow1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/Shadow2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/Setzer1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/Setzer2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...elesandGau.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...andStragus.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...0Kanno/Mog.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Characters.jpg

Part 4

(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...indoOption.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/WorldMap.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...ldHistory1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...ldHistory2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...ldHistory3.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/Timeline.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Situation1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Situation2.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Situation3.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Situation4.jpg

Part 5

(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/Narche.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/Figaro.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...outhFigaro.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/MtKolts.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...Kanno/Doma.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Blackjack.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/Magitech.jpg



This is all I have for now. There is still a third of the book left with monsters, armor, relics, and armor. Not to mention Chocobos :choc: Not to mention three more books (thought they are more like traditional strategy guides)

Hopefully, some people more knowledgeable than me can help translate.

I've gotten the last stretch of the book scanned and uploaded onto photobucket. I'll post them later cause I'm a bit tired and wish to spend some quality time with Dissidia Duodecim.

I'm debating on whether I want to get the other three books scanned, or if I should wait on them. One is basically a full strategy guide, one is a monster/magic/weapon guide, and the last has maps of every dungeon and is a bit of a mini walk-through.

I may just scan parts that seem interesting, there are some fun chibi pictures of the game sprites doing stuff in one of the books and the other book has another set of character statistics including Gogo and Umaro who are absent in the main book.

The dorky expressions on the character art before their bios was quite amusing :p

I'm also thoroughly in love with the location artwork. Even if they are just far away shots of towns etc, they look so nice :jess:

I can't help you in the translation stakes, but by george I am looking forward to reading it. It all looks quite awesome.

Plus three more books omg this is ridiculous.

Part 6
(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071126.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...lidrcflHHr.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071131.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a.../rCfld9nxr.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071134.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/tztboL.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071136.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a.../IklIQaM-1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/SWWtffly.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071141.jpg

Part 7

(SPOILER)

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071145.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071146.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071143.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/flzCriQ.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...GUIDANCECI.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/Tfltfl1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071151.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...anno/tnUA1.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071153.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...nno/enwcsa.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071156.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...no/tqtlrcj.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071159.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071201.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...-04-071204.jpg

http://i911.photobucket.com/albums/a...NI2SUPfl-1.jpg



And that is everything from the Settei Shiryou Hen. I still have the Kanzen Koryaku Hen (Dungeon/Map guide), the Kiso Chishiki Hen (Elementary Knowledge Guide), and the Boken Guide Book (Strategy Guide). So I'll upload them at some point in the future but honestly, I don't feel they are as necessary as this one.

Hah, just out of curiousity I tried my hand at translating the very first snippet of text in the upper left corner of the back-flap of the cover(you can see the text partially cut off in the upper right corner of the very last image you posted). That was just two sentences, and it took me about one hour to fully decipher it, and I'm pretty sure it's not 100% right, especially the first sentence, which is still pretty garbled to me. The snippet reads like this (in romaji, cuz I don't want to type japanese):

24 mega no daiyouryou o zonbun ni katsuyoushi, gurafikku ya suto-ri-, shisutemu ga sara ni suke-ruappu shi ta(stupid Umaro won't let me type the past-tense suru here) fainarufantaji- VI. honsho wa, ge-musofuto hatsubai mae ni ichi hayoku fainarufantaji- VI no sekai e izanau.

I translated this(and I stress that this how I translated this) as:

Final Fantasy VI has again pushed the limits of the "graphic story" by using the 24MB capacity system to its fullest. This book invites you into the preconceptual stages of the Final Fantasy VI world.

I used some poetic license to try and make it sound like something that would actually be said in English, but I believe this is the general idea of what is being said here.

I'd love to try and translate the entire book, but god, it would be a nightmare.

I understand, I have a very, very limited knowledge of kanji and was basically getting my ass kicked just trying to translate the intro page. I've been looking around the web to see if I can get some help from other FF fan-sites but one seems pretty dis-interested and the other has shown some interest, but I haven't heard back from the people who are actually in charge.

I may need to brush up on stroke rules for kanji, cause it would help me immensely to look up half the kanji cause that's how most of the dictionaries I've found are organized.

My go-to dictionary for all my japanese needs has always been Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary. You can look up kanji by radical and it automatically converts romaji to kana with amazing accuracy. It's been a life-saver for me over the years.

The site looks promising. I'm drumming up some support to get help with translating. :D

Awesome work!

You might try approaching Justy, who is studying Japanese. He may appreciate some practice, and he's rather good.

Just thought you'd like to know I've recently begun working on some of this again. I've been writing a FFVI prequel series for a few years now, and with the completion of the first book I'm inching towards the more official events of the game's history, and wanted to make sure everything I write is canon with the timelines. To that end, I'm translating the various timelines in this book at the moment, and have just completed the major global timeline. Here's a link to my translated .rtf file:

http://www.espritduo.com/random/ff6_timeline.rtf

As I said before, my translating skills are still pretty rough, but I'm fairly sure my translations capture the meaning of the text accurately enough. I have both the original Japanese and my translations under it in the file, so feel free to review the translation and if you see anything grossly incorrect, I'd love to know.

If you want, I can keep posting the other local timelines(Narshe, Figaro, Doma, Mt. Koltz, and some more general stuff on the sides) as I complete them in the coming weeks. I'll probably keep going after that as well, just to get as much background info as I can for my story.

Your translation looks pretty accurate and it actually verifies that the lunarpage translation is in fact accurate. Course... it looks like the page is gone but luckily I made sure to make a copy of the text.Attachment 35174 so hopefully this may help you with your story since they also seemed to have translated the timelines and info of the different cities and places.

Hah, I didn't even see that before. Ah well, it's actually quite gratifying to read it and see that it matches my own translation attempts almost word for word. I'll still keep on translating the individual locale timelines, just to make sure everything matches up. Having the other timelines already translated by something other than the laughable Google translator will definitely make my own translation attempt move along much quicker, too. And I'll probably move onto the Esper descriptions after that, since those are the main characters of my prequel. :)

We all know what rough drafts are, right? I can also draw my own conclusions about fiction.

I liked reading some of the earlier stuff that was cut or lost in translation. I hope one day there will be a proper remake with some of this stuff added to help flesh out a few things. Nice finds.