Heh, that's funny:

OST = Cefka
Grand Finale = Kefka

Points for nonconsistancy?

*stares at "Keep Yourself Alive 2" vs "Keep Yourself Alive?"*

I'm pretty uneducated in regards to the Japanese language, but wouldn't "Cefka" be inconsistent in itself?  As in it should be "Cefca" if that were the literal translation?

I was certain that Grand Finale had it as "Cefca" as well.  Sure enough, I checked out the booklet, and.....

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3194/g … alegm5.jpg

All I know is the data on the CD has it listed as "Kefka" because that's what was shown when I ripped the tracks to my computer.

Someone probably just entered it incorrectly (or correctly, from their POV) on an online database somewhere. CDDB now has it as the correct "Cefca," although there's a typo with track 7.

Back on topic, I'm playing through FFV for the first time and I'm pleasantly surprised by the job system. I had previously thought that it was similar to the class system in the original Final Fantasy, so I was happy to find that you can change jobs on a whim. Then again, I'm a completionist, so I'm going to have a heck of a time trying to master all of these jobs.

The plot is rather simple and generally predictable so far, much like IV's. Heck, I didn't even know they were trying to hide Faris's gender. I had her pegged the second I saw her artwork.. All of the twists and turns are rather cliche, though I do agree that the lighter tone of the dialogue makes it more fun than cheesy. Still, I'm now even more impressed by how much more complex VI's plot is compared to earlier games in the series.

Minor qualm about the graphics: the overworld sprites are tiny. It's times like these that I wish I had a Game Boy Player. The battle scenes are much more pleasing to the eyes, particularly those gorgeous backgrounds.

To jump back off topic, I completely agree with the above statement. Sword of Mana was plagued by deadlines that prevented it from being the game it could have been, but I still had tons more fun with it than I ever did with the extraneous magic/golem/pet systems of LoM or the inane dungeon crawling of CoD. That SD1 remake does look kickass, though.

FFVI finally dated: http://gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7246

2/5 in the US, still 11/30 in Japan.  Disappointing that Nintendo are holding it off for so long, but I'll probably be busy with V and III until then anyway.

LOL!

"And then Twilight Princess came out, and _______ became my favorite series."

J/K.  We all know TP will rock... can't wait for tomorrow!

.

Glad this turned into a massive FFVI name translation thread....

I'm about done FFV Advance, and I wanted to let you guys know a few things before writing up my review at RPGFan:

1) compared to PS1, load times and slowdown are negligible. BUT! they do exist. Here are the places I've noticed:

-- certain spell animations (holy, shiva, meteor, a few others) cause massive slowdown.
-- the battle will occassionally "freeze" for no reason (the bars stop moving, nothing's happening), and then it picks back up. This actually would happen in the old Super Famicom version too, but I was hoping they'd have fixed that. Too bad.

2) four new jobs have been added. If you pick up all twelve legendary weapons (most people do...) before beating the game, a new area opens up south of the southernmost point of land (underwater). In that cave, you pick up three jobs: Gladiator, Oracle, and Cannoneer.

Gladiator is similar to the last fighter job in FFIII --- you're allowed to equip nearly all weapons and armor (like the freelancer/normal job), but you also get some special skills, including "Finisher!", which is pretty much what it sounds like. Each weapon has a special skill assigned to it to finish off enemies. It seems to fail a lot for me though...I think your "weapon skill level" is related to jobs you've worked up. Like...I can't EVER get the Finisher to happen with a bow, because I didn't work up Hunter at all.

Oracle has eight "Prediction" abilities that are countdown spells. Sometimes they're ineffective, and occasionally they'll reverse and harm you instead of the targeted enemy. It counts down (usually from 20 seconds) and then the effect happens. Some of the effects are stop, death, stone...and there are some healing ones for your party too...they're zero mp, and I noticed that my magic power drastically improved while playing with this class (I put in white magic with my Oracle, and "Holy" was destroying, like 2x damage, when I played as oracle). Oracles also get a secondary ability called "Oath" where they can summon various undead and scary beasts.

Cannoneer...I don't have much experience with yet. It's kind of like "chemist" plus violence. You can apparently mix items with special ingredients to shoot crazy blasts of stuff. But you can also just fire a regular cannon with the command "Open Fire!" -- and that does some decent damage (around 1k).

Last job I'll talk about soon.

3) A super awesome dungeon is opened after you make a "clear data" save (beating the game). The dungeon is at the same place where you picked up the 3 new job crystals. In this dungeon you can find Omega Mk. II, Neo Shinryu, and other EXTREMELY hard/cheap bosses. The last boss of the dungeon is Enuo, the ancient warlock who originally split the two worlds (by sealing the powers of the two sides of the crystals). After beating him, you can get the fourth job, Necromancer! Necromancer is basically an add-on to Blue Mage. You can get a whole bunch of "dark" based spells that, for some reason, blue mage never got. These DARK ARTS include Dark Flare, Deep Freeze, Hellwind, Doomsday, etc. Spells are learned not by having spells cast on you, but by having the necromancer deliver the finishing blow to the enemy that knows the spell.

4) after beating Enuo, another door is opened in this secret magical dungeon where you can do a "boss rush" mode. You fight five bosses in a row, and there are six different sets of bosses. It's good times.

It's all fun new additions, but it's a shame that none of the fun is added until the end of the game. Having a new job offered through the regular gameplay would have been nice.

Ramza

Actually, if I remember correctly, that 'freeze' is actually enemies taking turns and not doing anything. Same thing happens with FF IV. Can't find the confirmation for this, so gotta edit this later when I find it.

Thanks for that info Raza. That might indeed be what's happening. If that is the case, though, sometimes enemies take one MIGHTY long turn (like 4 seconds or more...). Kinda nuts.

Anyway, I'm posting to point out ANOTHER Genji 2 reference in a videogame! A lot of recent translators have been putting in references to giant enemy crabs and massive damage lately. Check out FFV Advance...once you get the !Finisher ability learned (level 2 gladiator ability), here's its description in the menu:

"Powerful strike that whenever hits an enemy, attacks its weakpoint for massive damage!"

LOLOLOLOL!!! MASSIVE DAMAGE! HISTORICAL JAPAN! GIANT ENEMY CRABS! LOLLERSKATES!

Ramza

Just picked it up the other day (my girlfriend chewed me out. I was apparently supposed to wait so that she would give it to me on Christmas).

Anyways, I have to say that I was never really fond of FFV altogether. I felt it didn't have whatever it was that made IV and VI so memorable. But after playing it on the GBA like this, I have to rescind that train of thought. The game is definitely awesome. Maybe I just had to mature a bit before getting into it? Or maybe it was the open-endedness of the job system that intimidated me? Whatever the reason . . .

I still think it's the "G Gundam" of Final Fantasy. Totally out there, but absolutely a blast to play.

Actually, the 200% superior translation goes a long way towards helping.

I too had the same impression, though I played the PS version to near completion.

But now that I'm playing it again with this new, superior translation, it feels like a whole new game.

I played the FFA version of FFV for an hour or so, and never really liked it. Well, I saw that huge ad over at GameFAQs today and started thinking about giving FFVA a shot, so I picked it up. And, damn, is this game fun.

First of all, it's fast. FFIII DS sucks because it's so damn slow! The battles in FFV are quick and painless, and the rewards for grinding and leveling are awesome. The job system is great! I'm two hours in now (just made it to the North Mountain cave, or whatever it's called), and I'm really glad I picked the game up. I'm not FFV fanatic (far from it), but I'm impressed with how good the game plays and how much fun I'm having. Perfect for my commute!