A Curious Case of Censorship in FFVII's Corel Prison
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- Опубліковано 14 гру 2024
- One of Barret's most pivotal and celebrated lines never made it into the OG FFVII English localization. We take a look at the game's famous Corel Prison sequence and examine some instances of what appears to be censorship.
Background music: "Mark of the Traitor, LoFi & Chill Mix," by @Sing4DLaughter
#ffvii #ffviiremake #rpg #jrpg #finalfantasy #ps1 #modding
If this is censorship, I have no idea how these lines didn't get in while Dyne heavily insinuating he was going to murder-suicide Marlene and himself after he discovers she's still alive did, which is way darker than any of these alterations during the Corel Prison segment.
Probably because Dyne is a villain and not part of the main party. There's always been a bit of a different standard for player characters.
@@deedoubsExactly. Can't have a main character be all suicidal and in it for vengeance! Lol
I think it's also because that line was just cryptic enough to get past the censors. I didn't realize that's what he meant until my third playthrough as an adult
Did dyne ever imply that he was gonna kill Marlene???
If censorship made sense it wouldn't exist.
This makes me appreciate Barret's personal growth and his speech on the Highwind so much more, huge character development
Y'know its funny 😂
He NEVER out right said
But I feel like we all knew what HIS real intentions was.
What's funny is that I knew Cloud had the "nightmares" line, but when I went to play the PC Version to 100% Complete it... finding it missing was my personal Mandela Effect. This makes sooooooooooo much sense. Thank you so much for this!
Same here.
I could be wrong but I think there’s a few lines they’ve changed from the original PS1. Besides fixing some typos and odd translation errors there’s dialogue now that I just don’t remember (or misremember) and I’ve been playing this game since I was a kid.
I also knew about the Nightmares line; growing up I had the PC port by Eidos and later, when I owned a Playstation, I also got a ps1 copy. All I can guess is that one of those contained the line. . . Or it's a Mandela Effect
That line really does make for a serious change in his character. Before you assumed he was fighting to save the planet for Marlene's sake. Admitting he's only in it for revenge really shifts the tone.
Big time! Changes the entire characterization of him! Kinda disappointing..
Guess they wanted him to be more the hero.
I personally think it’s both. he probably feels guilt over his selfish feelings of revenge, but also knows that what he is doing is just and will make the future world safer for marlene and other children. there is unspoken nuance in all variations; taking any of these scripts purely at face value does a tremendous disservice to these characters and stories.
And the irony is if you play Before Crisis you find out that Barret is the one who destroyed his hometown by showing Avalanche how to get into the reactor, which they planted a bomb in that caused the explosion that destroyed his hometown and killed damn near everyone he cared about except Marlene and Dyne. So he wants revenge, but he’s also avoiding responsibility until that later line where he acknowledges what he did helping Avalanche bomb reactors only ever caused pain.
I think it still comes through in the English release. The opening missions were a pretty dark and misguided way of going about their goal. Shinra execs continued operating mostly unimpeded with a half dozen other reactors, and it didn't really affect the outcome of the ending much other than hurting thousands of innocent people in the process. If you look at the way he speaks and acts early in the game, he's clearly motivated by a deep anger, and that arc concludes with his lines on the Highwind (which are still present in the English release).
@@robertharper3114 Honestly even without it he still starts out as an antivillain.
Barret Vs Censor logos... top tier
Thank you, making that took longer than the rest of the video combined lol
Lol I just thought he swore like Cid 😂 who I'd say balanced out if people thought black stereotypes. I also think of ps2 narc remake with soft spoken scholar black guy and delinquent white guy lol.
That fucking "TWO!?" caught me off guard lmao
SquareSOFT indeed. But media rating back then was pure hell, especially in PAL regions. I still remember green blood, or robots instead of humans.
Luckily Vegeta and Raditz arrived on earth on Sunday so all the workers in the buildings they demolished were home.
The western world is censorship hell. US was annoying bad, but Australia and Germany are like "the game has to be completely gutted" bad.
@@rustyjones7908 and thank goodness that plane was actually just a "Cargo Robot"
This was start of censorship moving back after ridiculous lengths they went to remove crosses and David stars from older FFs, before censorship came back in full swing after Hot Coffee and Mass Effect.
It still blows my mind how mature this story still is.
No western game would depict sympathetic terrorists post 9/11. Violent direct action against Shinra is more than justified, it's depicted as necessary.
I also like how Shinra aren't monolithic villains. Some of them are well meaning, but the system naturally elevates the worst human impulses and uplifts the most amoral people.
Hojo also comes closer to reckoning with the evil of unit 731 than I've ever really seen Japanese media attempt.
They added it back in all Ever Crisis, making the line officially translated in English for the first time
This localization are sick
Saw the Axel “Two?!” reference from the corner of my eye, and had to rewind to see if I saw correctly. Lmao
"People get depressed in life because they don't know what's up."
i like this line
@@vxrxs_exe you are a king
do I even got a to go on?
I really dislike that so many things in this world treat children like idiots.
And it's only gotten worse over the years. Dyne wasn't even allowed to have a somber death in Rebirth.
@deedoubs I haven't had the chance to play rebirth yet. But they did so much good for Barrett in Remake, I had hoped they'd do some good things for Dyne, too. So this is a bit disappointing to hear. I was even hoping they'd keep him alive and then go into the complications of Marlene having a paternal father and a biological father at the same time.
@@user-bw4jm1bv1i They fundamentally dumbed Dyne down and didn't even let his death have time to breathe before shoving in a comedic Palmer boss battle and a car chase shooting minigame, makes the Chocobo racing from the og seem nuanced in comparison
Never knew about these alterations, very interesting. Also makes me think about how in Rebirth Barret’s Temple of the Ancients flashback scene is him wandering to find Myrna.
Because leading Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie to their deaths wasn't his fault.
@@DisFantasy I'm not talking about anything being Barret's fault, I am talking about the similarities of the untranslated lines and Barret's Temple of the Ancient's flashback both involve Barret's first instincts being to search for his wife.
@@TheoVorster lol
I figured he was looking for Myrna in the original, but knew something had to have been cut. I think it all came together on the highwind though, so I never felt like I missed Barret's story beats.
Great work.
I'm so glad then that this made it into FF7 Rebirth in a side quest. I specifically remember that in the side quest where you search for Cloud Jr., Barret talks about how he used saving the planet as a justification to go after Shinra. Very cool stuff (someone let me know if I'm wrong)
well, the missing translation one is also the reason why fan translation of ff7 exist, even though we have official EN localization.
It's amazing how much thought was put into the characters.
This is an interesting video. It's certainly possible that these lines were removed or changed in the English version due to ratings censorship issues, but it could also just be a writing/storytelling choice made by the translator.
If the translator had read through the whole script in Japanese first before working on the game, they would have seen Barret's entire story and noticed that the conclusion of his arc was that scene on the airship where he admits to the group that he was purely motivated by revenge the whole time. And that saying it was to "Save the planet" was just a convenient cover for that.
This was a follow up to the 1st airship scene (during the Diamond Weapon's attack on Midgar), when Cait Sith/Reeve confronts Barret about the Avalanche Reactor bombings. But Barret can't bring himself to admit to Reeve that the bombing's weren't justified. He still deflects and says "That was for the Planet."
It's only after Tifa interrupts their argument and says "What we did in Midgar can't be forgotten. No matter what the reason." And then she turns to Barret and asks "Right?"
But Barret is silent and turns away from the group for the rest of the scene. (Which quickly shifts back to the Diamond Weapon issue.)
So, it seems REALLY odd in the Japanese version that Barret was already able to admit to Tifa back in Corel that his crusade to save the planet is just an act to get revenge against Shinra, but then he couldn't bring himself to admit that again to Reeve or Tifa on the airship, even after Tifa directly asks him to.
Having that line of admission happen earlier in Corel kind of resolves his character arc too soon, and it's also not even necessary to fully understand his character since he makes that admission again at the natural conclusion of his arc near the end of the story. The translator may have seen this as a character writing inconsistency issue and excluded that particular line on purpose. And I'm inclined to agree with that choice, I actually prefer the original English translation in this case from a storytelling standpoint.
Due to the scope of the game and how small translation teams were in the 90s, especially before FF7 ignited the west buying story-heavy games I am hesitant to agree that that is what happened; however I do agree with the end result.
While understandable that he would be unwilling to admit he was wrong for attacking his perceived enemy, having him run away after Tifa chimes in does go against this earlier admission
This is a solid line of thought, but I think the original script still works. Barret trusts Tifa so he can confess his true motivations to her in private. But Reeve is with ShinRa, his sworn enemy, so Barret doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of admitting he's in the wrong. And even though it's Tifa asking him on the airship, Reeve is still there listening, so it would still count as admitting it to Reeve. It's inconsistent, but being inconsistent around people you like vs people you don't like is one of the most human things ever.
I agree, it seems a little weird and premature to assume censorship with only the information presented, especially given the content that was included in the game.
Also there's an assumption that the translation for the first English release was explicitly changed or altered for the PC version, when looking at them side by side it looks like two different translations based on the original Japanese. There are likely a number of reasons as to why the PC version became the go-to for re-releases.
Agree, Barret's motivations are kind of plain for everyone to see, and him just saying it out loud so early feels like treating the audience wouldn't get it themselves. Like the big non-twist that his motivations are more personal and not just altruistic.
You have to remember that direct, literal translations from Japanese usually sound extremely bland, as you lose all the nuance from forms of speech and expressions, so they have to do it in more poetic way when the game gets localized.
When changes are for good, they're usually called Woolseyisms because Ted Woolsey's FF6 translation was highly regarded, other notable translations being better than original is Trails in the Sky adding custom description to second time you open an already looted chest instead of generic error message and Recettear's "Yayifications!" and "Capitalism, ho!" battle cry.
Translations will never be perfect, if you want to see it "as it is", you need to learn the language and see original text, ANY translation will have to comprimise somewhere, from character length (Crono instead of Chrono) to untranslatable idioms, to cultural references to ratings board period cycles.
Your videos are some of the best FFVII content there is. Thank you for doing these!
While I get the age rating point, I don't think it was censored, I think it was just translated in too much of a hurry by a dude who was messed up on caffeine pills and a tight deadline. FF8 got it even worse with entire lines of dialogue just being cut and replaced with ellipsis.
The PC version has other lines that are different for basically no reason because it was ported from a different build of the game. It's why the characters' field models look so odd too.
These videos of yours are incredible! Thank you!
I imagine its the difference between a realistic drama about a post-war era, and a popular franchise now having multiple entries
Good vid. I can't claim to remember the exact lines of all the dialogue in the game but I do recall Cloud's "I'm going to have nightmares." line.
Cloud's line change makes no sense for his character though. At that point he doesn't care about the planet he is still just doing this for Tifa and to find Sephiroth. Him having more nightmares would definitely be a concern though because he is already having them and doesn't want more. So glad I played this on PS1. Loved the story then and the confusion of the English translation made it better for me because i had to make it make sense. A lot of the theories and confirmed stuff from the Japanese retranslations was stuff I pieced together as a teen obsessed with this game. Great video and I hope you keep making them.
Would be fun to analyze GETTING to Dyne as as a kid it took me FOREVER to find him.
The production values of your videos are off the charts. This is unbelievably well done.
I love the editing in this one, can't wait to see more from you!
Can you cover the unused cave at the forgotten capital? The one on the right with a vine?
It's on the docket!
Did someone find something new?
@@cloudzack1090 Yes! Please look forward to it.
love the animations, they alone earn a sub, solid love and attention to detail!
Agree, the animations are great!
this is cool. I'd love to see a whole playthrough or video on all the changes.
subscribed.
dude, love this channel.
This is the first time I've heard this line but when I'm explaining the character I always just assumed this because of his actions.
love the vids so far -- couldnt believe this channel is so new!
All of your videos so far are great! I'm subbed and looking forward to more.
That’s VERY interesting indeed. Just discovered your channel, love it already. Please keep up the awesome work!
Great video. My only critique is to not use the word "remaster" to refer to the modern ports for Steam and beyond because there really wasn't any remastering involved at all. The visuals of the modern ports can be achieved with just a few tweaks to the '98 PC version.
Not sure if this is really a case of censorship, considering a lot of the major stuff that slips through the game later on in both versions (especially gamer word Tifa that didn't exist in the original Japanese version and some of the Wall Market scenes lmao). Michael Baskett was not the best translator when under crunch, along with the limits of what was still possible within the data limit for localization back in the day. It is why he had to resort to altering dialogue a lot and even sometimes he inserted his own stuff to alter dialogue fit within the limited space so it made some sense. Square did not really take the localizations of the games into consideration when they were developed, heck this is why Richard Honeywood and Alexander O. Smith worked to fix the process in FF8.
As to the change in Barret's original dialogue from the PSX version being changed in the PC release, could be anything. The PC version of the game had the El Segundo team manually reinsert and alter dialogue for character limits too, since the porting process was rushed and a living hell due to the lower limits of PC version back then. However, it is certainly possible it was altered to be in compliance with the rating systems back in the day in the United States ESRB, which was the only rating system to exist at the time. Both PEGI and CERO would not be formed for like 6 years later.
Tldr: FF7 suffered from all the same issues the PSX games face prior to the FFIX localization process, hurdles.
Thing is even FF9 wasn't free from complete localization inventions, the starways scene between Zidane and the group during Kuja attack on Alexandria is completely different between JP and English.
Thank you for videos like these.
New channel looking good, keep it up.
Love this game and finding out all these small, missing things. It's been 27 years and we're still learning secrets and coming up w/ wacky materia combinations. In 27 years, no one will be talking about FF7R.
I always got the impression that Barret WAS fueled by vengeance, at least more so than AVALANCHE’S “saving the Planet” motto. I kinda assumed the events in Corel Prison was hinting at that and how Barret could’ve fallen down the same path as Dyne. Only thing that ended up truly saving Barret was his love for Marlene outweighed his revenge against Shin-Ra and to actually _help_ the Planet rather than using that as his justification for vengeance. Makes his (and AVALANCHE’S) “reawakening” in Cosmo Canyon much more meaningful once you realize this. Always loved Barret’s character in this game!
I was sure you were going to mention the "fuck" sign lol
Funny thing, even though it's censored with symbols every time, FF7 has more uses of "Fuck" than "Shit".
The what??
@@pretzel6629 The large billboard in the background that has spray-painted graffiti saying "PYCK" used to say "FUCK" if you look closely you can see where they brushed over it.
@eternalux6343 I completely forgot about that it's been years
Barret needed these lines. Being so determined to 'save the planet' is great and all, but they always felt forced. Like a man doing a thing just to do a thing because he has nothing better to do.
Showing how personal everything is to him (which would have given Barret a better connection to Tifa, since theyre both working toward the same goal), and even feeling so defeated and broken by his loss that he was going to just find his dead wife and die by her side.
These are great character moments, and of course censorship took them from us. Typical.
Barret always seemed to me as selfish, more than presented, Because of course he would, who wouldn't. For better or worse FF7 is authentic in its characters and their flaws, and I think that's something that's carried through to its story, with the death of a loved one carrying the impetus and the experience of it, the authors seemed less willing to not be honest and make it to not be the perfect heros.
cloud pretends to be SOLDIER, Barret pretends to be an environmentalist seems appropriate.You could say that Tifa is pretending to not be in love with cloud as well, Nanaki pretends to be a simple dog and aerith pretends to be this damsel (at least via appearances)...
Damn, why omit it?
It adds good character development.
Would have made Barret an even deeper character.
Subbed, cant wait to see what you cook up next. Love the ff7 content
This line and the conversation he has with Cait in the airship makes Barret the most interesting character in the game for me imo. At least the latter scene got included in the English release
Pretty sure Barret's most famous line involves pizza
do I even got a to go on?
Nice editing in all 3 videos!
Nothing wrong with wanting to fight for everyone because one day you realized "YOU"RE PART OF EVERYONE TOO." "Sometimes the best way to solve our own problems, is to help someone else." -Uncle Iroh.
My favorite character and one of my favorite scenes of the game played even harder into the reasons I love them even more. I am glad Barret did have his moment of self-reflection in the Highwind later in the game admitting he wanted to get at Shinra and then fight for Marlene, but damn, didn't know he was this blunt in the original cut.
Also, small stuff like that line of having nightmares and some other details are why I still prefer the PS1 version. Hell, realistically, the only setback in my eyes is the Magic Defense bug
If you wanna get technical nobody's ever heard any line from FF7.
Already love this channel
It's surreal how from one side people notice slight adjustments in 2 sentences and one omission in the translation of FFVII while on the other side the most recent Final Fantasy have almost every single line completely rewritten, often conveying very different meanings.
Love ff7 content like this! Thank you for this video 👍
Barret is probably my favorite character in FF7, and the harrowing portrayal of his story arc in remake/rebirth only strengthened that bond for me.
Very cool video, thank you!
If it was to comply with ratings boards... It worked in Australia. The PS1 release is rated G, the lowest rating, with a modifier of 8+.
For more fun, Warcraft 3+ Frozen Throne is also rated G8+, and FFVI and FFIX are rated M15+
All this has done is make me hate western censorships even more :/ Clouds line about having nightmares if Berret dies on him is just infinitely better than just another broken record "saving the planet" line. Why can't we just let the original script pass? The lines we got are just completely lame and half assed compared to what it was supposed to be..
3:26 "team"? Pretty sure it was one guy.
Really don't get why they would change this, those lines don't seem like anything that would have pushed the rating above a T even back then, especially considering many of the lines that DID make it in.
Yeah, I would be more inclined to believe that either the translators or some higher-up simply wanted to change how the characters were presented because they thought it'd appeal more to the audience.
finally played the original FF7 start-to-finish this year via the Switch port. but it irks the hell out of me that there's so much that was changed from the original Japanese script. people have told me that it wasn't *that* different, but I'm starting to disagree.. I've looked into re-translated mods but I've also been told those all have their own problems too. I guess I'm still kicking myself for having yet to learn Japanese when I definitely should have started to long ago
We would humbly recommend our own recently released retranslation mod, Shinra Archaeology Cut, which you can download through the 7th Heaven mod catalog. It features a comprehensive retranslation of the Japanese international version script, as well as optionally restored cut content.
@@LastElixirProductions whoa, noted! thank you so much!
Wow, personally that sounds far more interesting and fun than playing/finishing rebirth
@@LastElixirProductionswhile I can admire the effort of many retranslation mods, especially for FF games which have a history of pretty solid ones, it feels hard to not take this recommendation with a heap of salt when it starts with "we recommend our mod"
If nothing else - from the snippets I have seen it does seem to try to capture the same tones the original localizers gave the characters and their ways of speaking
I can confirm that, at least for me, being able to play FF7 in Japanese improved my appreciation for it a lot. It helps with a lot of media to experience it in the original, but FF7 is a particularly sensitive one for me because the English was just such a rush job.
I speak some Japanese. I'm not a localizer... But I looked up Barret's line in the Japanese script. I can see why the single guy who was translating this whole game decided to make it about Marlene. The whole conversation with Dyne is extremely Metal Gear Solid kabuki theater. Lots of vague language about what Barret was doing while he wandered. Seeing what the arc of the story and the scene is supposed to be, side by side, it's easy to say "duh, he was saying he went back to at least die with his wife, because he had nothing to live for." But as with most things in Japanese dramatic dialogue, when translated directly into English, it's really unclear that Marlene is the thing he found. While wandering. She became his purpose.
Japanese audiences would understand the vagueness. How Barret started the thought with "Marlene is alive" and then continued his story about his wandering for death. The connection isn't clear enough for English audiences.
nice video! i guess many of us didn't know about this! :)
God dammit! Can't we got a mf translation that doesn't omit shiet and just translate what the original Japanese dialogue had? God damn!! That line would of changed Barret's character after so long of him saying one thing hours upon hours. It's complete bs they took it out. Now it makes sense why that Barret scene in Rebith showed him going back to Corel to find his wife. It's funny too how then in the real Corel scene of Dyne they chicken out and censor how he went out but in the original he ends himself. Man, I sometimes wish Japanese was taught to me so I wouldn't have to deal with these piece of shiet censorship from the west and read it raw and uncut from Japan.
Maybe I should read that fan translation that is said to be more authentic but I forgot what it was called. Hopefully somebody can tell me so I can mod the Final Fantasy 7 steam version if possible to use it.
The line is a bit too on the nose. And Barret’s rage wasn’t misdirected, it was targeted towards Shinra deservedly so.
It took me a LONG time to get to grips with this game BECAUSE of this omission, if we're being honest. With all the destruction and fear they gave to innocent people in Midgar, I never bought the "We're doing this to save the planet" narrative. If I saw his admission that it was just an excuse for revenge, I probably would've committed myself to beating it the first time.
nice edit, new subscriber
At the time of the games launch for pc there was even more pressure on game devs to soften language about positive representations of terrorism.
This core tenant most likely came from Square, seeing as future versions hammering that narrative home to distance the characters from their intentions or actions. And even in the FF7 Remake, there was considerable effort made ego re contextualize the mako reactor bombing at the start of the game to a shinra power move, taking agency away from the characters and making them innocent adjacent pawns.
That isn't removal of agency. Stop trying to use literary terms you don't actually understand.
I have been playing the Japanese Final Fantasy VII International version and I noticed some slight dialogue changes from what I remember playing the English version like what's here.
I thought the most-famous case of Barret-censorship was his racially-stereotypical use of the word 'fool' in the PlayStation Underground demo!
I could be wrong, but I feel like those lines were in the original ff7 with the mislabel on the back of the case. There were only a handful of them made and I was lucky enough to get a copy when I was a kid.
Wild ARMs 2 somehow got an E (it shouldn't have). So if it was to soften it, they were probably being overly cautious. This was also the first game after they were dealing with Nintendo's crazy censorship in the west.
Never played FF7, but seeing that line - and the consequences of his mistaken mindset - reminds me of Stain from MHA, and of what would be _my_ personal response in Izuku's position.
"Ohh, they're not pure enough for you? Who _gives_ a shit?! Seriously, who the hell _cares_ whether their desire to help is genuine? As long as they're helping, _that's good._ One of my classmates? Her family is _dirt poor,_ and she sees Hero Work as the best way to make money, and _in turn_ give her family a better life. If you begrudge _her_ for _that,_ you're _ten thousand times more heinous a villain_ than that bastard Shigaraki."
Unfortunately, later on it turns out Stain was predicting the future correctly - that too many were in it purely for the glitz and glamour. And here, it sounds like Barret goes through something similar, but comes out a better person on the other side of it. So while it's not a 1-to-1, it's close enough for my ADHD to flip its shit and start making an ass out of me. :D
I think this is less censorship and more a screw up. There are a few lines very early on in the game (in and around the first Mako Reactor) that didn't make it into the English version. One that I can think of off the top of my head is when the group is sitting around on the train talking about Cloud as they make their escape and Biggs asks if Barret thinks Cloud would fight to the end for Avalanche. In English, Barret says:
"The hell would I know!? Do I look like a mind reader? Hmph!! If y'all weren't such screw-ups..." which is directly followed by Wedge asking about their money. However, in the Japanese version, Barret says:
「さあな…… 知らねえよ。チッ！！ おまえらがもうすこし たよりになりゃよ……あんな野郎、やとわねえでも いいんだがな…」which translates to "How would I know? Tch!! If ya'll were more dependable, I'd have never had to hire him..."
There are others I can't recall off the top of my head (pretty sure there was one missing when Cloud speaks to Barret in the room where Biggs and Jessie have to input pass codes to open doors), but beyond those early stages, I didn't notice any missing lines like that again until the one you talk about in this video, so I really doubt it was intentional, I think someone just messed up on the technical side a few times.
"It'sa prison, Cloud! I can't be seen talkin to one of you white boys!"
-the missing line
Has anyone found the cut content, of the Materia in the Cave by the Conch Shell, The Vine & path next to the bridge at the entrance to the Temple of The Ancients, or the fight in the northern crater, where Cloud fights a clone of himself? Its a random fight you can encounter near where you get the enemy skill from that enemy that only appears there near the stalagmite.
You’ve been pumping out banger videos, excellent work. Can’t wait until you get Superchats open, would love to tip you for your hard work.
Amazing, there's no retranslation project so far that doesn't butcher the spirit of the original PS1 release. They either add fluff and make "tonal corrections" for the sake of a "better and more modern localization" and/or they obsessively try to make the dialogue "compliant" with the other releases of the franchise/compilation and/or remakes/remasters/rereleases.
There's no single project that takes the PS1 version, correct's grammar and mistranslations while restoring the censored dialogue.
I mean I think it’s better that they changed it. Makes him a more likable character with better convictions
I am 100% anti-censorship, and it frustrates me beyond belief when stuff like this gets censored. It really does feel like we're being told what we can and can't handle. Speech police are my worst enemy.
They don't even have any good excuse when they do it for games that are M-rated to begin with. It's plain old puritanism and evangelism of their particular new-age religion.
Thanks.
Didn't these lines get reinserted for the Echo-S version?
Yep, these are all restored/retranslated in the script used by the Echo-S version!
@LastElixirProductions I thought so, I played through it like six months ago
I really hope someone makes a better translation mod for this game.
I despise censorship... even before this era of unprecedented stifling of creative vision, it reared its ugly head, even turning what should have been one of the hardest-hitting scenes in Xenosaga into some absurd comedy. FF7 captured my imagination as a youngster exactly because of the ambiguity of whether the part was actually the good side or not, and one of the bones I have to pick with the Remake is further undermining this by passing blame off on Shinra. It's POSSIBLE this was a "changing creative vision," but censorship feels more likely, and either way we're probably never know 100%, and it feels watered down. Just let creators express the stories they want to tell, and consumers choose what we find compelling.
I still think the message and Barrett’s true motivations were implied. Just a bit more nuanced than the original text suggests. Not a big deal. But then again I played the original so wouldn’t have noticed either way I guess.
This is why localizers are deservedly hated.
More!
You might wanna try the OG PAL version......
I don't actually think it's censorship. I think it's just the creators and writers of the game wanting to change this aspect of the characters themselves. What i'm saying is that it's only censorship if it's mandated. I don't think it was a mandate, I think it was a retcon. Something the team did not do just to bow to some ratings board over, but because they felt a certain way about the characters and decided on their own to do this.
Everyone is so quick to jump to the unfounded accusation "They changed it, the ratings board must have MADE them do it" but there's absolutely nothing to suggest that they were beholden to anyone. Also I know for a fact that the ERSB wouldn't care about these lines, because there's nothing inherently objectionable about them. The ratings board only cares about direct references to things far more blatant than this. If Barret suddenly started smoking crack or started swearing fully uncensored with hard F words or started running around naked, THAT'S something the ESRB takes note of. They literally don't care at all if someone has a "more selfish motivation for the cause they fight for", that's not a censorship issue.
I am absolutely convinced you are barking up the wrong tree here as to the reasoning. I just think it's the Final Fantasy 7 writers themselves having an internal opinion about the way they want to present these characters, and retconed it on their own, and because they wanted to, not because anyone was making them.
I strongly believe this is NOT censorship, just a retcon that they decided on their own for their own reasons to change on subsequent ports and releases.
Just a recap of what's happening here: These lines all exist in the Japanese version of the game. Their removal only happened in the English version. The original writers had no input in this decision. If they did, the lines wouldn't have appeared again in International. Again, these lines exist in all Japanese versions of the game, including modern ports.
It's perfectly possible there is no instance of censorship here, and that the translator simply made a series of bad errors. However, it seems more likely to us that the English localization team chose to alter the contents of these scenes to create a different impression for Western players.
@@LastElixirProductions I would point you to "This guy are sick" - the PS1 FF7 was chock-a-block with translation errors and questionable decisions, and if this line of Barret's got canned for being dubious, how the hell did anything in Wall Market get by? Or the Turks planning to kidnap Aerith as a goddamn breeding slave? Or Cid's abuse of his assistant, or any of a dozen other different way-more-objectionable things?
Occam's Razor says when you have a game with an already dodgy translation, and frequent instances of fairly mature content not being censored, one instance having been removed should be considered the former, not the latter absent specific evidence to the contrary.
0:24 NO WAY YOU JUST DID THAT
Did what?
I know this doesn't contribute much to discussion and whatnot, but you should try pushing a higher resolution for the videos.
We're still UA-cam newbies, so we'll look into that next time we upload!
It's baffling how these lines were removed from the English version. Censorship is one hell of an ironic notion.
"TWO" lmfao
so you're telling me that someone took the original Japanese and re-translated the game? Where can I get this mod at?
I think the translator did a pretty poor job with Barrett in general. In the Japanese version, there is never any racial tension in his dialog - he never says "your spiky white butt" or whatever to Cloud, he just talks like a tough guy from an action movie. On its own that's not a bad change, but I think the translator leaned too hard into that characterization and the rivalry he has with Cloud in the beginning of the game. In Japanese, his personality does a 180 after Corel Prison and he realizes that he needs to fight to protect the world for the next generation. As part of that, he starts to see Cloud as like a little brother - especially as it becomes clear that Cloud has some deep-seated mental issues. In English he comes across as anoyed by this, or just kind of hanging out because he was already in the party, but in Japanese he really is trying to help pull the guy up out of his slump.
It is one of the things I think Remake/Rebirth got right. Barrett is a hothead and doesn't show his softer side, but he clearly sees Cloud as a friend pretty much from the time he turns up to save Sector 7 and shows that he's not just a cold hearted mercenary.
I think rather than censorship it's a case of the translator not having the full manuscript before he got to work, and making a lot of assumptions because he was translating the story as he played through it. There's evidence of this elsewhere, like how Aerith's dialog on the date in Japanese is much more clear - she literally says "I feel like there are two Clouds. The one I know, and the one I've never met. I'd like to meet the one I've never met someday." - She obviously knows about the whole twist thing, and this moment is called back to during the ending. But in English it gets mangled because the translator didn't know what she meant, and didn't go back and fix it once he got to the part that explains it.
Similarly, Cloud at one point says in Japanese that he feels like there's a stranger living inside his head, which much more strongly sets up the eventual reveal.
Because it was translated sequentially, little mistakes like that pile up as you play through the story, and over its runtime it deviates from its original intent more and more. Barrett's lines going missing to me indicates that the translator just didn't get the context of what he was saying and injected a line he mistakenly thought made more sense.
I thought Barret was really cool already, but it turns out he was watered down in English? Man, that sucks.
English localization is an abomination. This should be done in house in Japan with native English speakers under their supervision.
I don't buy this is "censorship"; this adds depth, but it doesn't make the text more viable for a ratings board. I'm much more willing to believe that the translator misunderstood the text, felt the stuff was out of character, and adjusted the scene to conform to their understanding.
We're lucky he wasn't more censored. Otherwise we'd end up with the bland boring mess of a character we have in the remake.
How can it be the most famous when no one’s heard about it? 💀