Final Fantasy V Translation Notes
Newly updated!
This is the now semi-famous unofficial translation of FFV that I hope has helped numerous English speakers enjoy this truly wonderful game! I've added just about all the dialogue in the entire game, including townspeople and other incidental things that I didn't bother to include the first time through. I hope this time I've got the entire game translated perfectly... do let me know if you have any comments or questions.
A few things you might like to know first...
* Things in italics, or in brackets and parentheses, are my comments and aren't actually said in the game. Names of speakers are in bold.
* There were a few times where I decided to keep Japanese words intact rather that use (possibly awkward) translations. Keep in mind that this is a *translation*, not a complete rewrite; Ted Woolsey and the other official Square translators have a lot of freedom to change things and "invent" words so that things sound good. For example, in the conversion of FF6j to the American FF3, "madou" (magic-leading, roughly) became "Magitek" and "genjuu" (mythical beast) became "Esper". But since my version of FF5 is unofficial, I was reluctant to create words like that and so I just left Japanese terms in. Other times I used words from other FF-series games which seemed to fit, such as "Hikari no Senshi" = "Light Warriors" (FF1). Just for reference:
"Mu" = "void", or "nothingness"
"Hiryuu" = "flying dragon"
* Japanese differs from English in that there are a lot more variations in speech styles depending on the age and sex of the speaker. So often it's possible to identify who's talking without actually stating who it is. In FFV, there are many instances where they just have an open quote and then the words, without a name in front. But in the English version I always put the name of the speaker in there, just to clear up any possible confusion. (This also means I may have been wrong once or twice... ^^) When there were unnamed characters, such as in towns, I either numbered them or described them.
* Lastly, since I tried to stay fairly literal with the translation, the dialogue might not be as lively as in FF3US... at times it might read more like the American FF2. For example, Exdeath (the main villain) is really boring compared to, say, Kefka or even Golbez. I thought of breathing more life into his lines but decided against it because I wanted to stay true to the original, even though at times I put in some Americanisms when it didn't seem to change the overall meaning. But I figured that since many of the players are going to have some Japanese ability, I'd better use literal equivalents. But I admit, it does make things sound a little bit weird occasionally.
* Thanks go out to Tat Nakao for helping with general stuff and some strategy, May for helping me get the "music box" scene in Lix (the dialogue moves really fast so that the scene's length lines up with the music), Nora Stevens for the nifty border on this page, and my friend Josh for sitting patiently while I translated all this stuff for him. (At first he would come down to my place and play while I read the dialogue... then I figured, "Why not type this and do the world a nice service?" ^_^) Also thanks go out to several other people, who are forever immortalized in the names of the townspeople in Lix. ^_^;
Let me know if there are any errors in here, and have fun!!
World 1
World 2
World 3
--Mark
Created 7 January 1997; updated 25 October 1997
Questions? Comments? Contact me at [email protected]!