Insane Difficulty: Thinking of picking this up but have a question about the translation - Insane Difficulty

Ok I am thinking of picking this up and giving it a play but what I want to know before hand is which translation is this using? Or is it using a whole new one? Also it says "and builds on existing plotlines and characterization." does that mean there were additions to the plots or is that just on account of the new translation? I don't really want to get too fanficy.

I am nowhere near sober enough to answer this question with any degree of eloquence, so if someone else wants to step in, that'd be great.

If not, I'll reply in the morning.

BTB, on 06 May 2016 - 09:24 PM, said:

This reply makes posting this worth it in and of itself!

BNW stays as close to the spirit of the original translation of FF6 as possible, taking influence from both the Japanese script and the Wonderful Wizard of Woolsey. There are a few liberties taken in some places with wording and overall "refurbishing" (most notably, Cyan's Shakespearean style of words being more apparent and consistent throughout the entirety of the game, and Celes acting like an actual military general where appropriate), but there isn't anything that would really be considered going into the realm of "fanfiction" or anything like that.

I'm going to say it outright that–having played through BNW start to finish more times than I can count–I'm a bit biased, but I would definitely consider giving it a try if you want to play a version of Final Fantasy VI through the filter of good game design and mechanics (because let's face it, vanilla FFVI was coded like hot garbage once you took a good look into it).

Welcome aboard.

Well I've beaten the original game once long ago, in an age far far away and first I was thinking of picking up and playing the GBA or ios version but then I got to thinking how I've been spoiled by games that give me a challenge like shin megami tensei nocturne etc and decided to look around the rebalancing hack scene. In the end I just want a better translation (And one thats not overly localized/changed from the original japanese too much). I fell in love with this game for its plot and setting but if I can have the gameplay catch up to that I would jump at the chance ya know?

BNW has difficulty in it, but it has its own niche in that it isn't just a "rebalance/difficulty" mod of FF6. It has changes that help make the game flow a lot smoother, there's a significant reduction in the tedium of obnoxious tasks that were present in vanilla (Rages are slimmed down from vanilla's gargantuan list, but all of the remaining Rages have their own purpose and viability), enemies are more complex and offer numerous options to defeat them, but the biggest thing about BNW is that it fleshes each character out with stats and abilities that complement who they are in the story, rather than having every character turn into the same Quick-Ultima spellcaster that tended to happen in vanilla.

For example, Sabin has high physical power and stamina (which has been made into an actual stat of importance) to reflect his monk training in the mountains, Cyan is all about hitting hard and taking little in return as a Samurai of Doma, Celes has well-rounded stats as an Imperial General to allow her to fit almost any role needed for a party, and so on and so forth. It's a really good blend of gameplay and narrative that makes BNW so rich and engaging, and the numerous ways to build each character into their own unique roles keeps me coming back even after several handfuls of playthroughs.

Really, I could gush about BNW for hours if I had the opportunity, but it really is something that I would definitely recommend trying for yourself. Plus, the download comes with a readme.txt file that pretty much goes into great detail about everything you can expect to see in the game.

It's mostly just taking existing dialogue and rewriting sentences. Saying the same thing with different words. I think in a couple spots the GBA dialogue was used. Some NPC dialogue was changed, sometimes for practical reasons (such as the beginner's house where the NPC's talk about how BNW works), sometimes because BTB felt like it (people in Narshe speak like "Canadians"). Cyan's dialogue was changed to be more Elizabethan and less "Ye olde English".

Also swearing dialogue enhancers, which were employed where BTB felt it would enhance the dialogue. However, if potty language isn't to your liking there's a 2nd patch that comes with the download that replaces the naughty words with polite parlance that any puritan purist would enjoy (ymmv). Apply the normal BNW patch first, and then the BNW "clean" patch on top of the first.

I will say that there's a 2 instances that I find toe the line when it comes to taking liberty with characters, one of which I've always found narmy (although it's better now than it was in earlier versions of the romhack). And BTB took more liberty when it comes to random NPC's in towns, than with story/plot dialogue. BNW's primary focus is on gameplay balancing, so the dialogue changes are for the most part minor. Swearing was added, but used judiciously.

Satarack, on 06 May 2016 - 10:18 PM, said:

This kind of puts me on the fence, I think I will move ff6 farther along in my backlog so I can decide if this or one of the many translations out there is the one for me. Everything about the gameplay seems great but I mostly like to experience story as close to the original japanese as possible Thanks for all the info and know that if I don't decide to pick this up its more my taste getting in the way of things.
thanks for all the info!

That's fair. It's my opinion that, with two exceptions*, this translation is better than the original Japanese (although, to be fair, my experience with that was a translation that I played about a decade ago, once). I'd certainly say it's better than Woolsey's (which I love) and the more recent translation (which I loathe too much to get too into it). These are my opinions, however, and should not be taken as statements of fact.

*A certain character's in-battle dialogue before the middle-of-the-game cataclysm, and some aspects of the way Cyan's character was handled. Neither of these are terribly serious problems, in the grand scheme of things, and they are both matters of personal taste more than anything else.

Dr. Letha, on 06 May 2016 - 10:09 PM, said:

Just curious but how much of the second half of the game doable without a guide? I remember the original being quite a bit vague when it comes to what to actually do.

I went out of my way to clarify where the player is "supposed" to go next in the WoR. If you take the time to talk to all the NPCs, you shouldn't have any difficulties.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the references yet. There aren't as many references as in ROTDS, but there are some things that you may not like, such as "Red Bull" being an item. That doesn't bother me at all, but I suspect it might not be your cup of tea.

Yeah these things are a bit off putting for me, maybe you could someday, when done with all the important stuff make a more "Vanilla" story patch? I am sure there are at least some people who would be like me out there. In the end from everything I've read this seems to be a very good hack but I don't think its one for me (Call me mr nitpick

It's been requested on occasion, but we have little interest in doing something like that. Trying to take Brave New World as-is and rewriting the dialogue to be more vanilla would probably make it weird at best and flat-out retarded at worst.

The vanilla script is atrocious and there's literally zero chance we'd revert the major dialogue points back to it.

I think the most striking part where the BNW outshines all other versions of FF6 dialogue is on the floating continent.

I'm under the impression that some users are tip-toeing around the whole translation/script topic, as if it they might offend BTB/Synchysi or appear ungrateful for their work. There shouldn't be a need for that since we all appreciate their efforts to overhaul the game and create BNW. For the sake of transparency, we should state plainly what the differences are. I haven't played much myself, but a few things are noteworthy (some of them already mentioned here):

- swearing (fuck, etc)
- 4th wall breaking (can't remember if this was in the vanilla though)
- some of the jokes can be considered crude or vulgar

Those are from the top of my head. BTW I'm only referring to content that could potentially be an issue for some; there are other changes (like added events, if I'm not mistaken, and the core script revision).

I'd say the above sums it up fairly well, though you might also add the fact that it also gets a bit reference-happy at times.

I think really the big problem is when you mention the fact that there is swearing in the mod, the listener's mind immediately conjures up the sort of immature trash that a 15 year-old would write (think Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back), which not even the 1.0 days really came close to hitting. I tend to downplay that aspect of Brave New World specifically *because* I don't want to make a big deal about it.

Well if you're just looking for "faithful to the Japanese version", the Sky Render translation is probably your best bet... although I really wasn't partial to that one.

Time/SpaceMage, on 07 May 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

Actually, I found the Sky Render translation to be pretty poor in general. It's just that, a translation. Like it was merely translated into English. It is so stiff and poorly localized that I cannot in good conscious recommend it to someone. Even if you were a person that hated Woosley translations, there's no way you could say SR's is better, just more accurate to the original translation... Which really? You weren't missing much. Most of the text alterations were due to text limitations and censorship.

As for BNW? The dialogue is far less stiff than the SR translation but still has its own little quirks to make it unique enough without actually altering the script too radically. Sure, there's a curse word here or there that wasn't in the original, but it's more in line with say FF7's curse words in that regard. They are there, but it's not a constant barrage of them. But honestly, even if they were, I'd still play it. It's still far better than the original version of FF6. To date, I've finished FF6 ONCE. I've finished BNW more than that.