Beyond the 'Whatevers,' or "How Playing Final Fantasy VIII in Japanese Changed My Perception of the Game

 Please note that there will be story spoilers for the entirety of Final Fantasy VIII in this post.

There always seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to the localization of Final Fantasy VIII. One is that because it's quite comprehensible and not ridden with typos and very odd grammatical errors, that it's a perfectly competent translation. The other is that the translation changes so much with regards to the writing that it's like the cast are completely different across languages.

After playing Final Fantasy VIII in Japanese, I've come to my own conclusion: it's far more nuanced than that. There is a middle-ground to be had here, where both schools of thought are not entirely right...but they're not entirely wrong, either.

Something to preface this with is the fact that while I am an editor and have dipped my toes into localization, I do not have any formal schooling with Japanese. I'm self-taught, but have 15+ years experience with doing so. So my understanding may not be perfect, but it's competent enough that I can play games ahead of their localizations and surprise myself every time when I realize I understood everything with near-perfect clarity.

Another thing to add is that I don't want to consider this some sort of harsh criticism of the translators or anyone who worked on the game at time of release. These things are complex, especially before the age of truly dedicated localization teams. There were undeniably a lot of limitations at the time, be they time, space, communication—all of which I know can lead to less-than-ideal outcomes in a commercial release.

Okay, so what do you mean about there being a middle-ground?

Well, it's true that the game reads better than its predecessor did at release. A lot of the concepts are explained just fine, and I would say a solid 95% of the information you need to understand the plot is conveyed clearly. 

It's in the nuances where things start to go awry.

The conversation about Squall's characterization (and specifically the use of "Whatever" in place of "別に" and "悪かったな") has been done to death. And there is something valid to that—but in my honest opinion, it stretches beyond that. Not just with Squall, either, but with Rinoa, Edea, Ultimecia, and I'd even stretch this out to some of the other party members like Selphie and Irvine.

A lot of the discussion around Squall is that he comes off as an asshole. Dismissive, kind of mean at times, unnecessarily harsh. I can agree with that...in English. I never felt that way when running through it in Japanese. He was brusque, sure. But there are a lot of little things that seemed to soften the way he said the things he did that never made it feel mean. He just felt introverted and withdrawn; you could tell he wanted to keep people at arms' length, and his internal narration would reinforce that.

An interesting example of this is early in the game, when Quistis is bearing her heart to Squall about her worries, and she tells him that all she wants is for him to listen to her, to hear her out. Most people remember his infamous "Then go talk to a wall." And he does say that...technically. But the takeaway I got from playing in Japanese was "In that case, you'd be better off just talking to a wall." The meaning is the same, rather than coming off dismissive and needlessly mean, there's a slight self-deprecation that feels far more like he can't understand why she's talking to him when a wall could do the same job.

This sort of thing seemed to happen often with Squall. By the end of the game, I was completely endeared by him for that reason. Watching him say things that are meant to look dismissive, but never quite commit, watching the way his internal monologue was him actively trying to convince himself to stay distanced from others, even when his actions said otherwise... He really did come off as such a charming little loser with all the deep-seated issues that I personally love in a JRPG character.

And the same can be said for other characters. Rinoa in English often came off as childish, sometimes to the point of being mean. There's an instance in which the Japanese text is Squall coming to understand Rinoa and pointing that out, which pleases her. The English text is just her teasing him endlessly and making him blush (? which was quite confusing because it did feel out of left field.). 

But those little moments add up. When you have one version of the text where the characters spend two discs being kind of savage toward one another, and then a version where you see the slow build of two people coming to understand each other...well, it's natural that the perception of Squall and Rinoa's relationship, which is a major crux for the game's story, would be perceived differently.

I loved watching the way they came together. Disc 1 has Squall and Rinoa butting heads quite often. In Squall's eyes, Rinoa is reckless, selfish and impulsive, and he believes her naivete will cause more harm than good. Conversely, Rinoa sees how brusque and withdrawn Squall is, and cannot really understand his mentality because he focuses on the mission and his job as a SeeD and keeps everyone at a distance. The end of Disc 1's events begin the shift, where Rinoa finally understands the liability she is, and much to his own chagrin, Squall wants to keep her close to keep from another disastrous situation from cropping up.

Disc 2 builds on that, with the two of them slowly coming to understand each other more. The conversations feel less volatile and don't devolve into needing apologies at the end. Squall begins to show that he understands the way she thinks and feels, and Rinoa in turn can see more of who Squall is beneath his (try)hard exterior. By the end of Disc 2, they've both begun to change each other for the better, and into Disc 3, Squall can no longer deny that she's someone deeply important to him. He falls quite easily into the role of being her knight (a recurring theme, when you consider Cid and Edea, and also Seifer with Edea/Ultimecia). And all of that makes it hit so much harder when they finally reunite; the scene on the Ragnarok hit me like a sack of bricks for how Rinoa was able to confess her worries and Squall makes it clear from every moment after that how he will be her undying support. Knowing what was coming next only made it worse, since I hadn't forgotten that she was willing to let herself be sealed away to prevent the worst from happening.

I think it also made the end hit harder; three discs of Rinoa having to be saved by Squall, as a knight is wont to do by that point... only for the ending to be Rinoa being the one to save Squall; a princess saving her knight so they can live happily ever after because she is his anchor just hit all the right notes for me.

So while I liked them well enough from the previous 25 years of being acquainted with Final Fantasy VIII's story, this time, I was completely sold on the development of their romance.

And what about everyone else?

I think it's a little less prominent with the other characters. Like, maybe there's something to be said about toning down some of Selphie's genki girl ways, culling her moments of Kansai dialect and not replacing it with something else, or how they seem to play up Irvine being way more of a flirt than he actually was at any point in the game as I played it in Japanese.

Where it stood out the most to me was the Edea (when possessed by Ultimecia) and Ultimecia herself. Not because there were grand, sweeping characterization issues, but I think both of her major villain speeches lost a bit of their own nuance. The initial speech in Deling felt a lot closer to foreshadowing her true motivations of time compression. In the final boss battle, Ultimecia gets into a little more detail about what time compression will do to the party, and really better explains exactly what Griever is. These things may not be necessary to understanding the overarching plot, but I did feel like I had a more solid understanding of her motivations and goals, which brought the plot together.

Of course, the plot isn't perfect by any stretch, but that is hardly a localization failing. In an ideal world, maybe we'd have gotten the original concept with more of Laguna's presence. Maybe things like GFs, junctions, and other in-world concepts would have been better explained so that the revelations like "using GFs comes at the price of your memory recollection" would have felt a bit more natural. I would've liked that, to be sure. If Square Enix ever wants to do a nice, ground-up remake (preferably one single game, though, rather than padding it out to three a-la Final Fantasy VII Remake series), those are some of things I'd love to see.

Ultimately, my conclusion by the end of this playthrough is that I loved the game even more than I remembered. It's like an unpolished gem—it's imperfect, but there's still so much beauty in it. Squall and Rinoa's love story was great for what it was trying to be. It went from something that made me scratch my head at times trying to resolve the leaps in logic of their feelings to fully understanding the development that exists. Sure, in a modern game, they'd probably beat us over the head with character moments to make it plainly obvious, but for what this was trying to accomplish in 1999, especially as a follow-up to what we all know to be one of the most beloved entries in the series, it did great. I just know now I have a very preferred way of experiencing this game now. I'm glad I took the time to do it, despite some of the challenges it presented, because I got to come away from it re-ranking my personal favorites. I love when I can come away from a game with a better impression than I previously had!