Final Fantasy VII Remake Script Comparison: Chapter 18
As the last chapter of the game begins, we see Whispers swarming the Shinra building. Rufus clearly sees them, while Tseng does not. This could give credence to the idea that the ability to see them is passed on through touch. Rufus has recently come into contact with Cloud during their battle, while Tseng has not touched any of the crew. In the original game, Tseng slapped Aerith when he captured her in Sector 7, but in Remake a soldier carries her off without Tseng ever touching her. If this theory is correct, it’s possible that Reno and Rude can see the Whispers as well, since they’ve come into contact with Cloud and company during their fights with them. In any case, Rufus orders his soldiers to go and capture Cloud and company, though it is unclear at this point if Rufus is still going to pursue them even after they leave the city.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| ルーファウス なんだ これは？ | Rufus What is all this? |
| ツォン どうかされましたか？ | Tseng Is something wrong, sir? |
| ツォン そうか わかった | Tseng I see. Very good. |
| ツォン 準備が 整いました どうされますか？ | Tseng The men are on standby, sir. Your orders? |
| ルーファウス 捕まえろ | Rufus Bring them in. |
The classic bike mini-game makes a return.
We get another ざまあみやがれ from Barret, which previously came up as ざまあみろ (a slightly less rude version) in chapters 5 and 7. See my notes on those chapters for an explanation of the phrase. The English translation has previously gone with “And stay down!” and “Serves y’all right!” (straight from the original translation) for this phrase, and here we see another variation: “And let that be a lesson to you!” Showing how one phrase can be translated multiple ways even within similar contexts.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| バレット ざまあみやがれ！ | Barret And let that be a lesson to you! |
The original “final” boss of the Midgar segment is now fought entirely within the bike mini-game, as opposed to being a regular battle that occurs when the crew reaches the end of the highway.
Upon reaching the end of the highway in Remake, the crew encounters Sephiroth instead. Sephiroth says that Aerith is too sentimental to see clearly, while Aerith declares that Sephiroth is wrong, already seemingly familiar with him and what he’s after. This Sephiroth evidently wants to preserve the world at all costs, saying that if the world disappears, so too will all the life bound to it.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| エアリス あなたは まちがっている | Aerith And you… You’re wrong. |
| セフィロス 感傷で曇った目には なにも見えまい | Sephiroth Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows. |
| エアリス あなたは まちがっている | Aerith Everything about you is wrong. |
| セフィロス 命は 星を巡る | Sephiroth All born are bound to her. |
| セフィロス だが 星が消えれば それも終わりだ | Sephiroth Should this world be unmade, so too shall her children. |
We get a brief flash over to a familiar character. This short scene plays out exactly like it does in Crisis Core, though with an extra line in the beginning to give a little more context to the player. This is the first time the English translation adheres so closely to a previous translation for a whole scene (with just a slight tweak to “as a SOLDIER”), most likely because Crisis Core is more recent and the timing of the lines is still mostly the same.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake | Japanese Crisis Core | English Crisis Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| ザックス やっと 帰ってきたってのに ずいぶんな歓迎だな | Zack We drag our asses all this way…and this is the welcome we get. | ||
| ザックス ったくよ | Zack Boy, oh boy… | ったくよ—— | Boy oh boy… |
| ザックス 自由の代償は 高いぜ | Zack The price of freedom is steep. | 自由の代償は高いぜ | The price of freedom is steep. |
| ザックス 夢を 抱きしめろ | Zack Embrace your dreams. | 夢を抱きしめろ | Embrace your dreams. |
| ザックス そして どんなときでも | Zack And, whatever happens… | そして どんな時でも—— | And, whatever happens, |
| ザックス ソルジャーの誇りは 手放すな | Zack Protect your honor…as a SOLDIER! | ソルジャーの誇りは手放すな | protect your honor…as SOLDIER! |
| ザックス いらっしゃいませ～ | Zack Come and get it! | いらっしゃいませー！ | Come and get it! |
Afterwards, Sephiroth vanishes and Aerith spurs the crew to go into the mysterious portal. She explains that what they just heard were the cries of the planet. This wasn’t introduced as a concept in the original FF7 until the player made it to Cosmo Canyon, though in Remake Barret already brought it up briefly in the beginning of the game. Incidentally, Cosmo Canyon is also where the theme of defying destiny is originally touched on.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| エアリス 星の悲鳴 聞いたよね | Aerith What you heard just now were the voices of the planet. |
| エアリス かつて この星に生きた人たちの声 星を巡る 命の叫び | Aerith Those born into this world. Who lived and who died. Who returned. They’re howling in pain. |
Aerith goes on to confirm that Sephiroth’s primary goal is to preserve the planet, and that she disagrees with that way of thinking, so she begs Cloud and the others to help her change fate. This is…interesting, because it’s been implied that the planet’s destiny is in fact to die. So if Aerith wanted to oppose Sephiroth’s goal of preserving the planet, you’d think she’d be on the side of fate in that case. Which means we don’t really know exactly what “fate” Aerith is trying to change at this point. While this is good for keeping players guessing, I also feel that it unfortunately weakens the ending, at least in my opinion. None of them really know what they’re accomplishing here or why, except for maybe Aerith and possibly Red XII but they aren’t at all clear with the others about what’s going on. They just don’t seem to have the kind of conviction (or character development) that would warrant a giant battle against fate itself, so it ends up (personally) feeling like they’re jumping the gun just for the sake of a bombastic ending to this first game.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake | Japanese Original | English Original |
|---|---|---|---|
| エアリス セフィロスが 大事なのは星と自分 守るためなら なんでもする | Aerith He’d tell you that he only cares about the planet. That he’d do everything in his power to protect and preserve it. | クラウド 「約束の地を守る？ いいやつ？ ちがう！！」 | Cloud “Save the Promised Land? A good guy? No way!!” |
| エアリス そんなの 間違ってると思う | Aerith But this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. | 「そんな単純な話じゃない！ 俺は知ってるんだ！ セフィロスの目的はちがう！」 | “It’s not that simple! I know him! Sephiroth’s mission is different!” |
| エアリス 星の本当の敵は セフィロス | Aerith There’s no greater threat to the planet than him. | ||
| エアリス だから 止めたい それを クラウドに | Aerith Sephiroth has to be stopped. He has to be. And that’s why… | ||
| エアリス みんなに 手伝ってほしかった このみんなが 一緒ならできる | Aerith I’m asking you to help me. I know that, together, we can do this. | ||
| エアリス でも | Aerith But if we do… | ||
| エアリス この壁は 運命の壁 | Aerith We’ll be changing more than fate itself. | ||
| エアリス 入ったら 越えたら みんなも 変わってしまう | Aerith If we succeed…if we win…we’ll be changing ourselves… |
ANYWAY, before going into the portal of destiny, Cloud gets the option to talk with everyone, just like he can right before they leave Midgar in the original. Obviously the dialogue is completely different from that scene, but one of Tifa’s comments is at least reminiscent of an original FF7 line of hers where she talks about wanting to take action instead of stand around.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake | Japanese Original | English Original |
|---|---|---|---|
| ティファ 早く行かないと 迷っちゃうな | Tifa If we wait any longer, I dunno… | ティファ 「じっとしてると……なんか、ダメ」 | Tifa “If I stayed here…I’d go crazy.” |
After beating the giant fate monster, we get a battle with Sephiroth, because of course we do. This Sephiroth tells Cloud not to defy fate, while the one that appears after this battle tries to get Cloud to defy fate with him, so we clearly have multiple Sephiroths on our hands here. The Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania notes that Sephiroth uses different Japanese pronouns at different points. This is true even in the original where he initially used 俺 (ore) and then switched to 私 (watashi) after a certain famous incident. In Remake, the Sephiroth visions from Chapter 2 and Chapter 7 use 私 (watashi), while the one here at the end uses 俺 (ore). And he doesn’t seem to use any pronouns in his other appearances (Japanese will often omit pronouns when it can). So this would imply that we have at least two different Sephiroths on our hands, possibly from different time periods, and certainly with wildly different goals.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| セフィロス 運命に逆らうな クラウド | Sephiroth Fate is not to be taken lightly, Cloud. |
| Japanese Remake | English Remake |
|---|---|
| セフィロス 俺は 消えたくない | Sephiroth But I…will not end. |
| セフィロス おまえを 消したくはない | Sephiroth Nor will I have you end. |
| クラウド ここは？ | Cloud This is…? |
| セフィロス 世界の先端だ | Sephiroth The edge of creation. |
| セフィロス おまえの力が必要だ クラウド | Sephiroth Cloud, lend me your strength. |
| セフィロス ともに 運命に抗ってみないか？ | Sephiroth Let us defy destiny…together. |
As we close out the game with the final cutscene, we see that Barret is still concerned about Marlene, as he was in the original. And the crew’s goal is still to pursue Sephiroth wherever he may be.
| Japanese Remake | English Remake | Japanese Original | English Original |
|---|---|---|---|
| バレット マリン！ | Barret Marlene! | バレット 「エアリスのおふくろさんには 安全な場所に移るようにって 言っといたからマリンも 安全だな」 | Barret “We told Aeris’s mom to go somewhere safe, so Marlene should be safe, too.” |
| バレット 待ってろな | Barret I’ll come back. | ||
| ティファ どっちへ行けば いいんだろう | Tifa So…what now? | バレット 「さて、どうするよ？」 | Barret “Well, what do we do now?” |
| クラウド セフィロス | Cloud Sephiroth. | クラウド 「セフィロスは生きている。 俺は……あのときの決着を つけなくてはならない」 | Cloud “Sephiroth is alive. …I have to settle the score.” |
| クラウド あいつがいる限り 俺は | Cloud Long as he’s still out there, I… | ||
| バレット でも 倒しただろ？ | Barret I thought you beat him. | ||
| エアリス 追いかけよう | Aerith We can. | エアリス 「わたしも、行く。 ……知りたいこと、あるから」 | Aeris “I’ll go too. There are things I need to know.” |
| エアリス 大丈夫 | Aerith We will. | ||
| ティファ 私も 行く | Tifa Count me in. | ||
| レッドXIII 追跡ならば 鼻が必要だろう | Red XIII If it’s to be a hunt, you could use a nose like mine. | レッドXIII 「私は故郷に帰るつもりだ。 それまではいっしょに 行ってやる」 | Red XIII “I’m going back to my hometown. I’ll go with you as far as that.” |
| バレット オレも 行くぜ | Barret I’m in too! | バレット 「おっし、オレは行くぜ！」 | Barret “Then, I’m going!” |
| バレット あいつは 星を壊すつもり なんだろ | Barret Bastard wants to destroy the whole planet, doesn’t he? | バレット 「それが星を救うことになる んだな？」 | Barret “Will that save the Planet?” |
| バレット 星の敵は アバランチの敵だ | Barret An enemy of hers is an enemy of Avalanche! |
And that concludes my in-depth look at Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Japanese and English scripts! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series. Overall, I had a fantastic time with the game and was amazed at how well they built off the original story. The attention to detail here is phenomenal. I only hope they can keep that going in further games. And it’s also been great learning from the beautiful English translation. It’s all too easy to stick to the original phrasing when translating things, but to produce good writing you need to be able to free yourself from that when necessary and really dive into the heart of what a particular line is trying to say. This is easier said than done and requires a lot of creativity, but this team seriously nailed it. So here’s a shout out to them:
Lead Localization Project Manager – Noriko Ueda
Localization Project Managers – Eri Asano, Yan Sin Cheung, Reinnie May Yunarsa
Assistant Localization Project Managers – Yoshitaka Matsubara, Aya Nishihara
English Translators – Ben Sabin, John Crow, Noriko Iwahara, Philip D. Gibbon, Ryan Patterson
English Editors – Morgan Rushton, Tim Law
…And everyone else involved in making this game happen!
