Final Fantasy VI: Retranslated

What it is

The 1994 English release of Final Fantasy VI (sold in North America as Final Fantasy III) was famously loose, and later official versions fixed some errors while adding new ones. hairy_hen's patch rewrites the whole script to carry the meaning of the Japanese text faithfully, drawing heavily on the line-by-line translation published on the Legends of Localization site, while aiming for English that reads as if it had been written that way. A few well-loved lines from the old version stay where they don't change the story.

Cyan gets the biggest overhaul, with a consistent archaic way of speaking based on research into Early Modern English. Monster, item, spell and ability names are also revised, graphics that were censored for the West are put back as they were in Japan, and the patch fixes many bugs in the game code and adds small extras such as dashing with the B button. The readme links an annotated copy of the script explaining the choices made.

Version 1.4

The latest update is a major pass over the script that removes remaining traces of the old SNES localization: Kefka's lines were rewritten almost entirely, renamed characters go back to their original names or the closest phonetic match, item names can be two letters longer, and some items and spells were renamed with new descriptions. It also fixes the missing Blitz tutorial text in the Vargas fight, King Behemoth's death animation and conflicts between two bundled bug-fix patches.

Playing it

Apply the patch to your own unmodified, unheadered copy of Final Fantasy III (USA) v1.0, following the instructions on the patch's page. It works on emulators and real hardware.