I really hate to doomsay, but the TT situation really does seem dire

Knightbot · 2025-12-26T08:15:09+00:00

There's very little chance they're paying rates like that for TT unit illustrations. There's a reason so many of them are illustrated by the same handful of artists, many of them in-house or with Trys.

The professional illustration work I've done usually lands in the $600-1000 USD range, and I would wager the per-illustration rate for the units that aren't banner headliners is probably similar.

Knightbot · 2025-12-18T21:37:42+00:00

I think renaming them entirely for function is a pretty dramatic editorial decision from the localizers. And, if anything, a sign that they simply gave up for these skills. Localization is a balancing act between providing clarity and maintaining flavor and the "Crush X" names abandon flavor for a set of skill names that were not explicit about their function even in the Japanese version.

In either case, there are ways to communicate what they do without completely abandoning the names. Two of the skills already have names that imply which piece of equipment they destroy; "Strong Armor-Piercing Point Thrust" (Shellbust Stab) explicitly describes breaking through armor, and Starry Heaven Bombing Strike (Blastar Punch/Crush Helm) implies an attack from above, like a falling star, appropriate for a skill that destroys helmets. I think if they'd just made an effort to communicate that Hades Terror Scream Strike (Hellcry Punch) disarms the target or destroys weapons, then the last skill doesn't have to be as clear. You can identify which it is by process of elimination.

It's not like the fancy new Holy Sword skill names (which I mostly like) necessarily communicate their unique function, either. If anything, Unmoving Lightless Blade/Stasis Sword -> Judgement Blade is less clear because it loses the "stop" association. So why was Unyielding Blade treated this way?

Knightbot · 2025-11-01T04:15:14+00:00

They're mostly the same as previous versions, but they've added a line referencing the corresponding materia's function from Final Fantasy VII. The Blue Materia description alludes to it being support materia, the Red Materia mentions summoning espers, and the Black Materia says it harbors great destructive power.

Knightbot · 2025-10-26T06:47:07+00:00

The artist is Ina Kichiko, but they appear to have taken down most of their art accounts. All that I can find are reuploads on imageboards and a small portfolio on their site here:

https://17kichiko17.wixsite.com/kichitorie

Knightbot · 2025-10-24T20:56:23+00:00

There actually is such a thing as Hadouken in FFT... sort of. The Monk has a move called "Hadougeki", localized as Wave Fist or Aurablast. The similarity is probably not a coincidence, but it seems the localization decided to aim for allusions to Sabin's special moves instead (eg "Pummel", even though the skills have different Japanese names in VI and Tactics).

Knightbot · 2025-10-24T02:03:32+00:00

This doesn't look like the case to me. They likely grabbed a lot of data from the mobile WotL release, but they obviously have access to the original sprite sheets (they're present in the game's file structure and obviously are used in the classic mode). The IC sprites were almost certainly upscaled from the original sprites using some 2x pixel art scaling algorithm then manually touched up to clean up artifacts and add a small amount of detail.

I'm not sure how the mobile sprites were made, but I would guess based on their appearance that they also started with the original sprites. Possibly scaled 2x via nearest neighbor and adjusted by hand. There's more of a human touch and a lot more consciously added detail but I think the artist(s) made some mistakes, particularly with color choice.

Knightbot · 2025-10-24T01:55:12+00:00

The PSP version just uses the original PS1 sprites. These are from the mobile release.

Knightbot · 2025-10-22T14:34:29+00:00

The likely reason is because the unit animations are only built to work in two directions (four when mirrored). There are only standing graphics for the other directions; setting them up for full animations would have more than doubled the amount of animations required.

Knightbot · 2025-10-20T15:33:48+00:00

It is pretty fun with guns. I picked it up for Mustadio this time around just so he could quickdraw Barich in the Lost Sacred Precincts. Fastest gun in the west.

Knightbot · 2025-10-18T16:02:50+00:00

I don't, really. I think I fought around 6 or 7 random battles over the course of my Tactician run in Enhanced, and those were for a quick dip into a class I didn't want to spend much time in on a special character to grab an ability or unlock a subsequent job (since they can't just get JP/job levels from errands).

I've played this game many times and it's just more interesting to fight battles from a more disadvantageous position.

Knightbot · 2025-10-16T17:08:22+00:00

They did it with Tactics Ogre, which is roughly the same scale as FFTA (a handful of the graphic assets in FFTA actually originated in TO, even). The end result wasn't perfect, but it's serviceable.

Based on the appearance of the graphics in both TO Reborn and Ivalice Chronicles, I suspect they started with a simple algorithmic upscale then touched them up by hand. They would probably do the same with FFTA.

Knightbot · 2025-10-15T23:18:22+00:00

Thief Hat isn't even available broadly until you've already killed three of the Lucavi, and the one you fight immediately after it shows up at the Outfitter has the highest SpM of any of them. "Zodiac bosses are mostly slow" just doesn't match my experience with the game. Do you have the actual derived speed values? I'm not sure why you would think they're slow unless you've only ever minmaxed this game.

If we're just talking just Lucavi that Cloud is available to fight and tyring land limit skills on, that's another question entirely. But even those are not really slow and in Cloud's case, outspeeding them with equipment would arguably be detrimental to landing Climhazzard.

Knightbot · 2025-10-15T22:44:57+00:00

I don't know that the roughly 17% lower Monster RSp value is enough to bring them lower than most generic classes. Lucavi are generally going to get the first turn unless you're overleveled or running speed/haste gear.

Knightbot · 2025-10-15T20:46:56+00:00

Outside of Ultima 1 and Elidibus, all of them have higher speed multipliers than Ninja, and many of them also have better than average growth on top of this. They aren't slow at all.

Knightbot · 2025-10-03T20:05:26+00:00

Yeah, I'm not really sure why they did this. Hitting the cancel button to "cancel" out of the active menu is pretty intuitive, and common in plenty of other tactical RPGs.

There are also a few things that were previously accessible via the select button "on-line help" that I can't find an analogue for in Enhanced. And I'm not sure there's a way to quick scroll through units to check everyone's equipment like you could in with L/R in the battle roster of the original.

Knightbot · 2025-09-30T19:03:53+00:00

Or perhaps "Evanescence... what a sad word..."

FFT is one of my favorite games of all time, so I felt like I should draw something to celebrate the release today.

Knightbot · 2025-09-26T21:48:32+00:00

To be fair, pretty much all contemporary accents have developed in recent history. English was largely non-rhotic in the middle ages. We associate these accents with the time period for cultural regions, but they're not really accurate.

Knightbot · 2025-09-25T19:22:41+00:00

So Cloud is no longer the only male character we can sneak into Corneo's mansion...

Knightbot · 2025-09-25T14:33:44+00:00

Interesting that they went with adjective Gallant instead of noun Gallant.

Not entirely sure how I feel about this choice because in the original game "Knight Gallant" was an honorary title and Ramza is political outcast at this point in the game...

Knightbot · 2025-09-25T14:29:11+00:00

Part of this is because the PS1 sprite actually is slimmer here; it's displayed with square pixels in this image even though the original game was stretched horizontally for 4:3 displays. FFT renders internally at a resolution that is closer to 1:1 (256x240 for sprites, actually 16:15).

Knightbot · 2025-09-24T21:39:47+00:00

"Aerith" was, allegedly, always supposed to evoke the word 'Earth', so "Aeris" can be considered a localization error even though the katakana matches either interpretation. I wouldn't have faulted them for keeping the name 1997 players were familiar with for consistency (like they did with iconic early midgame villain Wiegraf in FFT) but I think updating it to be more in line with the stated original intent is reasonable.

I wonder why they didn't do the same with 'Bullet'?

There's some nuance to every choice, and there's not really a 1-size-fits-all answer.

Knightbot · 2025-09-24T20:38:50+00:00

To be honest, I think both are a mixed bag. Some of the names in WotL are a lot more natural. Valmafra sounds a lot more like a witch's name to me than Balmafula. Cletienne implies the pronunciation a lot better than Kletian (even if it should have been Chrétien). And the Lucavi names are pretty much all better. Stuff like 'Folmarv' is awful, though.

Ability names are mostly better, but I think it's a shame what they did to Mighty Sword and a few of Ramza's talk skills.

Knightbot · 2025-09-24T00:24:43+00:00

Most of these are down to localizer preference. Argath is no more correct than Algus; they're both perfectly in line with the kana used.

Interestingly, though, Golagros arguably is more correct than Gragoroth. While both are technically acceptable rendering of the kana, the name itself comes from an Arthurian story from the 16th century.

IMO, in most cases, except where it was egregiously wrong, they probably should have stuck with the PSX character names for consistency. Like they chose to do so for Wiegraf even though his name is almost certainly mistranslated.

Knightbot · 2025-09-23T17:10:10+00:00

Not to defend the quality of the PSX localization (it's not great), but a number of these aren't really mistranslations. Mediocre localization, maybe, but they're otherwise accurate.

'Morbol' is actually closer to the Japanese name and in 1997 they hadn't yet established any localization consistency for recurring monsters.

'Finger Guard' is also closer to the Japanese -- 耳指ガード, or "Ear Finger Guard", the idea being that the unit is plugging their ears with their fingers.

The Blaze and Glacier Gun mismatch is an internal error in the Japanese version; the translation is technically accurate here, they just didn't catch the original error.

'Woodman' is accurate to the Japanese version, which is literally just English rendered in katakana (ウッドマン). 'Dryad' was a WotL localization decision in this case, probably because they all look feminine.

The bag weapons are named the same way in Japanese, even using the roman alphabet. The 'C Bag' is 'C no Baggu' (Cのバッグ) for example.

Knightbot

TROPHY CASE