Messages

1

Submissions / Interview with Ted Woolsey

« on: February 13, 2007, 10:57:50 am »

The February 12 Player One podcast has an interview with Ted Woolsey about the trials of translating for Square.  He talks about the difficulty of the translation process and the fans' reaction to his translation of games like FFIII (FFVI in Japan).  Of course he mentions Chrono Trigger--it was actually one his favorite games to work on. 

The interview is about 43 minutes into the podcast.

http://playerone.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=180834

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General Discussion / Re: Worst and best subject in school!!!!!

« on: October 08, 2006, 05:01:49 pm »

Best--Debate
Worst--Politics

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Characters, Plot, and Themes / Re: Cats

« on: September 03, 2006, 06:36:28 am »

=.=

I'm not going to repeat it again. The game clearly states that only after the Kings death did magic get harnessed. Only sometime later was Lavos found and then the Mammon Machine created. Hence, the King could not have been opposing it.

Schala would have known what had happened if there was foul play. Hello, they probably had a funeral or something. Bodies don't just dissapear, and it would be really suspicious.

That Jap quote was from some CC website that the person was translation, and had already translated CT. The same quotes that we have from the jap version were on that site.

EDIT: I found the site again, but the quote was either missing or in the wrong place. Hmm, weird. Actually, the whole quote even from english wasn't there. You know, how a Zealian Woman in Zeal stated how the Queen suffered by herself for a long time to raise magic, that site does not that that quote to translate :O

Ok, first of all, you wouldn't have had to repeat yourself if you had actually cited your sources.  Where in the game, exactly, does it say that magic was harnessed after King Zeal died?  Who says it, where do they say it, when do they say it...et cetera.

Second, Schala doesn't necessarily know everything.  Just because she is in the Kingdon of Zeal doesn't mean she would know all of the going-ons in the palace.  Like I said, Queeny would have used some subtleness and stealth in her opperations.

Third, what site has the translation?  I would like to go to it, but I cannot read your mind.  So please, post a link.

And lastly, this theory of mine is quite out-there, so don't take it too seriously (I really don't, but we must go "out there" to find where our boundries are).  It was merely an extrapolation of the pattern of the missing father and the cat that we see in the three most important families of the Chrono series.  Though my King Zeal theory may be out there, this pattern cannot be denied.

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Characters, Plot, and Themes / Re: Cats

« on: September 02, 2006, 04:07:51 pm »

It's possible but what's her motive by doing that? Is it for revenge, power-grab or something else?

And also, King Zeal is a powerful wizard & could not be easily turn him in to a cat whether by hook or by crook.

Motivation?  Maybe the king opposed using Lavos as a powersource, maybe he wanted to destroy Lavos, or maybe Zeal just wanted all of the power for herself.  Many possibilities.
Also, we don't know how powerful King Zeal is, we are never told.  And it's not about power as much as intelligence in using that power.  Queeny could have waited for him to fall sleep, for example.  She wouldn't just face him in broad daylight, declare her plan and let him try to fight back.

My point about Schala is that I think that she would have been around when King Zeal was alive. Remember, the Enlightened ones stated that Queen Zeal turned almost completely weird overnight once Lavos was discovered, and Schala and Janus had a whole dialouge scene, saying that their mother had changed from the nice, happy mother that she once was. Does a really, nice, happy mother really kill her own husband? And the fact that we don't know when Janus aquired Alfador.

Yes, Schala would have been there.  But how does that pertain to the situation?
The time at which Lavos was discovered could have been well before the king disapeared.  And I think that is most probable, as any attempt to dethrone her husband would have been caused (or subtley engineered) over time by Lavos.  Maybe the king saw Lavos for what it was and decided that it best not be tampered with, while the queen had dreams of power.
Zeal did turn crazy after one night, but it wouldn't take very long for her to act.  It takes seconds for Sneff to snap his fingers and turn the whole party in CC into cats.
As for her change in demeanor, Lavos may have been subtly convincing her to act against her husband.  I'm not actually saying she killed him, the whole point of this argument is that she merely removes him from his position of power and into the body of a cat.  And the fact that we don't know when Alfador was acquired doesn't affect the argument.

The fact that everyone is saying that King Zeal would pwn Queen Zeal is absured. We don't know a thing. And remember, CT stated that Zeal raised magic from the ground up. In other words, it was either primitive, or she founded it with such things as the sun stone, and the Guru's help.

Lavos is in the ground too, remember.  They might have inadvertently been pulling magic from him as well as other sources.

The Jap version stated that she didn't want to die like he died, and hence she wanted to be immortal. (but this is some time later, after magic was harnessed).

Could you please post a link to your source for this, as I am interested and would like to read it.

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Characters, Plot, and Themes / Re: Cats

« on: September 02, 2006, 11:22:06 am »

Your post has merit, but King Zeal was stated to have died. I mean, Schala would have had to have been around when that happened. If not, other people would have mourned at a funeral or something. But everyone knows that Queen Zeal, in her sorrow, raised magic from the ground, but lost her sanity to Lavos. The Japanese version, I think, said that because she realised that her husband could die, she raised magic to make sure that one day, she may not die.

One of the people of Zeal did say that King Zeal died, but not one of the royal family ever mentioned his fate.  And seeing as this would be a secret held by Zeal herself, of course the others would suspect he had died.
I'm not quite sure what you mean about Schala being there, could you please explain? 
We're not quite sure about what Zeal said in the Japanese version, since the translation is still underway.  If you have a source for what she said, please post it.

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Characters, Plot, and Themes / Cats

« on: September 01, 2006, 01:55:15 pm »

This may be no more than a manifestation of Kato's preference for felines, but the cats in both CT and CC seem to hold a special place in the household. 
If you look at the three most important families of both series: Crono's, Zeal, and Serge's you might notice something strange and recurrent.  In each household the father has been lost, disposed, or possibly non-existent;  we never see nor hear of Crono's father, King Zeal's disapearance is barely mentioned, and I think we all know the fate of Serge's father. 

In each of these instances the father is gone, and what do we have but a cat taking up the space.  Crono's cat seems to be of the regular household nature, but Janus' and Serge's are both a little different, the father is explicity identified with them.  The name Alfador ("All-father", another name for Odin in Norse myth) seems to convey this rather strongly.  And in Serge's case he knows the cat Lynx to be his own father, Wazuki.

This led me to conjecture--though not strongly at the moment--that maybe Alfador is King Zeal (this is partly inspired by AuraTwilight's comment in another post, though the cat thing has been bothering me for a while).  Surely, it's not a far fetch to say that Queeny in all her Lavos-inspired might could replicate the side-show trickery of Sneff.  But why would she do such a thing to her husband?  To sush him up;  to take the crown;  to appease Lavos;  any one of these could be true.   Anyway, this is mostly hypothetical play, as we will never know.

This may have something to do with the status of cats in Egyptian myth, but then again, maybe Kato just doesn't like dogs.

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Other Topics and the Prerelease / That Unused Cross Character

« on: August 30, 2006, 06:39:54 am »

I'm not sure if anyone else noted this, but the unused character in the Chrono Cross portrait section looks to be a prototype (or a dummy) image.  The character to the left is yan (2nd tone) in chinese and means "face", which I assume means the same as its Japanese kanji counterpart. The developers probably used this as a note to designate the images included as character portraits.

Strange though, that does look like an ouroboros off to the right.

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Reality, Real-World Connections, and the Supernatural / Special Names in the Chrono Series

« on: March 13, 2006, 08:25:04 pm »

Well, it's only natural. For the Eastern audience, their own traditions are called upon, and the allusions of name and the like make sense. For the more Western, it must be changed so that the same ideas are evoked.

Though the original intention of the author may have been a bit skewed, since I don't recall the American developers collaborating with Kato and co.

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General Discussion / Scars of Time

« on: November 20, 2005, 02:53:44 pm »

I found quite a bit while browsing through iTunes that has the same feel as Yasunori's music, mostly roma/gypsy and celtic folk music.  
For anyone interested, take a listen at Celtic Fiddle Festival, especially the Skye Boat Song.

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General Discussion / Mother 3

« on: November 12, 2005, 01:03:20 pm »

If Mother 3 does well, they may just release Mother 1+2 on GBA as well.

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General Discussion / Scars of Time

« on: November 08, 2005, 01:47:13 am »

I love the violin in this song and I was wondering if anyone had stumbled upon anything similar outside of Mitsuda.  The only other piece I found that compared was "Hot Dog Wolf" from the Wolf's Rain OST.

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General Discussion / Do You Believe in "God"?

« on: November 07, 2005, 08:53:05 pm »

I only believe in things which have a rational basis.

Take a peak at Descartes' book of Meditations, especially the fifth Meditation (his ontological argument).  

Rationality doesn't necessarily exclude the possibility of there being a God (or higher being, or whatever).

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General Discussion / The Literature Thread

« on: November 06, 2005, 04:41:49 pm »

Some of my favorite literature, in no specific order;

Alexander Trilogy  by Valerio Manfredi

Aeneid  Virgil

Metamorphoses  Ovid

Illiad/Odyssey  Homer

Dragonlance Chronicles/Dragonlance Legends  Margaret Weis, Tracey Hickman

Soulforge  Margaret Weis

Faust  Goethe

Prometheus Bound  Aeschylus

Beowulf

Poetic Edda  Snorri Sturlesson

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man  James Joyce

Divine Comedy  Dante

Upanishads

Musashi  Eiji Yoshikawa



And by the way CronoVolta, Mars Volta Rocks!

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Reality, Real-World Connections, and the Supernatural / Ultima Thule in Time

« on: September 27, 2005, 11:07:38 pm »

Is this the same Thule that so interested the Nazi's during WWII?

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Characters, Plot, and Themes / Magus is a wuss.

« on: September 08, 2005, 02:01:49 am »

Well, I suppose one should first consider the effect that having a psychotic megalomaniac mother, losing your sister and your entire civilization, and being dumped 12,600 years in your future (in the middle of a nation of demons) would have on your psyche before you make judgements.