Author Topic: Omokage Bridge  (Read 3500 times)

Reld

  • Guru of Time
  • Porrean (+50)
  • *
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Omokage Bridge
« on: July 04, 2020, 08:39:55 pm »
I've developed a bit of an obsession lately with the "alpha" footage/screenshots that are out there. Hopefully my posts aren't coming across as spammy.

So, there's a point in the V Fes '94 Video where everyone's talking, and there's gameplay footage playing on the big monitors in the background. What appears to be Crono, Robo, and Ayla cross a bridge over a river that runs through the continent. At each end of the bridge a location label pops up.



The only place I've really seen this discussed is The Cutting Room Floor page, and they just show a really low-res capture and say that it's hard to read. I have a slightly better one I've been staring at for a while and I think I know what it says.



The text on the top and bottom is screencapped from the video (the only difference is the bottom is deinterlaced, which didn't make much difference). In the middle is my recreation of the same text using the final game's font. It's a little blurry because I stretched it horizontally to try and match the aspect ratio from the video.

I think it says おもかげ橋 or Omokagebashi/Omokage Bridge. The only part I'm really not sure about is the 橋 on the end. The kanji character in the video seems a little simpler/like it's lacking some bits. The overall shape seems right though, and 橋 is the same character for bridge used in the final game's label for Zenan Bridge.

There is apparently a real bridge in Japan called Omokage bridge as well, although it's written as 面影橋. I tried looking up the meaning of Omokage/面影. This site says it means "face; looks; vestiges; trace" and gives the following example sentences:
Quote
This town still retains something of the old days.

Hollywood isn't what it used to be.

At her age, she still preserved the appearance of a young girl.

The village is now different from what it used to be.
Seems like kind of a melancholy/nostalgic word.



Later I was looking at some screenshots from magazines and it occurred to me that this bridge that shows up a couple of times is probably Omokage Bridge as well.



I don't know whose tombstones those are, but their presence kind of fits the vibe of those Omokage example sentences above in my opinion. The larger of the two tombstones seems to be the unused tombstone sprite from the Prerelease ROM that Vehek posted about here, so that's kind of neat as well.

I guess that's it. I don't really have an "in conclusion" for this. It's just some odds and ends that have been floating around in my head. Hopefully it's not all stuff that's been discussed to death. If it has I couldn't find those discussions.



Oh, I didn't know where else to mention this, so here's a random tidbit: The bridge in the shots above with the tombstones is 16 pixels/two tiles (subtiles I guess in TF terms?) narrower (meaning vertically on screen) than Zenan Bridge.

Random tidbit #2: I think maybe a playable version of this (or possibly a video tape) may have been sent around at some point. I'm basing this entirely on the fact that we have two shots that seem to be from different moments in the same battle. If it was just a mockup I'd think there'd probably only be one. That's just wild speculation though.

Boo the Gentleman Caller

  • Guru of Life Emeritus
  • Hero of Time (+5000)
  • *
  • Posts: 5262
    • View Profile
Re: Omokage Bridge
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2020, 08:16:30 pm »
This is a great right up. I know hiragana and katakana but never bothered to learn kanji, but from what I can see you are spot on. Great investigation and translation work.

As for the bridge name...

Quote
"face; looks; vestiges; trace"

Could Omokage have been the original name of Truce Village? I could see 'Truce' being a Woosley-esque translation of 'Trace.'

Reld

  • Guru of Time
  • Porrean (+50)
  • *
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Re: Omokage Bridge
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2020, 09:03:46 pm »
Could Omokage have been the original name of Truce Village? I could see 'Truce' being a Woosley-esque translation of 'Trace.'

Maybe? There's a scan of an EGM article on this site that refers to Crono's hometown as "Stoal". Could just be the EGM writer getting confused or making things up, but I wonder if the town's name changed at some point near the end of development.

EDIT: I checked and Truce in the Japanese version is トルース (Toruusu) so "Truce" is a pretty straightforward translation. Unless you meant a Woolsey-esque translation on the part of the Japanese developers, which I guess is possible.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 09:52:22 pm by Reld »

ZeaLitY

  • Entity
  • End of Timer (+10000)
  • *
  • Posts: 10795
  • Spring Breeze Dancin'
    • View Profile
    • My Compendium Staff Profile
Re: Omokage Bridge
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2020, 12:17:01 am »
Damn, absolutely top shelf stuff here. Adding it to the Alpha page.

I've been lurking a lot over the last year on the TCRF/Hidden Palace Discords, and so I've had a front row seat to Sonic month and all the other ridiculous proto finds lately. I'm definitely holding out hope for an earlier version of Chrono Trigger.

Reld

  • Guru of Time
  • Porrean (+50)
  • *
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Re: Omokage Bridge
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2021, 11:48:01 pm »
A mildly interesting thing that just occurred to me about Stoal vs Truce:

Truce = トルース (Toruusu)
Stoal = ストール (Sutooru)

It's the same four characters, just jumbled up. Not sure what that means, if anything. Maybe somebody with dyslexia copied down the Japanese name at some point?