It also helps to know that 大戦艦 isn’t itself a common-use dictionary word (pretty sure), but 大 (pronounced だい or おお) is a common prefix that you stick to other words to say they’re big.
I wasn’t sure whether to say おお or だい, but I guess it’s だい!
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Yeah this is true. I can’t guarantee it’s 100% this off the top of my head but I think it usually helps to match it to the type of reading the word it’s attaching to is. Thus 戦艦 using on-readings makes it だい. That’s how I approach them by default anyway, and it’s the kind of pattern the “actual words” starting with the kanji usually have.
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Yeah that’s what I do too, although it’s certainly not 100%. For instance I wasn’t sure if 白魔道師 would be しろまどうし or はくまどうし. It turns out it’s the kun reading: 白魔道士 - Wikipedia
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Oh yeah I mean specifically in the おお vs だい case that I’m not sure if it’s 100%. It’s probably a good rule on the whole to make a first guess in general but I definitely know there are loads of exceptions with kanji that tend to prefer their kun readings like you pointed out and whatnot.
I kinda conceive of 魔導士 as a word separately from the しろ or くろ more like how it’d work in English but that’s just how my brain is wrapping around things. I wish I could remember exactly what the words are because I know there are other cases where this same assumption got me into trouble though, it was some kind of words for elemental spells where I assumed you’d read, for example, 風 as かぜ attached to what came after in things I don’t think were real words, but it actually became ふう when hearing natives read it out, that sorta thing. It’s tough sometimes.
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Yeah, I think that’s right. 白魔導士 is a compound of two separate words, but in the case of 大, it’s being used as a “prefix” and doesn’t mean anything itself.
I think of something like 大失敗 vs 大間違い as an example of the rule you guys are talking about. Similar words, one is all kun and one is all on.
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Ok, I’m still here. Thought it over for a bit, settled how I’m feeling with the game at the moment, and I want to see more. I’m still pretty drawn to FF2 aesthetically, the stuff it’s going for in the storytelling, even the dungeon designs, it’s nice. I am basically just admitting defeat on blindly playing very “normally” and letting the game handle that – I think the ideas are great but the way various exact formulas play out in practice makes this a game you need to mindfully work around the exact quirks of, on the famicom. But that’s not the end of the world.
Week 3 finish
So, we got stronger. No full stat pages for you, but, lol:
It’s crazy how fast you can do this stuff when you’re trying to; this took very little effort. We certainly made it through the ice cave and re-enacted a scene from Cannibal Holocaust (you’re better off not knowing that reference if you don’t already). When you’re properly prepared and have like triple the MP I went in with the first time, the turtle is a pushover lol.
I accidentally skipped a line from the boulder escape because I wasn’t 100% clear yet if I had some control or not, which hurts the impact, but what a cute little way to cap it off. Party members have a one real dungeon expiration date, it seems. These moments add a lot of character.
Leaving aside the Famicom trying to get me turned around (worked briefly, once), I thought the Ice Cave was fun to navigate. Nothing crazy in its layout, but just a nice proper dungeon you spend a while getting immersed pretty deep in. The treasure chest rewards feel like they make more sense than FF1’s, also.
I actually like how character leveling is abuseable; it’s fun when you’re in the know. I just wish it felt like they got it a little more into a sweet spot for not abusing. Now that I’m not blind I’ve learned about magic penalties for armor and weapons that I don’t think anything tells you anywhere? I mostly had the right sort of light stuff on Maria anyway, but that’s worth knowing because especially heavier armor can cut into your magic power pretty significantly.
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Yeah that was my conclusion as well. In theory the progression system is supposed to be “organic”, in the sense that your characters automatically specialize based on your actions in combat, and as a result you end up not thinking in terms of level and XP and stats and instead you just need to do X in order to get better at X. Want to get good at bashing people with swords? Just bash a lot of people with swords. Want to get good at healing? Just heal a lot. Makes sense.
I think that it’s really cool in theory, but the execution is too flawed to do that well. As a result you end up doing the exact opposite: you do all sorts of weird things you wouldn’t normally do in order to artificially get the results you want. So instead of making you think about stats and XP less, you end up thinking about them more.
Incidentally it’s pretty crazy to me how well FF 1-2-3 mirror 7-8-9, in both good and bad ways. But that’s a discussion for later…
Oh and I think it’s a shame that the fix for that in the Pixel Remaster (and apparently the other remakes as well) was just to trivialize everything by pumping your stats, fixing the issue by basically rendering the progression meaningless. I wish they took the time to rework the concept in depth instead.
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Which in the abstract could be fine, an FF being a little more systems heavy could be very good even, but I do think the exact way this works out in what you have to do here isn’t quite the desirable outcome. You can feel that the calculations are just too simple and a lot of consequences spring from that.
Being able to reliably force getting stronger after basically any single fight if you know how to abuse it is a fun feeling in a certain way, at least.
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Yeah I think that breaking the game can be fun too, which is also why I enjoy FF8’s systems for the most part.
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On the topic of 2PR being faceroll easy… I was surprised when you all were talking about the turtles being weak to ice. I just spammed fire and won in 3 or 4 turns. There’s effectively no point in playing optimally in the version that’s most available to modern gamers.
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On the original the difference is quite dramatic. A totally direct comparison is hard with the way stats shift around, but I can say level 3 ice this time was doing well over at least double the damage of the level 4 fire last time.
I think I’d be less hard on remakes/remasters on the whole if they didn’t seem to exclusively make things much easier in recent years; it always feels like they’re more about taking a quick guided story tour and checking it off a list. There were remakes that made games harder in the past even! But I can’t think of any specific ones that aren’t really old at this point. I hear FF4 on the DS is specifically a noticeable jump in challenge from the original one.
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It’s not terrorism, it’s insurgency:
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Last weeks word count was brutal, and this week’s is at least 20% higher. I haven’t even had a chance to do the actual dungeon, since I’ve spent all my free time translating! Maybe tonight I’ll be able to tackle it.
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Week 4 is relatively chill with only 1k chars.
Also don’t feel forced to translate everything. As these games get more complex you have more and more random chitchat that doesn’t really say anything critical.
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These early FFs are the only ones where translating everything is even possible, so I’m getting the practice in while I can. Besides, the dungeon itself takes 20 minutes tops, and I’m primarily here to practice Japanese, so its fine, and I’m learning a ton.
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I feel the same transcribing everything in FF3. It really forces me to consider every word, every weird turn of phrase and, critically, every reading. It’s time consuming but it’s a good exercise. Yesterday I realized that I had completely forgotten the reading of 砕く even though I read it all the time.
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The really big thing is grammar patterns. When you’re reading casually, you see some words, put them together using the grammar you already know and say “I think I know what that means, move on”.
When you go back over it with a fine-toothed comb, you realize oh shit, that’s a set phrase, or a common pattern that has a meaning that isn’t the same as (sometimes COMPLETELY different from) the words it contains. Or, that word actually has 12 meanings, plus a subtle connotation, something I didn’t realize until I did an analysis. Then I end up on Bunpro reading about what the pattern means and how to use it. Forcing myself to do both literal translations and natural localization also helps me to try and understand the text on a deeper and more subtle level.
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