Final Fantasy VIIR Dialogue Comparison, Part II

The Games Awards dropped another Final Fantasy VII Remake trailer, so just I like I did with the last trailer from back in May, I'm going to compare the Japanese and English dilaogue.

First, here's the trailer:

Watch on YouTube

I haven't been able to find one with Japanese audio, but this was posted by Square Enix Japan, so I assume that the subtitles here are from the Japanese script. Which is interesting, because sometimes the dialogue is, uh, very different:

( Table within )

There are more differences here than there were in the first trailer! The first exchange between Aerith and Cloud is completely different in Japanese, Cloud explicitly mentions what he promised Tifa rather than just alluding to its existence, and in the English Tifa is more expressive in being glad to see Cloud. A lot of the other stuff is just stylistic--"Okay, that...was pretty cool" isn't really a bad translation of さっすが, which is kind of an interjection when someone does something good or cool that's exactly the kind of good or cool you would have expected them to do--but there are some major changes that swap the meaning around!

Like, compare English Aerith here to Japanese Aerith. English Aerith has a devil-may-care attitude, and when Cloud tells her that the situation is dangerous, she brushes it off. She's not worried. In Japanese, it sounds more like Cloud is reassuring Aerith that he can protect her and she's telling him that she knows he can. In English she's sassy, in Japanese she's passive. I wonder how that's going to play out over the entire game.

I do love the "next five seconds line." English or Japanese, Cloud's like "Yeah, yeah, mystical Planet crap, whatever, can we focus on the giant scorpion deathbot here?"

I'm curious how those different lines will work in the different version. I'm guessing they'll have different lip syncing in English and Japanese, and maybe different cutscene timing too? Aerith's first line here is so much longer in Japanese but her lips are clearly synced to the English.

Now that we know this is probably coming to other places than just the PS4/5, I look forward to playing it in 2021.