Final Fantasy XIV is an outlier in the Final Fantasy series in that it's the only game since Final Fantasy VII to replace spell tiers suffixes and affixes with numbers in the English script—this is justified in the script by adding a bit of extra fluff within a document that the Council of Magi decided against the classical Final Fantasy naming conventions with numbers, which is a fun enough detail....
However this implementation of replacing -ra with II, -ga with III, and -ja with IV (and the very rare -da with V) just.... not make sense since atypical spells tend to "skip" tiers, because each spell is just a variation. It makes sense that Holy goes from Holy to Holyga because they are just names, but it makes no sense that Holy goes from Holy to Holy III.
Additionally, this creates confusion when spells introduced in Final Fantasy XI are imported, which are named and use numbered tiers. Things like Tyrant's Flare II which is not Tyrant's Flarera, but a variation of Flare II, or Banishga IV which combines the suffixes with the numbered tiers.
Add this on top of us missing the extra flavour of sage spells all using numbered tiers instead of spell suffixes, implying a methodological and analytical bent to somanoutics that might be missing from other disciplines of magic, I levy a request: allow us to choose "classical" spell names when playing using the English script. I understand that this might imply additional work to the already overworked localisation team; but it is just a strange disconnect between the spells as presented in the game and their names. Thankfully I am not aware of a single time that a spell that is numbered is spoken out loud, not requiring any rerecording of voice over.
I am aware that the the 1.0 version had spell suffix/affix based spell tiers, which makes me wonder why the change to begin with, as well.
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However this implementation of replacing -ra with II, -ga with III, and -ja with IV (and the very rare -da with V) just.... not make sense since atypical spells tend to "skip" tiers, because each spell is just a variation. It makes sense that Holy goes from Holy to Holyga because they are just names, but it makes no sense that Holy goes from Holy to Holy III.
Additionally, this creates confusion when spells introduced in Final Fantasy XI are imported, which are named and use numbered tiers. Things like Tyrant's Flare II which is not Tyrant's Flarera, but a variation of Flare II, or Banishga IV which combines the suffixes with the numbered tiers.
Add this on top of us missing the extra flavour of sage spells all using numbered tiers instead of spell suffixes, implying a methodological and analytical bent to somanoutics that might be missing from other disciplines of magic, I levy a request: allow us to choose "classical" spell names when playing using the English script. I understand that this might imply additional work to the already overworked localisation team; but it is just a strange disconnect between the spells as presented in the game and their names. Thankfully I am not aware of a single time that a spell that is numbered is spoken out loud, not requiring any rerecording of voice over.
I am aware that the the 1.0 version had spell suffix/affix based spell tiers, which makes me wonder why the change to begin with, as well.
Continue reading...