Talk:Tales of Phantasia/Archive 1

The mention of "Tale Phantasia" says it's a novel. I don't suppose there's concrete proof either way, but maybe alongside that comment it should be said that it's likely that it was a preliminary version of the game. I don't really wanna touch much that I only from hearsay, though. alexpenev 02:47, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It's probably taken from the staff roll of the original ToP on SFC which includes the mention of Based on "Tale Phantasia" by Yoshiharu Gotanda, see here. Tale Phantasia was also the initial title of the game until it was changed before the release, see here for an early advertisement. 138.246.7.34 23:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Star Ocean also has Based on "Star Ocean" by Yoshiharu Gotanda in its credits. And there is no proof either way that these two games were novels from the credits alone, not to mention the fact that the Japanese wiki for the game makes no mention of it (you'd think that the game being an adaptation of a novel would deserve a mention there). So I'm removing the said passage unless someone can show some concrete proof.--Darkhunger 12:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

That whole section (i.e. Developer controversy) is rather poorly written, somebody should rewrite it. -- 82.135.86.137 20:59, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Eternal Edge? Where'd that name come from? Anyway, a lot of the info in this page is based only on the very inaccurate unofficial translation. Some noteable examples include:

• "On a side note, Dhaos is a God, born from Father Time and Mother Nature." No, he's not. It doesn't specify what his species is, but it doesn't say he's a god, and no Father Time or Mother Nature is ever mentioned (unless you count Earth Goddess Martel as the latter, but he's not born from her).
• "After [Dhaos's] defeat, Cless and the gang return to the tree and Goddess Martel offers them a bit of history...." No, they already knew that information (Dhaos told them) and a NARRATOR, not Martel, is explaining for the player's benefit. Martel only appears in that scene because it's doing a flashback to when Cless, Klarth, and Mint first met her. It doesn't even make sense that she'd know that, as she proves earlier in the plot that she was totally clueless about what was going on with Dhaos.

While I can understand giving information about this fan-translation because of how important it is to the English-speaking fanbase, any info that applies only to this unofficial translation and not the actual game should be in a seperate section or seperate page or something. (I pretty sure I haven't fixed all these translation-only facts, but don't want to change anything I'm not sure of.)

There are some names the translators excluded but are important to people who are playing the sequels and such. Since these names don't appear in any currently existing English translation of Phantasia, I included them in the article with the translations used by Namco for Tales of Symphonia. Japanese terms and Namco's translations are as follows:

• (世界樹)ユグドラシル= (World Tree) Yggdrasill (the mana tree)
• 大樹カーラーン = Giant Kharlan Tree (what Dhaos calls Yggdrasill)
• デリス・カーラーン = Derris-Kharlan (the "mother planet" Dhaos references)

Maybe somebody has a better way for referencing these names? I guess once Nintendo's translation of Phantasia comes out (next month), we can use though.

There's some other names that are translated differently. Should alternate translations be mentioned somewhere for continuity's sake?

By the way, Symphonia was confirmed by Namco to be a prequel multiple times. The only one I can provide a source to is the Tales Ring radio (#12, between 11:30 and 12:00 if you want to listen). I'm told there's an interview (in English!), on Nintendo of Europe's wesbiteToP website, but it requires being a member to read, which I am not.

But... knowing ToS is a prequel to ToP is a spoiler for ToS. It throws around a bunch of references to places/events/characters/items in ToP seemingly at random (as if they are Cameo appearances), and it's a plot twist when those references suddenly start making sense at the end. How should this info be handled in the ToP article?

ToP also has some novels and drama CDs that are considered cannon (some of them are even important to the plot), but I didn't add info about them into the article. I would encourage anyone else who's more knowledgeable on them to do that though.

Anyway, sorry about talking more than I actually wrote/changed for the article, but I wanted to make sure no one's confused about why I changed what I did. ^_^

--Cyllya 09:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

i made the name changes to reflect the localized version. i've got the NP next to me that contains the new names. i'm not sure what happened to the japanese names, i don't think i have the correct encoding on in firefox, but no japanese encoding seems to be working. chinese maybe? if i messed it up, someone could try reverting. but definately, the localized names need priority so as to not alienate our children when they read about this game. --JadenGuy 13:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Jadenguy, you definitely messed up every single Japanese character or transliteration symbol in the entire source code, try to get the encoding because you saved over the characters with a null symbol. - Tsunade 19:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Character articles

I think the article should be expanded to have more than the main characters, and then be split; a page of all the characters perhaps. Far as I care this article is pretty disorganized. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.237.237.188 (talk) 06:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

Sources?

DeJap, the original text translation team for the fan translation of Tales Of Phantasia, were outright told not to translate the Gameboy Advance version. This may, in part, be due to the team slightly exaggerating more mature content.

By who? And when?

http://www.dejap.com/ - do a Control-F for "GBA". --Cidolfas June 20, 2006

Even when localized, Tales Of Phantasia suffered greatly by not getting a larger cartridge, to allow the Flexible Voice Driver to work properly with the new audio mix, with audio cutoffs, fixed width fonts and even the deletion of Yume Wa Owaranai as the game's theme. As a result of all the cuts and space-saving Nintendo did, Many fans, due to this, have said that they'll wait for the Playstation version's remake or completed translation.

How was the deletion of the theme a space-saving measure? No Tales theme has ever officially appeared outside of Japan.

If we want to keep these, we need sources to back them up. DMAJohnson 19:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

'I doubt that the deletion was a space-saving measure... the main reason was probably the relatively heavy language and crudity of some of the scenes (such as the one where Cless and Klarth talk about who they would prefer to f*** - their words, not mine). Other instances include Arche's dream in which she fantasizes about having sex with Cless. DeJap did give the correct translations.64.26.116.204

Does anyone have a source as to where they got this quote?

"Tales of Phantasia launched the popular Tales series which has since become the third most successful in Japan, after Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, although it has yet to rival those series in America."

Thanks.

The part saying that it's the third most successful RPG series in Japan is probably from [1].

What about this line? DeJap has admitted to changing dialogue or exaggerating it, evident in the scene where instead of Arche snoring, she's dreaming of having sex with Cless/Cress. I think we need a source for the first part, and the second part is just blatantly incorrect. Arche is just "snoring"? Riight. --Kajitani-Eizan 19:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Please Move "Later Games in the Series" section

There already is a "Tales (role-playing game series)" page in Wikipedia, so this section is unnecessary here. --Sobolewski 23:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Holy long page, Batman!

There's way too much text and info on this single page. The Playstation version of Phantasia is a complete remake and derserves its own page, and so does the GBA version. If Playstation ports of Final Fantasy games + Chrono Trigger get a page, then a complete remake sure does.

Also, the introduction at the start is almost as large as the rest of the article.. probably a sign it needs cleaning.

Lastly, like Sobolewski says, there is no need for the "Later Games in the Series" section, because another page covers that. Kawnhr 06:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this page is getting kind of long. Personally, I'm not sure if the ports are so different that they need seperate pages, but if group consensus is that this page needs to be split, then I guess I'd agree. --melodiester 17:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Playstation version of the game features new sprites, new techs, a slightly editted ending, a new party member, the ability to play as someone other than Cless, a third form of Dhaos and the trademark cooking system. The GBA version didn't change all that much, though it did add some new sidequests.. it would probably have the Localization section due to it being the only version to get localized. Kawnhr 21:36, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I cleaned some of the article up, but it still needs major work. Kawnhr 23:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Names

I frequently see the names of Cless and Klarth change to Cress and Klarth. I know why it happens, to make it less confusing when a person who buys the game without learning anything about it, but can we please decide on what we're going to use?

I personally vote we use the original names (That is, Cless and Klarth). They were used in the Japanese intro, DeJap used them, and most people are going to recognize it. Kawnhr 07:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Also the European translations changed back to the original names instead Cress and Claus. 138.246.7.34 00:06, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I propose the GBA names, We are the English Wikipedia, we don't refer to Terra from Final Fantasy VI as Tina. --FlareNUKE 00:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The Playstation version's intro clearly uses Cless and Klarth. The DeJap translation, which likely popularized Phantasia (outside Japan) uses Cless and Klarth. Plus, 138.246.7.34 said that the European version of the game doesn't use Cress and Claus. And last I checked, English was spoken in Europe. I don't see any reason to use Cress and Claus when everyone who knew about Phantasia before the localization was announced knew the characters by Cless and Claus. --Kawnhr 05:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What? The Playstation version was also released in Japan only so it doesn't count. What I mean is that Terra's name in Japan isn't Terra, but in fact Tina (when it is romanised). Neverthless, we continue to refer to her as Terra in Wikipedia. --FlareNUKE 05:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why it shouldn't count.. the original, Japanese release has romanizations of the characters. People have been refering to them by those names for years, and DeJap has helped that out. I'm honestly not familiar with any of the Final Fantasy's, though, so you'll have to explain the Terra/Tina thing to me. --Kawnhr 14:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Plus, why should Wikipedia use the names from a low-budget/shoddy translation (Kangaroo instead of Ragnarok, Derris-Karran instead of Derris-Kharlan.. Old Man was used instead of Old Woman for one NPC conversation, etc)? --Kawnhr 09:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It does not matter, Edward from Final Fantasy IV is still referred to as Edward and not Gilbart (the Japanese romanization) because that is the official name they chose to use in an English speaking country.

I second using the NoA names. We're the English Wikipedia, not the Japanese Wikipedia. What names the Japanese PS remake uses is besides the point. --DMAJohnson 17:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the Japanese PlayStation version is irrelevant. However, the English-language European version used the original names. The English version of Tales of Symphonia used the original names (eg Derris-Kharlan). The DeJap version used the original names. If you search the web for Tales of Phantasia, the majority of pages you will find list the original names. Therefore I think it is reasonable to keep the original names and note where the NoA version differs. --Buuneko 00:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I say we just use both versions of their names, since even in official Japanese sites, they list the ir names as Cless and Klarth (and there's spelling differences in last names of all characters as well). Since this is English, we should have Cress first, but then say (Cless) in parenthesis or something. That way it's giving all the information without being too "unofficial".

I was actually asking which should be the primary names. I figure the other version would be noted in parenthesis, and in the Characters section --Kawnhr 02:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem here with referencing Final Fantasy VI or IV is that those games did not make it to European shores until their Playstation incarnates, where Square didn't do anything but fix a couple of item names. Tales of Phantasia, on the other hand, was released in Europe, in English, with proper names. I don't think there's a proper comparison. The fact that the characters original, official names are clearly Cless and Klarth (among others) speaks for itself. Play the PS1 version of the game, it's written in the opening credits as CLESS and KLARTH, in English, in Romanji. ... also, I think part of the reason the names were so shoddily translated was to stay in continuity with the other appearances of those characters in other Tales games. Cless made an appearance (as Cress) in both ToD and ToE (ToD2 in the USA) and Klarth made an appearance (as Claus) in ToE. Those were obvious mistranslations on those games localization teams, since they probably weren't looking at anything from ToP to reference when translating. Still, I think stil 99% of the ToP fandom associates the characters with their real names (Cless and Klarth), that it just makes sense to use those names. --ChronoSpark 06:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let me just make sure I'm understanding this, the European GBA version had the Japanese names? If so, we'll reference both of them equally. --FlareNUKE 04:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't. I've got a European GBA cartridge (AGB-AN8P-EUR) which uses "Cress" and "Claus" in its English localization. --84.133.146.194 20:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Then in which case, those names are the official English names and thus should be changed. --FlareNUKE 22:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The European cartridge does use their real names, on the French and Spanish translations. The fact still remains that a large, large majority of the people who know of and play Tales of Phantasia are familiar with their original names, which are used much more widely than the obviously mistranslated names in the American localization. Even before the DeJap translation, people who knew the game knew the characters by their real names. Since most people identify with their real names, and not the mistranslated ones, they should be changed back. And/or a different section should be added addressing the issue of their names and how they were mistranslated. The majority of Wikipedia users obviously also agree on the use of their real names, not the mistranslated American ones. --ChronoSpark 23:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

French and Spanish isn't English therefore that's not valid, all that matters is if the English European cartridge uses those names, and what about the Aerith Gainsborough article, which, despite being more well-known as Aeris, was changed to Aerith because Square-Enix decided to change the name, and that is now her official name in English speaking countries. --FlareNUKE 00:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Aerith was always her official name. It was mistranslated in the PSX version of Final Fantasy VII, as Cress is a mistranslation of Cless. It was corrected in the re-release of FF VII for the PC. The reason, as I said, that Cless was probably mistranslated as Cress and Klarth as Claus in the US was because of its shoddy translation in ToD and ToE, where the localization team was probably not using ToP for a reference, as it had never been released in the US before. Their mistake had been made, so I'm guessing they kept in continuity with the previous references of the two characters. As I said before, the fact still remains that the majority of people are familiar with their real names, not the GBA mistranslation. Does anyone else have anything to say regarding which names we use? --ChronoSpark 00:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

No, what I mean most people know her as Aeris then Aerith, yet it says "Aerith". And regardless of the terrible translation, the official English site even lists those names. So in Japan, his name's Cless, while in U.S. and English parts of Europe, Cress.

I'd like to remind the people who keep claiming "this is EN Wiki, keep Cress/Claus!" that this wiki isn't "just the english wiki", it can be considered as the international one, the most complete of all, and probably the one people from a lot of countries will come check. Considering that, and the fact that besides people who actually played the GBA version (probably not the majority of ToP players) in english , italian or german (so we're not couting french and spanish), almost everyone else always considered "Cless" and "Klarth" as the genuine names, it would be better to go with these names, or at least to mention them equally with the english ones. Anyway, there should definitively be a note about that "translation" in the article. --Kikujiro 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The fact that this is even an issue is foolish. Both name formats are listed in the article. Keep the note that distinguishes which names were used in which version and don't show obvious bias towards one name convention or the other. Is this really so difficult? --Hailinel 19:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. And anyway, I'd say the names from the shoddy translation of ToP GBA shouldn't get more credit than the names that they've been sticking to for over ten years now. --Kajitani-Eizan 18:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course both names would be referenced. I'm not asking which set of the names should be discarded and deleted from the article entirely, but rather which should primarily be used. I don't think that every time Cless/Cress appears it's going to be as 'Cless (Cress in the GBA version'/'Cress (Cless in Japan)', because that would be pretty awkward. --Kawnhr 00:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, one other thing: Other changes include the translation of the Moria mines, an obvious reference to the Moria mines from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, to the Morlia Mineshaft (although this may have been done to avoid trademark issues concerning The Lord of the Rings.) This doesn't make any sense. It was *originally* Morlia. Many references in ToP (and in many Japanese games/anime, AFAIK) are made by choosing names that are obviously similar to known names. Hence, Mid Galds (Midgard), Morlia (Moria), etc. etc. This line should be deleted or something. --Kajitani-Eizan 18:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Voila. It is done. --Hailinel 03:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

..So, have we agreed on anything yet? --Kawnhr 10:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if anyone wants to hear any thoughts from someone who played the GBA version first, I'm one of them. I'm serving a similar viewpoint for the Hunter x Hunter articles.

From what you guys say, "Cless" and "Klarth" seem to be the more justified ones, as they were the first names released in English, though for Europe and not the United States. I wouldn't be able to get used to it though; it took me a while reading FAQs using those names to realize that Klarth is Claus and not some character I completely missed. (This is not only my first time with Phantasia; it's the only Tales game I've ever played and bothered to read about.)

However, just because it's spelled out in English on a Japanese-language version doesn't mean it's necessarily correct. Mistakes from missed typos or lack of knowledge of the English language can hinder what someone or something should be named ("Midgards" is precisely one such example). Ron Stoppable 06:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

But the English-European version using Cress. The Spanish-European, and all the others use Cless. --FlareNUKE 20:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The English in the Japanese-language version can not be incorrect. They use English names for games that use English names, then write it in katakana to make Japanese people able to Pronounce it. Cless and Klarth are the Official Names. Cress and Claus are the shoddy translations.

Contradiction

We should probably choose which names to use sometime, cause the article can't decided. The Japanese/DeJap versions are used in the plot summary, yet the GBA localization's ones are in the characters section.. --Kawnhr 04:17, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Original Japanese Names

Here are some names from Namco's offical guidebook for the Super Famicom version of Tales of Phantasia, and the corresponding romaji given in the book:

Kana/Kanji	Romaji
クレス・アルベイン	Cless Alvein
ミント・アドネード	Mint Adnade
クラース・Ｆ・レスター	Klarth F. Lester
アーチェ・クライン	Arche Klaine
チェスター・バークライト	Chester Barklight
トーティスの村	Totis
ユークリッド	Euclid
モリスンの家	Morison's Residence
ベルアダム	Vel Adam
ローンヴァレイ	Lone Valley
ハーメルの町	Har Mel
べネツィア	Venetia
アルヴァニスタ	Ar Vanesta
オリーブヴィレッジ	Olive Village
モーリア坑道	Morlia
水鏡ユミルの森	Ymir
エルフの集落	Elf's Colony
トレントの森	Treant
ミッドガルズ	Mid Galds
ヴァルハラ平原	Valhalla
ダオス	Dhaos
白樺の森	White Bitch Wood
トール	Thor
ミゲールの町	Migale
フリーズキール	Freeze Keal
炎の塔	Burning Towor
常闇の町アーリィ	Ary

It seems Namco wasn't too careful about spelling, eg "Burning Towor" and "White Bitch Wood" (樺=Birch). Anyway Namco did publish these names as above. I am a bit suspicious of Mid Galds being Midgard, as ミッドガルズ seems a somewhat odd way of writing Midgard. It is possible though. -- Buuneko 01:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Many Japanese productions that attempt to use English fall prey to mistranslation and odd structure. If you watch enough anime, you'll come across shows with English text in the background with various misspelled words, and phrases such as slogans that make little to no sense to a native speaker because they were written by Japanese people with limited understanding of the language. With this in mind, it's fair to say that even though Namco's Japanese office did concoct English alphabet forms of various character, location, and item names, they should not be taken at face value as the "official" text, especially since Namco's GBA translation is more up to date.--Hailinel 04:14, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm not going to be too picky about which names are used, but the changes you just made to the article didn't improve things. Deleting references to the original names is not going to make the confusion go away. This especially goes for things like "Derris-Kharlan", which is the spelling used in the English version of Tales of Symphonia. I also don't understand why you made such changes to a section about a Japanese drama CD that was never published outside of Japan. If the article is going to include references to original Japanese releases, then the naming discrepency is going to have to be addressed one way or another. Also a quick google search suggests that the sentence that you deleted about the "kangaroo" mistranslation is verifiable. Why did you delete this? -- Buuneko 05:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

First, I deleted the kangaroo reference because, frankly, it sounded absurd enough to be the work of a vandal. If the example is real, then the person that inserted it should have provided more substantial evidence and should have worded the phrase with more clarity.

Secondly, I went through and edited the names so that they could finally be uniform. Too many people have been waffling for too long about Cress/Cless, Claus/Klarth for too long, and jumping back and forth between the two naming conventions throughout the article is obnoxious. I went with the GBA translation because, like it or not (and I'm sure that the "old school" Tales fanboys will probably have a fit), the GBA translation is the only official, legitimate English translation that Namco has produced in full. There is no need to bother with the fan translated names because they are not the official names, although the fact that they were based on the original Japanese-to-English conversions means that they may have once been. In any event, I did not remove the fan translated versions of the names entirely, as they can still be referenced in the character section. That's all that's needed. For uniformity's sake, the names need to be consistent throughout the article, and that includes references to Japanese side-projects that were never released state-side.

I realize that Tales of Phantasia has an American fanbase that was introduced to the game through a fan translation, but Wikipedia articles are meant to be accessable to a wide audience. Most people in the English-speaking world that are likely to play Tales of Phantasia today are much more likely to play the GBA game than an old fan-translated ROM, and for that reason the article needs to be tailored to not only the official English-language names, but those names that the wider audience would be familiar with.

Next, in regarding the removal of "Derris-Kharlan", the article never made it clear that this was the spelling used in Tales of Symphonia. Placing two different spellings next to each other without context makes absolutely no sense, and adding a note attributing the alternate spelling to ToS would have only made an already poorly written story summary even more cluttered.

And that, finally, is my biggest complaint with this article. It's too cumbersome and too indecisive to make for a good reference for the game. Some parts contain good information, some tidbits in the trivia section could use some reorganization, and some of the historical information is definitely of interest, but by and large, this is an article that was written by old school Tales of Phantasia fans run amok with little regard for clarity, editing, and even basic fact checking (as could be viewed from some older versions of the article from earlier this year that were rife with blatant misinformation regarding the Tales series's sales figures). I felt that a good step toward getting this article on track was by clearing up character references to primarily refer to the GBA incarnation's names and made a few other alterations while I was at it.--Hailinel 07:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

On the Drama CD and other supplemental material outside of the US localized GBA game, which names are used? You could be causing a contridiction by calling a character one thing when the name spoken is something different. It seems like it wasn't just a fan translation that came up with these names out of the blue, but everything (including spoken material) produced for the game prior to this GBA incarnation points to the original names. I've seen other articles where this sort of discrepancy occurs, and the writers use one name as a standard and states in the characters section what the names are for each localization. Since this game has so much history before it's current incarnation, and because the names have appeared, both spoken and in print in the past it would be a discredit to the game to blame the discrepancy on some eronious fans.

I'm not a Tales fan, just somebody that takes part in the computer and video game project, and I share your apprehension about how cumbersome this article is. But before worrying about names, I'd be more interested in getting the article to fit some standard format (starting with Gameplay, then plot/character details, then development, ect). The smaller details can follow once you have the structure down. Now that I think about it, the name change could be noted in a controversey section in the article. But that's all just my 2 cents. Hewinsj 14:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

While the Drama CD and other materials were never officially localized, that's no reason to not refer to the characters by their known localized names. It's not really a contradiction, either, as the names like Cress/Cless and Claus/Klarth are identical or at least very close to each other when written and spoken in Japanese, which has no distinction between an "l" or "r" sound, and which has no "th" sound. As an example, an anime was produced that was based on the game Fire Emblem, long before any of the Fire Emblem games were released in North America. The U.S. distributor used the English language "Mars" as the main character's name. However, years later, this character made an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and with that appearance Nintendo gave him an official English language name, Marth, despite the fact that the character's name appears in English in the debug menu as "Mars". The decision to supposedly alter the character's name for the west was Nintendo's to make, and very little argument (if any) was made in protest of the choice.

Tales of Phantasia is of a similar nature. Do the Japanese have a supposedly common way of spelling the character names using English characters? Apparently, but the only official translation of the game uses different names. To that end, these are the names that are known by more in the west and that are officially recognized by Namco. It is appropriate that notes be made stating such that Cress is referred to as "Cless" in Japanese sources that spell his name in English (the article already does this to a degree in denoting the fan translation names), but in any portion of the article discussing the character specifically, "Cress" should be used, just as "Marth" is. Anyone that were to read the article, see that "Cress" is equal to "Cless", and then see Japanese material such as the Drama CD referring to "Cless" should be able to connect the dots.

But you're right. The article is a mess, and the specifics of the character names shouldn't be the most important point at the moment. It's just that this is an argument that has been running in circles here for far too long, and the only way that I could see any action being taken was by doing something drastic.--Hailinel 07:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't particularly concerned with the Cless/Cress issue, as both are arguably valid romanizations of クレス. The issue is that the article attempts to make a link between Tales of Phantasia and other games of the series, and with various supplemental material. In those cases, omitting mention of the differences (eg Derris-Karran in the GBA game, Derris-Kharlan in Tales of Symphonia) actually contradicts the primary source. Also the part about the characters in Narikiri Dungeon and the drama CDs really needs a proper citation. -- Buuneko 08:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem I see in the long term is that these characters make cameos in other games, either in person or in name only, and area also named in other Tales wikientries. Someone reading the entry for Tales of Symphonia will see references to Klarth, and when they come here they'll find Clause. You can run through and change the reference in these other articles to reflect this one, but that could be considered vandalism, since it conflicts with the localization of those games. Hewinsj 13:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

My personal thoughts on the names are that translation effort made for the English GBA version are appalling, with:

• Universally-agreed flaws such as poor font (including almoSt no difference between lower caSe and upper caSe S, So text lookS like the contentS of theSe parentheSiS), no font shadows (drastic readability reduction), almost no difference in "darked out" text (to indicate disabled skills), the grouping of non-familial skills ("Lightning Tiger Blade" is not a member of the "Tiger Blade" family), half-hearted voice acting and bad sound quality (though rectified in the European release).
• Downright mistakes such as inconsistent brightness correction (half-heartedly in NA due to the advances of backlighting in the GBA SP and DS, the EU version wisely didn't try and left the brightness the same as found in JP), spellchecker-quality mistranslations (yes, Kangaroo again), dialog errors (early on in the game, for example, it is stated that Cress has/had a sister, which is false), repeated skill names ("Hell Pyre" is both a late-game sword attack for Cress and a starting simple bow attack for Chester), sound byte mixups (when using any of Suzu's moves, the voice calls out the name of a completely different move).

and due to all of this, I personally value the input of all sources (excluding DeJap) of Phantasia information over the English GBA translation. This includes everything from English romanisation in all Japanese versions to Nintendo Power preview articles for the ultimately-unreleased SNES version (which used Cless, Klarth, Alvein, Barklight, Adnade, and Klaine), to the impending English release of the Tales of Phantasia OVA[2], which has yet to reveal the translations used, but is unlikely to deliberately match the English GBA translation.

Most importantly, however, I believe that had the English GBA translation made one further mistake - changing the surname of main character Suzu Fujubayashi - then many more people would be willing to go with the "fake" names of Cless, Klarth, et cetera., as this would have severed an established connection between said character and Sheena Fujibayashi of Symphonia. And considering the attention-to-detail of the rest of the translation, it appears this mistake was avoided purely through luck.

Finally, I would make note that the article places unnecessary emphasis on DeJap as reason for fans being "unhappy with the localized GBA version". In an effort to remain unbiased, should it not mention the more substantial reasons for disagreement (notably the official romanizations and conflicts with English Symphonia) so as not to suggest that these fans are solely deciding based on a liberal fan-translation? - 86.27.139.128 09:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Priority System?

To handle inconsistencies, why not utilize a "Priority" system that looks at both the translation effort and the popularity of various relevant "Tales" series games? For example, an initial suggestion:

• Arguably the most dedicated translation works to date have been the three "3D" games: Symphonia, Legendia and Abyss.
  • Symphonia is the only one of the three within Phantasia's continuity, it had an undeniably more "thorough" translation, and it certainly sold more copies than GBA Phantasia. Thus when conflict arises (ex: Derris-Kharlan in Symphonia is the same place as Derris-Karren in Phantasia), it should be noted that Symphonia version holes a substantial amount more weight.
  • Abyss for the most part does not apply, but it should be noted that Phantasia's (arguably) main heroine Mint appears in the traditional "Tales Exhibition Battle", during which she is given the surname "Adnade"[3], not the "Adenade" which appears in ToP GBA.
• Following this, ToP GBA should probably be given priority. It could be argued that as the only English version of the game itself it would necessitate highest priority, but this discussion page alone has highlighted both the poor reasons for doing so (see: Kangaroo. Also not mentioned but relevant: skill names shared for entirely different skills e.g. "Hell Pyre", and desynchronisation between the skill names and effects for the secret "Suzu" character.) and the notable disagreement with what is widely regarded as a poor translation effort.
• Below this should come the similarly-unsuccessful PlayStation titles, Destiny and Eternia. The only relevance these have is in Eternia's "Exhibition Battle", which features Phantasia main characters "Cress" and Arche[4]. During this battle Cress can use his "hi-ougi" (the Tales' series traditional "unbelievably strong" attacks), which Eternia calls "Albain Finality - Final Justice". (06:16 to 06:21 in linked video), thus Eternia (official English translation) actually translates his surname "Albain", not the "Albane" of the English GBA translation.
• Finally, the DeJap fan-translation of the SNES version of the game should be given absolutely no weight, as it is just that - a fan translation.

As far as I can see, this article is about Tales of Phantasia as a whole, not just the English adaptation of possibly the least-acclaimed version of the four ToP incarnations. For the purposes of a stand-alone Wikipedia article about an unlinked game, clearly the most consistent option would be to take everything from the Nintendo America GBA translation and ignore all DeJap differences.

But that's not all there is to it. Tales of Phantasia is part of a collection of "Tales of" series games and is directly related to particular games within this series that have both received more cared-for translation efforts* and brought in larger sales numbers.

*Abyss goes as far as to retain the skill names of Eternia character Reid Hershel in the Exhibition battle featuring ToP's Mint even though they are the same skills found in Symphonia/Phantasia/Abyss given horribly inconsistent names, and it still refuses to acknowledge "Adenade" - English GBA - as Mint's surname in English.

Given all of the above, suggestions for this wiki article would be to either:

1. Detail the article in the context of the English GBA version first and then explain all of the mistranslations, differences and inconsistencies with the rest of the Tales universe afterwards, or:
2. Treat the article as though Tales of Phantasia is part of the Tales universe (particularly Symphonia) and make note of what will be different on the actual English-version GBA cart. - 86.27.139.128 09:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Box art

Why not use the orginal SNES box art instead of the GBA art? After all, it was orginally released on SNES. Plus the GBA box says "only for" GBA which is misleading as well. --72.66.210.145 20:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Since the game never came out in the United States, it's best to use the GBA box art. The "Only for" isn't misleading at all. --Snkcube 08:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is this best? The original Box Art (US or not doesn't matter) should go in the info box because historically it came first. PSX, or GBA box art can be included later in the article if there is a section that discusses the game's re-release. Hewinsj 16:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It's best because it's the only English language official box art available, which fits with the standard procedure for posting box art images in infoboxes. Tales of Phantasia is no exception, nor should it be.--Hailinel 02:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to find the discussion on info boxes where this is agreed on. The closest thing I can find is the statement that the image will be hosted "on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation" under cover art info. If you can find this and post a link I'd appreciate it. Hewinsj 03:17, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Mana Seed

In the Super Famicom version, Dhaos's corpse as well as Martel herself both become part of the seed, but in the remakes, Martel sends the Mana into space including only Dhaos. How is anyone so sure of this? I'm sure it's just a difference in translations. Benpc91 02:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Because the ending isn't narrarated, it shows Martel create the Mana Seed. As in, a text-only translation (ie: DeJap) would leave it unaffected. --Kawnhr 06:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

NAMES NAMES NAMES!

OK, we have to put some priority on the names... I know most hardcore fans will not want us to use the GBA names as the highest priority, but they are the OFFICIAL ones, and deserve due respect, I want your approval before Channing them priority wise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Djtjj (talk • contribs) 22:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC). Just use the original It was originaly on the Super F and then on the PS and both used Cless and Karth not Cress and Claus. Also in the animated 4 episiod series the characters all say cless and Karth, as well as on the PsP they all say cless and Karth so its 4 different tales of Phantasia things against one measly phantasia GBA game which was a not so well done remake in my opinion. The game at one point calls on of the sirits Kangaroo what is that its plain and simple a horrible translation, Im sorry, but it is. and cless sounds better than cress as well as Karth sounds better than claus. (what is he santa) I would much perfer the original as it is more recignized around the world. Please consider before you change the names.Icejamez sorry for bad spelling.

Those were never originall if they wernt official, the names need to be prioritised, the official names deserve there place As top, its not what you like, its as if we would suddenly lern that poke mon was translated by someone in america and ash in there was named mash, would we change his name?Djtjj (talk • contribs) 22:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC

Actually, his name in Japan is "Satoshi", America chose the name Ash, and if they chose "Mash", then that would be what they'd call him --FlareNUKE 05:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

This shouldn't be an issue, plain and simple- The fact of the matter is, there was exactly one official, English translation, and that was the GBA port. While I concede the point that in the case of obvious translational conflicts between Symphonia and Phantasia, Symphonia's translation should take precedence, the fact is that otherwise, the ENGLISH version should take precedence over non-English versions, being that this is the English-language Wikipedia. When multiple language versions of something exist, the English language one, for this site's purpose, should be taken with the most weight provided that there is no logical reason to believe that the translators did not know what they were doing. Yes, people may cite "Kangaroo", but mistakes along those lines were the exception well above the rule. The localization team was not, as some people seem to be convinced, completely inept. Further, Claus is a reasonably common name. Klarth is not. The argument that the romanji from Japanese versions of their names is a complete null argument. By looking at the Romanji in the character art gallery from the Japanese Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and looking at the names of the officially localized names it's very obvious that names have been significantly changed in the interest of making them less nonsensical (Dalahowe became Devdan, Soanevalcke became Stefan, among others), and you'll generally see very few complaints from the Fire Emblem crowd. There's a reason for this- People who change names upon localization don't just do it because they can. They do it because it makes sense in the context of the game to do so. In short, the GBA translation names should take precedence over the Romanji names, or the two should be depicted as equal (i.e. every instance of the main character or the summoner's names should be listed as Cless/Cress or Klarth/Claus, respectively). This is especially true if the main image used for the article is that of the box art for the English language GBA translation. RunissKnight 21:13, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Cartoon

Does the main page of this article mention the cartoon ToP had?...