Final Fantasy VII/Unused Text

The bulk of the following text was originally discovered by Face of the Moon's Robert Seddon and Shademp. It was extracted from the Final Fantasy VII International field dialogue and offers more characterization and tongue-in-cheek humor than we got to see in-game. Perhaps Square felt it was unnecessary? Translation by GlitterBerri, with commentary by GlitterBerri, Robert Seddon, and Shademp.

AVALANCHE
TIN_3 Robert Seddon says: This dialogue is from tin_3, the carriage from which the party jumps out of the Midgar train. Robert Seddon says: This duplication doesn't occur in the English files. Robert Seddon says: Cf. another piece of unused dialogue in which she talks to Cloud about visiting hot springs. Robert Seddon says: Maybe this repetitiousness arises from the scriptwriters trying out variations on the theme...

Johnny's House
7MIN1 Robert Seddon says: Presumably referring to President Shinra’s broadcast; see below. Robert Seddon says: Maybe this is too excitable to be one of the parents…

Mount Corel
MTCRL9 MTCRL_3 Shademp: The following is used in the original Japanese and International versions. However, in English, all we read is... {Barret}

“@#$%! {Tifa},

you oughtta know by now.” ...and the text box ends there.

Seventh Heaven
MDS7 0y1k5Y6C_Pg Robert Seddon says: We begin just after the alternative version of [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HbnhZd2ctmo the pre-promise scene, and as you can see this version starts off familiar but exhibits much more foreshadowing than the final script; this seems to be an emerging trend in the unused text. Robert Seddon says:] Placeholder text; refers to the promise flashback.

Robert Seddon says: So that’s another point at which Cloud seems to be leaving; compare Barret yelling at him to ‘get the hell out’ in other unused text. MDS7 Part 2 Robert Seddon says: The mind boggles. Children at play? 'Gorilla' as a possibly racial slur directed at Barret? Some completely unknown NPC(s)? We don't know. We now move indoors to Seventh Heaven (mds7pb_1): most of these lines do appear in the English files, though not during gameplay, but there are occasional differences between those versions and what GlitterBerri makes the Japanese script out to say. Robert Seddon says: From a technical point of view, the noteworthy thing about the above is that it doesn’t correspond to even a blank dialogue box in the (English language) PC version’s files as viewed in Loveless.exe. Maybe it isn’t referenced in the game’s own tables... I don’t know; but the presence of such things – there seem to be quite a few in the Honey Bee Inn – doesn’t make our job any easier. The use of ‘Limit’-style colour-scrolling text on a single kanji is striking: why would so much emphasis be wanted? Maybe the early plans were to have less subdued formatting. We can see by comparing this in-development promotional screenshot NexusJannis found...  ...with how the same text looks in the final game...  ...that at some point Square clearly changed their minds about the division of text between boxes; maybe they also made other stylistic changes at the same time. (Incidentally, note that Marlene’s pose is different too.) Even so, why emphasise that word? Maybe Square once planned to do more with the flower. Robert Seddon says: The English files have: Thudthudthud!! That ???? is supposed to come in. It now seems this refers to Barret’s footfall as he charges in (reading SE as ’sound effect’). Robert Seddon says: This could well be another placeholder; 『』 brackets seem to be used for those elsewhere. The next couple of pieces of unused Seventh Heaven dialogue can be found in the English files, but there are a couple of points to note. Robert Seddon says: Another bit with a difference from the English files: Robert Seddon says: The last line seems to correspond to ...I’m going out... in the English files, which made me think Cloud was walking out of the door, or maybe blacking out (since I was thinking about how the Materia outtake starts with him slumped by the pinball machine). Reading this, however, I now suspect this is Cloud’s first time on the pinball machine lift: his reaction makes it sound as though he hasn’t already seen it used as a lift, which suggests a different order of events on first entering Seventh Heaven. This is all speculative, of course.

Honey Bee Inn
Robert Seddon says: Before moving on to GlitterBerri’s translations, I want to note something odd about the filenames. The Honey Bee Inn has six rooms: onna_4 is the main lobby, onna_2 is the dressing room at the top, and the left and right sides each have a pair of rooms sharing a single map file (i.e. one background with the dialogue for each of two rooms): onna_5 to the right, onna_52 to the left. (The extra terminal 2 seems to suggest an alternative version of an area: cf. ealin1 and ealin12, the ground floor of Aeris’s house viewed from two different camera angles.) Other odd aspects are quite a number of blocks that don’t correspond to anything found in Loveless and, for some reason, the absence of the room names familiar from the English script. Here’s mrkt3, just outside the Honey Bee Inn: the following (with the exception of one block, {AERIS} “Hey!! {CLOUD}!!”) is blank in the English files. Cloud apparently believes Tifa’s inside, so he can’t have discovered she’s in Corneo’s Mansion yet. ONNA2 ONNA_4 Robert Seddon says: There is a smidgeon of unused text [...] which is just one indication of a more involved quest for transvestite pulchritude. Behold the untranslated text of onna_4, starting with another indication that something about the Inn’s layout may have changed during development… Robert Seddon says: These few blocks occupy the place where the names of the rooms appear in the English files. The last version of this dialogue listed 4 rooms and said ダメなのよ instead of ダメよ. The first version also lacks the [options for] reactions; the version below has them too. Robert Seddon says: Same as the first one, but with reactions. Robert Seddon says: Now I really begin to wonder what Square’s staff meetings were like. ONNA_52 Robert Seddon says: Maybe if the people who want an FFVII remake ever get their wish, Square-Enix will let them play the game as it was meant to be experienced, with all these insights into social behaviour and manners restored. Finally, here’s onna_52, with an extended version of the scene where Cloud loses consciousness: Robert Seddon says: Cloud slips and loses consciousness. Robert Seddon says: Some of the onna_4 text (“I hate stubborn people”, etc.) is repeated after this. I don’t know quite what to make of the revelation that Cloud keeps his hair natural.

ONNA_3 _aG_6b2B8QY 1DA5RrgIFPw Sign above left door: 2nd sign above left door: Sign above stairs: Sign on reception desk: Sign above right door: Fans in foreground: Various messages on the screen: Sign on right wall (kanji difficult to make out):

Riding the Midgar Railroad
TIN_1 Robert Seddon says: TIN_1, the first carriage on the Midgar train (apart from the Cargo van), is the last of the regular maps with decent-sized chunks of unused text. One piece of dialogue in this file was actually moved around by the translators so that it wasn’t on its own between blanked-out slots. Another point of interest in TIN_1 is {0xFEDA}『ルートマップ画面へ』{END}, which corresponds to “To the Route Map Screen” in the English files: it’s placeholder text from development, and so it never appears in the game. Consequently I had to dig around in emulator memory to find out what the otherwise unseen FEDA did: it causes text to flash alternate white and grey. There’s another (glitchy) code, FEE0, which causes text to scroll upwards while the confirmation button is held down; according to the Loveless.exe help file both of these are operative in the PC conversion too, even though they’re not used anywhere in the final game proper. FEDF produces the same glitches but no other apparent effect. Other things I found while probing the dialogue memory: FC00 – FC18 replicate the kanji represented by FBE7 – FBFF for some reason. Elsewhere there are chunks of numbers which produce kana, but displaced downwards by several pixels (sometimes with the bottom of the character descending through the top of the line). Robert Seddon says: Those lines, or at least some of them, presumably belong to the Shinra manager. Below is that looks like placeholder or debug text; the two blank lines are an odd detail. ROOTMAP Robert Seddon says: ROOTMAP is the Route Map which Jessie shows to Cloud: Robert Seddon says: It’s easy enough to see why that might have been deemed redundant. The following, however, is another example of Jessie’s character development being cut back… Robert Seddon says: Another place where we have odd blank lines; I wonder why some of them are shorter than the full 27 characters. Presumably the text is intentionally centred; this is how it looks in a monospace font. [Update: owing to problems getting it to look right with the kanji displayed, I've replaced them with alphanumeric characters to show the form the text box would take. ________________________

_______________

___________oooo____________

___________________________

___________________________

___________________________

___________________________

___________________________ Maybe it was intended as some kind of notice...

Debug Text
ANCNT3 Robert Seddon says: This final miscellany in the search for unused text in FFVII International omits a couple of placeholders which amount to 'battle here', and ignores a few empty text blocks which turned out to be annoyingly blank in the Japanese files too, but it's pretty exhaustive otherwise. In ANCNT3, one of the maps from Aeris's dying place, we see what's presumably debug text... HILL Robert Seddon says: As a minor point, the hill where Cloud and Tifa spend the night together (HILL/HILL2) is identified as "Twilight Hill". Robert Seddon says: Maybe a message from him to testers? I'd guess it has to do with the 'battle lock' that can be enabled in the main debug room. TRNAD52 Robert Seddon says:TRNAD52, by the way, has its location identifier included, but seems to have an empty block in the English (PC) files missing altogether from International. FSHIP_2 Robert Seddon says: FSHIP_2 is from the Highwind. This follows '{RED XIII} Well then‚ what is {CLOUD}?' Robert Seddon says: There follows (in English too) '{RED XIII} But why only {CLOUD}?'—and that's the last line in the file. FSHIP_3 Robert Seddon says: FSHIP_3 is also from the Highwind. Besides the 'speak to Captain Cid' and 'job well done' lines which are present in English, here we see some placeholder text. CHORACE/DEL/RCKT Robert Seddon says: CHORACE1 and CHORACE2 have some debugging text – デバック{EOL}{VAR1} だって{END} – but what variable VAR1 represents would be context-dependent, so it can't be determined from the text. Also of note on these maps: CHORACE2 has the キーストーン (Keystone) we see in the finished game, but CHORACE1 has キー・マテリア (Key Materia). Maybe Square decided they didn't want another special Materia in the plot. There are a couple of other maps that appear in two visually identical versions: DEL1/DEL12 (Costa del Sol harbour) and RCKT3/RCKT32 (Cid's garden). (Usually an extra trailing 2 suggests a variant, e.g. a different camera angle, but these have no visual differences. Each has a piece of scenery which may be present or absent, so my guess is that Square started out using multiple map versions, then decided that complete multiple files weren't necessary, but didn't clean up fully.) The latter has no dialogue variations (although the filesizes are different, so something must vary), but the former has a smidgeon of variation (and DEL12's dialogue is curtailed before DEL1's version ends). Probably an editor only bothered changing the one that was actually used. Besides a very slight variation in Aeris's text, this line was added to Barret's: MIDGAL Robert Seddon says: MIDGAL, Zack's dying place, brings up sad news: not only is a known blank from the English version still blank here, the adjacent, unused 'Received "High Blow ST"!' is blanked out in International too. MTNVL6 Robert Seddon says: MTNVL6, outside the Nibel Reactor, offers this... BLACKBG1 Robert Seddon says: There's various stuff to probe in the debug rooms. Some of it was left blank or not fully translated in English – see a previous post for some of the stuff the translators butchered – and some isn't used in the final versions. Robert Seddon says: BLACKBG1 has lots of what looks like menu text for a music test. Robert Seddon says: This menu is irritating: just one line that differs from the complete set of s in the English version. Mind you, another menu of s doesn't even have that much. Robert Seddon says: This is presumably some sort of key item reference. BLACKBG2 Robert Seddon says: A quirky version of the party selection text. BLACKBG7 Robert Seddon says: This was changed to "Music mode" in the English files. Robert Seddon says: The English files say: Map check

Do not use!!

☞Yes

☞No Robert Seddon says: The 'Aho'/'Baka' text turns out not to be any more obviously meaningful at greater length. Robert Seddon says: These menus were largely butchered (though the first two are used) for the English rooms. Robert Seddon says: One unused music track is known to exist. BLACKBGH Robert Seddon says: A slightly strange PC list; six is the character limit in the Japanese version, I think. BLACKBGI Robert Seddon says: BLACKBGI has a 「{Party 1}・・・・・・{EOL} {Party 2}、{Party 3}!」{END} which seems to lack an equivalent block in the English files. Robert Seddon says: It turns out that 'Received "Slapshot"!' was originally a Materia receipt line. Shademp: It seems that Slapshot is simply another translation of 4x Cut, and they are the same Materia. BLACKBGK Robert Seddon says: BLACKBGK is the legendary Kato's room, so here we present a fairly detailed comparison... Robert Seddon says: We know this as "We're working hard making the deep {BLUE}.Wait a little longer." That blue text always looked odd, starting just before a full stop, and here it's missing. Robert Seddon says: We only got the first two lines of this in English. Robert Seddon says: In the English translation this became... That doesn't really matter all that much, babushika. Get ready, caped crusader, nya-ha, ha... ... Don't think you'll get away so easy. I always assumed "babushika" was an alternative or erroneous spelling of "babushka", maybe suggesting the giant Aeris was scaled like a Russian doll. In Conclusion Robert Seddon says: When I first posted on unused text in the English files, one of the things I didn't include at the time was the lost catalogue of the Shinra Mansion library... "Information concerning Materia/Hojo”

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“Life of Materia”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“Legend of the Ancients‚World Version”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“Next Quarter's projected Budget/Hojo”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“North Pole Daily Report/Hojo”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“/Hojo”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore

“The Promised Land”

{NEW PAGE}

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Read it

{CHOICE}] ] ] ] Ignore Robert Seddon says: We know the titles, we know they were going to be written and readable, but we don't have the books to read. That pretty well fits this enquiry as a whole: we know more, but we still have plenty of questions. With regard to the lost cutscenes which are still viewable, we don't know how or where the From Pinball scene would have continued. (It crashes because the game tries to switch location to somewhere that apparently doesn't exist.) We don't know how the Materia scene would have fitted into the plot, and I've come to suspect that the Cargo scene is acually another debugging programmer's joke. (We know there's debugging manu text on that map, after all.) We know that quite a lot was changed in Sector 7, some of it involving Johnny, but we lack a complete picture. We know some changes are beyond reach, because we've seen some in pre-release publicity. We have no idea what the 'voluntary restraints' are all about. (GlitterBerri translating part of ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 自主規制 : '"Voluntary restraint" is when a manufacturer voluntarily restricts a product when uneasiness about its social implications arises. On the positive side, the only great disappointment was finding that there was actually no unused text in Aeris's house after all. (The translators had just avoided duplicating stuff.) We know that quite a lot of character development, notably involving Jessie, was removed, and we can see how things would have proceeded. We know that Cloud's knowledge of and unfinished business with Sephiroth were to be foreshadowed far more explicitly in early scenes than they are in the finished game. And lastly, we know that we are but the bedbugs of a shabby inn, which is surely almost as satisfying as knowing what a Stelagodon is. Now we can go back to dreaming of the earliest scenario drafts, and their tales of New York and [http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/793/793956p1.html the mysterious Hot Blooded Detective Joe ...

Yuffie's Letter
A cut letter from Yuffie explaining her departure after she swipes your Materia. YOUGAN

The Travelling Peddler
The travelling peddler is part of a cut sidequest in FF7. Two unused Key Items for this quest also exist, Letter to a Daughter and Letter to a Wife. More information about this sidequest can be found here. GONGAGA First he shows up in Gongaga and has this to say. RCKT Next, we find him in Rocket Town.

Chocobos
Some untranslated text concerning Chocobos. Not too remarkable. ZZ3 A little snippet of dialogue from the Chocobo Sage. FRCYO Another snippet, this time from Choco Billy.

Temple of the Ancients
Unused text from the Temple of the Ancients in which Sephiroth explains the origins of summon materia. This is curious because it seems to describe a process similar to the way he himself has become immortal. KURO_82

In the Truck
TRACKIN tXBY1jduINE An outtake buried in FFVII. Accessible in the 2 o'clock debug room: talk to Sephiroth and select 'From pinball'. (English version of the video here.) Following is the full version of the scene. Cloud and Sephiroth talk a bit before the monster shows up.