Ted Woolsey Remembers Final Fantasy 6, Evading Nintendo's Censorship Rules, and the Early Days of Localization

Tek

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It's remarkable to realize Square Enix's ability to deliver such a powerful story about death, devastation, and the end of the world while under the watchful eye of Nintendo of America's content censors. That's why the man behind the translations, Ted Woolsey, is still celebrated for his work.
"I played as much of the game as I could to get a sense of the scope. I felt a connection to the characters and when I began translating—it felt as though I were channeling their personalities, enjoying their foibles and pitfalls as I proceeded," he says. "In the end, I grew to care about the games in a very personal way that made me want to try and keep producing better work, a credit to the creative teams at Square."

As he played, Woolsey was able to identify some of the narrative arcs that probably wouldn't get through Nintendo of America's content filter. He devised ways around them whenever possible. "I wanted to pull as much of the drama in as possible, to try and retain what I could of the more shocking events in the game," he says. "I did my best to try and find alternatives and work around some of those blockers."

 
I guess we are going to see a lot of gaming companies would be out of the censortship loop that has been going on. Now the scale is tilted more towards the left wing narrative and so the censortship will work accordingly. I think that is what I have noticed so far.
 

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