Good day, Ophannus!

Let me get to your questions one by one.

Quote Originally Posted by Ophannus View Post
Drakesbane in the JP is 雲蒸竜変 which according to Google Translate is "Strange Cloud". I'm sure this is an idiomatic phrase only understood by Japanese people in the context of their culture's mythos surrounding eastern dragons (e.g. Mistmelt/Cloud Evoker). I couldn't find anything on the interwebs about it but I was wondering if you could provide a brief description of what 雲蒸竜変 really eludes to. I know it was localized to "Drakesbane" before your time. I'm presuming that dragons require clouds to fly, and 雲蒸竜変 related to disrupting clouds somehow which I suppose would result in a dragon 'falling'. And an attack which destroys the clouds necessary for a dragon to fly, would be a bane to a dragon? I'm just using deductive logic here based on my extremely limited japanese, but was just curious!
雲蒸竜変, pronounced "Unjo-ryohen" (for you kanji fiends out there, the third character is actually prounced "ryo" in this instance, not "ryu"), is what's called in Japanese a "yoji-jukugo," a four kanji compound phrase that plays a role very similar to what we would term an "idiom." A well known example of a yoji jukugo is 一石二鳥 (isseki-nicho), which in English is "Kill two birds with one stone." Many of these translate into phrases rather than single words. When we coming up with a skill or ability name, anything longer than about two words is out unless there's a really good reason (I know there are a couple with three, but they usually contain filler words like "of" (Knights of Round, Chant du Cygne, etc.))

Now, let's talk about the meaning of "Unjo-ryohen." I'm creative licensing this a little bit, but it essentially means "a great leader or hero will appear in times of need to save the land." The third character, 竜, (usually pronounced "ryu") refers to a dragon. Let's take the two of these aspects together: In western lore, our fantasy heroes often do things like saving kingdoms, rescuing princesses, and--you guessed it--slaying dragons. With a term like "drakesbane," you get a triple whammy: you keep the dragon present in the original Japanese, you call forth an image of of heroism, and you have a short, pithy word that sounds like an ability name.

As you mentioned, it was named before my time, but I have a feeling my guess is pretty spot-on.



Also I was wondering why Ryuken (Dragon Sword) DRG's SP1 was localized to Spirit Surge in FFXI when in previous FF games it was simply called Lancet/Lancer/Dragon Sword. Was Dragon Sword/Lancet not 'cool' or dramatic enough for an SP name? I also remember getting hyped about DRG's SP2 before it was released, back before you guys actually named it "Fly High", and I remember being so disappointed at its name. 1) because 'Fly High" sounds so mundane, and 2) I was halfway hoping you guys would name it "Highwind" after Highwind being a very prominent term relating to DRGs throughout the FF series (and also the name of DRG's ultimate Jump attack in several other FF games). Seeing as Manafont, Benediction, and Summoner's Astral Flow abilities are all names of ultimate skills those jobs use in other games, Highwind would have been a better name than "Fly High", which I think is actually almost seems like a synonym for High Wind as both terms allude to altitude/flying, but I think Fly High as not having as much fan service as Highwind, in the same regard as Hellfire, Gaia's Wrath, Tsunami, Dark Messenger being renamed Inferno, Earthen Fury, Tidal Wave and Ruinous Omen. Even if the latter are more 'accurate' translations.
I find it very interesting that you bring up Highwind here, because it was originally on the short list of ideas that we thought up during the naming process but ultimately discarded it. It's a term that we have to be very careful about using, because Highwind has been a bit over the map historically: sometimes it refers to dragoons, sometimes to airships, sometimes to Cid. (of course, sometimes Cid is ALSO dragoon-like, but that's neither here nor there)

I believe the most recent main title we've used Highwind in was the ios/android Final Fantasy Dimensions (good game--if you're interested in retro Final Fantasy I would give it a go), and there it was an airship.

So that's the background behind "Highwind" as a term. That in and of itself wouldn't be a reason to cross the name off the list, but there's one other consideration--at the time of naming, we were right in the middle of the Adoulin questline involving Midras, and Cid pops up as a guest figure. This gave me pause, because bringing Cid back into the picture at this juncture opens up the possibility that the planner in charge of the quest decides to trot out the name. As such, it was decided to discard the name in favor of Fly High.

What do you think? Would you have kept it as Highwind, or would you have looked for something else? If something else, what direction would you liked to have seen it go in?

As an aside, most of those continuing Adoulin subquests will be getting closure in the next few months, so you'll be able to find out exactly what happens to Roskin, Nashu, the Blackthorn Coven, and a bunch of other Adoulin characters.