[Spoilers, kind of] Characters who are completely different between JP/ENG

[eschaton]

Major differences. This is not only in FFXIV... you get this in games, movies, anime, music, heck it is in everything.

Once you figure this out you are kinda screwed also; you've gotta choose to experience the original setting, or go with the translation. Or watch stuff multiple times. Personally I think this really blows, and when being serious about it the original always seems 'better'. (How strange, how the producer meant it to be, seems better?!)

Each their own, of course, some friends can't stand foreign languages / voices. (And I wish I knew more of them!)

[Urthdigger]

Once you figure this out you are kinda screwed also; you've gotta choose to experience the original setting, or go with the translation. Or watch stuff multiple times. Personally I think this really blows, and when being serious about it the original always seems 'better'. (How strange, how the producer meant it to be, seems better?!)

Considering the english localizers actually help to create the lore in the first place, the japanese version is no more authentic than the NA version. Now, you can say you might prefer things that are localized for a JP audience over things that are localized for an NA audience (and yes, this may include altering character personalities to something that goes over better in a region), but neither version is the "original" version.

[Tsukino]

Considering the english localizers actually help to create the lore in the first place, the japanese version is no more authentic than the NA version. Now, you can say you might prefer things that are localized for a JP audience over things that are localized for an NA audience (and yes, this may include altering character personalities to something that goes over better in a region), but neither version is the "original" version.

This is a massive overstatement, and nothing they have ever said would point to the English localization team having even remotely an equal part in crafting the story of the game. Koji posted one thing talking about how they have more involvement than most localization teams, being called on to do things like create the dragons' language and most of the player titles that get used across versions, and for some reason a bunch of people took that and ran with it. For everything they help contribute there are 10 other examples of things they've had to double back on and change because they overdid localizing them.

The Japanese version is the original, they write it first, and then the localization teams, including the English one, localize it for their audiences.

[TheMax1087]

This is a massive overstatement, and nothing they have ever said would point to the English localization team having even remotely an equal part...

Koji is literally both the English localization lead and the co-lead world and lore developer. I think that's nearly as equal as you can have. As for saying that nothing they've said indicates it, here's a quote from a dualshockers article from before arr even released

One of the things that they do is instead of making things solely Japanese and then ask us to translate those, they’ll talk with the localization team and collaborate with us to get more western ideas in the game itself. This comes down to things like monster names, monster attacks, place names, item names… these are all conceived by myself and the other members of the English team and we work directly with the world lore planners to come up with these, and then help them translate them back into Japanese.

We make sure that there are stories connected with these as well, so it’s not just random names. There’s a reason why something is called an “Angry Gobbue” — the Gobbue’s angry for a reason. NPCs as well are actually a collaboration between all of the localization team members. For example, the hyur and miqo’te names for NPCs are all done by the English team, the Elzen names are all conceived by the French team, the Lalafell names come from the Japanese team, and the Roegadyn names are a joint effort between the German and English teams and so, again, you have all these aspects of the game that are being created by not just the Japanese side, but also by the localization side as well.

And then, again, a lot of the quests, when we do our translations, we will some times add things — Japanese can be a very vague language — a lot of important information is either cut completely or it’s implied heavily. It can be kind of confusing for western players and readers, so we’ll go in and tweak things to make it a little easier to understand and a little bit clearer. A lot of times the Japanese team will then go back and look at the English translations or the French translations and get ideas on how they can change the Japanese text in turn.

So a lot of stuff that we’ve done actually influenced the Japanese side as well. It’s going back and forth and there’s a lot of communication between us and the team. One of the greatest benefits of working on this project is being able to sit right next to the development team, so any time we have a question or any time they have a question, you just really stand up and walk for five seconds, and right there we’re able to have open communication and work together. I think it really makes the game that much better.

[enthauptet]

Koji is literally both the English localization lead and the co-lead world and lore developer. I think that's nearly as equal as you can have. As for saying that nothing they've said indicates it, here's a quote from a dualshockers article from before arr even released

Since then they've come back and admitted that they do not have a lot of input and future prospects told to them and have had to change many things (like monster names which has occurred many many times). Koji seems like a nice person, but he seems to be a bit of a fanboy of the game and what he says definitely reflects this so I kind of take what he says through a reality filter lol. He wasn't lying but it could be taken as more than it really was. I think also is during that time (in between 1.0 and 2.0) the team actually started taking input from the western side of the team when Yoshida came along, so to them it was like being a part of the process and is probably why it came off stronger than it really was. Also a part is probably they come up with scenarios and simply don't tell the west people as well lol. I don't really know, but with Koji sometimes I take the enthusiasm down a notch lol. He's like the opposite of Yoshida's "look forwad to it" lol.

[Averax]

Major differences. This is not only in FFXIV... you get this in games, movies, anime, music, heck it is in everything.

Once you figure this out you are kinda screwed also; you've gotta choose to experience the original setting, or go with the translation. Or watch stuff multiple times. Personally I think this really blows, and when being serious about it the original always seems 'better'. (How strange, how the producer meant it to be, seems better?!)

Each their own, of course, some friends can't stand foreign languages / voices. (And I wish I knew more of them!)

If you've ever watched an anime called "ghost stories" trust me, it's way better in english dubs than it ever was in japanese.