Why is Mumyo Shoha translated to Shoha II on the English Client?

[Rongway]

The fact that this confusing discrepancy exists only furthers why we need a faithful translation over localization that deviates.

Let's talk about discrepancies for a moment.

• Cure - ST
• Cura - ST alternative to Cure
• Curaga - PBAoE
  
• Stone - ST
• Stonera - ST upgrade to Stone
• Stonega - ST upgrade to Stonra
  
• Holy - PBAoE
• Holyga - PBAoE upgrade to Holy
  
• Medica - PBAoE
• Medicara - PBAoE alternative to Medica
  
• Fire - ST
• Fira - Targeted AoE
• Firaga - ST alternative to Fire
• Firaja - ST alternative to Fire and Firaga
• High Fira - Target AoE upgrade to Fira
  
• Thunder - ST
• Thundara - Targeted AoE
• Thundaga - ST upgrade to Thunder
• Thundaja - Targeted AoE upgrade to Thundara
  
• Ruin - ST
• Ruinra - ST upgrade to Ruin
• Ruinga - ST upgrade to Ruinra
• Ruinja - Targeted AoE

Given all those spell names, can you tell me what any of the suffixes mean?

Do the suffixes ---, -ra, -ga, -ja denote direct power increases (upgrades)? No: only one of the spell series above follows that rule.

Does -ra upgrade a --- spell directly? No:
Cura is a separate spell from Cure, even though it is effectively a much better Cure.
Fira and Thundara are AoE spells, not upgrades to Fire and Thunder.
The direct upgrade to Holy is Holyga.

Does -ra make a spell AoE? No:
Cura is not an AoE cure.
Holy and Medica are already AoE with no suffix.

If a single target --- spell has an AoE -ra relative, are -ga and -ja upgrades to --- and -ra, respectively, as in the Thunder line? No: Firaja is a single target spell completely separate from Fira, and Firaga is a separate spell from Fire.

This is not any of the numbered Final Fantasies where the suffixes were meaningful. It worked up through X because there was a direct upgrade hierarchy of ---, -ra, -ga, -ja. It worked in XI because all the single target spells were ---, the PBAoE spells were -ra, the targeted AoE spells were -ga, and targeted AoE spells with special added effect were -ja. It doesn't work here because neither of those things is universally true of the XIV spell lines. By the way, XI also used roman numeral numbering on top of the suffix system, to denote direct upgrades to each spell, and this was also meaningful and useful there.


The point here is: names are an interface. If the suffixes don't encode any meaning--that is if you can't look at Spell and Spellra and determine what -ra means other than "Spellra is different from Spell"--then they are no more meaningful than just numbering the spells, and if it comes down to a difference between invented numbering via suffixes and just using plain Arabic or Roman numbering, then it is objectively more accessible to a wider player base to use the plain Arabic or Roman numbering because they already know the difference between 1, 2, 3, and 4 or I, II, III, and IV without having to learn what the invented numbers ---, -ra, -ga, -ja mean.

I personally prefer suffixes too, from the perspective of a lifelong FF player. However, those suffixes need to be meaningful and systematic, and implementing a meaningful suffix system at this point is a non-starter. The names of spells that we've already been using for ten years would have to change and that would just make the already-out-of-date old internet info even worse. Because so many players are bad at restricting search results to the past year or six months, it would confuse a lot of people even more because the old guides will talk about Thunder -> Thunder III and Thunder II -> Thunder IV vs new guides talking about Thunder -> Thunder II and Thundaga -> Thundaga II. Fire, Fire II, Fire III, Fire IV, High Fire II vs Fire, Firaga, Fire II, Fire III, Firaga II. Etc.