Editing Final Fantasy VII (section)

===Localization===
{{see also|Localization of Square Enix video games}}
Localization of ''Final Fantasy VII'' was handled internally by Square. The English localization, led by Seth Luisi, was completed by a team of about fifty people and faced a variety of problems. According to Luisi, the biggest hurdle was making "the direct Japanese-to-English text translation read correctly in English. The sentence structure and grammar rules for the Japanese language is very different from English", making it difficult for the translation to read like native English without distorting the meaning.<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=|first=|date=May 1997|title=Finalizing the Fantasy|url=https://www.retromags.com/files/file/3681-electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-094-may-1997/|magazine=[[Electronic Gaming Monthly]]|publisher=[[Ziff Davis]]|volume=|issue=94|pages=91–94|via=Retromags|access-date=February 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200203135144/https://www.retromags.com/files/file/3681-electronic-gaming-monthly-issue-094-may-1997/|archive-date=February 3, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Michael Basket was the sole translator for the project, though he received the help of native Japanese speakers from the Tokyo office. The localization was taxing for the team due to their inexperience, lack of professional editors, and poor communication between the North American and Japanese offices. A result of this disconnect was the original localization of Aerith's name—which was intended as a conflation of "air" and "earth"—as "Aeris" due to a lack of communication between localization staff and the [[Quality assurance|QA]] team.<ref name="SQlocalization"/>

The team also faced several technical issues due to programming practices which took little account of subsequent localization, such as dealing with a [[Monospaced font|fixed-width font]] and having to insert [[kanji]] through [[language input keys]] to add special characters (for example, vowels with [[diacritic]]s) to keep the code working. Consequently, the text was still read as Japanese by the word processor; the computer's spellcheck could not be used, and mistakes had to be caught manually. The code used obscure kanji to refer to main character's names, which made it unintuitive for the translators to identify characters.<ref name="SQlocalization" /> Translated text usually takes up more space than the Japanese text, though still had to fit to the screen appropriately without overusing page breaks (for example, item names, which are written in kanji in Japanese language, could overflow message windows in translated text); to mitigate this problem, a [[Typeface#Proportion|proportional typeface]] was implemented into the source code to fit more text into the screen. Swear words were used frequently in the localization to help convey the original Japanese meaning, though most profanities were censored in a manner described by Square employee [[Richard Honeywood]] as the "old comic book [[Grawlix|'@#$%!'-type replacement]]".<ref name="richardhoneywood"/> The European release was described as being in a worse condition, as the translations into multiple European languages were outsourced by Sony to another company, further hindering communication. For the PC port, Square attempted to fix translation and grammar mistakes for the North American and European versions but did not have the time and budget to retranslate all the text.<ref name="SQlocalization">{{cite web|url=http://www.wesleyfenlon.com/2012/04/15/gamespite-quarterly-interview-richard-honeywood-on-the-rise-of-square-localization/|title=GameSpite Quarterly Interview: Richard Honeywood on The Rise of Square Localization|last=Fenlon|first=Wesley|date=April 15, 2012|work=Wesley Fenlon Blog|publisher=|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226145009/http://www.wesleyfenlon.com/2012/04/15/gamespite-quarterly-interview-richard-honeywood-on-the-rise-of-square-localization/|archivedate=December 26, 2016|accessdate=January 15, 2016}}</ref> According to Honeywood, the success of ''Final Fantasy VII'' in the West encouraged Square to focus more on localization quality; on future games, Square hired additional translators and editors, while also streamlining communication between the development and localization teams.<ref name="richardhoneywood"/>

Some months prior to the game's North American release, Sony publicly stated that it was considering cutting the scene at the Honey Bee Inn due to the salacious content, prompting numerous online petitions and letters of protest from RPG fans. Square subsequently stated that it would never allow Sony to localize the game in any way.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Colin|last=Campbell|title=Final Fantasy Mania |magazine=[[Next Generation (magazine)|Next Generation]] |issue=29|publisher=[[Imagine Media]]|date=May 1997|page=30}}</ref> In addition to translating the text, the North American localization team made tweaks to the gameplay, including reducing the enemy encounter rate, simplifying the Materia menu, and adding new boss fights.<ref>{{cite magazine |author=Bro Buzz|title=Final Fantasy VII Update! |magazine=[[GamePro]]|issue=107|publisher=[[International Data Group|IDG]] |date=August 1997|page=86}}</ref>