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Topics - Chocobo_Fan

#1
I presume that lissit are cold-blooded, due to their temperature-based elemental weaknesses. With that in mind, how do they survive the trek through the snowy mountains in the campaign? A naked human would quickly catch hypothermia in those circumstances, and that's with producing some heat of their own -- it should happen to lissit even faster.

Depending on how cold the island itself is, this could also apply to Sarn Kamina and Siripent. I guess they spend a lot of time in the sun?
#2
From the Epilogue map:

<Dialog branch="23">
    OnTurn/0//Silithis, carefully observing how Emma had been interacting with her men, began to pay more attention to her own manner of speaking. She strived to be more observant of others' nonverbal cues, and to be less rude and dismissive.-N-After extended discussions in lissit, Silithis eventually convinced a hesitant Sarn Kamina to return with her to the zaris to be reunited with her mother, Ambuur Sang.
    <Action>IfValGoTo/SarnDead,=,1,24</Action>

<Dialog branch="24">
    OnTurn/0//Disgusted at her own failure to protect Sarn Kamina, Silithis left the mines and returned to the zaris in disgrace.
    <Action>IfValGoTo/SilithisDead,=,1,25</Action>


If I'm reading this correctly, the game will only skip both of these if Silithis and Sarn are dead. It doesn't look like there's anything to block branch 23 if Sarn is alive but Silithis isn't.
#3
Doran and Edwin don't get epilogues (and neither does the very last party member you get), which makes me wonder what happened to them. I mean, they're not very important characters, sure, but it does feel like a bit of an oversight.
#4
Building off of this thread, I decided to make a mod that translates all Lissit text in the campaign. Translated text is demarcated by curly brackets {}.

English sprinkled with Lissit words is kept unchanged (since they're usually obvious from context anyway). And don't worry, I didn't try to localize Silithis' name as "Patience" this time. :p I did take one liberty, which is that I assumed that every cutscene where the lissit talk among themselves is actually in Lissit and translated into English for our benefit; thus, I bracketed those entire conversations, and translated any sprinkled Lissit.

Feedback is appreciated.
#5
The map file for "Camp 1" shows that there's supposed to be a branch for talking to Sabrina, but I've never seen it appear. Indeed, in my Strider-only run, the game skipped straight to the next scene, even though Sabrina should have been an option.

(On the topic of the camp scene, Madeleine references Scarlet and Gavrielle in her branch, but it doesn't look like there's any handler for what happens if they died, or if Scarlet never joined in the first place. Scarlet also doesn't seem to have a default answer to Emma's question if Louise, Madeleine, and Meridian are all absent.)
#6
Telepath Tactics Bugs / Louise's ghost (post-caravan)
August 20, 2015, 08:39:53 AM
Louise still gives her spiel about leaving the party even if she dies in the caravan battle. Lakshmi and Scarlet also do not join the party if they survive the battle but are not talked to.
#7
Telepath Tactics (2015) / Lissit language
August 19, 2015, 08:55:07 PM
The Vengeance of Emma Strider features a good deal of Lissit text, and to my surprise the fandom has not yet jumped on a translation effort! I love ciphers, so I figured I should try translating them using the dictionary provided in the manual. Here are my contributions.

Firstly, I noticed that Lissit race names are actually composites of regular words in the language:

  • "Ge'filesh" (shadowlings) literally translates to "un-meat". A better translation might be "fleshless".
  • "Thirim duuriss" (spriggats) literally translates to "alive temperature". A better translation would probably be "living heat" or "living flame", though that's only really accurate for red spriggats. Were those the first ones the lissit encountered, I wonder?
  • "Hesh" (human) is also the word for hair or fur. This amuses me, since it means you would be justified in translating every instance of "hesh" as "hairy thing".
  • "Silith duuriss" (golem) literally translates to "alive stone", which I would interpret as "living stone". Pretty straightforward.
  • "Geduur ambuuriss" (spirit) literally translates to "shining corpse".

There are also a few terms in the campaign that are easily translated:

  • "Fangiss Ka" (Silithis' unique weapon) means "Fang of the Lissit". However, the manual seems to imply that "ka" has heavier connotations than just the name of the race, perhaps analogous to "humanity" or "mankind"; with that in mind, "Fang of Lizardkind" might be more accurate, but that sounds kind of silly. Below, ArtDrake proposed "Our Fanged People", which I like.
  • "Gasul" (Sarn Kamina's class) means "seer". Presumably this is how lissit refer to psychics.
  • "Barudit" (the standard lissit class) means "fighter" (literally one who fights with a mace).
(Personally, I'm a bit surprised that the promotion class, Drake, is an English word and not a Lissit one.)

Names seem to carry meaning as well: "Silithis Predat" means "Patient Hunter", though the adjective comes before the noun in a reversal of typical Lissit rules. (Because of this, I've taken the liberty of localizing her name to "Patience" in my translations.) Unfortunately, if the other names have meanings I can't decipher them from the manual's limited dictionary. "Ambuur" means "golden" and "des" is the past tense marker, but I can't make sense of "Sang", "Serret", or anything else.

The lissit characters in the campaign say their last words in Lissit. Here are the translations:

  • Des Serret: "Oso! Si-dama-ho...azis zesit ho. Ferat duur..." -> "No! My day...comes this day. Goodbye..."
  • Hee'la: "Omisigah... Gefang fes...si-dama-blud..." -> "Omisigah... Choke on...my blood..." *
  • Silithis Predat: "Si arimat sas si-dama-duurat...asit Ambuur Zaris...asit ze ka..." -> "I gladly give my life...for Ambuur Clan...for all lizardkind..."
  • Siripent: "Sarn...si zet geduuriss. Ferat duur, arisat..." -> "Sarn...I am slain. Goodbye, my love..." **
  • Sarn Kamina: "Ambuur Sang...si des-zet gedesariss...si des-zet esat. Si zet ko..." -> "Ambuur Sang...I was disobedient...I was wrong. I am cold..." ***
* Since "omisigah" has no exact translation and is just an expletive, I think it makes sense to keep it untranslated.
** Literally, this is "Sarn...I am dead. Goodbye, female lover...", but I think we can all agree that's a terrible translation.
*** "Ko" also means "afraid". I'm not sure which is more appropriate here.


And of course, cutscenes.

Training mission:
QuoteSilithis: "Lift your {hand}, {human}."
Emma: "I have a name."
Silithis: "Your name will be {Corpse} if you keep leading with your feet during your attack!" [...] "You see? What do I tell you, {human}? You must always lead with the {sword}, or you leave yourself open to a killing blow!"
Emma: "...my name...is Emma..."
Silithis: "Tch! You make such slow progress. You are "{human}" until you improve. Try again!" [...] "Enough hesitation. Draw your {sword} and attack me!" [...] "Sloppy. {You are weak, small human}."

Silithis visits Adelbrae:
QuoteSilithis: "Where are [the Striders] now? Tell me!"
Villager: "Ah! Wait, I...I think they left on the road north from town. I can't be sure: I was...hiding."
Des Serret: "Nuurss? Sekesh azetesh thuuriss..." -> "North? They are in danger..."
Hee'la: "Idgas! Sus zetesh tor; sus simesh baruduresh alesh ze gestat. Isa, Silithis?" -> "Whatever! We are strong; we can beat all the bandits. Yes, Patience?" *
Silithis: "Zet gekoshiss, Hee'la." -> "Be quiet, Hee'la."
Villager: "What are you...saying?"
Silithis: "How tasty you would be with some spices."
* "Gestat" is not pluralized here, but should be, unless "alesh" creates an implicit plural or something like that.

Silithis apologizes to Emma:
Quote from: SilithisYou have become strong, and I am proud. But in making you tough, I made you feel as if you did not belong. Thinking of this, I am gehassiss.
This one is tricky. "Gehassiss" is not in the manual's dictionary, but "hassiss" means "graced with honor" and "ge" is a negating prefix. The most literal translation is therefore "dishonored", but context implies it could also mean "sorry".
QuoteEmma: "Silithis. Did you...did you mean it when you said that you were proud?
Silithis: "Isa. Su si-ari, Emma." -> "Yes. You please me, Emma."

Silithis talks to Siripent:
QuoteSiripent: "Come no closer, {woman}; who are you?"
Silithis: "The one who will save your life, {man}; {be quiet and follow me}."

Also, I feel the need to nitpick something: In the cutscene where Silithis first reunites with Emma (on the ship), she says attacking the shadowlings is "susugeduura", and immediately translates it as "suicide". However! "Susugeduura" is the infinitive verb, "to commit suicide", so it doesn't make sense to use it for the adjectival form used to say something "is suicide"! It should be conjugated, at least.

There are also some cutscenes where the lissit talk among themselves (Silithis' orders, Battle with Gulch prelude, etc.). Presumably, they speak in Lissit and this is translated for our benefit, yet they still sprinkle their speech with Lissit words like "hesh". This seems odd to me.

Do tell me if I missed anything.

I figure we can also use this space for a general discussion of the language. After being completely overwhelmed trying to learn a foreign language in school, I appreciate how simple and formulaic it is. Only two conjugation forms are unique, and the plural ones use the same suffix as general pluralization. The general vocabulary tends to follow a very Newspeak-like pattern of having only a few base words modified by prefixes and suffixes, making it easy to guess the meaning of most words. (The ambiguity of some words can be quite frustrating though!) Overall, it seems like an easy language to learn. However, I do find it odd that a matriarchal society would follow the male-default-female-exceptional rule in their language; it makes me wonder if Ambuur Zaris is an exception, and the rest of lissit society is more patriarchal.

I also think it's interesting that "t'ayil" (tail), "ze" (the), "blud" (blood), and "kalaw" (claw) are phonetic English cognates. Coincidence, or evidence of cultural exchange?
#9
In the cutscene where Tarion reveals himself to Emma, he remarks that she pronounced his name correctly, which of course begs the question of what the proper pronunciation is and why it might be mispronounced. I pronounce it "tah-ree-on" but I can easily see it being pronounced differently. Any thoughts?
#10
In the foraging mission, it is possible for enemies to pick up and use the apples dropped by apple trees. If they use every apple on the map, wouldn't that prevent the player from collecting the necessary 11, rendering the mission unwinnable? Or is there some sort of check to make sure that doesn't happen?
#11
Shops say that rapiers give +5 strength, when they actually give +6.
#12
Sarn Kamina still gives you an opportunity to shop at the mines entrance even if she died in a previous battle. Not sure if this necessarily has to be fixed, since it makes sense from a gameplay perspective.
#13
He attacked Emma, who was about to counterattack when Archos' "attacked for the first time" message came up. However, the camera moved to a random swordsman at the same time, who took his turn before the camera returned to Archos.
#14
In Battle with Archos, Sabrina was strong enough to kill most enemies with a counterattack, so they refused to attack her -- even after a frost spriggat froze her. I'm pretty sure frozen characters can't counterattack, so this seems a little odd.
#15
In Battle with Archos, a psy healer used Mind Shield on a swordsman diagonally across from himself while adjacent to Sabrina. Sabrina subsequently counterattacked him. This doesn't seem like something that's supposed to happen.
#16
Weather effects still stop animating at the start of battles. Oddly, this never happened for me the first time I played (using version 1.02 or so). Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?
#17
If a recruitable character is killed before they are recruited, their death message is still spoken with a blue-shaded portrait.
#18
Telepath Tactics Bugs / Pull does nothing
August 18, 2015, 08:23:31 AM
Pull does not move the target back one space, even when they are in water.

Edit: Silithis and Sarn Kamina's Shove abilities don't work either, at least not when targeting each other. Enemy stone golems' movement abilities don't seem to work either. I suspect movement abilities may be broken in general.
#19
Des Serret and Hee'la speak in the stowaway cutscene even if they died in the battle with Gulch, though their portraits do not appear. Emma also makes reference to Silithis coming aboard with a group of warriors even if Silithis is alone.

(Emma also makes reference to having a "substantial force" on board the ship, even if the party has been whittled down to nothing.)
#20
In Battle with Ebon Raban, Sabrina attacked Ebon Raban with a thrust. He countered with a lance attack, to which she countered with a sword attack. That seems odd; I don't remember anything like that happening before, and most games generally don't allow characters to counter a counter.

Edit: This has happened in later battles too. The sword counterattack also ends the character's turn.