Muddling through Japanese RPGs

[Kaminari]

I gotta hunt down that Neo Metal Fantasy.

It's a great little RPG by Human (a surprise in itself).

By the way, the real name of the game is Farzyarth. "Neo Metal Fantasy" is just the tagline. "Farzyarth" (fājiasu) is a typical Japanese word play on "far the earth", in pretty much the same fashion as "Char Aznable" vs. "Charles Aznavour" (the French singer).

[esteban]

I gotta hunt down that Neo Metal Fantasy.

It's a great little RPG by Human (a surprise in itself).

By the way, the real name of the game is Farzyarth. "Neo Metal Fantasy" is just the tagline. "Farzyarth" (f?jiasu) is a typical Japanese word play on "far the earth", in pretty much the same fashion as "Char Aznable" vs. "Charles Aznavour" (the French singer).

OK, I love finding out about stuff like this .

[termis]

Took a quick spin through Neo Metal Fantasy (or "ファージアス" or "Far the Earth" or whatever it is) today. 

Great recommendations folks.  It really reminds me of playing an old-school Phantasy Star title.  The girl you start out with even reminds me a bit of Nei for some odd reson - 'cept her eyes are WAY too huge, even for anime standards, it seems.

Anyway, I'm working through Panzer Dragoon Saga right now, so as soon as I'm done with that, I think I'll give this one a go - (and thanks for the faq Black_Tiger.)

[Black Tiger]

I have a piece of artwork in a mini strategy guide or magazine featuring the girl riding the animal by a wooden sign that reads "Far The Earth", which is why I put it in the title of my original walkthrough.

But a Japanese speaking person told me back then that it definitely wasn't what 'farjius' was supposed to be, that it was just the name of the world and that the proper title is "Wicked Emperor of Farjius: Neo Metal Fantasy".

But I call games whatever I feel like, like 'Sapphire', 'Legend Of Xanadu', 'Drac X', 'Kato & Ken', 'Kabukiden', etc. Especially when refering to them in discussions with gaijins, since most monolingual englishers remember games by their simple english nicknames and not their long foreign language names.

[termis]

I have a piece of artwork in a mini strategy guide or magazine featuring the girl riding the animal by a wooden sign that reads "Far The Earth", which is why I put it in the title of my original walkthrough.

But a Japanese speaking person told me back then that it definitely wasn't what 'farjius' was supposed to be, that it was just the name of the world and that the proper title is "Wicked Emperor of Farjius: Neo Metal Fantasy".

Though I'm by no means fluent, I would've thought the same as that person.  A Joe who doesn't know that ファージアス is supposed to some play on words would read ファージアス as being some name of a place 100% of the time.  That's the only way it seems to make sense grammatically.  「ファージアスの邪皇帝」　-> (placename)+(possessive particle の)+(Evil Emperor)

Then I went and typed up "Far the Earth" and "ファージアス" in a Japanese search engine and one of the sites popped up and the author said that he/she saw the English title for this game being listed as <Far the Earth> somewhere...

...ファージアスの英語名は「Far the Earth」と表記されていた...

So, who knows?

[Black Tiger]

I have a piece of artwork in a mini strategy guide or magazine featuring the girl riding the animal by a wooden sign that reads "Far The Earth", which is why I put it in the title of my original walkthrough.

But a Japanese speaking person told me back then that it definitely wasn't what 'farjius' was supposed to be, that it was just the name of the world and that the proper title is "Wicked Emperor of Farjius: Neo Metal Fantasy".

Though I'm by no means fluent, I would've thought the same as that person.  A Joe who doesn't know that ファージアス is supposed to some play on words would read ファージアス as being some name of a place 100% of the time.  That's the only way it seems to make sense grammatically.  「ファージアスの邪皇帝」　-> (placename)+(possessive particle の)+(Evil Emperor)

Then I went and typed up "Far the Earth" and "ファージアス" in a Japanese search engine and one of the sites popped up and the author said that he/she saw the English title for this game being listed as <Far the Earth> somewhere...

...ファージアスの英語名は「Far the Earth」と表記されていた...

So, who knows?

I always thought that it was supposed to be both, as a kinda dual meaning word, kinda like PSU's Da Ragan(dragon) boss. Also, those crazy japanese often screw up romanjinization, often simply splitting an English word up as it's spelled by it's syllabyls (see Ethan WABER in PSU).

Like anime. I tell any snerd who tries to say that it's supposed to be pronounced 'ah-nee-may' that it's short for the japanese adaptation of the word 'animation'.

[Kaminari]

Farzyarth is the name of the world where the adventure takes place. As I already said, it's meant to be read as "far the earth". But you're perfectly free to call it "fardius" or by any other latin-sounding transcription.

Black Tiger is right, romanization is not really a Japanese speciality. In the Langrisser series, most people keep talking about Guyflame because someone translated it like that, but the "official" (read: the most consistent) Japanese romanization is GaiFrame. A counter-example is "Zeroigar", which is the official transcription, but the developers obviously meant "Zeroiger", in reference to 70's and 80's animes like Mazinger, Grendizer, Iczer One...

So really, it's all a matter of how you understand it.

[termis]

I think you guys are basically right on the spot.   Chalk it up to some weird romanization scheme.

Or in this case, it's not even just romanization, but downright wrong usage of the English language - I mean, "Far the Earth"?  Hmm... But I guess that's not really surprising either.

[sunteam_paul]

Farzyarth is the name of the world where the adventure takes place. As I already said, it's meant to be read as "far the earth". But you're perfectly free to call it "fardius" or by any other latin-sounding transcription.

Is 'Farzyarth' just your preferred romanisation or have you seen it elsewhere?

As I'm redoing my site I want to be as accurate as possible, and the title of this game is giving me a headache.

[esteban]

Farzyarth is the name of the world where the adventure takes place. As I already said, it's meant to be read as "far the earth". But you're perfectly free to call it "fardius" or by any other latin-sounding transcription.

Is 'Farzyarth' just your preferred romanisation or have you seen it elsewhere?

As I'm redoing my site I want to be as accurate as possible, and the title of this game is giving me a headache.

Personally, I'd have it listed both ways on your site, since folks like myself will be looking for "Neo" while others will be looking for "Far". At the end of the day, a compromise has to be made in order to make your site as useful as possible.

I know it seems redundant, but that's the best solution I've been able to come up with for my own stuff .

[sunteam_paul]

Yep, I'll always have multiple names on the A-Z listings, and I'll have at least 2 variants on the actual game page, I may have to go with Fajias as it's the most direct romanisation.