The Vineyards

Uma coisa que me irrita profundamente no Brasil é a mania de pegar um termo composto em inglês e dizer só a primeira palavra. Naquele contexto específico funciona, mas em qualquer outro não faz o menor sentido.

Depois de comprar uma TV “HDTV-Ready” (com 768 linhas), querem um sistema de som que combine – vão atrás de um “home”. “Home”! É um lar que você quer, pra colocar sua TV nova? É um motor-home, pra andar pelo país mostrando a TV nova? Não, é um “home-teather” – mas, veja só, em inglês a parte que importa é a segunda palavra.

Mas as crianças não se importam muito com o tamanho da TV, e preferem brincar no parque. Vão no “play”. Parque, parquinho? Não, “play-ground”, como se português não tivesse uma palavra adequada pra descrever uma área com areia, balanço, gira-gira, gangorra, trepa-trepa. Sai o parquinho, entra o “play-ground”, e com isso sai o “ground”. Traduzindo mecanicamente, o “chão de brincar” passa a ser só “brincar”. Vamos todos descer pro brincar! Ao menos o balanço ainda não teve o destino do parque, ou logo as crianças sairiam do trepa-trepa pra se jogar num swing.

Os pais, ocupados, precisam trabalhar enquanto as crianças se divertem no “play”, então levam o “note”. Um papelzinho com uma anotação? Uma cópia do programa Microsoft Note? Não, é o “notebook”. Poderiam dizer “laptop”, daria na mesma – mas em pouco tempo viraria “lap”. “Vou levar meu lap”. Vai? Eu prefiro deixar meu colo em casa quando saio. Também não gosto de tomar voltas de quem está na frente quando aposto corrida.

Aqui cabe um em português, também: “micro”. Supostamente de “micro-computador”, mas a última vez que ouvi “micro-computador” foi em referência a um Apple ][e, com tela verde, 16 kilobytes de memória e disquete de 5″1/4. Poderiam dizer “computador” ao invés de “micro”. Poderiam dizer “PC” que todos os envolvidos saberiam o que é. E o que é pior, eu já vi “micro” ser usado pra forno de microondas.

Falando em “PC”, no Brasil o PlayStation (1, 2 ou 3), diferente de todo o resto do mundo, e igual ao parquinho, chama “Play”. “Destravei meu Play2″. Fico feliz de o PSP não ser popular por aqui, ou viraria “Play-Pê”. “GameCube” é muito complicado, então os poucos que o tinham jogavam “Nintendo”; problema algum, até há pouco tempo, porque o NES nunca foi popular aqui, mesmo, e o SNES era o “Super” – disfarçado, virava o Nintendo Clark Kent -, mas agora saiu o DS: como ninguém disse que significa “Dual Screen” (ou viraria “o Dual”), chamam de Nintendo também. Brasileiro só fala letra se é nome de partido.

O que me consola um mísero pouquinho é que em Portugal videogame (aliás, como não abreviaram isso pra “video”, aqui?) é feminino. “Estava a jogar minha PlayStation”. Vá lá, “station” é estação e “box” (do XBox) é caixa, mas é muito estranho. “A GameBoy” simplesmente não presta, e GameCube não traduz pra “Cuba de Jogo”.

Abro exceção pra “shopping” (center), porque existe há mais de vinte anos. Mas se continuar assim vou começar a aplicar ao português também: pra não molhar a mesa, coloque seu copo sobre esse porta; se está chovendo, leve um guarda.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, the PSP version of FFT, is among the best writings I have ever seen, in a game or otherwise. A few very rare mistakes overlooked, it is spectacular: the plot is better explained, the characterization is far more fitting, even the sometimes overly poetic lines look perfectly in place:

“Back whence you came! Quick as shadows, or this one’s blood makes crimson snow! Do not think to try my patience! This keep packs such a store of powder as you could scarce imagine! More than enough to deliver the lot of you to the Father’s keeping, should your feet lack proper haste!”

The original PSX game was grand on its own. The PSP version is grand twice, and part of the reason is the new translation. Another part is the inclusion of animated sequences in place of some cutscenes, with English dubbing far exceeding any expectations and a beautiful style of animation and coloring. I would happily watch a movie or anime series of that. Square should make an anime of it indeed.

Another game that should be made into an anime is Xenosaga – the whole trilogy, in fact. Not because it is as good as FFT, but to spare players from it. I tried the third installment, despite having never played the first two: after sitting in front of my TV with the control-pad in my hands for around four hours, I had played effectively for less than one hour. Dismayed, I looked around the web for information, to see if the whole game was like that, and found it was worse: I do not remember exactly, but I recall something about a special edition of the third game bringing DVDs with cutscenes from the previous two games, totaling over twenty hours of animation. That is over 40 episodes and they were only 2/3 into the story! Why not just release an anime series instead?

Back to the PSP, however. Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth is the PSP release of the PSX’s original. In all honesty, I never quite understood the success of the original. If you land in any town in search of plot, you waste a tick of the timer, and each tick lost is less experience you gain, less chance to please the gods with the warrior you send. With this, only each character’s personal story gets told, with Lenneth’s set aside most of the time. One secret character in special, whose background relates to the Valkyrie’s, requires completely arbitrary order of visits to places the player would never otherwise visit. It makes me wonder how anyone ever found the best ending.

Other than that, though, Valkyrie Profile is good, yes, albeit repetitive at times. Chaining long combos with multiple finishing strikes breaks the monotony now and then, but even that can get old. “Purify Weird Soul” is funny the first few dozen times, but moments later the horrid dub comes up with the same voices that dubbed Pokemon in the US; the guy that says “W-w-wow, everyone’s so tough!” at the end of each battle is said to have played Ash Ketchum – I wonder how Pokemon has any fame at all in the US with a protagonist dubbed like that.

(Which reminds me: in the American dub of Pokemon, they always stress the beginning of words. “PI!-kachu, THUN!-dershock!”. I wonder if Americans normally yell like that. “MA!-ry, WHE!-re are you?, CO!-me back here!”.)

Still, not only does Valkyrie Profile punishes the player for trying to go deeper into the plot, what it does deliver is translated very poorly (dubbing aside). The fairy Freya leaves behind in the cave as a tutorial for Lenneth even has notes and doubts from the translator! “If you have any doubt, ask HIM/HER.”, “(should I talk about whipping a dead horse?)”.

Like Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSP, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth gained new animated sequences, but they add nothing but eye-candy. I believe they have no dialogue, even, and exist only to justify a re-release of the game and show the PSP’s UMD can store more pre-rendered video than the PSX’s CD. “But surely the bad dubbing was redone for VP:L”, I thought, and I was wrong. “At least the horrid fairy translation notes must be fixed!”, I hoped, but to no avail at all. Everything is exactly the same as the original game. Even the characters’ menu appear stretched, because the PSP is in widescreen format – faced with that, I actually wonder if the scenes and game sequences they did convert to widescreen format indeed got wider or simply got cut above and below.

Back when VP:L was released, the PSP needed good games, not direct PSX ports with a handful of new CGI animation. FFT offered many improvements over the original; VP:L just exists to prevent a proper PSP version from being released.