Recent videos of Chrono Trigger DS reveal the same game we aspired to marry thirteen years ago (has it been thirteen years? Holy crap, I could've done something useful like rear a thankless teenager) but the sharp among us have noticed...ch-ch-changes. Specifically, it looks like the in-game text has been altered a bit.
This means it's possible Chrono Trigger DS will be receiving the Final Fantasy VI Advance treatment. This treatment, by definition, aspires to keep the charm of Ted Woolsey's original translation, but will still fill out text that had to be cut because of space issues or censorship.
Personally, I'm not even sure what can be restored. The blossoming shitstorm has fanned my fascination for The Chrono Trigger Re-Translation Project, a project that's considered about as useless as using an umbrella to deflect a falling piano.
Unlike most fan translations, the Chrono Trigger Retranslation Project website doesn't open up with an animated .gif of Woolsey burning at the stake. Regardless, its existence rubs me the wrong way because it's so unnecessary. The Internet is a toilet bowl brimming with Useless, but this little turnpike on the Information Highway really just gets to me. Even though the project managers acknowledge that Woolsey did an okay job translating Chrono Trigger under the circumstances, this bit of smugness gets under my fingernails:
[S]ome essence of the game was lost or altered, given Nintendo of America's censorship standards and the inability of the game to hold all the original text when translated to English.
SNES-era RPGs were so gosh darn playable, but I think they also owe some of their longevity to great translation. Final Fantasy VI was dark and brooding and despite Woolsey's best efforts, I sometimes felt like I was out of the loop--and there were instances where the censorship dusted the in-game content as carelessly as kitty litter covers...you know.
But Chrono Trigger is a shonen game. A boy versus a great evil. Great story, to be sure, but lacking in depth. And that was okay because the game wasn't trying to be deep.
In other words, and this may be a tremendous shock, so make sure you're sitting down and clutching something, the Re-Translation project adds nothing to the original experience. Play the ROM or read the script. Woolsey didn't alter the game's "essence." It's like saying the dub of Dragon Ball Z changes the deep message behind the series.
(Hint: Please don't make yourself look the fool by saying the dub of Dragon Ball Z changes the deep message behind the series.)
There's very little in the new script that adds to the story like the translators claim. Who really cares if Magus(-sama) makes reference to the Black Wind, the Reaper, the Devil or Black Sabbath? It all kind of stews in the same pit of Hell. It'd be different if Magus' original English text suggested that he was opening a candy store instead of trying to summon Lavos, but that's not the case.
In fact, I think there's no question that Woolsey improved the script. Frog, for example, was supposedly turned into a "buffoon" by his "mangled" Olde English, which didn't exist in Japan. Instead, he was blunt and straightforward, going as far as to use insults from time to time. Oh good, games and anime need another forgettable swordsman who cares only for his own fate.
Admittedly, Woolsey did make a couple of grand blunders. The most famous one was the Guru of Time telling the player that someone close to the party was in trouble and to "Find this person...fast." When Chrono Trigger was released, we nerds were finding our first legs on the Internet and message boards filled up with speculation over who this lost person might be. I personally thought it was somehow connected to Alphador in the Last Village. Oh, wait...the Remaining Village. As it happens , it was just a severe case of the Oopsies on Woolsey's part.
So that sucked, but when you think about it, it's kind of an elegant blunder. It made the fandom talk and speculate; how many games manage that? Nobody's going to debate anything about Final Fantasy VII's "This guy are sick" line, except maybe to wonder aloud how much alcohol was involved in the translation process.
Woolsey admitted in an interview that he had to cut out story bits, but like your mom says, the proof is in the pudding. What's gone affects very little of the game. It's nothing against the translators; they had a project and they should be commended for sticking through to it 'til the end. But I personally don't get any use out of it, so I shall go play with my yo-yo and cup-and-ball now.
As for what was cut, it looks like we missed Ayla commenting on Marle's small boobs, adding generic anime humour to what was otherwise a pretty emotional event (the Rainbow Shell sidequest). I never would have expected Toriyama to crack a boob joke. My Chrono Trigger experience is officially unfulfilled.
Related Links:
The Chrono Trigger Port: Are You Excited or Disappointed?
OST: Chrono Cross
TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"