Final Fantasy VII fan translation restores every lost instance of Cloud saying "let's mosey"

“Let’s dander” and “Let’s saunter” were not considered

In a climactic scene of the originalFinal Fantasy VII, hero and amateur snowboarder CloudStrifestands with his fellow adventurers as they are about to face a final, possibly fatal battle. With the steely glare of a polygonal warrior on the verge of killing god, he turns to them and says: “Let’s mosey!” It’s an unintentionally comical moment - an easy-going phrase, as if they’re all going to the shops and not jumping into a big glowing pit at the end of the world.

It’s a result of the RPG’s famously rushed translation. But maybe not in the way you think. A fan translation of Final Fantasy VII has now fixed a bunch of mistakes that were present in the original, and “let’s mosey” is one of them. The fix? Have Cloud say it way more often.

As for the “let’s mosey” line, the solution is counter-intuitive but it checks out. Far from removing that one instance of Cloud’s casual call to saunter, this rework actually restores all theothermoments when Cloud says it throughout the game, as it appears in the original Japanese. In the English version, it was most often simply translated as “let’s go”, making our blond buster boy’s fascination with moseying a kind of forgotten catchphrase. As a result, when he says it in this climactic moment, it makes no sense. To us English speakers, he’s never said it before.

For a fuller understanding of this moment, and why it’s jarring, I recommendthis video series by Tim Rogers, former wordist of Kotaku, who also went through the entirety of Final Fantasy VII, pointing out many of the mistakes made by the original put-upon translator. Here’sthe moment in question, so you don’t need to watch all those videos (but youcould- they’re a lot of fun).

Anyway, if you like the idea of replaying the game with a new localisation effort, you can install the mod using the7th Heaven Mod Manager, though you will needa different mod managerif you want to make it run on Steam Deck, asPC Gamer notein the article that brought it to my attention. Thanks PC friends!