The Buccaneer, also known as the KYZOKU or Privateer in the NES and PlayStation respectively, is an enemy in the original Final Fantasy. They appear when the Warriors of Light sail the Aldean Sea, and is a palette swap of the Pirate. It is not a threat to the party, and can be easily defeated with a barrage of physical blows. They are also a great source of gil for an early enemy. They're criminals roaming the sea on their own, instead of being part of Bikke's crew.
Stats[]
Etymology[]
The term buccaneer was taken from the Spanish bucanero and derives from the Caribbean Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame on which Tainos and Caribs slowly roasted or smoked meat.
The word buccaneer refers to pirates who attacked Spanish shipping in the Caribbean Sea during the 17th century. The term buccaneer is now used generally as a synonym for pirate. Originally, buccaneer crews were larger, more apt to attack coastal cities, and more localized to the Caribbean than later pirate crews who sailed to the Indian Ocean on the Pirate Round in the late 17th century.
Buccaneer is called パイレーツ, pairētsu, taken from the English word "pirate", and is used as a more exotic-sounding synonym of the same concept. This has posed issues in translating these two enemy terms into English. The 1990 NES version addressed this by swapping the terms in translation, with kaizoku becoming "Pirate" and pairētsu becoming "Kyzoku" (a phonetic spelling of kaizoku). Later translations have continued translating kaizoku as "Pirate", but pairētsu is since become "Buccaneer" or "Privateer", which are more flowery terms for "pirate" in English, and this keeps with the spirit of the Japanese naming pattern.