That argument may have been the case in early NES/SNES.
The way Japanese written language works is its allows you to represent a single word with a kanji or syllables with Hiragana or Katakana.
English on the other hand has the limit of one symbol representing one letter.
Final Fantasy spells like Flare were フレア or フレアー so 4 character limit wasn't a problem. Translators however had to get creative because FLAR sounded off so they had to go with NUKE instead.
Similar thing happened with FF6 where Ultima Weapon could be fitted in 8 character limit: アルテマウェポン. Once again translators had to improvise and go with AtmaWepn which later morphed into Atma Weapon leading many thinking it to be something else than Ultima Weapon.
That argument may have been the case in early NES/SNES.
The way Japanese written language works is its allows you to represent a single word with a kanji or syllables with Hiragana or Katakana.
English on the other hand has the limit of one symbol representing one letter.
Final Fantasy spells like Flare were フレア or フレアー so 4 character limit wasn't a problem. Translators however had to get creative because FLAR sounded off so they had to go with NUKE instead.
Similar thing happened with FF6 where Ultima Weapon could be fitted in 8 character limit: アルテマウェポン. Once again translators had to improvise and go with AtmaWepn which later morphed into Atma Weapon leading many thinking it to be something else than Ultima Weapon.