The Unofficial Tales of Translation Updates Thread: Fans bring us what Namco can't

[Firestorm]

With the recent announcement of Tales of Destiny Director's Cut, we now have four Tales titles currently being translated by fans. I'm assuming that the people interested in the four titles overlap quite a bit so I think we can all keep up with it in one thread. Once they get a full translation patch out for a game, we can branch off to official threads like the Mother 3 one.

All of these projects are by either Phantasian Productions or Absolute Zero.


Tales of Destiny Director's Cut (PS2)
Translation Team: Phantasian Productions + Absolute Zero
Original Released: January 31st, 2008
Translation Announced: January 1st, 2009
Latest Update (April 16th, 2009):

This project is officially on hiatus until Tales of Innocence is complete on our end and Tales of Phantasia is complete on Phantasian Productions' end. We want to ensure that the current projects are given all the time and energy they need to reach their full potential. Apologies for the delay, but I truly believe this is for the best in the long run.

Both throughhim and I have projects that are nearing completion (Tales of Innocence and Tales of Phantasia, respectively), and both of us have decided it would be best to officially put Tales of Destiny Director's Cut on hiatus. At this critical moment for our other projects, we need to give them our undivided attention so as to ensure they are getting the treatment they need and deserve for the final releases. I'm targeting sometime within the next couple months with Phantasia, and throughhim's targeting the end of summer with Innocence (but needs at least a few months off from ToD). I also kind of want to get the ToD2 menu patch out of the way since ToD2's menu translation was finished. We'll get back to ToD DC as soon as possible.

Tales of Innocence (NDS)
Translation Team: Absolute Zero
Original Released: December 6th, 2007
Translation Announced: July 14th, 2008
Latest Update (April 15th, 2009):

Menu Preview By throughhim413 • April 15, 2009 At long last, a new video has arrived! Kingcom and I are both getting back into full gear on Tales of Innocence and to celebrate the event, we decided to post up a new video. This video shows off most of the menu content and layout. You’ve seen it before in screenshots, but we hope that this video will really give you a sense of what you can expect when you play our patch. As always, please keep in mind that the translations seen here are not yet final. I’m fully aware that there are still some awkward descriptions and names in there. I’m totally open to suggestions and corrections, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk7ojB9uNNI Big thanks to everyone who has continued to support us and cheer us on! This project is bigger (and longer!) than I ever expected it to be, but thanks to everyone out there, it has never stopped being fun. We’re working our hardest to make sure that we can provide you with the absolute best experience possible as soon as we can. Until next time!

Tales of Destiny 2 (PS2)


Translation Team: Phantasian Productions
Original Released: November 28th, 2002
Translation Announced: April 30th, 2006
Latest Update (April 2nd, 2009):

The Tales of Destiny 2 menu text translation is actually finished now, thanks to tammaiya. She finished it about a month ago, but as I'm so busy with ToP, and with that being my highest priority, I haven't had the time to work on it. To try speeding things up a little, I'm going to try having someone do the grunt work of adding and formatting her work to the master files. I'm probably still going to want to review and edit it before I actually release the "final" menu patch, though.

Tales of Phantasia (PSX)
Translation Team: Phantasian Productions
Original Released: December 23rd, 1998
Translation Announced: ???
Latest Update (April 1st, 2009):

April Fools' Day tends to be pretty annoying. So, in spite of the rest of the Internet, and that we've even put up a horrible joke in the past, I'm posting a real news update on the front page today. It's been a little while and the Tales of Destiny announcement is ancient by this point, and frankly, it's bothering me every time I load this page. I've been talking about it on front page updates for awhile, so it's about time I finally get that long overdue Tales of Phantasia update out of the way, for those who don't bother reading the news forum. Before I talk about it though, why don't I post some new screenshots? Hot off the press; not even forum readers have seen them. Dialogue screenshots even, based on the in-progress third pass of the script edit. Nearly all previous dialogue screens released publicly were from before any serious editing began. These are all from the first few hours of the game. As usual, all text is still subject to change by the time it's finally released. When the script truly reaches its final stages, I will be doing a bit more manual formatting of the text to help make some of it look a little better. [ Crapton of images http://www.tales-cless.org/ ] The main focus of this year and last year has been script work. The translation was finished last year in late July. Nusakan0 joined the team as main script editor in the same month. Nusakan0 began submitting edits to the script in September and finished the first draft in December. He finished the second draft in February. After reviewing and approving the second draft, I started testing it in-game, with the goal of ensuring the script is a smooth, natural read. Some things include catching any flow problems and previously undetected translation issues, and some general rewriting to make things more believable in English. This whole process has been a lot larger than I anticipated, and I've actually found myself rewriting countless lines of dialogue; I'm pretty sure I've rewritten around 50% of the lines I've come across. I'm still working on it at the moment, and I'm around 70% through it. I've done far more than I expected, and now consider this to be the third editing pass even though I'm not the main editor. That said, Nusakan0 asked me to provide him a copy of my third pass as I had it at around 50% complete, so he has been getting a head start on the fourth. I really like how the script is turning out. I'd like to believe it's nearing completion, but we continually get new ideas every time we go over it. A fun fact is that with our edits considered, the script has so far become nearly 10% larger than it was since it was translated. The script was very dry and fairly awkward before we started editing it. A lot of it didn't even make sense if you put a bit of extra thought into it. With all this considered, I hope the final turns out well enough to stand up there with the best the fan translation scene has to offer. The skit subtitle script is also being edited quite a bit, though it hasn't received as much work as the main script yet. Nusakan0 completed the first edit pass back on New Year's Day. I believe he has done some work on the second. Several months ago I posted a video with a bunch of skit subs in action. Since it's old (and was also made before Nusakan0's first edit pass), quite a few of the more poorly-written lines have since been fixed. The battle voice clips have been translated and subtitles for them have been inserted. Many of them are in need of editing and double-checking though, as quite a few of them are pretty awkward and might be victims of no context and/or have been misheard. Habilain's been pretty busy lately, but has provided quite a few assembly hacks since the last front page update: * GROOVY Arche minigame improvements: Text is variable-width, some layout cleanups, and a very minor bug (that affects the original game) was fixed with the RATE display * World Map menu enhancement: All the shop and town names were originally represented with graphics in the World Map menu. This presented several problems (annoying to update if we wanted to change the name of something, limited palette, 12 pixel height limitation, one shop name is an arte name which couldn't be affected by the arte name selector). I wanted to use the dialogue font in these places, but said problems made it difficult to have it look good (height limitation forced us to cut off outlines, limited palette forced an ugly brown outline and no gradient). Habilain did a very extensive hack to change this to REAL text, rendered by the game's actual text routine, eliminating every single problem we had. Because it deserves mentioning, Habilain fought very hard with this hack to get it working on real systems. The problem was a real bastard to track down and it took five major code revisions to get it working properly--ouch! * Five lines a in a textbox: An increase from four lines, the extra line has made a huge difference for the script. With four lines, countless dialogue pages had to be split into two pages in order to fit. With five lines, only *one* page in the entire game needs to be split. In addition, the vertical space between the lines has been decreased by 3 pixels (down to 13 pixels from 16) as the font we're using doesn't really call for that much vertical space anyway. With that, the text box only had to have its height increased by 4 pixels to the fit the fifth line in comfortably. The text box at the top of the screen was moved up four pixels so that the added height doesn't obstruct the intended viewing area. Another option would have been to use a thinner font, but I don't think a thin dialogue font suits this game very well. Habilain also created a tool which made it much easier to insert the skit script. I implemented a couple things myself: * I applied the 13px height to the menu text routine as well, which affects all other text in the game, including voice subtitles. I redid some description window cosmetics because the big version of the item name and such can now fit there again. The inverted arte name (i.e. showing the romanized name if you're in localized arte name mode) no longer appears in artes menu descriptions. It just seemed pointless with the arte name selector (it was mainly only there as a reference). * Remember those crazy difficulty modes I added to the game (for second playthroughs and above)? Well, I decided that it would be best to make them a little more rewarding and less cumbersome. For your trouble, winning a battle in the added "Unknown" difficulty adds a 5x experience earned multiplier. A battle won in "God" difficulty earns 10x experience. The battles tend to drag on since the enemies have so much HP in these modes, and the 1x EXP rate just makes it feel like they're not worth the trouble trying to play. The original three difficulties do not have added EXP multipliers or any other bonuses; they function as they do in the original game. Regardless, the new modes are still beyond difficult with this addition... On the technical front, this is what remains to be done: * One skit is currently impossible to subtitle, because the game locks up if you add any new scripting commands to it. Added scripting commands are necessary so that it can be subtitled properly. I think Habilain has an idea of how to work around it, but he hasn't had the time to implement it yet. * Adding subtitles to the little voice clips scattered around on map events (with no accompanying text box), and also for GROOVY Arche. Habilain isn't too sure how easy or difficult it will be to add them to these yet, though. If he finds it too annoying, they may not make it in. * Update to the prologue battle subs hack (nothing that really matters to the players; just a hack that'll let us include the battle subtitles text into the main voice subtitles text block) * Text centering in dialogue windows, without using silly work-arounds. * Automatic text formatting in game code. An external software text formatter is currently being used, but in-game code can be more dynamic and will work better with variable-length words (like character names. External formatter can only parse them as the maximum possible length without causing display problems). * A couple more text commands that can improve grammar in dynamic strings. Aside from the skit issue, the rest of these are just gravy, and not completely necessary. Some of the others may not make it into the final. It'd be great if they could, though! A few non-dialogue screens representative of current progress: [ even more screens ] So, aside from the few technical things that need finished, it's really just about getting the scripts to a level we're all completely satisfied with. I still haven't received edits to the menu text yet, either. With some luck, it won't be too much longer until they're submitted. I'll continue pushing for this project to conclude within THIS half of the year.

[cress2000]

Hmm...those ToP/ToD2 screens are a little old. I guess I'll make a couple new ToD2 ones for GAF.

[Grimmy]

No PSP versions make me a sad panda.

[Firestorm]

Thanks to whoever changed my title from the horrible one to this one. Dunno what I was thinking with the end bit.

Grimmy, I remember seeing on the Destiny 2 translation page that it was because it would take forever to figure out how to hack it. The PS2 stuff had the groundwork laid out from the PSX hacking they'd done I think.

[cress2000]

The PS2 games are made possible solely due to the compression format used. The decompression/recompression tools and libraries from my ToP PSX project could be reused. Destiny 2 PSP decided to be different though.

Funny thing is, they started using this compression format way back in Destiny PSX, and it's been used in every single game since. Even Vesperia uses it, for crying out loud. You'd think they'd finally move onto something better by now.

Can't do ToP FVE at the moment either due to limited assembly hacking capability, and ToP needs a *ton* of ASM hacks to look good.

[Regulus Tera]

Very, very interested in Tales of Innocence myself. It's also nice to see fan-translations branch off into more recent platforms, seeing most of the NES/SNES stuff has already been done.

[Drkirby]

I think there should be a link to already done ToP PS1 translation IMO.

What is going to be different between the two translations anyway other then rewording the script?

[ivysaur12]

Very, very interested in Tales of Innocence myself. It's also nice to see fan-translations branch off into more recent platforms, seeing most of the NES/SNES stuff has already been done.

As am I. Even though people said it wasn't that great, I still want to try it out myself.

Once this is done though, I would love to see a Tales of Rebirth patch. I played it knowing little to nothing about what was going on. I guess then all of the main line Tales would be in English, in some way shape or form, except for Hearts?

Oh yeah, and fuck you, Scamco.

[MechaX]

Holy crap, a Tales of Destiny Remake Translation.

It's a shame that I'm pretty much halfway through the game, nor does it take an overwhelming amount of effort to transverse through the game (especially with the current translation website for it), but this is a valued effort. And yes, ToDR is one Tales game that needs to be played. Good to see the fans are stepping up when Bamco can't even put up a decent effort.

[Rpgmonkey]

Cool.

Hopefully Hearts and Rebirth pop up someday as well. Real shame Namco doesn't/didn't bring all these over, they're really enjoyable games, if only the gameplay.

[MCD]

I'd suck cocks for TOD PS2 full translation.

[Firestorm]

I think there should be a link to already done ToP PS1 translation IMO. What is going to be different between the two translations anyway other then rewording the script?

I didn't add the link because this is really for works in progress and following the updates for them.

[cress2000]

What is going to be different between the two translations anyway other then rewording the script?

I had a different vision for the game than they did. Mine follows Namco's official US standard naming conventions for familiarity, and the story terms shared with Symphonia will be localized the same way to properly tie the two games' loose connections together, as they were meant to be.

We are also subtitling every single voice clip of substance, and not just the skits. Among adding other small features and enhancements that weren't originally in the game.

Mejilan mentioned in the other thread that he found a number of typos and oddly-worded phrases. We have an English major/writer editing the scripts to avoid these things as much possible.

[kiryogi]

Sorta sad to say although I never finished Innocence myself. Looking at the photos I realize I don't have any drive to any more. It's such an inferior game compared to Hearts.

[john tv]

Sorta sad to say although I never finished Innocence myself. Looking at the photos I realize I don't have any drive to any more. It's such an inferior game compared to Hearts.

Definitely true. Kinda sad to admit I'm losing interest in Hearts too, though. It's definitely a solid effort for DS but it just feels so inferior to the console stuff. I dunno, Tales without the visual spark strikes me as way less interesting than I'd hoped. I'll keep going for now, but if things don't pick up soon, I'm gonna have to shelve it, I think.

[jesusraz]

What is the reason for Tales of the Tempest not being worked on? I know people here aren't huge fans of it, but there will definitely be those die-hard fans out there that at least want to try it in English...

I vaguely remember hearing something about it not being able to be cracked, is that right?

[djtiesto]

Well you already know how much I'm looking forward to these translations, Cless. And whoever's doing the DS game translation - nice font, looks extremely clean.

[iDoubleSpy]

Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny are the only decent ones in the series. They got way to JRPG for me after that. Lost sight of the more mature story telling.

Stopped playing Tales of Phantasia on the PSX because the encounter rate was twice as bad compared to the SNES.

[duckroll]

Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny are the only decent ones in the series. They got way to JRPG for me after that. Lost sight of the more mature story telling.

Does.... not.... compute.

[cress2000]

Stopped playing Tales of Phantasia on the PSX because the encounter rate was twice as bad compared to the SNES.

Your game was broken or something because the PSX version has the most relaxed encounter rate in the entire series.

[Prime crotch]

It's good to see more PS2 projects, maybe someday I can play Hungry Ghosts in english.

[kiryogi]

What is the reason for Tales of the Tempest not being worked on? I know people here aren't huge fans of it, but there will definitely be those die-hard fans out there that at least want to try it in English... I vaguely remember hearing something about it not being able to be cracked, is that right?

No, you do NOT want to play Tempest. Worst Tales game ever made. Seriously!

John: It's got a pretty decent visual flare, although still nowhere close to the console ones. It's at least a really good effort compared to previous entries. If there's one department where it falters though, it's the audio. Things like reusing BGMs and lack of voice for the cameos are a bit of a peeve, but everything else is really damn solid.

One final note though, looking back at my experience with Innocence. It was like Legendia-mini :cringes:

[duckroll]

I like ToH better than ToD, ToE and ToL out of the console ones that I've played, so I certainly don't think it's worse than ALL console Tales. I didn't even play the previous DS ones, they looked pretty shitty. Obviously a DS game won't look as good as a PS2 or 360 game, but I've been playing Tales games since ToD PSX, and I most definitely remember what they used to be like. ToP PSX is still my favorite Tales up to now, and ToH most certainly has more visual flare than that, it just isn't as awesome because it's not ToP.

[Gunloc]

This topic just really reminds me of how angry Namco Bandai USA makes me. They pass over so many games it's infuriating. Recently they even said they need to take a break ("taking a well-deserved deep breath") after releasing two Tales games in the same year. >_> Meanwhile small niche companies like Atlus, XSEED and NISA are releasing multiple text heavy RPGs a year. Atlus USA localized 19 games in 2008, 15 of them were RPGS!

I got Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut for Christmas this year because I was tired of waiting for something that obviously is not going to happen. I plan to do the same with all the other passed over Tales games too. All these translation patches look great, I'm glad there are fans who care enough to do them when the people that should just continue to ignore their customers.

[AtomskEater]

I want to play all of these games, and NB made me a sad puppy by not releasing them.

Edit: The only thing that would make this better is ToR, but someone will probably pick it up someday.

[Rpgmonkey]

What is the reason for Tales of the Tempest not being worked on? I know people here aren't huge fans of it, but there will definitely be those die-hard fans out there that at least want to try it in English... I vaguely remember hearing something about it not being able to be cracked, is that right?

I don't think there enough people around that actually want it to warrant it being a worthwhile project...

Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny are the only decent ones in the series. They got way to JRPG for me after that. Lost sight of the more mature story telling.

...?

One final note though, looking back at my experience with Innocence. It was like Legendia-mini :cringes:

Hmm...I think I pretty much agree.

I think I might really just stay away from outsourced Tales games even more (I already don't play any of the spinoffs, not into their gameplay style, especially with RM) if it's going to cause more games like Legendia, Tempest, and Innocence. Something about them always ends up feeling off or just plain bad for me.

[kiryogi]

I'll come out and say it. It's been bugging me for awhile, but seeing the desperation of US fans has always been rather pathetic. Even wanting Tempest? I understand you want to play more, but you shouldn't be just accepting anything that comes your way. Innocence may seem to look good, but in the end it wasn't. This much is proven true after playing a real internal developed tales on the DS.

[Firestorm]

What is the reason for Tales of the Tempest not being worked on? I know people here aren't huge fans of it, but there will definitely be those die-hard fans out there that at least want to try it in English... I vaguely remember hearing something about it not being able to be cracked, is that right?

I'm not aware of a game called "Tales of the Tempest".

[Firestorm]

Tales of Innocence

Say Hello To Lucas I’ve decided to go with Lucas for the main character’s name in Tales of Innocence. I’m sure many will object, but I feel that this is the right decision from a localization standpoint. As I’ve been working on Tales of Destiny over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing some thinking about how I translate now compared to how I want to translate. I realized that the only reason that I was keeping Luca as Luca was because I wanted to try and make people happy. I knew that some were already upset about choosing Luca over Ruca, so I didn’t want to make it worse by making another change. That wasn’t the right way of thinking. I realized that translating properly is far more important to me than pleasing people. Luca was a half-assed translation because I wasn’t bold enough to make what I knew was the right decision in the face of pressure. The name Lucas has origins in many languages, thus why both Mother 3’s Lucas (リュカ) and Tales of Innocence’s Lucas (ルカ) can share a name with differing pronunciations but a single English localization. The strong romance language influences on Tales of Innocence’s names further illustrate this point. The French language, for example, has a habit of dropping final letter when spoken. The name is pronounced Luca, but written Lucas. What I am changing is not the pronounciation of the name, only the spelling. I do not ask for you to understand my decision, I require you to accept it. I am rarely into totalitarian statements like that, but I no long have the patience to tolerate comments that I am making arbitrary translation decisions without a basis. I have done my research and spent plenty of time considering this change. I originally intended to wait for a localization of Radiant Mythology 2 before making this decision, but instead, I am making the choice that I think is right. This is my decision as a translator. If you disagree with my translations, find another project, another translator. I am not here to cater to whims, I am here to translate accurately (to the best of my ability). Both Kingcom and I want to provide a quality product that will read and play like real localized game. I know that there are many people who support us in that goal. If you do not support that objective and choose not to play our patch, I will consider that your loss, not mine. Feel free to comment, but know that I am hesitant to leave the comments open on this post. You do not have to agree with me. You also do not have to use this patch. As I stated above, if you don’t like what I’m doing, you have the right to leave. No one will force you to play this translation. So that’s it. Sorry for this post being a bit of a downer. For the Ruca crowd, nothing has changed - the name is still not Ruca. However, I do apologize to those who had become used to Luca, it was my mistake. As always, the translation marches onward.

And an update:

I completely agree that you’re translator and you’re the one that should decide how to adapt the names. That said, if you don’t mind I just want to give a bit of insight since italian is my first language. I do think that “Ruca” is just a crappy transliteration, and even if they write it like this in official material, well it’s not the first time that japanese mess up with R and L, like everyone knows XD. Luca though is a real italian name. Milda is not an italian surname that I know of but I guess it can sound italian enough. Several other names like Spada, Soldato, Coda are italian words too… I guess the ones that don’t sound italian sound spanish or so, hehe. And about the S being mute in french style, it does make sense but the equivalent of Lucas/Luca in french is Luc. So basically, I wouldn’t completely discard the theory of it being meant as the italian name “Luca”, I guess. Not like Lucas is bad in any way though! Just thought I’d write my thoughts about the matter and sorry about it if it annoys you.

Thanks for the comment, Elly. Believe me, I’ve spent the last day second and third guessing myself because of the Italian influence. I’m going to talk things over with Gemini (he’s also Italian) tomorrow and get more insight into some of the other names. I translated the NPC file for Luca’s hometown today (Spada is from the same city). If the Italian influence on names in this city is as strong as I think it is, changing to Lucas could be a huge mistake… So, yeah… We might be saying goodbye to Lucas as soon as we said hello. We’ll see. Stay tuned. I’m closing comments on this post for now since things have suddenly gone up in the air again. Feel free to comment on other posts!

[Mejilan]

Awesome.
A translator that can research and reason while working, put his foot down when necessary (i.e., when the fanbois cry out in fury), and yet still admit that he might be wrong.

[Firestorm]

Oops. Forgot to update the last time:

Tales of Innocence

Some Days, I’m a Jackass I’m going to backtrack a little bit on the Luca/Lucas stuff. If you read nothing else in the post, read this - I apologize for how that last post came off. I wanted to send a message to some of the naming “purists” that my decisions wouldn’t be influenced by them, but instead I ended up taking it out on all of you who have been nothing but supportive. So I’m sorry about that. Today’s update is going to be text only. Sorry for those of you looking for a screenshot. First, let’s talk about my jackassery. If the most recent post seemed out of place, it’s because I directed it at the wrong people. Or at least that’s how it looks on the blog… On other forums, specifically Namco’s Tales of Series Forums, there have been several individuals who opposed even “Luca” because it wasn’t Ruca. It was impossible for them to believe that the “official name” created by the Japanese might not have actually been the intended name. I had just grown tired of such comments and that came out very strongly in the blog post. That, of course, left me looking like an idiot because the people who post on my blog (and most people in general) have been nothing but supportive. So while I did have a reason for posting with the tone I did, I realize now that it was totally unnecessary. I’ve always encouraged input from those who follow my projects. Other people can see things that I often don’t and catch my mistakes. My projects wouldn’t be where they are now if people weren’t there supporting me and telling me when I slip up. So please don’t think that I don’t want input, because I really do. Sometimes negative comments pile up in my mind and we end up with posts like we had the other day. Feel free to tell me when I’m being a jackass, I’m usually aware of it myself, so it doesn’t take much to set me back on track. Next, I want to revisit the Luca/Lucas issue. Both are viable options at this point and I’m going to take back what I said about changing the name. I realize that this seems silly after making such a big deal out of the name change. The fact is, changes like this happen every day behind the scenes. The mistake I made here was presenting it as fact before I was completely sure of myself. Since then, I’ve talked to several translators and several knowledgeable parties. The general conclusion was that it could very well be an Italian name. Many of Regnum’s inhabitants have Italian names (and Luca’s last name certainly seems Italian). So for right now, his name is Luca. It might end up being Lucas in the end, it might not. It really depends on the results of the research I do on the names. In the end, all that I care about is that the game is translated accurately and properly. No matter what else happens, as long as I can do that, I will personally be happy with the project. So just know that is the method to all of my madness. Finally, let me apologize just once more. Some days, I’m a jackass and I’m sorry for that. I’ll do my best to avoid posting on the blog those days. I realize that it’s not possible to please everyone, but with input from all sorts of people, I still hope that this project will be able to extend its appeal. So please, keep contributing. I’ll do my best to remember that what I’m supposed to do isn’t to start random drama over details, it’s to translate. Thanks for sticking with me even through my idiocy. >_<

And overall update on Absolute Zero (so affects ToI and also sort of ToD DC):

Farewell, zettaizero.wordpress.com Even though this post won’t exist in a few days, I still feel the need to make it. From the beginning of my Tales of Phantasia text translation through the release of ToP PSX’s patch and on to the current Innocence and Destiny projects, this blog has been the home of Absolute Zero. Don’t worry, the group isn’t going anywhere, we’re just moving to our new home. It’s a move that I’ve wanted to make for some time and now just seems like the right time to do it. Believe me when I say that no one will miss this blog when they see the new site. With any luck, the change will be seamless. (It seems for a few bucks, there’s a way to get WordPress to redirect the traffic.) So basically, this blog will cease to exist in a few days’ time. So if you have any last words while we’re still on this blog, this is the last call.

[FoxSpirit]

Tales of Phantasia (PSX) Translation Team: Phantasian Productions Original Released: December 23rd, 1998 Translation Announced: ??? Latest Update (September 22nd, 2008):

Actually...

Progress (as of 01/01/09) Percentages (unless 0% or 100%) are only an approximation and should be taken with a grain of salt. ASM program hacking: 100%+20% Menu text translation: 100% Menu text editing: 90% Script/skit translation: 100%/100% Script/skit editing: First drafts completed Reverse Engineering: 100% Graphic editing: 100% Notes It's difficult to put a percentage on the script editing. First drafts for both the main script and skit script have been completed. The second draft of the main script is now in progress, and the second draft of the skit script will follow. The editing will not stop until we feel the entirety of both scripts are ready. There are extra points to ASM hacking because we've gone far beyond what we originally intended to do. You like bonus stuff, right?

Much further along now

[ruby_onix]

Some Days, I’m a Jackass

Perhaps, but that wasn't the case a few days ago. There's absolutely nothing in the earlier post that needs to be apologized for.

You were quite clear on all of your points, and apologizing for how the post "came off" means that you're apologizing for what a bunch of little retards - who apparently can't read - just happened to read into your post. It's actually the opposite of what you were trying to do the other day. It's caving in to the angry little fanbois. Just this time, they're attacking you personally, not your translation decisions. Hang tough! Don't give in to them.

[Firestorm]

Yes, I notice Cless' updates are harder to find. There was also a Destiny update:

We are commited to getting the ToD DC menu patch out in a reasonable time frame and we've been busting our butts since revealing it to make this happen. It's eaten into some time I should probably have spent polishing Phantasia, but again, the reveal was ahead of our original plans. I'm taking a break for the time being, and am posting where we are at this point. Translation status (Jan 18, 2009): Complete: Menu labeling, and menu-specific text: * Main * Items * Equip * Reforge (aka Rerise) * Status * Artes * Status * Save/Load/Import Data menus * Food * Swordian Devices * Advanced Gate (possibly going to be renamed in the project, haven't settled on a new name yet) * Collector's Book * Monster Book * Food Book * Customize List stuff: * Item names * Item descriptions * Title names * Support Talent names * Support Talent descriptions * Character names * Swordian Device names * Shop names In progress: * Title descriptions * Arte names (mostly done, but some of these are insanely difficult to localize. Some translated names without official counterparts are in a sort of embarrassing state.) * Arte descriptions * Monster names (annoying!!) * Battle text (tutorials, engrish cleanup) * Equipment and Swordian Device Effects Not started on: * Strategy list * Strategy descriptions * Monster descriptions * Discovery Book (list or descriptions. Labeling is done, though) * Story synopsis text (probably not going to happen for the menu patch) All translated text is in various states of editing. Please be aware that the game's menus alone have nearly 500KB of text. THAT'S A LOT. Although we're cutting some corners for the menu patch (like the story synopsis, which makes up around 70k), it's still a lot for a menu. To give some perspective, 500KB is nearly 5/6s the size of Phantasia's entire main dialogue script. Not to mention, nearly twice as much menu text as there is in ToD2. Hacking notes: I did a small ASM hack (not very easy on PS2) that fixed a severe limitation in the main menu's Location display. In a nutshell, it now lets us display 32 letters there. There was originally a hard limit of just 12. I also found a way to reduce the spacing between each letter, and the result cleans up a few minor cosmetic issues, and lets strings get just a tiny bit longer before the game automatically shrinks the text size to fit in the space.

[KurowaSan]

I know, we have the unfortunate stigma of never finishing a project even after eight years, despite being active for most of it. So most people reading this are probably laughing it off and expect nothing to ever come of this.

I must admit I did chuckle . Good luck Cless, I still check your site every now and then, not as much as before, though :( . Hell, I used to draw regularly on that old oekaki board . Would love to see all Phantasian projects finished.

[Firestorm]

Tales of Innocence got delayed :(

Innocent Update By throughhim413 • February 1, 2009 The tentative release date is being pushed back to Summer 2009.I realize that’s kind of a big jump from Q1 2009, but I just want to play it safe. From the beginning, I was aiming for a late Q1 release. I know many people thought maybe it would be early this year, but I don’t want to rush things. I failed to consider the time commitment I had in the Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut and how much time editing might take. I will say that I’m hoping it will be an early Summer release rather than a late one, but I can’t make any promises. I have a lot of things that I need to be able to devote time to and I can’t afford to neglect any of them. So to ensure that you’re all getting the highest quality release that we can provide, that date is being pushed back. The date was never fixed from the outset, but I did say that I was shooting for Q1, so I felt some obligation to say this. In other news, this last week saw a ton of progress on Tales of Innocence. The NPC files have been completely translated as well as several of the events. The current event progress is 11 out of 31. That’s not an estimate, just a fact. It doesn’t really mean anything either. In addition, the NPC files have been passed off for editing, so those are out of my hands for now. Things are moving at a good pace. Once I finish translating the events, the work on the skits will begin. For those who are interested in following the event translation more closely, I’m making an effort to keep people updated on the day-to-day progress on the forum. So if that sounds like something that might interest you, check it out. I guess that’s about all I have for now.

[Firestorm]

Update on Innocence!

I Love Dialogue By throughhim413 • February 9, 2009 I’ve been translating story events. Translating them quite quickly, in fact.There’s no denying it, the story translation is well over 50% complete. 17/31 events, 171/262 files, estimate it however you want, but the fact is that we’re making great progress. Additionally, I got the edited NPC files back from our editor, Yuli. I went over the changes with her and so the first round of edits is done for the NPC stuff. She’s now working on the item descriptions and some of the explanatory skits. That’s really all I’ve got to say. The translation is progressing much more quickly than I had anticipated and that’s always a good thing. The goal is still to complete the story events by the end of the month, but I don’t expect that will be difficult. After that, only the skits are left, but there are almost 500! Once those are done, it’s on to final editing and then testing. We’re still talking about several months of work, but we’re getting closer every day. It’s really great to see this project taking form.

[Princess Skittles]

That's great news but I'm only REALLY excited about the Destiny Remake (menus only, for all I care).

[Mejilan]

Sounds effin' great!

[Freyjadour]

I played the Innocence patch a while back, but really only the very basics had been translated. I was making headway with a translation guide, but they seem to have given up about 2 hours in. Good game and I would love to see a finished translation someday (Hearts as well, as the chances we'll see that are as good as the chances of getting anything else).

How is PS2 emulation these days?

Oh Namco, if you'd only port these games I'd buy them day one!

[jesusraz]

(Hearts as well, as the chances we'll see that are as good as the chances of getting anything else).

Last I heard is that IF ToH was to come to Europe then it wouldn't be until sometime in 2010 at least...

[FSLink]

Posting to say that I've been watching the ToP translation for awhile and am glad at the progress that has been done.
Really can't wait for it. Makes me wish that someone would eventually retranslate the Super Famicom version's to that quality, because honestly the Dejap translation is really meh.

[Mejilan]

What's the point? Save for music, the SNES version is completely obsolete.

[Firestorm]

Events finished on Tales of Innocence

Events - Complete! By throughhim413 • February 17, 2009 I have finished the initial translation of Tales of Innocence’s main story events. So what does that mean? It means that I still have the summary and skits to translate before this can be called complete. So there’s still a lot left to go. Nonetheless, this is a big milestone for the project, so I thought people would be happy to know. I will probably spend the next week or so editing the event files (which will hopefully be enough to finish most if not all of them). At that point, I’ll pass the events off to Yuli for editing and they’ll be (mostly) out of my hands. After that, well, I’ll probably take a short break from ToI to work on ToDr. I’ve been neglecting it lately. In any case, this is a small step in the overall process, but it’s certainly one that I’m celebrating. Until next time. ^_^

[Firestorm]

Kind of an update on ToI and ToD:

We haven’t made any updates in forever, I realize, but we’re not dead. I really don’t have anything new to say. The events are still being edited, which is going great. Spada’s dialogue in particular has already greatly improved. I’m still poking at the skits slowly, but there hasn’t been any progress worth reporting. I’m also working on the character titles for Tales of Destiny. I kind of burned myself out on translating with the mad rush in February, so I’ve been taking a break. I’ve been playing games (Tales of Hearts and World of Goo among others). Everybody needs a break now and then, so when I get back to translating, I hope to hit the ground running. In other Tales related news, the OCremix project Summoning of Spirits has been released! I’ve been following the project since their “not dead” post in 2008 and I’m really glad to see that it’s finally been released. The 4 disc album remixes music from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia (as well as a few tracks from Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk). I’m still downloading it, so it may seem strange that I’m linking it without hearing it first, but given the preview tracks I’ve heard and the typical OCremix quality, I’m confident that it’s going to be great. Until next time! ^_^

[Regulus Tera]

That's he's been playing the GOOD Tales of DS game makes me happy.

[Mejilan]

Updates are always nice, but...

In other Tales related news, the OCremix project Summoning of Spirits has been released! I’ve been following the project since their “not dead” post in 2008 and I’m really glad to see that it’s finally been released. The 4 disc album remixes music from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Symphonia (as well as a few tracks from Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk).

Oh my!

[Firestorm]

Updates are always nice, but... Oh my!

It's kind of meh to be honest. Jiggy seems more offended by it than anything. I just listened to a few tracks and it wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe because for me Tales has a few standout tracks I love, but overall is kind of just there.

Project Chaos (the Sonic 3 & Knuckles ocremix compilation) on the other hand makes me nerdgasm with joy.

[Firestorm]

New Update on Innocence:

Not for the weak of heart… By throughhim413 • March 16, 2009 This post is about some nitty-gritty translation stuff. Important information for the tl;dr crowd will be bolded. So I’m back in action on the translation front. Work has resumed on both Tales of Innocence and Tales of Destiny. However, over the last several weeks, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with some of the terminology that I’ve been using in Tales of Innocence. I simply could not shake the feeling that there was something better out there. Finally, after doing some exhaustive research that started with a chance find, I think I’ve come to terms with the… terms. (Please note that I provide wiki links here not because they were my only source but because they are the most accessable of the sources I used.) Tales of Innocence was always wrapped up in Hindu mythology. Names like Asura and Vrtra make that painfully obvious from the start. My purpose in doing this sort of research is not to “change” anything, but to understand and properly localize the intended implications. Let’s start with a simple one. The Primeval Giant (原始の巨人) is Purusha. The terms primeval giant and the fact that he’s a giant whose body gives birth to the world and the gods makes this an easy enough read. I haven’t decided whether to use the term Primeval Giant throughout or whether to use Purusha. The world born from Purusha is divided into various realms. In Tales of Innocence, we only have two. They are identified as the Heavens (天上) and the Earth (地上). These two terms were driving me nuts, as were the accompanying terms for the gods and humans who inhabited these realms. In Hindu mythology, the term for the realm where the gods (Devas) dwell is Devaloka. Vrtra is technically an asura, but since many asura became deva, I think Devas will still work as a term for the gods. The lowest level is the Earth (Bhuloka). I’m not sure if I want to use the term Bhuloka or what I want to call humans when they’re referred to as 地上人. The Power of Creation (創世力) is a little trickier. Some Hindu myths indicate that the world was born of the Hiranyagarbha which is associated with Brahman. I dare not try to explain Brahman (which I’m just barely getting a grasp on), but the reason that I mention it is because of the following quote from the Brahman article: “The Rig Veda says that by the desire of the Supreme Being (RV 10.129.4), the initial manifestation of the material universe came into being from Hiranyagarbha (literally ‘golden womb’), out of which all worlds, organisms and divine beings (devas) arise”. So by the desire of the Supreme Being (both Brahman AND Purusha in Rigveda), the Hiranyagarbha is created and gives birth to the universe. This seems to match up quite well with the “desire of the Primeval Giant” (始祖の巨人の悲願) referenced in ToI’s intro. I’m currently considering The Manifest as a possible translation for the Power of Creation (創世力). It works nicely with the terms Avatar (異能者) and Incarnate (転生者) and their implications of manifested power. Esperanto * Extermi -> Ekstermi * Charma -> Cxarma (These two are being changed back to maintain the esperanto spellings.) Latin * Regnum -> Legnum (meaning kingdom) * Remlace -> Lemures (meaning spirits of the dead) * Latio -> Ratio (meaning judgment) * Census -> Sensus (meaning feeling) Greek * Naohs -> Naos (meaning temple) * Alka -> Arca (from Arcadia) Yuli and I are still editing the events. I’m working on translating the skits and summary. Progress is coming along smoothly. I’m pleased with the progress.

[Mejilan]

Appreciate the updates for those of us too lazy to follow up on our own.