Maybe he realized no one gives a shit any more.
what version are they translating ? the full voice edition or the psx one ?
i'm confused by the screens
Wasn't this version already translated 3 or 4 years ago? (with a Christmas release IIRC)PSX.
Wasn't this version already translated 3 or 4 years ago? (with a Christmas release IIRC)
Given the number of untranslated Tales games, it seems a bit counterproductive to focus on stuff already translated.
It's out now.
Does this mean progress on the Tales of Destiny remake and Tales of Destiny 2 can finally become priorities? ;_;
Does this mean progress on the Tales of Destiny remake and Tales of Destiny 2 can finally become priorities? ;_;
Expect them in 2025.
It's fantastic. Play it on your PSP.I can finally play this game. I hope it will be worth it waiting for so long!
Yeah, same. I can't go back to the older versions outside of the ToPX version anymore.Considering how long it has been coming, I'm glad it'll finally be released. Sadly, I'm not interested in playing any version of ToP besides the Cross version anymore, but I'm sure it'll be good.
I can wait!The Absolute Zero guy is working with him now. Average it out and expect them in like 2017.
I would love to try the ToPX version.Yeah, same. I can't go back to the older versions outside of the ToPX version anymore.
Posted by Cless on 1/6/2013
So, Tales of Phantasia's been out for a week (it's still a bit hard to believe even for me). And the burning question is... Where do we go from here? Which project's next? Actually, I'm not sure there's a clear-cut answer to that.
Well, first, there's the long-forgotten and not-especially-loved Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon, so let's get it out of the way. This game has always been a pain to work on with all of its limitations. Nothing has been done with it in years. It's on hiatus and I have no idea when or if it'll be resumed. Perhaps many of its limitations could be overcome with some extensive program-code-level hacking, but there really isn't a whole lot of personal desire to go back to it at this point. The game has also since received a Tales of Destiny-esque ground-up remake for the PlayStation Portable, which is, in all likelihood, the better game by countless orders of magnitude.
So...that leaves Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut and Tales of Destiny 2. I think, for the time being, it'd be best to consider them becoming active simulatenously. There is quite a bit of crossover between them, not just because they are connected at a story level and share terminology, characters and things, but also because they're so similar on a hacking/technical level. A lot of things we can do with one can be applied to the other.
You might remember last year that I worked on some back-end restructuring for ToDC during some Phantasia downtime. That still needs to be finished up and it's what I intend to work on first. With just some light modification, most of that code can be recycled for ToD2. I think it makes the most sense to just concentrate on finishing that up for ToDC, and then begin the porting to ToD2. Therefore, I suppose it will appear on the surface as though ToDC will be taking the spotlight.
That being said, I did mostly finish up the restructuring of the main script and skit script stuff. What needs to be done now is the menu/interface text. I actually did get a head start on it during my recent community absence. The whole thing's actually a bit more complicated than the script stuff, mainly in regards to text strings whose pointers are embedded in the program code. In a nutshell, program-code-embedded pointers make it difficult to relocate their corresponding text strings terribly far from their original position, and with what I have planned, I need to be able to relocate them anywhere. I've devised a method to make doing this easier, and its implementation is mostly finished. I need to take it slow and careful though, because a mistake could be disastrous.
After that, IF I'm not forgetting anything, I'll just need to make new text dumping and insertion tools for the smaller things that remain. Shouldn't be a big deal. I suppose once we reach this point, the menu patch for ToDC ought to be around the corner. I hope, anyway. I won't be giving any ETAs until we at least reach this point.
Then comes the ToD2 stuff as mentioned before. There's not much more needing to be said about that project except that the translator situation hasn't changed since the December 2011 news update. I hope we can get that sorted out. I'll be looking into doing some additional ASM hacks on that game and will definitely be giving it a new font--I finally managed identify the font that ToD PS2 uses, and it's what I'll be implementing for some nice consistency between the projects.
As useless as this might be, I would like to remind people that none of this is going to happen overnight, even with ToP not being there to hold us back anymore. Don't expect frequent updates. And definitely don't freak out when we're not updating every week. Translating games isn't a job, nor is it our only hobby.
I've also decided I don't want to continue doing news in the same way we had been doing for ToP the last few years. No more short forum posts about every little thing we've done. No silly "twitter-like" thread to dump that kind of stuff into as that "to-do list" thread kind of became. We'll mostly be returning to the occasional, detailed front page update kind of setup.
http://a0t.co/2013/10/09/project-annoucements/Ive decided to reveal all my secret projects. Read more to find out what Im working on!
Tales of Destiny: Directors Cut (PS2)
I will continue to reiterate what Ive said before as long as Im still alive and havent got some kind of C&D, I will get this game translated. That said, I feel terrible that Ive been stringing it along as long as I have. There really hasnt been major progress on Destiny since we first released screenshots. The menu remains very near completion (excluding the summary text). At this point, the goal is still to get a menu patch out in the near term. Were pretty close. The backend transition from text files to spreadsheets is taking longer than I think Cless or I originally anticipated, which has resulted in this unfortunate delay. In the long term, its going to make the testing and editing much easier, so while I know we cant make up all the time weve lost, hopefully it will be worth it in the end. The script is not yet in a format that I can work with, so I really havent even started on that save for a few test scene. There are still a lot of unknowns in PS2 translation, so its rarely smooth sailing with this project. Every time it seems like were near a breakthrough, theres another wall waiting. If its any consolation, Tales of Destiny is closer to being an active project than it has been for over a year.
Tales of Hearts (NDS)
Absolute Zero is doing a joint project with KAJITANI-EIZANs Patch Site: Reimagination. Im handling the translation side of Tales of Hearts. I officially joined his project when he was getting ready to release his first demo. I was originally just going to be doing a little bit of QC on the script, but, well, here we are. If there is a project that actually was delayed by Tempest, its Hearts. My goal with powering through to the end of Tempest was to clear my plate for Hearts and thats why Hearts is my primary focus right now. Kaji has been working his ass off on this game. Seriously. The stuff hes put into his Translators Cut is crazy and awesome. Some people have ironically been giving Kaji a hard time when the fault really lies with me, so please redirect all complaints about slowness to me in the future. The game is currently translated up to Hansella, which is the third town. My goal is to have the first continent done by the end of the year, but I really hope Im further along than that. I cant really give you a timeline on the final release, but I can pretty much guarantee that my next Tales release will be our collaborative Hearts patch.
Tales of Phantasia X and Narikiri Dungeon X (PSP)
Until a few weeks ago, I had intended for Destiny and Hearts to be my final Tales translations, but there was always a caveat I had long since decided that I would jump at the chance to work on the best version of Phantasia and its sequel. Just recently the addition of an excellent debugger to the PPSSPP emulator has made it possible to start my dream project. Im going to be translating Tales of Phantasia X basically from scratch. While it will remain an Absolute Zero project, I talked to Cless and were going to coordinate on the terminology to try and create what I hope will be the ultimate version of ToP. Hopefully this will once and for all end the debate about which version of Phantasia you should play. Additionally, Im going to be translating Narikiri Dungeon X, the fantastic remake of the sequel to Tales of Phantasia. While these two games were released on a single UMD in Japan, were going to treat them as two separate releases. Right now NDX is actually further along because its easier to hack than ToPX will be, but that doesnt necessarily mean it will be released first. These projects are still in their very early stages. I would say the NDX menu is probably around 50% complete.
Prioritizing Translation Projects
There was recently a question on the Phantasian Productions forums that more or less Why have you been working on crappy games instead of Destiny? I thought it was a good question because I know that many of you are wondering the same thing. Ive addressed this to some degree previously, but much of it bears repeating. So now that you know what all Im working on, I want to try and answer that question as best I can.
First of all, let me say that what Tales fans want from us is a moving goalpost. There are a lot of people that want Tales of Destiny done, but many of those same people were thankful for Innocence and even Tempest. I personally consider Tales of Destiny to be the best game that Im working on, but I have never considered it a waste to translate other games in the mean time. Its really not possible for me to give you a complete idea of all of the various things I have to juggle and I know that most people probably dont care anyway. I try as best I can to keep all of my projects moving, but you have to understand that these kinds of unpaid team efforts have their ups and downs. Destiny has been down for a while. I could have kept poking at Destiny and it would be a little bit further along than it is, but I know that Cless has a lot of things to juggle too. Sometimes Kingcom doesnt have as much time as I do to work on a game, but I just do what I can and occupy myself until he can get back to it. Often hes the one waiting on me. Kaji has been working a lot harder than I have on Hearts, but he never demands anything, he just keeps up his hard work and tries to help motivate (or, necessarily, guilt) me into getting things moving. This isnt a full time job for any of us, so I just do the best I can and trust that my partners are doing the same. It wouldnt be fair of me to put pressure on them because I have different expectations for the project. Thats the shared understanding that allows us to work together on something over what can be years.
I do want to talk briefly about the various projects that Ive worked on and why I worked on them.
When I started on Tales of Phantasia, the SNES version had been around for ages, Cless was working on his version, and the GBA version had just been released, wasnt that good enough? To be honest, it really wasnt for me. I managed to play the GBA version once through, but thats something I cant say for the SNES version. The PSX version of Phantasia and the PSP versions that it spawned are Tales of Phantasia as it was meant to be experienced. So to me, it was worth every second that it took to get it translated and patched. Im sure that Cless feels the same way. Cless and I could have worked to combine our efforts into a single project and I sometimes wish we had, but looking back on it, we wouldnt have so many translated Tales games if it werent for us deciding to go our separate ways at the time. I think we both learned a lot by doing things our own way and it has made every project since better for it.
A lot of people liked Tales of Innocence less than I did. I thought the cast was really fun and the reincarnation concept was pretty neat, but Ill admit its far from the best game in the series. The dungeon design is terrible and its pretty rough around the edges. That being said, there is nothing I have worked on that helped me to grow more as a translator than Tales of Innocence. For that reason alone, the project was worth doing. Also, if Kingcom and Tales of Innocence hadnt come along, I am almost certain that Tales of Destiny would have been my only Tales translation project after Phantasia. Ive decided to spread my efforts out rather than concentrate on that one project. Im sure people who love Tales of Destiny above all else wish I hadnt, but there are also hundreds of thousands of players who were able to enjoy other Tales games in the mean time because I made that decision. Its really hard for me to consider that a waste.
Tales of the Tempest is a downright terrible game. We worked on it because, well, just the idea of it was funny to us. Its a game that surely would never have been translated if we didnt do it. Wed watched several GBAtemp efforts to translate it fall apart. We could do it, sure, but no one would ever seriously want us to. But what if we did? What would people say and think if we provided a good patch for a bad game? When Im watching anime, I try to watch a good mix of shows I want to watch masterpieces, yes, but will I really be able to appreciate just how good they are if I dont see how badly they couldve gone? I think that if you really want to call yourself a fan of the Tales series, you should play Tempest to see what once passed for a main entry in the series. And in the end, as much as we laughed at ourselves for working on such a stupid game, it really wasnt holding up much else. I have invested much more time working on the yet unreleased Tales of Destiny menu than I did on the whole of Tempest. Its a short game and I think the Tales fandom is better off now that they have the opportunity to experience it for all of its flaws.
I guess the thing to keep in mind is that were dealing with a lot of competing expectations from the fans on top of having our own lives and priorities to deal with. What I choose to work on at any given time isnt necessarily going to be what the majority of people want me to work on. Im weighing all of my options, Im considering my free time and my schedule, and Im doing the best that I can to get you more translated Tales games as soon as I possibly can. I know I might not always meet your expectations, but know that Im thankful for those of you who stick around and give me a chance. I hope I wont let you down.
It's not like I'm just waiting around for this single game while they work on it. There's plenty of other stuff to play.Why not just learn Japanese? Learning Japanese would be a much, much faster affair than waiting 5-10 years for another release. A friend of mine started back in 2007 and by the time 09' rolled around he was playing all sorts of JP games. He's a huge fan of Japanese media and plays everything from the most obscure visual novels to the latest JP-only releases. If you are a fan of Japan like him then I recommend it, because he seems to enjoy himself a lot.
Always glad to get more updates from TH413. Knowing that he's involved in some way in the Hearts project actually leaves me feeling more confident in it someday being completed than I have in some time.
I think at this point though it's definitely time for someone to step up and tackle ToD2 and Rebirth; if Absolute Zero can finish everything nominally on their plate, those two would be the only two mothership games that can't yet be played in English.
Why not just learn Japanese?
http://a0t.co/2014/04/03/tales-of-hearts-merger/Absolute Zero is proud to announce the merger of our Tales of Hearts project with Kajis.
The Tales of Hearts translation has been cancelled since Hearts R is going to have an official localization later this year.
http://a0t.co/2014/04/18/tales-of-heartbreak/
Namco brings us what fans can't.
Inferior versions of their game?
Same here!I'm really glad this is progressing. I can't wait to play ToP X in English.
Given the dubious nature of ToHR it does seem like it's more a translation that should be postponed rather than outright scrapped. Push people towards the legitimate official release, then tackle the very different DS game for those who still want to play that specifically.The Tales of Hearts translation has been cancelled since Hearts R is going to have an official localization later this year.
http://a0t.co/2014/04/18/tales-of-heartbreak/
Given the dubious nature of ToHR it does seem like it's more a translation that should be postponed rather than outright scrapped. Push people towards the legitimate official release, then tackle the very different DS game for those who still want to play that specifically.
Well, I guess that's a good reason to announce it like that whether or not they considered my angle.Some people would just pass on the Vita version if they know DS version is coming. Now that it is canceled, it is either playing Vita version or not playing it at all.
Well, I guess that's a good reason to announce it like that whether or not they considered my angle.