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Posted by Cless on 3/9/2008
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Already two months since the last update. Man, time sure flies from my perspective.
This year is the tenth anniversary in North America for the series. Bandai-Namco has
is doing something unprecented for NA Tales fans this year-- localizing not one, but
two titles in the Tales series simultaneously, for release later in the year. On top
that, from from the sounds of interviews and remarks from the staff working on the
games, it sounds as if these localizations will be fully uncut for the first time ever.
Here at Phantasian Productions, I fully intend to celebrate the 10th anniversary of
the series in English as well! Not just with Tales of Phantasia, either! It's going to be an
awesome, productive year indeed. Definitely the year of English Tales.
That said, status update on Tales of Phantasia PSX:
If you haven't followed the forum, I did indeed manage to finish the script formatting
tool mentioned in the previous update. It does a lot of grunt work automagically, making nice
script insertions a snap. As a result, new screenshots came, and if you didn't see them, they're in
this forum thread.
I warn you: The dialogue in the screens presented is nowhere NEAR final. They're mostly
the initial translation with some quick edits applied. The script presented is in a form
that hasn't gone through any real quality assurance. Much of the dialogue in those
screenshots has actually been rewritten or retranslated since they were taken. I can't
stress enough that this stuff isn't the final form of the script, or even close to it.
I heard from Lina`chan a month ago that she had done a bit of work on the remainder
of the script translation. I haven't heard from her since or received anything yet so
hopefully it won't be long until I hear from her again.
That said, we've actually begun a quality checking process on the main script. Hino Rei,
a J->E translation professional who has worked for years in the North American manga industry,
is proofreading the script to help us ensure balls-on translation accuracy. I've been pretty
floored by his work so far. He's knocked out a bunch of problems, big and small. Many things
which would likely be undetectable by an editor or a player.
Although gogs was originally intended to do the script profreading, he still has to do
quality checking. Hino Rei's work should make that process far easier for him. Plus,
it's even helping the project move slightly faster, since gogs is still hacking away on
the menu text.
Habilain's still working on wrapping up the last few things on the assembly hacking front.
He's in the midst of optimizing and bugfixing a glitchy hack. He's been busy with school
projects, and hasn't had a lot of time. Judging from his last correspondence, he should
be relatively free again soon.
I guess I'd say I'm now targeting a summer release for the complete Tales of Phantasia
project. Sorry if that delay sounds disappointing, I want this project finished as much
as you do, if not more so. Since this project is so old, I really feel totally obliged to
have this thing look like it's had years of work put into it.
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Posted by Cless on 1/8/2008
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And Phantasian Productions ages another year! And the year starts off well.
First and foremost, the Tales of Phantasia script translation is back on track! Who
might this "new" translator be? Well... once upon a time, our Tales of Phantasia PSX
translation was in fact a collaborative effort between another well-known group within
the 'ol ROM hacking scene. The group translated various SNES anime series-based RPGs,
but is probably most famous for the translation of Seiken Densetsu 3. Remember Lina`chan,
Nuku-Nuku and Filia (LNF) Translations? So... what am I getting at? It's been six years...
but Lina`chan heard of our plight and has returned! She has volunteered to complete the
rest of the main script and skit script! She says it all looks quite simple, so hopefully
it won't be long until we have 100% translated scripts. Let's all wish a huge welcome back
to her!
What else is new? I'm attempting to write a script formatter myself since Klarth is
unable to do so himself. It's pretty tricky for a novice programmer like me. I've got
all the file parsing done. But I still have to figure out how to create an actual,
intelligent formatting algorithm. I've got a general idea on how it would work, I'm just
having a bit of trouble putting it into C code. Once it's done though, I'm sure new
dialogue screenshots will be right around the corner!
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Posted by Cless on 12/26/2007
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I figure I would make a post congratualating
Absolute Zero for their release of an English translation patch for Tales of
Phantasia PSX, and about the status of our own, for those who are still with us.
Yes, we were "beaten" to release, but that doesn't mean we are dropping our project.
Quite the contrary. Both projects have different goals and intentions, so they should
be able to stand on their own merits, and appeal to different crowds. And personally,
I'm not going to throw away the thousands of hours I've put into this project off and
on over the last 7+ years. Nor do I intend to have wasted the time other people have
put into it as well. And we're quite far along. This was also never really a race.
All things considered, it wouldn't make sense for us to drop our project.
This was the single best year ever for the project, by far and away, and I'm not
disappointed in the slightest about where we are. Nearly all of the many technical
hurdles we had are now behind us. The script has gone from 0% to 80% translated. My
own skill at hacking assembly language has improved. How can I not be happy with that?
Since the last update, things have in fact slowed down, but stuff is still very much
happening. Auto-centering of the skit subtitle lines is nearly finished. Some smaller
bits of additional technical polish have been implemented and are being worked on.
Other than that, all that remains on the technical front is getting the prologue battle
dialogue subtitled, and getting some optimizations done on some existing hacks.
Unfortunately, the status of the script and skit translation hasn't really moved at
all. Still stuck at 80%/0%. The translator I had assigned the last 20% and skits
is stuck in Real Life Hell and doesn't have the time or motivation to finish it.
So basically, we're in need of a translator to complete the last of this. If you
know enough Japanese to translate comfortably, are seriously interested in translating
for this project, and have some time on your hands, please download this script sample,
and translate it. Write your translations beneath the Japanese text and send them back
to me at .
We have two other potential translators at the moment already, but I'm interested in
seeing the work of more before choosing.
ADDENDUM: Mere hours after posting the update, skit line centering has been implemented,
and I even received a partial translation of the skit script from Cyllya. Here, pictures!
Might need a bit more editing.
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