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Tales of Phantasia (PlayStation 1) English localization
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A week after Tales of Phantasia's third anniversary (December 15th, 1998), Namco followed up Tales
of Destiny (the second Tales game) with a ground-up, enhanced remake of Phantasia running on an
updated version of Destiny's engine for the Sony PlayStation system.
Given the incredibly short three-year span in between versions, Namco must've felt the aging
SNES was not capable of doing their creation justice, despite it being one of the most
technically impressive games on the console.
In 2003, a poor-quality port of the game that mixes parts of the SNES and PS1 versions was
released for the GBA. This was localized by Namco Bandai Games USA and published by Nintendo
of America in 2006.
Some of the many differences over the SNES version:
- Cooking replaces the completely useless Food Sack system.
- A more interesting character title system. Everyone earns new ones now, instead of just Cless. While for the most
part they have no effect on gameplay, they are fun to earn. Especially those earned through events.
- A greatly refined battle system:
- Easier to control
- Assign artes to directionals and execute them anywhere, anytime. No more range frustration.
- Real combos. You can link regular attacks to a base arte and link arcane artes from a base arte to pound your enemies into the ground.
- Blocking, Manual control, 4-person multiplayer, shortcutting, adjustable difficulty and more!
- Suzu, a new playable character.
- Chester has artes now, making him much more useful.
- Skit system which fleshes out the story and characters even further.
- Additional sidequests and dungeons.
- Revised storyline script with additional character interaction and detail.
- Better graphics: more colorful and detailed. Larger, more colorful enemies, and the character sprites now
resemble the official Kosuke Fujishima artwork.
For an even more in-depth breakdown, check out my ancient SNES/PS1 version differences
FAQ. It's still missing a lot of stuff and is even wrong in a few places, but is still fairly useful.
Advantages over the GBA version:
- Faster and more fluid battles; no slowdown and animates buttery smooth at a constant 60 frames per second.
- Possibility of up to 4-person multiplayer.
- Battle controls not compromised by fewer buttons.
- Revised storyline script with additional character interaction and detail.
- Skit system which fleshes out the story and characters even further.
- Exclusive sidequests and dungeons.
- Better graphics: richer palette that isn't washed out, and more detailed tile work.
So...what's the verdict? I feel it was very awesome for its time and crushes the original and the GBA port quite
handily. So do most Tales fans. Obviously, I felt it was good enough to take a localization project into my own
hands, and keep it alive for so many years. There are a few weirdos out there who still swear by the original, but
I'll never be able to understand them (nostalgia?)... Personally, I think it hasn't stood the test of time and is
nearly unplayable after getting used to newer Tales series installments. The GBA version is just technically awful
and missing some key stuff that makes it very difficult to enjoy. This one itself is showing quite a bit of age
now, but I find it far more enjoyable to play.
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Project News
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From now on, as news is announced, it will be posted in the
forum. This is much
faster and more convenient than updating the website, for now. It is frequenly
updated. Major and cumulative updates will be posted on the front page of this website.
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Progress (as of 08/12/09)
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Percentages (unless 0% or 100%) are only an approximation and should be taken with a grain of salt.
| ASM program hacking: | 100%+ |
| Menu text translation: | 100% |
| Menu text editing: | Three editing passes, fourth and possibly final in progress |
| Script/skit translation: | 100%/100% |
| Script/skit editing: | Fourth draft of main script, second draft of skit script completed |
| Reverse Engineering: | 100% |
| Graphic editing: | 100% |
Notes
It's difficult to put a percentage on text editing. The fourth draft of the main script
has been finished, and the much delayed second draft of the skit script is also finished.
We feel that the main script is nearly finished at this point, but the fourth draft is
still being reviewed and things are still being fine-tuned in that process.
The third draft of the skit script will begin once the fourth draft of the main script is
finished being reviewed and edited.
gogs is back with us now with more free time than he's had in a long time, so we should
see the menu text finally finished fairly soon as well.
Editing will not stop until we absolutely cannot find anything else to improve.
ASM hacking is 100%+ because there are many bonuses and other "gravy" hacks added
to the game that are non-essential to a localization project, but very nice (and fun)
to have. Some extras are still being implemented while we polish up the script.
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Main staff / Credits
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Active
| Cless: | Lead, coordination, general hacking, ASM hacking, and a little bit of everything else... |
| gogs: | All text QA |
| Klarth: | Main utility programmer (text extraction/insertion/formatting, font editing, data extraction/rebuilding) |
| Habilain: | Main ASM hacker (dual-tile encoding, skit/prologue battle subbing, unlimited text characters on-screen, artes and battle menu column hacks, five lines in dialogue, World Map menu enhancements, and assistance with smaller ASM hacks) |
| Hino Rei: | Script translation accuracy proofreading (80%), 100% of skit translation (retranslated Cyllya's 50% share), translated the final 20% of the script, and other translation assistance. |
| Nusakan0: | Main script editor |
Inactive
| _Bnu: | 5% of script translation |
| Cyllya: | 70% of script translation, 50% of skit translation |
| CzarDragon: | Memory card screen ASM hack, some reverse-engineering |
| Lina`chan+Filia: | Kanji for script table (majority) |
| Orphis: | Newer compressor |
| Shinhoshi: | 5% of script translation, menu descriptions and menu revision |
| Skeud: | ASM hacking (variable-width fonts) |
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Non-staff Credits
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| _Demo_: | Wrote decompressors |
| Chess Piece Face: | Kanji for script table |
| DeJap/Dark Force: | Permission to use the Bahamut Lagoon 8x8 font. |
| deltaflame: | 12x12 kanji input (remaining) |
| Demon000: | Elemental orb icons, 'Z' for the CUSTOMIZE option on title menu |
| frobnoid: | Wrote the first recompressor |
| Gavionne: | Dialogue font hacking assistance |
| Haeleth: | Title translation assistance |
| Ian Kelley: | Title translation assistance |
| Kajitani-Eizan: | Elemental orb icons |
| LenaAndreia: | Elemental orb icons |
Namco Bandai: | Tales of Destiny Yes/No cloud graphics, legacy text |
satsu: | 12x12 kanji input, dialogue table kanji corrections |
| Thundercles: | Elemental orb icons |
| Yetika Klaine: | Minor translator, some unused graphics |
Special thanks also go to all those who have offered help.
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New features and additions
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During free time while we awaited various other things to happen in the project,
we decided to try implementing some small enhancements and additions over the
original game. Notable items include:
Skits and prologue battle are subtitled
A case of adding text...where none even existed before. Extensive hacks have allowed
us to subtitle the prologue battle and all the skits in the game! Perhaps a standard
thing to expect in a translation, but hey, adding something like this is no easy
task. Not considered a part of the bonus in the ASM hacking progress.
Even more subtitling!
"What now, there's more to be subititled?" you're thinking, right? The answer is yes!
We've gone out of our way to subtitle things that aren't usually subtitled in games
like this.
First thing may seem rather minor: There are voice clips played when using the
Cooking feature. Most characters only have one voice clip, and a couple of them
have two, for a total of eight clips. We subtitled them, regardless of how small
this may seem. Makes it all a little more complete!
And an even bigger thing. Something that frequently bugs me when it comes to
translated RPGs and leaving the voices in Japanese: The battle voices are just
a bunch of gibberish noise to the untrained ear. Nuances and dialogue completely
lost. Some of it can be rather amusing...and it was always intended for you to
understand it. We have attempted to rectify this problem as best as we could--by subbing
even the battle voices! When you win the battle, use a shortcut, have an ally fall on you,
well...you'll know what's being said! And if this feature sounds like it could get
annoying or distracting, we've even added an option to the Customize menu for you to turn
it off.
Of note, later Tales games have a lot more battle voice clips than the older ones, so ToP's
are pretty simple. There's no conversing between characters at all.
Choose your arte names
While this may not seem like an original idea to most people not directly involved with
the project, we totally understand that the arte names are a sensitive issue among some
Tales fans. While I've grown accustomed to the naming convention that has risen
with the official English releases, not everyone has. Therefore, we present you three
naming options:
LOCALIZED: This is the default, and the official list we would have used if we did not
add this feature. Nearly all arte names follow the most recent naming conventions used in
official English Tales games. There are a few exceptions.
TRANSLITERATED: For those who just can't part with the original Japanese names of the moves,
this simply uses the romanizations of the Japanese move names for Cless, Chester, Suzu, AND
the cameo battle opponent. In addition, all spell names follow the original Japanese for the
few that were modified (i.e. Explode instead of Explosion, Piko Piko Hammer instead of Pow
Pow Hammer, etc).
CULTURAL: This is the same as Localized, except for one difference. Maybe you feel translated
arte names make sense for likes of Cless and Chester, given their European-like heritage. But
then you have Suzu, who is a Ninja, from the game's mini-Japan. Maybe hers being romanized
just feels a tad more... authentic? With this option, you have the power to make it so! This
is perhaps our favored option. Becomes available when Suzu joins the party.
The name selector has been seamlessly added to the Customize menu for easy
toggling in the middle of the game. The setting is also written to your save file.
Additional difficulties
For the seasoned hardcore! We've added two more tiers of difficulty past the Mania
rank, named by the legacy terms Unknown and God (previously known as DOOM). While
Mania may be plenty hard for most gamers, Unknown, and especially, God modes are
there for those looking for a grisly death. They become available after completing
the game once, along with Mania.
Unknown is 4x HP, and 1.75x other stats. God mode is 5x HP, and 2x other stats. I
also swear that enemies seem more aggressive, tend to deliver critical hits quite
frequently, and stun you easily. Are you up for the challenge?
In a [futile?] attempt to make the new difficulties more "fair," we've implemented
experience multipliers if you win a battle in those modes. You will be awarded 5x
experience points if a battle is won in Unknown, and 10x in God. Experience payout
for the original difficulty modes is unchanged. We did this because it seems like a
near requirement in newer Tales games to enable a multiplier via Grade Shop if you
want to take on the insane difficulty modes without needing to grind forever (or
just stay relatively sane). Battles also take much longer to finish because of all
the extra HP enemies have, so you are well compensated for the time spent.
Begin the game with a Technical Ring
Cless starts the game with a Technical Ring equipped in his first accessory slot.
This will enable Manual control mode from the get-go. Originally, you don't have
access to this item until an arbitrary point around eight to ten hours into the
game. We felt that this was frustrating to players who are much more comfortable
with that mode than Semi-Auto. ToP PS1 is now a very old game in the series, and
all of the games that followed it allowed Manual control either right at the
beginning or within the first hour of gameplay. So in essence, we feel we're modernizing
an archaic convention by allowing this. If you feel this is cheating, you can choose
not to use the item's functionality, and it cannot be sold to a shop for extra money.
Dhaos in Monster Book
We never really understood the point of him NOT appearing in the Monster Book menu.
Regardless, final bosses always appeared in the Monster Books of later games in
the series, so we feel this is another case of modernizing the game a bit more. We
reversed-engineered the menu's code and data to make this possible.
This clears up any potential confusion in obtaining Klarth's Monster Hunter title.
Even if you've managed to encounter the 233/233 monsters the original game told you
during a first playthrough, Klarth will *not* earn the title! This is because the
game also counts the Dhaos encounters in that figure.
Alphabetically-sorted Monster Book
The monsters originally appeared in a Japanese phonetic order in the Monster Book to
make it easy to find the monster you want to look up. When the monster names are
translated to English, it gets very weird. We have remedied this issue by
reverse-enginnering the sorting logic the game uses, and all monsters appear in
#-Z order, making it easy for you to find a monster, too!
Monster Book name bugfix
There's a feature in the game where the name of the Monster Book menu changes as you
encounter more monsters. Well, supposedly. Unfortunately, that feature was bugged
up bad in the original game! I guess it was an easy thing to miss in a beta test.
We fixed it to make it work as we believe it was intended.
Tripled message speeds
Probably every single window of dialogue in the English version contains more text
characters than the Japanese version. When limited to the original text speeds, it
takes longer print out a full text box. The fastest speed became only barely adequate
and the rest totally unbearable. This makes text printing at the fastest speed
extremely snappy and the slower speeds more usable for those who don't want it that
fast.
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Our approach to this game's English text
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A semi-liberal, semi-conservative localization; conservative where it matters, liberal
where it doesn't. Arguably, most fan translation projects based on various forms of
entertainment media try to be just that; translations; using a mostly literal approach
or something quite close to it. This project is an attempt to emulate a professional,
industry-style localization, but with the love, care, and attention you'd probably
expect of a quality fan project.
Why localization? We feel there is little benefit to translating the majority of the
game's text literally or semi-literally. After all, Tales games officially released in
the US are quite heavily Americanized, and with the content of the game not really
being heavily rooted in Japanese culture or mythology, it just makes the most sense.
Tales of Phantasia has a painfully boring dialogue script. Translated directly, it is
sounds very dry, wooden, and soulless. Plus, Japanese tends to be a lot less direct
than English, so many lines come off seemingly unclear and incomplete for no good reason.
To make the writing work better in English, we attempted to carefully color it in with
versatility of the language, interpolate with logical details and add more transitional
phrases to improve flow, and use reasonable amounts of extrapolation to give it more
character or completely replace lines that just don't work or flow well.
We consider this approach very fair. It is not our intention to alter the story or
character backgrounds as we see fit. We are being very careful not to mess with the
lore and mythos of the game's world or change significant story or character details.
We're just livening things up a little more than they were presented via translation
to make it much more accessible and enjoyable, as it was intended. However, it is also
not our intention to add things like forced-sounding, blunt juvenile humor for cheap
laughs, or forced-sounding hyperbole of various lines. That stuff just comes off as
unprofessional. We just want the text to sound like normal English, like it was written
in this language to begin with.
A few differences notwithstanding, our goal is to by and large make this project feel
like a lost, official Namco Bandai localization, only without dubbed voice acting, censored or
cut content, and with more effort put into it than was put into their own localization of the
Game Boy Advance version (Nintendo only published it. Namco handled the localization, but
outsourced the text translation and voice acting to cheaper third parties than their usual
partners for the console Tales games).
Tales of Phantasia takes place within the universe as Tales of Symphonia and Tales of
Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Though the connections are largely minor, they are there,
and we feel that translating the shared terminology differently would be a huge disservice to
fans of the series in English (including me; Cless). We want all the little links fully
intact. Even the official GBA localization failed to hit all of them properly. Perhaps the
budget just wasn't enough for them to care.
A couple very minor exceptions to the Symphonia continuity rule:
Torent Forest. This location's name was mistransliterated. As far as I know it was an
admitted mistake by one of its translators, and shouldn't have otherwise happened. We have
corrected this to Treant Forest in our ToP project, as it was meant to be. They are still
the same place in both games. The Treant monster was also affected by this little mistake.
It was, however, corrected in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.
Summon Spirit: In the Symphonia game localizations, the Spirits are all referred to as
Summon Spirits. In a gameplay sense, it works. But as a story term, it just sounds very
cheesy and pointlessly dumbs things down. It also comes off as very clumsy in many places. We
are just using Spirit, which should be close enough to not be a dealbreaker to any sane
continuity fans.
One very touchy subject is main character names. It took way too long for ToP to get released
in any form in the west. By the time it came out, most of the hardcore fanbase was well and
used to the original, Japanese-official English transliterations of the main characters' names.
For these purely sentimental reasons, we've opted to use the Japanese names for the defaults.
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Screen shots
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Actual text displayed is subject to change in the final release. Much of it already has to varying
degrees, as the following screens were taken while editing draft 3 was in progress.
More work-in-progress screens through the years, almost like a history as the project unfolded:
page 4 - 2007
page 3 - 2006
page 2 - 2004-2005
page 1 - 2000-2002
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Contact / FAQ / Additional project info
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Okay guys, listen up. READ this section before firing off an email. It is very annoying
when people ask questions about things which are clearly answered by reading a bit. Any
questions asked that are answered in this section will definitely be ignored.
The demo's cool, but when's the full release?
When it's done. We have never been able to predict a reliable release date, or even time
frame. However, our current target is within the next couple months. The main thing we
have to do is finish polishing the text. We believe that the main dialogue script is very
nearly there. The skit script is a little behind the main dialogue, but it shouldn't take
too long to get it up there as it is a lot smaller.
Will you be using the PSP version character sprites?
NO. NO. NO. STOP ASKING. They were only used for a test patch. They are NOT planned to be used
in a full patch.
Why is it taking so long!?
Because everyone involved with this project is a VOLUNTEER, each with their own personal schedules.
Even with free time, they're only obligated to work on it when they're in the mood. We strive to
do very high-quality jobs; we are not the game fan translation equivalents of "speed subbers."
How will this translation be released?
As an xdelta patch, just like the demo. It should be easy to apply if you own an original
game disc. Jackasses will probably upload a fully patched version to a torrent site somewhere
without permission to increase their e-cred, though.
Why not release a public beta patch?
Because everyone who plays it won't care to play the final release; they'll have gotten
their fix from the beta. I think it's important that people start with a full release.
Where can I get the game?
Well, that's a toughie now, seeing as no online shops that stock it anymore. But there are
three options for obtaining used copies that I know of:
There are no data differences between the original and PlayStation The Best reprint, and either
release will work with our patch.
Don't ask us to tell you where to download the game. We won't tell you.
This project is based around a legally purchased, original copy. Who knows where illegal
rips originate from and if they haven't been messed up in some way. xdelta patches will NOT
work if even a single byte is off.
Can I help with this project in any way?
We're always looking for more ways to improve the script writing. Though nusakan0 is the project's
main editor, we are both quite interested in getting other opinions by those with a good command
of the English language and solid writing skills.
What about voice actors? Are you going to dub the game's voices into English?
There are zero plans of doing this. I'm not against the idea (in fact, I'd love to do it if
it were possible), but the costs of hiring a professional studio to record voice acting are
prohibitive. Second, modifying the data would be very tedious and difficult to do. Third, even
if we had access to "free" voice actors (fans), I still wouldn't do it. I'd rather leave this
kind of thing to professionals.
The PS1 version is old news. Are you going to do the PSP version?
We want to, but we currently can't. We have no shortage of talent to work on such a project.
What we need is a decent emulator with competent debugging functions in order to do so. If
we had these things, it would be easy to port our work and we'd be all over it.
Without a good set of debugging tools, code hacking becomes exponentially more difficult. Debuggers
are a huge aid in locating code and testing added code. As far as I know, there's nothing advanced
enough to suit our needs on this front yet. Our goal for the PSP version would be to make it look
just like the PS1 translation, and that will require a lot of hacking that's virtually impossible
right now.
Besides that, the game should be playable on a custom firmware PSP. The PSP version is just a port
of this version that only features more voice acting, the Game Boy Advance version extras,
half-finished redrawn battle sprites, an afterthought of a grade shop/system, and stretched graphics.
Absolute Zero already released a translation of this version, so why are you still bothering?
- Different end goals; we want a somewhat loose localized patch that is very consistent with the
official English Tales games. They wanted one with a stricter, more direct translation of the
text which also disregards nearly all official localized conventions.
- We were seven years into our project when theirs was announced. We weren't even close to abandoning
it when it was announced, either; in fact, we were actively working on it and just starting to make
new, major milestone progress!
- We have put thousands of man-hours of work into this. You really think we want to just throw it all away?
But nobody cares about this game anymore, work on your other projects!
We don't care that you don't care. I started this project with a vow that I'd see it through to
completion, no matter how long it would take. This isn't being done for e-fame; it's because it's an
all-time classic game to me and I still want to see a localization done the way I think is right.
Contact information
If you have a question about something not listed contact me
here. Any messages asking questions which are answered
here will NOT receive a response.
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HELP WANTED
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Have English writing or Japanese language skills? Are you interested in Tales of
Destiny 2? We need editors and translators to help finish up the menu patch. See
the sticky on the community
project board
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SPONSOR LINKS
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Play-Asia.com
Play-Asia is loaded with imported Tales games and merchandise, as well as other video game and anime
related goods.
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