Shin Megami Tensei: if...
# Posted on Oct. 11, 2014, 10:42 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Hi everyone, I promised updates today, so here they are! This is the first of three: Shin Megami Tensei if...
So I streamed some of the hacking for this a couple of months ago. There hasn't really been much progress since, though all the remaining hacking is similar to what was done on-stream. That said, there isn't much left and there's an anniversary date coming up very, very soon... I'd like to have the game out for then. I'm not promising because we haven't started playtesting yet and it's going to be a bit of a push, but right now, that's the goal.
I've added six new screenshots to the end of the game's slideshow, two of which I've attached to this update. They're things you probably would have seen if you watched the stream or follow me on Twitter, but I'm adding them regardless.
Some folks may remember me remarking how similar the hacking of the game was to SMT2. It is in fact very nearly the exact same engine, but I've wanted to make improvements over the SMT2 work. The most notable are the proportional font (which has been in the screenshots since the very beginning) and the expansion of the horizontal space in menus, subscreens, and inventory spaces; where once were two columns now are one, and I'm using the extra space between each row to double up. Gets me a lot more screen real estate.
That's it for SMT if...; keep your fingers crossed for it.
But now for a bit of somewhat sad related news. I don't often do this, but today I'm announcing that I'm going to be dropping Megami Tensei 1 and Soul Hackers. I'd originally intended to roll the Megami Tensei 1 work into Kyuyaku Megami Tensei, but The Romhacking Aerie beat me to it; both Megami Tensei 1 and 2 are now playable in their SNES incarnations, and the original Megami Tensei for the NES is, well, not very good regardless. So if you want to play it, go for it! It's available, just not from here. Soul Hackers is getting dropped because it's out on the 3DS and there's not much point. If you want to play it, support Atlus and go buy it.
# Posted on March 1, 2014, 8:51 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Okay, so, it's no secret that Super Robot Wars Alpha has a staggeringly huge amount of text. While it only took speed-demon Tyria a year to translate, the text is frankly really messy and wasn't really suitable for prime-time. As many of you will recall, I started hunting around for an editor shortly thereafter, and settled on Antialias, who I recruited on 4chan's /m/ board. In the last several years he's managed to edit about a third of the story dialog text (if we consider duplicate strings to be distinct, anyway) but work has been slow in large part because the script is so dauntingly large.
Some time ago, we decided that it would be a good idea to get multiple workers on the script, but had no real way to manage that. Well, yesterday Antialias set up a Perforce repository on Assembla, and we're ready to put together a small team. Antialias himself will be handling the vetting process, in large part to to minimize style conflicts. Style conflict is one of the big reasons I didn't want multiple editors in the first place, but given the size of things, better a little awkwardness in this matter than no translation at all.
Post edit: Things have been moving along at quite a decent clip, so we're not looking for any more editors at the moment. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and expect more news soonish.
Sorry it's taking so long!
Ys V - Kefin, Lost City of Sand
# Posted on Oct. 30, 2013, 10:44 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Back in May, I quietly discovered several reasons that Ys 5's translation was crashing the game. I counted at least 60 such bugs, all of which caused the game to die in horrible ways, and despite having those fixed for his most recent playthrough in the last couple of weeks Deuce still encountered over a dozen more crashes, several of which required modification to compressed assembly code, which is really nasty business. Regardless, the game can now be beaten without it crashing, and as sad as it may sound this is a massive step forward for the project.
Unfortunately, this is not to say that the game is done, or even close. The text still needs to be edited, there is still a large amount of menu work that needs to be done, and some of the game's visual effects are broken. Examples of the broken stuff will be found in my twitter gallery, but the game's gallery page has been updated with 23 fresh screenshots of functional text.
This is one of a few projects I'd like to have done by the end of the year. Due to a variety of circumstances (including a job hunt) I'm not sure if that's going to be possible, but it'd certainly be nice! 
Royal Stone
# Posted on April 25, 2013, 9:20 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Just dropping a quick word about Royal Stone's recent dramatic progress. In the last few weeks TheMajinZenki, who you might know as the translator for the recent JoJo's patch, has been tearing through the game's script. All of the text unrelated to the actual progression of the story has been inserted, though admittedly only about 90% of it works correctly at the moment. He's also translated roughly the first two thirds of the main story dialog; I've edited and inserted about half of that. I've also done a huge pile of work on the technical aspects of the project, including cracking the compression the game uses for its introduction and its combat menus, as well as the sprite data it uses for pause menus. The game is currently playable with only minor issues through Round 5, and all this in the space of a couple of weeks!
I've taken 24 screenshots, some of which you may recognize but most of which are new. With a little luck I should have more news for you soon!
Shin Megami Tensei: if...
# Posted on Nov. 9, 2012, 7:32 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Just dropping a quick head's up here that SMT if...'s text translation is done. Its hacking currently looks identical to SMT2's, but with added main dialog proportional font. I'd LIKE to clean up the hacking a bit though, and the majority of the text isn't inserted yet - in fact, I still don't actually have it. It's still on Ian's computer, and he unfortunately got smacked pretty badly by Hurricane Sandy and is currently mostly without internet access. Still no ETA.
Super Robot Wars Alpha
# Posted on April 3, 2012, 4:39 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Quick note, thanks to veteran translator _Bnu (who some of you may know!) SRW Alpha's animated battle sequence dialog has been fully translated. The big remaining untranslated pieces at this point are the robot and character encyclopedias, which are about 200K apiece. Antialias is still plugging away at the main dialog, and is probably about 1/3 of the way through it. Alpha has an ungodly amount of text though, so it'll still probably take a good long while.
Secondly, regarding PAX East - this is the last reminder I'll be posting before the event. But I actually have some details this time! We're going to be showing off current SRW Alpha progress as well as an SRW Alpha Gaiden gag reel save. We're also going to be showing off current prototype work on a long-dormant project, an unannounced SNES puzzle game, and an unannounced SNES RPG which a lot of you have been asking about for quite a few years. Excellen (who you'll know as Alpha Gaiden's translator) will be there, as will Niahak (another translator) and MathOnNapkins (Zelda 3 editor author.) Niahak will be showing of a Suikogaiden translation as well as a new version of JESUS: Tale of the Dreadful Biomonster. This is going to be happening at 11AM on Saturday in the Classic Console Freeplay Room for (roughly) an hour and a half, so if you're in the area, feel free to stop in and say hello! All games will be running on their original hardware, and I should have playable versions of many released hacks and translations, as well as a few playable versions of unreleased stuff. Rejoice and Ladystalker, anyone?
See you at the show!
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere
# Posted on Feb. 19, 2012, 2:33 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Just as the title says, Blue Sphere's main script has been translated. Doesn't include cutscenes, encyclopedia entries, list files, etc though. Haven't mucked about with it much since, but I'm trying to strike a deal with evo of the Italian project for VWF code. Unfortunately, I don't have any screenshots or anything to show just yet, but the news is big enough that I figure people would want to know.
Ladystalker - The Apocalypse Engine
# Posted on Aug. 14, 2011, 2:54 p.m. by Gideon Zhi
Just a quick update to the Lady Stalker project: I'd guesstimate that roughly 80% of the techincal stuff is done - that includes rewiring interfaces, adding asm hacks, inserting various kinds of text (though not formatting said text), and so on. There's still some menu work that needs to be done and some text that hasn't even gotten touched yet, but on the whole, it's getting pretty close to being done.
I've added 24 new screenshots to the project page and threw a video up on youtube of the opening cinematic, which is now in English. Enjoy! More should be coming soon.
Rejoice - Another Aretha Kingdom
# Posted on May 17, 2011, 10:58 a.m. by Gideon Zhi
Here at Aeon Genesis, we're big fans of action/rpgs, and Rejoice is an ideal specimen! Since last Friday I've gone through and completely hacked all of the non-dialog stuff in the game, thanks in no small part to the work of everyone on RHDN's language board. The entire script has been reinserted as well, though it *is* prone to crashing. I've tossed a whole bunch of new screenshots up onto the project's page, as well as a couple of videos showcasing the opening sequence and some gameplay. Check 'em out!
Ys V - Kefin, Lost City of Sand
# Posted on May 12, 2011, 12:06 p.m. by Gideon Zhi
You can guess which is which.
Shin Megami Tensei
| Platform | SNES |
| Genre | RPG |
| Publisher | Atlus |
| Published On | Oct. 30, 1992 |
| Initial Release | June 30, 2002 |
| Latest Release | June 30, 2002 |
| Current Version | 1.00 |
