Progress ~ *whistle*
Super Robot Wars EX
# Posted on Aug. 22, 2009, 10:39 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

It's far from perfect, but it's getting there!

Progress ~ At long last, an update
# Posted on July 27, 2009, 4:08 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Before I launch into the update proper, let me first express regret at the silence on the front page lately. Marathonning Alpha Gaiden like I did was taxing and tiring, and my state of exhaustion is/was not helped by a rigorous work schedule; I do 38 hours over three days, and by the time I come home after that I barely have the energy to do ANYTHING. I'm lucky if I get that energy back by 9PM the night before I have to go back to work. That said, in the last several weeks (not to mention the last several months) I've made quite a lot of progress on several of my projects.

To begin with, I've reinserted the majority of Holy Umbrella's text, and it's gone through an initial alpha test phase. There are still several issues and a couple of untranslated text boxes, but nothing that a few days hopefully won't fix. See the first of the accompanying screenshots for an example of inserted text.

Similarly, some fairly major strides have been made in Majin Tensei recently. The last of the technical issues surrounding font replacement have finally been resolved, and some theoretical assembly workarounds for text expansion that I'd been thinking about have proven to operate flawlessly in practice. The result is that, at least for now, I can insert roughly 3/4s of the "main" script with no issue, and that the rest shouldn't be far behind. Meanwhile the demon dialogue has been fully dumped and translated, and is ready for insertion as well, but I want to get the rest of the text into the game before I futz with that any further. Again, see the other accompanying screenshot for a sample of inserted text actually working correctly in-game.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned on the front page or not, but Romancing SaGa 2's script has finally been translated, thanks to Eien ni Hen, translatress extraordinaire. I've outsourced script formatting to local forum and IRC junkie Arle, who has already completed a good chunk of the work. Screenshots will be posted as soon as they're available, but I have no idea how long that'll be.

The last game I'm going to mention in detail is LUNAR Walking School. As I'm sure I've probably mentioned before, the entire game has been hacked and translated, and has been "sort of" ready to go for a while; however, I'd wanted to give its script another going-over before releasing it. Well, I've gone through the first of the main plot arcs and done all the edits I've wanted. This, if I recall correctly, comprises chapters 1-7, or about half the game. It takes about three to four hours to edit a chapter, so call it fifteen to twenty hours of hard work on my part before this is ready to go. That said, I can only work on one thing at a time, and there are a lot of other things vying for my hours, so don't expect LUNAR immediately.

All that said, I'd like to remind everyone, myself included, of the loooooooong list of games with translated scripts that are also vying for my time. These are all in varying states of completion, so remember, just because the script is translated doesn't mean that the game is anywhere near ready for release. So, without further ado, the list, excluding the four games mentioned above: Adventures of Hourai High, Ancient Magic, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, Ganbare Goemon 2, Ladystalker, Lagrange Point, Laplace's Demon, Madara 2, Makaitoushi SaGa, Megami Tensei, Mystic Ark, Rejoice, Slime Morimori Dragon Quest, Solid Runner, Super Puzzle Puyo 2, Super Robot Wars 4, Super Robot Wars EX, Super Robot Wars Gaiden, Tactics Ogre, and Ys 5. I have not forgotten about ANY of these. It's a question of time and motivation, both of which have been at an unfortunate premium these days.

Hopefully I'll have a release coming in the next few weeks, but I'm not going to make any promises. Again, sorry for the silence. I've just been extremely tired of late.

Progress ~ Last but not least, Madara 2.
Madara 2
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:57 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Tom finished this one a while ago, but I never mentioned it, because I do so love posting screenshots of this stuff. But alas, again! Nothing to show for it yet, I'm afraid.

Progress ~ Lady Leaps Ahead
Ladystalker - The Apocalypse Engine
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:55 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

This one too! Ladystalker has also been fully translated, also thanks to satsu! Unfortunately again, nothing to show for it yet :/

Progress ~ Hourai High marches onward
Adventures of Hourai High
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:53 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

satsu finished translating Hourai High's script about a month ago, maybe a little longer. Again, nothing to show off, I'm afraid :/ Also, mind not the busted previous news post (and its missing comment link); it'll get fixed soon.

Progress ~ Slime DQ Squidges Along
Rocket Slime: Terror of the Tail Troop
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:14 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Just dropping a quick word about the first - of several - games whose text translations have reached the "complete" marker in the last few months. Slime DQ is the most recent, thanks to Tom/DDS, who is now working on something else for us which I'm sure you're all rabid for! No screens, unfortunately; I haven't hacked the text into the game yet, so I don't really have anything to show off.

Progress ~ Now in Alpha, too.
Super Robot Wars Alpha
# Posted on July 2, 2008, 4:01 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Yep! Took maybe three hours. Note the poorly-edited dialogue. This obviously needs an editor - if you think you're up to it, have tons and tons of free time, are an accomplished writer, and are a fan of Super Robot Wars, send an email!

Progress ~ Font me up, guy
Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden
# Posted on July 1, 2008, 9:26 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Alpha Gaiden's font is now variable width/proportional. Huzzah! It's 4:30 AM and I'm totally about to pass out. I've been working on this thing for like nine hours straight.

First foray into MIPS assembly = success!

Progress ~ Well, THAT bit's done, after how long?
Mystic Ark
# Posted on June 23, 2008, 10:04 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Last night at about 10:00PM Eastern, I *finally* finished mapping out the last of the embedded pointers in Mystic Ark's insert file. All 6562 jumps in the script have now been assigned a unique identifier digit, with corresponding markers and targets for each. That's 6562 copies and pastes. 6562 sets, 6562 writes. And you wonder why this is taking so long :p

That doesn't mean that it's ready to insert yet, I'm afraid. MKendora has written a simple utility to add *normal* pointer writes to the file; I've just run it, and the next step has me commenting out any potential false positives so inserting this thing doesn't completely break the rom. This'll take a while, but I don't imagine it'll take nearly as long as the *last* step took.

So yeah, progress. Nothing that I can show off, I'm afraid, but still. Progress.

Progress ~ It's coming.
Live-A-Live
# Posted on May 8, 2008, 12:18 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Sooner than you think.