Major Release ~ Ys 5, At Long Last
Ys V - Kefin, Lost City of Sand
# Posted on Nov. 27, 2013, 4:01 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

I must admit, I am at a loss for words writing this. Ys 5 has been a trial in so many ways and it has been in the works for so long that I don't feel like I could do it justice in a one- or two-paragraph blurb. As such, I will let the translation speak for itself: it is without issue (that I know of), and includes some fairly substantial under-the-hood modifications to data storage and menu structures. Despite how bumpy the road has been, or perhaps because of it, I am intensely proud of this release. Enjoy!

As a further note, earlier this week XSeed Games released Memories of Celceta for the PS Vita, and their Ys releases on Steam are currently on sale. If you enjoy Ys 5 and haven't bought any other titles in the series, please give XSeed your business. In celebration I've updated the translation of Ys 4 Mask of the Sun, of which Memories of Celceta is a remake. This update brings some of the terminology in line with XSeed's version and includes various other fixes to the text, including the nasty glitchy too-long strings that erased bits of the frame.

Lastly, I've updated TwinBee Rainbow Bell Adventure with a minor fix to the Battle mode screen.

I'm going to attempt to keep up a bi-weekly release schedule for the foreseeable future, but I don't like to make any hard-and-fast promises for something like this unless I've already got something very nearly ready for release. I think I can manage it for at least two more, though!

In any case, Ys 5 is now available. Enjoy!

Progress ~ Ys 5 Can Now Be Beaten
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!

Progress ~ I'm going to leave a quick before and after here.
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.