Xanadu I and II - General Translation Project(s) Thread

[SamIAm]

A Brief History

The original Xanadu II translation project started in the spring of 2011, when I had just beaten the game for the first time and decided it was probably the best action RPG I'd ever played. Work progressed swiftly at first. Within three months, I had translated all the text that Esperknight could extract and made a complete fan-dub for the cut-scenes. However, the project stalled in the late summer and autumn as problems related to extracting all of the script and extracting it cleanly (ie decompressing it properly) got in the way.

It wasn't until the spring of 2012 that Esperknight got the entire script out of the game in a clean fashion. In truth, we had only gotten about 40% of it the year before. Also, I had to cut-and-paste my old translations into the new script manually, so there was a lot more work to do. By then, I was spending all my time on translating Princess Crown, so the new-and-complete Xanadu II script wasn't 100% in English until November 2012.

And that's when things kind of stopped.

The problem was getting the script back into the game and getting it to display. Esperknight is a swell guy and a competent programmer, but I think some of the difficulties involved in accomplishing those tasks overwhelmed him a little. Also, he has a busy home life, a busier job and multiple other projects in the works at all times, so this one just wound up on the back burner, and that's how it stayed for a couple of years.

Finally, in 2015, I met elmer, who in my estimation is nothing less than a hacking superhero. In a matter of months, we cranked out a translation for Zeroigar on PC-FX, and its presentation quality is better than I had ever hoped for, mostly thanks to good hacking work. Naturally, I had to ask elmer if he would like to finish of Xanadu II with me. Delightfully, he agreed.


The Two Games

Elmer started hacking Xanadu II from square one. It has only been a few weeks since he began, but already he has not only cracked Xanadu II, but also made enormous headway into opening up Xanadu I for translation as well.

Xanadu II is first in line to get done. At this time, the script is extracting completely, including odd things like the menu text and weapon shop text. Once any remaining kinks are ironed out and the layout of the dump is finalized, we'll be able to transfer my old translation into the new dump (hopefully using automation) and begin reinsertion. No promises, but since the Japanese-to-English side is already so far along, this should come together relatively quickly.

Xanadu I is a beast of a game. It is literally 2.5 times the size of Xanadu II in almost every regard: it takes about that much longer to beat, there is about that much more text, and the cut-scenes are about that many more minutes. Though there are some things about the way it operates behind the scenes that are structurally simpler than Xanadu II, we're also more starved for free RAM with it. A good English translation is going to take up a lot more space than the original Japanese text, so some miracles are going to have to be performed to make everything fit. However, I am very optimistic about it coming together.

I really hope it does, too, because Xanadu I is a hell of a game.

However, at this time, none of the enormous in-game script is translated. It's going to take a while. Happily, while waiting for new script dumps, I have as of today completed my first draft of an English script for Xanadu I's cut-scenes. They literally total over one hour in running time, and the draft is over 5000 words. And this leads me to...


Dub Projects

I do intend to make a fan-dub of Xanadu I. If some of the better performers from my original 2011 project are up for working on Xanadu I, then great; if not, I'll probably re-cast their parts in both games. There were a couple of performances in the old project that didn't turn out all that well, often due to poor recording quality, so I'll possibly re-cast them as well.

If people here would like to participate, I'll be very glad to receive your auditions.

However, it is still very premature for that. There is no reason to get started on all of this until the scripts for both games are basically done. That's the only way I can guarantee the same actors in both games, and it's also the only way I can make sure that I'm not missing any sort of contextual information.

Just sit tight for now.


Final Thoughts

If elmer and I are going to do both games, then frankly, I think it makes the most sense if we aim to release both at the same time.

If we pull this off, I think it will be a great thing both for the PCE community and for English-speaking gamers at large. These two Xanadu games are wonderful. They're peak Falcom, for heaven's sake, and they're exclusive, too.

Though I hate to clutter up the forums with yet another Xanadu thread, I would hate even more to hijack elmer's excellent development thread, and the old Xanadu II thread is just that - old. It's also limited to the second game only. Therefore, I'm going to talk about the work currently happening on my end right here, where we can keep things focused. In addition to Japanese-to-English related issues, I'll update on other general things, like play-testing, when the time comes.

Stay tuned!

[BigusSchmuck]

This is great news! If you guys need any help with pc hardware donations or $$$ please just let me know! I wish I could be more of help in other areas (beta testing), but this job of mine takes up quite a bit of my time nowadays.

[NecroPhile]

'Tis awesome that you two are working on these Falcom beauts. 

Though I hate to clutter up the forums with yet another Xanadu thread....

It's not clutter at all.  Stuff like this is 10x better than the repeated 'which system should I buy?' threads or the misplaced 'for sale' threads.

[Dicer]

I will 10000000000000000000000000% be down for doing a voice if the need arises...

Awesome work, and I look forward to seeing one or both finished in the not so far future.

[jtucci31]

I think that there aren't enough Xanadu threads! Thanks for the update SamIAm. If there's anything I can do to help, I'll be there

[seieienbu]

I'm super glad that these two games will finally be playable in English.  The first Xanadu was the first game I ever imported and I've always wanted to know what everyone's saying everywhere. 

I am a bit curious as to why you feel both games should be released at the same time rather than when they are done...?

[elmer]

I am a bit curious as to why you feel both games should be released at the same time rather than when they are done...?

This is just my personal feeling, but everyone has waited 20 years already ... waiting another few months for them both to be ready at the same time isn't a huge burden.

I'm guessing that when they're translated, then it'd be best to play the games in their proper order so that you can enjoy the story at-it-was-intended ... but Xanadu 2 is likely to get done first, just because SamIAm's translation for that one is already "complete".

But it's more-than-possible that he may want to go back and change a few lines if they're referring to events that happened in the first game.

At the end-of-the-day, this translation is all about making Falcom's story/writing available to those of us who don't understand Japanese.

I was really impressed by SamIAm's ability to make the Zeroigar story sound both natural in English, and enjoyable, all without dumbing-down the language to a grade-school level.

He tells me that the stories in these Xanadu games are some of the best that he's ever seen in a game ... and I, for one, am looking forward to being able to understand/enjoy them in the confidence that he's exactly the right guy to support with my time-and-effort in his desire to get this/these games translated.

[NecroPhile]

That's good enough reason for me.  Even if you put out LoX 2 first, I'd wait to replay it until after LoX 1 anyway.

[elmer]

I am a bit curious as to why you feel both games should be released at the same time rather than when they are done...?

so tobias can release a box set collectors combo... duh!

Haha ... "yes", there is our multi-million dollar licensing deal with the Devil to consider (well that's what he promised, and sounded honest!).

There will be a "public" version of the translation ... but that one will have every-other-word cut out.

Anyone that complains about this will be hunted down and confined in a VGA-graded box in the dungeon of my secret lair!

Wahahahaha! 

*********************

But practically ... "yes", once these translations are done, it's easy to imagine that Tobias will plan on taking them and making another PCEWorks collectard set.

We're trying to think of ways to discourage this ... but he's a smart b*stard, and there are limits to what I can think of doing.

[NightWolve]

He tells me that stories in these Xanadu games are some of the best that he's ever seen in a game ... and I, for one, am looking forward to being able to understand/enjoy them in the confidence that he's exactly the right guy to support with my time-and-effort in his desire to get this/these games translated.

That's wonderful to hear!!!! Yaaay!

[Burnt Lasagna]

Elmer started hacking Xanadu II from square one. It has only been a few weeks since he began, but already he has not only cracked Xanadu II, but also made enormous headway into opening up Xanadu I for translation as well.

SamIAm and elmer, you rock!
More bumper cart action on the PCE is worth it's weight in gold!

[SamIAm]

I am a bit curious as to why you feel both games should be released at the same time rather than when they are done...?

In short, releasing both at the same time helps me ensure consistency and accuracy. I can use the same actors in both dubs, and I can make sure that the Xanadu II script is not missing any context from Xanadu I.

For example, in the old Xanadu II dub, I made the grave mistake of assuming that a character mentioned in passing from Xanadu I was a man. This was not the case. One of the lines in the old dub script said "he/his" when it should have been "she/her", and now I have to either hope that the same guy from four years ago can record for me again, or I've got to recast the whole part. I'm just glad I found this before we released anything, or else I would be even more embarrassed.

Releasing both at the same time simply makes for better quality translations, and I really want these to be as good as possible.

================================

Since elmer mentioned story, let me describe how I feel the story impacts these games with an abstract example.

Playing Xanadu II without understanding the story is like looking at a photograph that's had its bottom right quarter cut off. Maybe you can sense that that quarter wasn't where all the critical information was...heck, maybe it actually seems inconsequential. Maybe the rest of the picture still looks perfectly good on its own. However, without that quarter, it's really difficult to relax and enjoy what you have. You focus way too much on what you know you're missing.

Playing Xanadu I without understanding the story is like looking at a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle that someone managed to put together even though a random third of the pieces are missing. Somehow, you can still get a pretty good idea of what the image is supposed to be. You're objectively missing more than Xanadu II, though, and the way it feels to look at it makes you wish you had the missing pieces a lot harder.

What I want to emphasize with these examples is that in both cases, the missing stories ultimately just compliment a whole that's mostly there already. There are other games...for example, let's pick an easy one: Snatcher...where playing without understanding the story is like looking at a photo with the subject perfectly cut out with an exacto knife and thrown away. The surroundings may look pretty, but what you're really supposed to see just isn't there, so what's the point?

However, that's not what's going on with the Xanadus, and I don't want anyone to over-anticipate what the stories are going to do for the games. In truth, both stories are fairly simple. There's not a lot of clever intertwining of plot threads and drama between characters or anything. I see them more as supporting and guiding you, the player, through the experience of adventuring in this fun fantasy world. They merely add a layer of charm and make you excited about the next dungeon.

I do hope that you'll be able to feel that charm and excitement, but what I really want is for you to be able to focus on and appreciate the harmony of the whole by giving you the complete picture. The music and graphics, the settings and themes, and the characters and story all fuse together really beautifully in these games. They have an old-school heart but were the product of some very big dreaming, and stylistically, they are Falcom all the way.

You can definitely look forward to that.

===========================

In other news, I've been measuring the timings of each spoken line in Xanadu I and recording the results so that I can edit the script and get performances that fit nicely into the original spaces. I'm about 40% finished. For Xanadu II, this process is already done.

Back to work!

[shawnji]

I have to commend you Sam.  I know how heavy these games are on text, so I'm sure it was a lot of work getting everything done.  I know you were working with Nightwolve and Dave Shadoff to get Emerald Dragon finished too, so hats off for putting in so much of your personal time so that people can play these in English. 

I like Xanadu I a lot, but the constant running back and forth for dialogue and exposition before getting to the part of the game I really liked (the dungeons, of course) made it hard for me to complete.  I think part of that was that it took me longer to read everything the first time I played through back in 2010 or so, as that was back when my reading ability was a bit weaker.  I'd be willing to bet this will be a lot more pleasant the second time around in English.

[SamIAm]

Update:

Script dumping and formatting for Xanadu I has been more-or-less finalized, and translation of the text has started.

I have completed measuring all speech timings for the dub script, but I have not finished editing it accordingly. Editing properly requires test-recording each line to make sure it's not too long or too short, and that's a little harder to set aside time for. I hope to do this within another week or so.

Xanadu II text is inserting without breaking anything, according to elmer. However, getting a single-byte, 8x12 font working is a large task that remains.

We may have some neat things to share someday soon.

[SamIAm]

I am beginning to get a feel for how long it's going to take to translate Xanadu I. The prologue strikes me as having a little more text than the average chapter, of which there are 12 in total. Assuming that's true, I expect it to take around 80-100 hours to work up a full first draft.

This is a really fun game to work on, though. The locations are all so unique and developed. In the prologue chapter, for example, there are two villages on an island that each make their own wines, and they're rivals. A drama unfolds involving the two mayors and two lead winemakers of both towns as well as the aristocrats who have come to vacation in a private, out of the way mansion. There's a cave with an ancient monster in the mix, too.

The next chapter is totally different. It happens in a port town run by a corrupt businessman who over-taxes a nearby community of old farmers. A thief, who eventually joins your party, plays a Robin-Hood role between them. After many events, you get a ship to sail around a mountain range to a town that's been destroyed by monsters, where important discoveries are made.

Each of the 12 chapters is unique like this. Every one has a set-up entirely its own, full of characters with developed and important identities. I think people will enjoy experiencing this in English.

I put in a couple hours today. I'll try to post every time I make progress!

[pixeljunkie]

I am beginning to get a feel for how long it's going to take to translate Xanadu I. The prologue strikes me as having a little more text than the average chapter, of which there are 12 in total. Assuming that's true, I expect it to take around 80-100 hours to work up a full first draft.

This is a really fun game to work on, though. The locations are all so unique and developed. In the prologue chapter, for example, there are two villages on an island that each make their own wines, and they're rivals. A drama unfolds involving the two mayors and two lead winemakers of both towns as well as the aristocrats who have come to vacation in a private, out of the way mansion. There's a cave with an ancient monster in the mix, too.

The next chapter is totally different. It happens in a port town run by a corrupt businessman who over-taxes a nearby community of old farmers. A thief, who eventually joins your party, plays a Robin-Hood role between them. After many events, you get a ship to sail around a mountain range to a town that's been destroyed by monsters, where important discoveries are made.

Each of the 12 chapters is unique like this. Every one has a set-up entirely its own, full of characters with developed and important identities. I think people will enjoy experiencing this in English.

I put in a couple hours today. I'll try to post every time I make progress!

This made my heart rate increase dramatically - thanks for the update!

[elmer]

I am beginning to get a feel for how long it's going to take to translate Xanadu I. The prologue strikes me as having a little more text than the average chapter, of which there are 12 in total. Assuming that's true, I expect it to take around 80-100 hours to work up a full first draft.

Excellent news! I'm really looking forward to actually seeing the story. 

The technical side of getting the scripts to insert is finally done now ... and most-importantly, the insertion doesn't break anything! 

[elmer]

Here's the first dialog for Xanadu 2 (still using the ugly 12x12 ROM font, for now) ...

[elmer]

And here's the first dialog for Xanadu 1 ...

[johnnykonami]

Noice!  Looks really good so far!

[ParanoiaDragon]

That font, ATM, isn't looking ugly to me, but I think that may be do to the excitement of seeing it in English!  I can read, I can read!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NightWolve]

That's the default S-JIS 16x16 font from the System Card. This is the problem with most PC Engine games and why not they're fan-translated, beyond the space issues for English text, because that's usually the only font you can use by default without a sophisticated font hack which very few people interested in the system are capable of doing... He's basically just testing insertion presently and will hack an 8x12 font or whatever down the road.

[TurboXray]

This is glorious!

[jtucci31]

I don't give a shit what the font looks like, if it's in English it looks good to me! 

[dshadoff]

Note that Xanadau 2 is using the system font, undoctored.
Xanadu 1 is doing some sort of shift technique to make it seem more bold.

I think it's ironic that we all think of replacing the font in the game because the system font is bad in so many ways (not least of which is that it isn't consistent as to where the baseline of the font is)...

...But nobody ever talks of creating a patch to make the system font nicer, to ameliorate the appearance.   

-Dave

[NightWolve]

Since the choices offered by the system card are 8x8 or 16x16, and patching it would only be good for an emulator, that would be why. I guess nowadays with a writable Turbo Everdrive V2, you could start talking about taking the System Card 3 ROM and altering the English tiles at its S-JIS area for use on real NEC hardware, but even so, 16x16 is still gonna be an ugly spaced out font for English.

I guess you could patch a dual tile system though and it'd work out if you have large enough text blocks and can compress your new text. But nonetheless, none of that is desirable: tying a fan translation patch to a patched system ROM and then a flash cart for use on real NEC hardware.

[elmer]

He's basically just testing insertion presently and will hack an 8x12 font or whatever down the road.

Yep, you're spot on! 

The font hack is now my top priority, because it's just not possible to get a decent idea of the space used by the translated text, either in memory or on-screen, until I get that done.

I think it's ironic that we all think of replacing the font in the game because the system font is bad in so many ways (not least of which is that it isn't consistent as to where the baseline of the font is)...

...But nobody ever talks of creating a patch to make the system font nicer, to ameliorate the appearance.   

I'm going to agree with NightWolve here ... even if we could replace the System Card font (which isn't really practical), then a better-looking 12x12 or 16x16 English font is still lousy for translations. An 8x12 or 6x12 font is what's needed.

Even better, is just to have more RAM so that you can do whatever you like, and have plenty of room to easily hack in a new font-printing routine.

IMHO, TheOldMan absolutely hit-the-nail-on-the-head with his System Card Dreams thread.

If someone could manufacture and sell a card with 512KB of RAM, that would really help.

I know for sure that it would make my life easier with the Xanadus ... and it may yet still turn out to be "required" in order to get everything working.

We've got that capability with the TED v2, and also with TailChao's CD Stupid Card.

I'd like to think that there's room for a cheaper solution than the TED v2, and for one that is going to be more generally-available than the CD Stupid Card.

TheOldMan and I seem to have different ideas of what an affordable-and-practical card might be ... but at-the-end-of-the-day, ALL of the current and proposed cards provide a nice-and-simple 512KB of RAM for translators.

[OldMan]

TheOldMan and I seem to have different ideas of what an affordable-and-practical card might be ... but at-the-end-of-the-day, ALL of the current and proposed cards provide a nice-and-simple 512KB of RAM for translators.

.....At the end of the day, I want to be able to pick up an empty pcb, add rom/ram as requested, flash the rom, pack it in a carrier and send it out.
That way, I only need 1 card blank for production, and I don't have to worry about over-buying boards.

[elmer]

He's basically just testing insertion presently and will hack an 8x12 font or whatever down the road.

It looks like the road wasn't that long! 

It's nice to be able to get a lot more text on each "page" of the dialog.

I personally prefer the clean font on the blue background rather than the outlined font on the transparent background, but it's selectable from the game's pause menu.

Which version do you all like better?

[SamIAm]

8x12 is plenty for things on my end. That allows for 84 characters per box, some of which of course we lose when we put too-long words one line down, but which generally is sufficient to write the equivalent of one full Japanese text box.

There's still more work to do behind the scenes, but things are really coming along now.

PS: I worked on the text some more today.

[pixeljunkie]

Clean on Blue looks great for font. This is so rad

[dshadoff]

It looks like the road wasn't that long! 

Wow, that's awesome !!

I personally prefer the clean font on the blue background rather than the outlined font on the transparent background, but it's selectable from the game's pause menu.

Which version do you all like better?

Stylistically, I'm torn - they both look good.
But I would worry that some important feature could be hidden behind the panel in some obscure situation, if the blue panel is used instead of the transparent one.

...So I would opt for whichever one was used in the original game (in both cases).

-Dave

[ginoscope]

Clear on blue looks really good and fantastic work so far.  Looking forward to more progress and thanks for sharing the screenshots.

[elmer]

Wow, that's awesome !!

The Xanadu games both print text in 4-pixel-wide strips ... just like PC-FX Team Innocent.

I'm using the same trick here that I did for that. It's the same font, too ...but with some pixels moved to make it "rounder".

It makes for a nice-looking "almost-vwf". 

But I would worry that some important feature could be hidden behind the panel in some obscure situation, if the blue panel is used instead of the transparent one.

...So I would opt for whichever one was used in the original game (in both cases).

The original Xanadu game does both techniques ... you can switch between them in the game's options menu.

So we should be perfectly safe with the solid panel ... Falcom already had to make sure that nothing important was hidden.

I'm guessing that the outlined font was their "default" because dynamically making the ROM font "bold" and giving it an outline is a pretty-damned-clever programming effect (IMHO).

Does anyone know of another PCE CD game that does that with the ROM font?

[EDIT]

Hmmm ... I guess that the programming discussion of the font technique really doesn't belong here ... I'll continue it to the "blog" thread, and leave this thread for updates on the game translation itself. 

[TurboXray]

Does anyone know of another PCE CD game that does that with the ROM font?

I seem to recall a couple of other late gen games that might have done that.

[NightWolve]

He's basically just testing insertion presently and will hack an 8x12 font or whatever down the road.

It looks like the road wasn't that long! 

It's nice to be able to get a lot more text on each "page" of the dialog.

I personally prefer the clean font on the blue background rather than the outlined font on the transparent background, but it's selectable from the game's pause menu.

Which version do you all like better?

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111

You are a master of your craft like no other, no doubt about that!

Never thought I'd see that happen! Legend of Xanadu was actually the first or 2nd game I tried to hack in late 2001 when I first got started, but because all I could do was replace 16x16 Japanese S-JIS characters with English alpha characters, there was no point. The text was at least uncompressed, but that didn't matter much. So I kept searching for other RPGs I could handle, which is how I found Xak III (as a RIGG archive from a PCE pirating group) which had built-in 8x16 English font support and easy 16-bit text pointers for me to learn to adjust to pack a text block.

Anyway, congratulations man!!! We saw EsperKnight as the "great hope" once upon a time to carry the PCE fan translation torch, but that hope came and went - it's about time we got somebody else with SNES level talent to pull off low-level PCE ASM hacks for this system! This calls for a mass Like.

[elmer]

Thank you for the kind words.   

At this point ... the translation is definitely going to happen. The technical issues all seem to be solved.

It's just all going to take months of hard work.

IMHO, the worst that will happen is that we'll need the extra RAM on a TED v2 (or in Mednafen) ... but I'm still hoping that we can avoid that.

[Bardoly]

This is awesome news!

IMHO, the worst that will happen is that we'll need the extra RAM on a TED v2 (or in Mednafen) ... but I'm still hoping that we can avoid that.

Worst case, maybe you go with the translation being an Arcade Card release?  I would far rather have that happen than those other options.

[jtucci31]

IMHO, the worst that will happen is that we'll need the extra RAM on a TED v2 (or in Mednafen) ... but I'm still hoping that we can avoid that.

Worst case, maybe you go with the translation being an Arcade Card release?  I would far rather have that happen than those other options.

Same here! I have the V1 everdrive and would rather play on a real system than mess around with whatever else I may have to. If the Arcade Card is possible, I think that would be pretty damn cool.

However, whatever way this gets translated and works, I will play. Regardless of what I have to do. So honestly, you've got my attention either way. I'd just prefer what I stated earlier

[SamIAm]

The Arcade Card isn't a viable solution because all of the extra RAM that it contains sits behind a memory mapper, and therefore the system can't work with it in the way that it needs to.

Sorry.

-------------------

In happier news, I have finished translating the prologue into English and have also done a proofread of it. Now we get to see if it can be squeezed into the game as-is, or if we have to choose between axing some words to make it fit or going with an expanded memory card.

Progress is happening pretty much daily. Chapter 1, thankfully, only has about 60% as much text as the prologue, so that one should come pretty quickly.

[Opethian]

sam is the man

[stinkoman]

These games look awesome, I hope to try it once finished.

[Arjak]

Sam, did you get the email I sent you with part of my new VA audio? I never received a response, so I wasn't sure if I sent them to the right address.

I'll try to get the rest of my lines redone soon.

[SamIAm]

Thanks, Arjak.

-----------------------

In other news, I finished drafting Chapter 1. I have to proofread it still, which will take some additional days, but it's close.

I also organized all the script files according to chapter, of which there are 11 plus a prologue. The average size of one chapter is about 150 KB in elmer's dump format. The prologue was 140KB, while the largest chapter (7) is 180KB. Chapter 1 was only 100 KB, and Chapter 10 is only 80. Chapter 11, thankfully, is super small. Although I don't think we have it all, it's probably 20KB or so.

Except for chapters 10 and 11, each one will take about two weeks to translate and proofread.

[SamIAm]

Chapter 1 is finished and proofread.

Chapter 2 is currently at about 60%.

-----------------

Xanadu II has a couple of scenes that you can unlock by talking to the right people at the right times. I didn't think Xanadu I had any, but now I'm thinking it might. I just played through Chapter 2 last week and am translating it now, and I ran into some text in the script that looks completely out of place. I googled the name of the extra character involved and got nothing, so it's not in any Japanese walkthrough.

[elmer]

Xanadu II has a couple of scenes that you can unlock by talking to the right people at the right times. I didn't think Xanadu I had any, but now I'm thinking it might. I just played through Chapter 2 last week and am translating it now, and I ran into some text in the script that looks completely out of place. I googled the name of the extra character involved and got nothing, so it's not in any Japanese walkthrough.

Fun! So we may have found something new, that's really cool.

I wonder how difficult it's going to be to figure out how to unlock it ... hopefully we can get some clues from reading the source script.   

[SamIAm]

It's just a small handful of lines, and I might have simply missed it when I played last week, but I wonder if it involves a hidden song like in Xanadu II.

For now, onward!

[in99flames]

This looks awesome....i have not played much Xanadu....i have Faxanadu for nes and Xanadu Next for N-gage. I havent played the original 2. Coincidentally i  own the first two on a japanese Sega Saturn disc but well...cant read it. Ill be following this development for sure

[spenoza]

N-Gage, eh? You can Xanadu while you side-taco-talk! I find it interesting Falcom/whomever decided the platform had enough potential for a title in the series. How is it?

[SamIAm]

Chapters 1, 2, and the prologue are finished and proofread.

Chapter 3 is at about 10%.

Total completion is about 25%, although nothing is in final-draft form.

From now to the end of Chapter 7, things are going to be heavy. I'll try to finish Chapter 7 before January is out, but no guarantees.

I do think this is turning out pretty well, though. I really like the way this game is written and put together. It's never boring to work on.