Anearth Fantasy Stories - Translation Project Thread

[CrackTiger]

Here's what I found in the folders of screen shots I transferred to my computer-

wayback.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/afsss.zip

[NightWolve]

As it stands, it's looking like the best way to locate all the text is to use savestate hacking. Right now, we don't have very much text dumped because we just haven't gotten that far into the game. I've beaten it once, but it was on a real system.

Yeap, that was the trick that I showed Neill Corlett BITD for the Ys IV project before taking it over! He had successfully found the decompression code, correctly converted it from PCE Assembly to "C", but he could NOT find a text block searching through the 65 Meg data track - the project under Akimaru and him had stalled up to that point. After I was introduced to him via Akimaru and began working with them to get the job done, I noticed that with the YAME emulator you could save a state file in some town (Minea let's say), dismount the game CD image or eject the drive if using a real disc, and then with just the 512 KB state file and reloading it, you could talk to all of the townspeople and everything would work to a point, up until you'd exit the town, or cause some "event" to occur, etc. You could very quickly load and play the game on any computer without the Ys IV CD. So yeah, it dawned on me, "Hey, SOMEWHERE in that small 512 KB state file, there's a compressed text block!!" Instead of going crazy trying to find something in 65 MBs of data, your search range was now reduced to 512 KB!

That was a pretty cool moment for me cause I was inexperienced at the time, was trying to learn as much as possible, and here was the famous Neill Corlett from the "Seiken Densetsu 3" SNES project who was stuck on something that I actually managed to help him with which finally led to the dumping of the whole script! His knowledge, compared to my knowledge at the time, I mean, he was at a genius level... I never even learned to understand the decompression algorithm, but thankfully, I didn't have to (thanks to David Shadoff).

Unlike in your case though, we were lucky because each block (except for the last) begins with the text for the menu system and "PLAYTIME" doesn't get encoded by the compressor. I actually spotted "PLAYTIME" while browsing a state file and pointed Neill to that offset, and next thing I know, the whole script is dumped!!! For whatever reason, Hudson had to repeat all the menu text with each and every area, so as a result, every text block begins with a unique stream of bytes! The only oddball case though was for the DeBug area after you beat the game and get to speak with the Hudson developers, hear their jokes, etc. I had to track that text block down myself (the menu system obviously wasn't needed anymore for that). No biggie obviously!

Anyway, happy hacking/translating!

[SamIAm]

Here's what I found in the folders of screen shots I transferred to my computer-

wayback.superpcenginegrafx.net/misc/afsss.zip

Got 'em. Thank you, CrackTiger! This should be useful.

[Xak]

I never thought this game would get translated . Dreams do come true.

[Bardoly]

Keep up the good work, and I hope to hear an update for the new year!

[wyndcrosser]

Would it make more sense to record yourself as we play this game, so you can find the text?

[Trenton_net]

Great stuff. This looks like it will be amazing. Now all we need is someone to do something epic. Like translate Snatcher!

[RyuHayabusa]

This game looks amazing! Good luck with this project!!!

[tknjin]

This is hands down one of my favorite Jrpgs on the PC engine SCD.  The sprites and 2D are just absolutely stunning, but I do notice not a lot of people notice this game.  The quality work of the seiyuus, and the story was truly a great one.  I am glad to see that this is getting worked on.  Maybe if I do another playthrough and get through that part I will see if I can help out.

[BigusSchmuck]

Do you still need help? I got more free time before harves and I can help anyway possible. Let me know.

[Echelon5]

and the story was truly a great one. 

If you know of the story, would you be kind enough to tell us a bit about it? It would be highly appreciated! I'm big on story in games I play, and I've been curious about this game for a while.

[CrackTiger]

SPOILER ALERT!

Below are some screen shots I took of the game:
































































END OF SPOILERS

[ParanoiaDragon]

Good Gravy McNavy!  I knew the game was beautiful, but sheesh!!

[seieienbu]

Yeah, I'm going to need to pick this game up at some point.  Man this game looks great...

[megatron-uk]

That looks absolutely gorgeous. Here's hoping for some progress on the translation!

[deubeul]

So much beauty in this world

[esteban]

It really does look beautiful... 

[Nighttrate]

Hi guys hows the progress going on the translation this game looks epic, Ive thought that for years but the thought of a english translation as retuned my interest in it.

[Mathius]

I should've followed Nectarsis' advice and picked up that mint copy of AFS while at MGC. I'm really kicking myself in the britches at this point. Such a drop-dead gorgeous game! I am looking more forward to this translation than any other regardless of the system it's on. Keep at it, my friends!

Edit: For some reason I made it sound as if I hated the PC Engine in the above post. Corrected the mistake. Now receiving 50 self-imposed lashes to the back.

[BigusSchmuck]

Not to sound like a pest or anything but what is the status of this project?

[clackattack]

Looks friggin' sweet! Ive heard the game has an amazing soundtrack as well

[CrackTiger]

Looks friggin' sweet! Ive heard the game has an amazing soundtrack as well

Not really.

It gets the job done, but it's below average by PCE CD standards.

[seieienbu]

Is it mostly CD soundtrack or are there a bunch of chip tunes?

[CrackTiger]

Is it mostly CD soundtrack or are there a bunch of chip tunes?

Mostly chip tunes. Nothing special sound-wise, but they are much more effective in-game than when listened to on their own.

[clackattack]

So how far off from completion is this project at this point?

[M1Savage]

Yeah, what he ^ said. 

[Dicer]

I don't wanna see this thread updated again without a download link....

[SamIAm]

Well sorry, Dicer.

The good news is, Esperknight has been doing a bit of work on Xanadu II again this week, and in an effort to get a positive morale-feedback loop going, I've been doing work on this. There's still a lot of text that needs to be dumped, though.

I think I mentioned this before, but if someone wants to play the game in Mednafen (gotta be Mednafen) and make frequent (and I mean VERY frequent) savestates so that we have an archive from throughout the game, that would save me a lot of time. Black Tiger kindly sent me a batch of Magic Engine game saves, but it's not enough to keep me from having to go through the game again just to get undumped text.

PM me if you're interested in helping.

[Mathius]

Well sorry, Dicer.

The good news is, Esperknight has been doing a bit of work on Xanadu II again this week, and in an effort to get a positive morale-feedback loop going, I've been doing work on this. There's still a lot of text that needs to be dumped, though.

I think I mentioned this before, but if someone wants to play the game in Mednafen (gotta be Mednafen) and make frequent (and I mean VERY frequent) savestates so that we have an archive from throughout the game, that would save me a lot of time. Black Tiger kindly sent me a batch of Magic Engine game saves, but it's not enough to keep me from having to go through the game again just to get undumped text.

PM me if you're interested in helping.

Come on, Necro! You can play through it and then talk about it in your game completion thread. Kill two birds with one stone.

Or light an ass fire under Runinruder. He's already played through the game as far as I can tell.

[SamIAm]

It sounds like I've got one volunteer. But if someone wants to go through the game as a different character, that would be quite useful.

Blacktiger sent me a few saves as the fighter. I have been though the game as the thief. The optimal situation would be for anyone else to go through using one of the other two characters. Any takers?

[deubeul]

Is it doable for a non-japanese?

[CrackTiger]

Is it doable for a non-japanese?

It will likely be tricky in any language, but this as good a walkthrough as you could have:

http://www.m1sz1.com/anearth/intro.html


The only thing is that the game isn't so linear, so if you get stuck and the what the walkthrough says to do isn't working, try something else.

I had extremely limited internet access when I played through on a tablet, so I made it almost completely through on my own for what it's worth. But I've also played a lot of Japanese RPGs.

[deubeul]

I did a lot of japanese Pce rpgs back in the days, but very often got stuck in non linear ones, but with the walkthrough, i can give it a try,, plus i won't spoil me the entire game as it's only one character out of four

[SamIAm]

OK, we've got one volunteer confirmed going through the game as the Monk. That leaves the Wizard character. Any takers?

deubeul, PM me if you are interested.

[deubeul]

I'm in 

[M1Savage]

Glad to see progress on this.

I have a favor to ask of anybody who is playing through the game for the translation. If you have screenshots of items I'm missing in my walk through ( http://m1sz1.com/anearth/gear.html ) or any additional information, corrections etc. please PM me so I can update the site. Of course I'm guessing the site will be even more useless once the game is completely translated but I'd still like to finish it up someday. Thanks!

[deubeul]

To be honest until now i strickly followed your walkthrough   
A big thank you for it by the way, I wouldn't have played the game without it.

[clackattack]

any more progress yet on this?

[BigusSchmuck]

any more progress yet on this?

I'll start doing some more save states stuff as the monk this weekend (freaking work has been hectic) and go from there.

[deubeul]

I just finished to play through the game as the wizard and sent my saves to SamIAm.

The game is really good, still enjoyable in japanese so i think the english version will be pure awesomeness. Graphics are gorgeous, and the battles are the most beautifull I ever saw in a PCE RPG.

@ M1savage: I took snapshots and notes on the differences I saw with the wizard, I'll send it to you soon.

[PikachuWarrior]

I came across this game on Youtube and thought it looked awesome. Glad to see that a translation of sorts is forthcoming.

As far as intros go, I like the PC Engine version better than the Sega Saturn port.

[SamIAm]

Work is being done on almost a daily basis now. I don't know when we'll finish, but daily progress is a very good thing.

Big thanks to deubeul for his work making a savestate library. It's already saving me huge time.

I hope that when it comes time to play-test this game, I can get some volunteers to go through the game with the different characters so that I don't have to play this four times in a row.

[Lochlan]

I hope that when it comes time to play-test this game, I can get some volunteers to go through the game with the different characters so that I don't have to play this four times in a row.

May I recommend an open beta?

[Nighttrate]

Sam I'd be up for ding a test run when its ready

[deubeul]

You can count on me too, but not with the wizard

[Nighttrate]

Bagsy the thief.

[Arjak]

I call Warrior!

[deubeul]

No!... not the monk!

[pixeljunkie]

I hope that when it comes time to play-test this game, I can get some volunteers to go through the game with the different characters so that I don't have to play this four times in a row.

May I recommend an open beta?

i like this idea

[PixyJunket]

I am getting ready to pick this up once I see if for a little cheaper.

I would love to try it after the patch too, but my Duo-R won't read CDRs.