Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai English Localization (v1.0) The Romhacking Aerie aerie.wingdreams.net Released: September 16th, 2013 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This fan translation is provided for free by The Romhacking Aerie. - Please do not attempt to sell this patch in any way, shape, or form. - Please do not post pre-patched roms using this patch. - Please do not attempt to modify this patch in any way. - Please do not use this patch as the basis for a derivative translation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Message from Kingcom Hacking this game was not easy. There are tons of menus, and each menu has up to two dozen duplicates that all had to be hacked individually. On top of that it had a graphics format that came straight out of hell that doubled as an animation and map format and basically combined everything the game could do with graphics into one huge huge mess. Not to mention all the information it tries to display with very limited screen space... But despite all that, I think it was worth it in the end. A lot of work went into this translation, and I hope many people can enjoy this first localized entry of the Tengai series. Thanks to Tom for translating the game, to our beta testers who did a really great job, to Deets for his typical high quality graphics editing, and to Gemini for his wonderful fonts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---Notes from Tom, the translator of Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai--- 1. (First things first... Tengai Makyou does NOT equal Far East of Eden.) As a fan of the Tengai series, it irked me that people were calling ALL of the Tengai series games "Far East of Eden" games. (Not all of them are.) It's not hard to see how the confusion came about. English speakers, seeing "Far East of Eden" on the package of many of the games (above the much larger kanji), were led to believe that it was the actual title of the game series. Far East of Eden is actually the name of the (albeit make-believe) English book about the history of the (yes, make-believe) country known as Jipang by (the also made-up) historian known as P.H. Chada. The developers "worked with" P.H. Chada to make "Tengai Makyou," the game --adaptation-- of the English book (Far East of Eden). Of course, P.H. Chada and the book don't really exist, but it's an important distinction to make, especially when it comes to the titles in the Tengai series. When you see "Far East of Eden" on the package of a Tengai Makyou game, it really means that THAT particular Tengai Makyou game is -inspired by- Far East of Eden. A game with Far East of Eden will be about Jipang. Far East of Eden is also there to "give props" to P.H. Chada for writing his book about the history of Jipang. (This is made especially clear in the credits of Tengai Makyou Ziria on the PC Engine, but most people haven't played it yet.) If Far East of Eden does not appear on the cover of a game, it means that the game does not revolve around Jipang and thus has nothing to do with Far East of Eden. Tengai Makyou: Daiyon no Mokushiroku The Apocalypse IV and Oriental Blue Ao no Tengai do not feature "Far East of Eden" on the cover because they are not about the history of Jipang, and P.H. Chada's "historical book" isn't being referenced. Thus, some Tengai series games aren't Far East of Eden... When referencing the games, I do hope that people will make the proper distinction between the three terms: Tengai series, Tengai Makyou, and Far East of Eden. 2. (The Process of Translating Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai) When I first played Oriental Blue, I thought it was garbage. The graphics were weak. The Tengai series charm seemed absent, and the game seemed overly non-linear. It didn't make a good first impression... But the more I played it, the more I saw things about the game that I liked. For example, in most RPGs when you gain a new spell or skill, you can pretty much stop using your old skill and focus entirely on the new one, unless you just don't have enough MP to cast the more powerful spell. However, in this game, spells are material-based (along with MP), and all skills have pros and cons (and do ratio-based damage), so nothing becomes obsolete. A skill that you get at the beginning of the game may prove to be just as useful by the end of the game. It had a great balance in terms of its battle system. The game was open-ended, but not to the point of being a completely nonsensical mess. Each town has its own unique feeling and culture. One of the most interesting things in the game was the "ancient text" that appears throughout the story. Several characters are capable of translating it. Depending on who you have in your party, you may hear different translations of the same text. (The person who's translating something makes their own stylistic interpretations, omissions, or oversights as they translate.) I thought it was really interesting to read so many interpretations of the same text. For instance, when Kashin Koshi translates text for you, he tends to paraphrase it and summarize it, leaving out bits that don't interest him (that may or not be important)... But when Professor Ren translates the same bit, she tries hard to make sure she gets the translation word for word, but sometimes loses out on the subtleties behind it. It was the first time I've actually had to translate scenes that show the process of translation. I thought it was a very nice touch. Most people won't notice this very small detail, because you're not going to see multiple translations in one playthrough. My favorite parts to translate were the poems that appear sporadically throughout the game. I tried really hard to capture the original meaning while still maintaining a good, rhythmic flow. I also enjoyed deciphering the ancient alphabet. My least favorite part was translating the quirky Turks, because of their odd speech pattern. I still have this fear that there's a line somewhere in the game in which a Turk accidentally doesn't speak in the proper Turk manner... Let me know if you find such an instance! The script itself was pretty big, broken up into countless files. I decided to work on the biggest files first, getting those out of the way so I could breeze through the smaller files later on. The script was over one and a half megs of text. I eventually finished it, but the project was put aside for a long time for various reasons. During that time, I worked on fixing typos and such, but the script was so massive, every time I played the game, I'd find more. The game seemed to be complete, but it wasn't. It was fully playable in the sense that you could beat the game, but there were many snags in the system, little imperfections and glitches that made it not worthy of releasing... But after switching to a new system called SVN to streamline the editing process, progress came swiftly. The beta testers found plenty of typos that would have been quite embarassing had they made it into the game. They have my utmost gratitude. Especially Oddeye, who was especially thorough, reporting hundreds of typos, errors and the like. My hat is off to you. 3. (My hope for the future of the Tengai series.) Since Hudson is out of the gaming business, I suppose fan translations are the only way to spread the Tengai series to English speaking gamers. I still have hope that one day, the Tengai series will make a big comeback. When it does, perhaps these fan translations of Tengai series games will prove to the publishers in English speaking countries that there is actually a market for these games. In the meantime, I hope to continue to provide fan translations for other Tengai series games in the future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patching Instructions To make use of this patch, you will need the included obpatch.xdelta file and an unpatched rom of Oriental Blue. We are providing only the patch and will not provide links or other means by which to acquire an illegal copy of the game. Please only use this patch in conjunction with a backup made from your legally purchased copy of Oriental Blue. The patch is in an xdelta format, so it's fairly simple to use. If you are familiar with xdelta patching, feel free to use the command line. Otherwise, you may want to use one of these interfaces: PC: KaioShin's xdelta UI (http://www.romhacking.net/utils/598/) Mac: Sappharad's MultiPatch (http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/746/) Note: As of the release date, VBA-M seems to be the only emulator that plays this game without any graphical issues. Other emulators may sometimes display garbled lines above a text box. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Localization Staff Programming Kingcom Translation Tom Graphic Editing Deets Beta Testing Carnivol DAISfromSB Kaioshin Lord Oddeye VgameT Xanathis Special Thanks Gemini