******************************************************************************** * Madou Monogatari II: Arle 16-Sai (Game Gear) * * English Translation Patch * * v1.2 (28 Jan 2020) * * * * TheMajinZenki -- Translation * * Supper -- Hacking * * cccmar -- Editing and Testing * * Filler -- Original Script Dump * * Xanathis -- Testing * * Kingofcrusher -- Special Thanks * ******************************************************************************** Arle Nadja, sixteen-year-old mage aspirant, continues her quest to become the greatest magician in the world by heading to the faraway Ancient Magic School to study. But disaster strikes on the road when a mysterious man knocks her out and throws her into a dungeon! Worse yet, Arle has forgotten all but the most basic of her spells! How will she get out of her latest predicament? Sorcery Saga II: Arle, Age 16 (Madou Monogatari II: Arle 16-Sai) is a dungeon crawler by Compile that's probably best known as the basis for the Puyo Puyo series. The game was originally released on various Japanese home computers, but this patch targets the later port/remake for the Sega Game Gear. This patch fully translates the game into English. **************************************** * Table of Contents * **************************************** I. Patching Instructions II. Basic Gameplay III. Authors' Comments IV. Version History **************************************** * I. Patching Instructions * **************************************** You'll first need a ROM image of Madou Monogatari II: Arle 16-Sai for the Game Gear. It should match the following specifications: No-Intro filename: Madou Monogatari II - Arle 16-Sai (Japan).gg CRC32: 12EB2287 MD5: 81A57F26B7A1CCAA21BF7678B3596CB2 SHA-1: DEEAD79FA4CB2E87652A9C8A76F2A7174F48F37A The patch itself is a standard IPS patch. Use a tool such as Lunar IPS to apply the IPS file to the ROM. The patch will expand the ROM to 1 MB, so don't use ancient patching utilities that don't support that. **************************************** * II. Basic Gameplay * **************************************** Sorcery Saga II is a dungeon crawler, but has a few unusual features compared to other games in the genre. Here's a quick overview of the gameplay. *********************** * Dungeon Exploration * *********************** The main part of the game is, naturally, exploring dungeons. In this mode, Arle can walk around and search for items, stairways, and so on. Controls: D-Pad Up/Button 1 Move forward one square. D-Pad Left Turn to the left. D-Pad Right Turn to the right. D-Pad Down Turn to face the opposite direction. Button 2 Open the Main Menu. Start When a menu is open, pressing Start will show a help message explaining the currently selected item. While exploring, the screen consists of five parts: Top-left Dungeon view. Shows what Arle is currently looking at. Top-right Arle's face. Indicates Arle's current health (see below). Bottom-left Compass. The four icons indicate Arle's current orientation. The direction at the top of the compass is the one Arle is currently facing. Bottom-right Message window. If Arle finds something in the dungeon, text may appear here. Screen border Experience meter. Arle earns experience for defeating enemies. As she does, the gems around the edge of the screen will light up. Once all the gems are lit, Arle will gain a level and become more powerful. Unlike traditional RPGs, this game doesn't use concepts like "hit points" or "magic points"! Instead of numbers, Arle's current state is shown by her expression. If she's in good health, she'll be happy and smiling, but if she's hurt, she'll frown or looked pained. Another clue to Arle's status is the music. If the normal background track is replaced by "unhappy" music, Arle is very low on HP or suffering from a status problem. Poisoning When poisoned, Arle will slowly lose health as she walks around. This condition can be cured using Antidote Herbs. Out of Magic If Arle has no magic power left, she will be unable to cast spells that require magic power. This condition can be remedied by using magic-restoring items. ************* * Main Menu * ************* While exploring the dungeon, the Main Menu can be accessed by pressing Button 2. It contains the following options: Map Opens the dungeon map, showing Arle's current position and orientation. As Arle explores, the map will automatically be filled in with the locations of walls and doors. Note that some features aren't recorded on the map. When the map is open, press Up and Down on the D-Pad to switch between previously-explored floors. Magic Allows Arle to cast spells. Note that spells used in this way may have different effects from when they're used in battle. Items Opens the Item Menu. From here, Arle can use the items she finds while exploring the dungeon. Press the Start button after selecting an item to receive an explanation of its effect. Save Allows Arle to update her journal, saving current progress. Up to four save files may exist at once. Additionally, while the Main Menu is open, the amount of gold Arle is currently holding will be shown in the Message Window. ********** * Battle * ********** While exploring the dungeon, Arle will encounter many enemies that she must defeat in order to progress. When an enemy appears, the game switches to Battle mode. In Battle mode, Arle and the enemy will take turns attacking each other. During her turn, Arle can do one of four things: Magic Allows Arle to cast spells. Arle is a magician, so she can't attack enemies physically! Instead, she can cast spells to do damage, heal herself, or cause other effects. Items Opens the Item Menu. Run Attempts to run from the battle. Note that there's a chance Arle won't be able to escape, and certain battles may be impossible to run from. ? Uses the special "LIPEMCO" ability. "LIPEMCO" may be used only once per battle, and can have many different effects. During battle, the current health of both Arle and the enemy is indicated by the messages shown when they're hit by an attack. Arle has a limited supply of magic power. While basic attack spells don't require any magic power to cast, most other spells will deplete Arle's magic power when used. If Arle runs out of magic, she won't be able to cast most spells. Whenever Arle gains or loses magic power, a message indicating the amount remaining will be displayed, so make sure to use magic-restoring items if it gets low. Defeating enemies causes Arle to earn experience. As she does, the experience meter around the edge of the screen will fill (see "Dungeon Exploration"). Once it's full, Arle will gain a level, increasing her power and restoring her health. ******** * Tips * ******** * If Arle tries to walk into a wall, she'll bump into it. This technique can sometimes be used to uncover secrets. If you come across a suspicious dead end, try bumping into it and seeing if anything happens. * Pay attention to the dungeon map! Make sure you explore every area possible, or you might miss important events. Sometimes, you may have to get additional skills before you can visit every space on a level, so make sure to occasionally check levels you've already visited (Up/Down Buttons on the map screen) for blank areas. * If you're having trouble defeating the enemies in an area, try going back and leveling up on easier enemies first. This can make a big difference, and you may even get new spells that'll help you out. * While exploring the dungeon, you'll occasionally come across shops where you can buy and sell items. If you play your cards right, you may even be able to haggle with the shopkeeper to get lower prices than usual. **************************************** * III. Authors' Comments * **************************************** ------------------- -- TheMajinZenki -- ------------------- I was already aware of the relationship between Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari, but I didn't really know the details before working on this game. This is the second game of the classic trilogy, a more friendly port of the original PC-98 version (probably a good call). The hardest part of this translation was probably trying to understand the cryptic messages written on the walls of a certain level of the map, before I had a realization after watching the map's layout. You'll know what I mean when you get there :) At any rate, I had a lot of fun translating the dialogue for this game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! ------------ -- Supper -- ------------ When I first started working with TheMajinZenki and cccmar, they frequently chatted about a script Zenki had recently translated for Madou Monogatari II, a game I knew only by reputation. Over the course of half a year or so, after no one else picked up the project, I decided I was interested enough and gave it a go. Sorry for dragging my feet on things, but we got it done eventually. This is a fun little game with a style that sets it apart from your typical dungeon crawler. The lack of HP, the unique combat messages for each enemy, and the boatload of voice samples add up to a nice little game. Amazingly, despite its solid reputation, its connection to Puyo Puyo, and its predecessor Madou Monogatari I being fan-translated several times over already, this game and the rest of the original series has never seen an English release of any kind until now. Man, what has the community been wasting its time on? Trash like Final Fantasy V and Tales of Phantasia? Anyway, this project owes itself in part to Filler, who created the translation patch for the Game Gear Madou Monogatari I with Kingofcrusher, as well the original script dump for this game that TheMajinZenki translated. Though this patch is entirely new in terms of hacking, I did use the same font as the MMI patch at Filler's suggestion, so hopefully there's some sense of continuity. We've translated the Game Gear version of the game, which is considerably different from the original releases for Japanese home computers. It's basically modeled after the "cute" style established by Puyo Puyo, as opposed to the slightly gory and strangely realistic computer versions. Some stuff is better and some is worse, but overall I think it works out to about the same experience. Except that this version's dialogue boxes are absolutely tiny, as I became acutely aware while trying to edit the text to not look silly. We chose to use the title "Sorcery Saga" for this patch because that was the title used for the only game to be officially localized (the 2013 PlayStation Vita game). I frequently find myself let down by official localizations, but in this case I think it's an excellent choice -- it's both a near-direct translation of the title and maintains the original alliteration. I expect we'll get complaints about it, but then we'd get them no matter what we picked. Well, hope you enjoy this belabored and belated production. See you next game? ------------ -- cccmar -- ------------ Madou Monogatari is a curious series of dungeon crawlers. I was introduced to this series through Puyo Puyo, as many others. The first game seemed quite interesting to me due to its mechanics (no visible HP bar, just the expressions + lots of voice samples), and it’s the only one that received a fan-translation thus far. So, we decided to translate the second installment – it’s also one of the very few GG RPGs still untranslated, officially or otherwise. It’s worth mentioning here that the PC versions were generally more violent and had some dark stuff in them, whereas the Game Gear ports are more whimsical and have some slapstick comedy. The editing process wasn’t too difficult, since the script isn’t too long, but there were some complex bits to it, especially considering the ‘childlike’ language used by the protagonist, Arle. Either way, I hope you enjoy our efforts. **************************************** * IV. Version History * **************************************** v1.0 (07 May 2019): Initial release. v1.1 (30 Dec 2019): Minor update, mostly to fix typos and maintain consistency with the newly released Madou Monogatari III translation. v1.2 (28 Jan 2020): An incomprehensibly minor update that reverts a handful of item descriptions to what they were in v1.0, after an extensive internal investigation determined that they had been erroneously changed. Seriously, it's nothing, we're just trying to keep all the translations for the series as consistent as possible.