Super Robot Wars J English Localization Ver. 1.0 The Romhacking Aerie aerie.wingdreams.net Released: December 26, 2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ==================== I'm pretty bad at this kind of stuff, so I'll make it short. It was enjoyable, and the game was nice to work with. They totally rewrote the entire engine after D, and it really shows. The english version has little compromises, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a game with menus so crowded. Oh, and the title screen... it still gives me nightmares even now. I'd like to thank everyone who has helped with this project, but especially Deets and Tyria. Tyria translated this monster in less than a year, and Deets turned the script and the whole project from decent to great with all his skills. The text editing, the graphics, the play- testing... none of this would have been quite as good without his efforts. Him contacting me was really the best thing that could happen to this project. Message from Deets ================== Boy, this took longer than expected, huh? Sorry about that. I know a lot of you have been angry about the lack of updates on the project since earlier in the year. Some of you have even gone so far as to suggest that the patch was a myth, or a prank. That is really creative! Bravo. You were a source of endless amusement/bewilderment to us during the course of working on this project. Please spare us, next time. Thanks. Many thanks, also, to those who did not assume we were working against the communities of both robot fans and people who like rad Japanese video games translated into English. You're too cool for school, but make sure you keep going! You'll need that learning to hack it in our horrifying dystopian future. And by hack it, I mean literally hacking open other people's bones to sustain yourself on the precious marrow within. It's the only way! Yeah, so. History. I joined the project around 2 years ago, after asking Kingcom if he needed help editing J's fairly massive script. That eventually spiralled into doing the graphics, translating a few things (the epilogue, for example), and helping with testing. We've learned a ton of stuff along the way, all of which will be extremely helpful to us during future projects. GBA graphics experience, tricks for quickly optimizing and finding issues in a large script, and the essential robot knowledge that can only be gained from undergoing a mindmeld with a drunk Yoshiyuki Tomino. We can only improve from here. So uh, why did it take us so long to get this thing out, anyway? Man, this stuff takes TIME, bro! For real. First, there was Tyria's original script, which needed work. A lot of work. And after editing was finished, I needed to rewrite some more. And some more. And even at this point, with the game out there and being played by hundreds of people, I could probably keep going forever, editing the script down, and down, until it was nothing more than a brilliant pinprick, shattering the universe with the screams of the burly (and sometimes girly) men and women who pilot our wondrous robotic death machines. You may expect that in the Ver. 1.1. There was also some learning to be done in order to get the title screen and other graphics looking good in English. But really, it was the script. And the menus. And the various little nooks and crannies where text could appear misbehaving in the most curious of ways. We believe to have cured them of their misbehavior, but they are -most- capricious, we found. Also: life. Life has a way of making things take longer than you expect. This project was no exception. Working on this project was unbelievably fun, and pushed me towards fields of study that will probably shape the rest of my life in a profound and unknowable way. Robot studies. On robots. Being the only one you can't forgive. Knowing exactly how many years too young you are to take ME on, kid! And always reminding you that it'll take more than THAT ALONE to take me down! I hope we can bring you another game as TREMENDOUS as this one in the future, and I hope you'll continue to look forward to them, without assuming us to be TOTAL JERKS. Because, like... we're not. Really. ~THANKS GO OUT TO~ Kingcom! Holy cow. You are the first romhacker I've ever worked with, and you've probably spoiled me forever, across all possible dimensions. Please continue to be the baddest dude on the block. I used to think that romhackers were magical beings. Now I know that they are TOTALLY magical beings. Tyria! For translating this game in the first place, because really -- without you, none of this would have been possible. I hope we'll see some of your other translations put to use in finished patches in the near future. Lady Jessica! What would I have done without your eagle eyes? Your unfailing ability to detect mistakes in sentences that appeared heretofore unimpeachable inspires envy. We will work again. Cacophanus! For running mechadamashii.com and answering all of my Layzner and Dancougar-related questions way back in the day. Keep it up, and keep letting people know that Zone of the Enders 2 has totally bankrupt game design. They need to hear it. Ryusui! For making that slick "Wars" version of the Super Robot Taisen logo. throughhim413! I completely lifted the formatting from your readme! Kaioshin, Tyria, TOLLMASTER, BotageL, Kelric, Taco_Hell, and Tom Phoenix! Huge thanks for taking the time to test this thing, sometimes in the most mind-numbing and tedious manner possible. You guys are stupendous. Everybody who helped me out with questions on the romhacking.net forums! mahq.net! An essential resource for romanizations and other info! ...AND YOU EDITING/TRANSLATION NOTES ========================= 13 different TV shows, all translated and localized by different companies/fan groups. Generally, I stuck with whatever romanizations were used in the official English release, if possible. mahq.net was also consulted early and often. Ollie Barder of mechadamashii.com also helped by pointing out that Layzner's "Rei" and Full On" (フォロン) are references to binary code. Many thanks! Tyria was vehemently opposed to the use of macrons, so I went with a simple romanization method that omits most long vowels for consistency and ease of reading. Kouji -> Koji, Hyouma -> Hyoma, Sousuke -> Sosuke, etc. Brain Powered has a character named "Russ Lunberg" (ラッセ・ルンベルク) in the official English release. As far as I can tell, this is a misromanization. His last name can be romanized in a couple different ways, but I couldn't find any examples of ラッセ being romanized as anything other than "Lasse". He's clearly supposed to be Nordic in origin, too so this struck me as a no-brainer. The name used in the patch is "Lasse Lundberg". BIG STICKING POINT: NADESICO Tyria insisted that the "Chulips" in the official English release of Martian Successor Nadesico be rendered as "Tulips," so that's that. And yes, I'm aware of Dan Kanemitsu's excellent Nadesico TV English Translation page (http://www.translativearts.com/tekri/trans/nade/nadetvanec.htm) They're still "Tulips" in this translation. I could go either way, honestly. We happened to go this way. Ruri also refers to her coworkers as "idiots" instead of "fools". Again. Could go either way. Voltes & Combattler's "Choudenji" attacks are rendered as "Super Electromagnetic" or "Super EM" attacks. Pretty straightforward, I think. There's a big death scene from G Gundam that's accompanied by some Chinese that was never translated, even in the English DVD release. The Chinese is an approximation of Master Asia & Domon's little rapport when they first meet up, as it turns out (this was confirmed by series director Yasuhiro Imagawa himself at a recent anime con). The in-game version of this scene had extreme color and positioning limitations that made it difficult to render in English, but we gave it a shot, regardless. That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks for reading! Patching Instructions ===================== To make use of this patch, you will need the included srwjpat.xdelta file and an unpatched rom of Super Robot Taisen J. 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 Super Robot Wars J. If you are familiar with xdelta patching, feel free to use the command line. Othewise, you may want to use one of these interfaces: PC: KaioShin's xdelta UI (http://www.romhacking.net/utils/598/) Mac: Retro's DS ROM Patcher (http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=180142) ****xdeltaUI-specific instructions: 1. Click "open" on the first line ("Patch"), find the location where you extracted the patch to, and select it. NOTE: If the patch doesn't appear when using xdeltaUI.exe, make sure you have "all files" selected from the file-type dropdown box. 2. Next line. Select the raw dump of the game as your "source". 3. Select the directory where you want your patched rom to appear, and name it appropriately. 4. Click "Patch" to patch the rom. LOCALIZATION STAFF ================== Programming Kingcom Translation Tyria Text Editing Deets, YuushaFan Graphics Deets w/help from Ryusui Beta Testing KaioShin Tyria Lady Jessica TOLLMASTER BotageL Kelric Taco_Hell Tom Phoenix Special Thanks KaioShin Lady Jessica Cacophanus