******************************************************************************** * Ripple Island * * English Translation Patch * * v1.00 (22 Aug 2018) * * * * Supper -- Hacking * * TheMajinZenki -- Translation * * cccmar -- Editing and Testing * * * ******************************************************************************** The tiny isle of Ripple Island was once a peaceful and abundant land. But since the evil Groaker appeared, kidnapped Princess Nasarell, and proclaimed himself the Emperor of Darkness, black magic has begun to destroy the island's natural environment. Seeking to end this conflict and claim the reward promised by the good King Dotella, a young boy sets out on a journey to Groaker's stronghold north of the island... Ripple Island is a 1988 Famicom adventure game developed by Tokai Engineering and published by Sunsoft. It's a significant departure from the murder mystery and detective adventure games that dominated the Japanese market at the time, instead focusing on gentle themes, colorful graphics, and a fairy tale storyline. This patch fully translates the game into English. **************************************** * Table of Contents * **************************************** I. Patching Instructions II. Authors' Comments III. Localization Notes IV. About Area 2 **************************************** * I. Patching Instructions * **************************************** You'll first need a headered ROM image of Ripple Island. Historically, the game has been labeled "Lipple Island" in ROM set databases; the standard name recognized by No-Intro is "Lipple Island (Japan).nes". Its MD5 sum should be 1c4434d47e58a41ed3752fd2bd4fc916. Before trying to apply the patch, make sure the ROM image has an iNES header. If your ROM's filesize is 131,088 bytes, it's headered. If the filesize is 131,072 bytes, it's unheadered (and will not work with this patch!). This patch 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 256 KB, so don't use any ancient patching utilities that don't support that. **************************************** * II. Authors' Comments * **************************************** ------------ -- Supper -- ------------ This is another project I ultimately owe to Game Center CX. Ripple Island was featured in a bumper segment of an episode I watched some time back; it seemed interesting, but when I looked it up, I discovered there was no translation available for it. Fast forward a few years, and it turns out that (a.) there's still no translation and (b.) I'm now in a position to do something about it. So I started in on the hacking, brought it up with cccmar and TheMajinZenki, and -- skipping a few hacking headaches in between -- here we are. This is a really nice little game, and one I'm very surprised wasn't already done at some point in the twenty-odd years the game translation community's been around. It's got good graphics for 1988, excellent music, and even multiple endings; the only big strike against it in my book is some really awful puzzle design in Area 2 (which is bad enough that I've devoted a section to it below). Nonetheless, it's quite a charming game and well worth a playthrough. As far as hacking goes, this game wasn't too tough. The big thing is that it originally used a nice 8x16 font, which I ended up reluctantly converting to 8x8 for the translation. I hated doing it, but anything else would have required reprogramming most of the game (not happening) or drastically shortening the dialogue (really not happening). Hope no one's too disappointed, but I think the replacement font gets the job done. At least the original font is still used for the credits. Since I don't have anywhere better to put it, I'll mention here that this game has a cheat code: to view the true ending, enter "ATSUSHISAKAI" as the first part of a password (the remaining letters don't matter). Enjoy the game! ------------------- -- TheMajinZenki -- ------------------- This is the first game of this genre I've ever translated, so this was a somewhat different experience as far as translating goes, as this game has less direct dialogue and more "reaction" text for actions. At any rate, it's a charming, cute adventure, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did translating it. ------------ -- cccmar -- ------------ When I contacted Supper regarding Kishin Douji Zenki, he was looking for someone to translate Ripple Island, a text adventure game by Sunsoft -- one of the few text adventure es Sunsoft has ever done. I decided to ask the translator I knew best about it, TheMajinZenki, and he agreed to give the script a go. It didn’t take him long to complete it. Afterwards I did some proofreading of the script, so as to present a more complete version of it to Supper. Interestingly, some characters in the game speak using dialects (like Groaker) or with exaggerated accents (like the Armadillo, who is possibly a Chinese Pangolin -- hence the Chinese accent). Overall, this is a pretty simple, heartwarming tale, very similar to old fairytales in structure, but with some twists and turns on the way. Hopefully you will enjoy it, because I most certainly did! **************************************** * III. Localization Notes * **************************************** Mild spoilers follow. This game had a few bits that didn't translate very well to English, so we localized them as best we could. Anyone familiar with my (Supper's) project history knows I have a bit of a thing about accuracy in translations, so I'm including notes here on what we changed, plus explanations of some jokes that didn't make it in. Hopefully this will placate others like me. Groaker: The only name we actually changed. Originally "Gerogeeru" (from "gerogero", onomatopoeia for a frog's ribbit). Groaker has what TheMajinZenki thinks might be a Nagoya accent; I ended up going with a sort of mobster dialect for him. I hope no Nagoyans are offended. Dotella: From the Japanese name, "doteera" (a pun on "dotera", a type of padded kimono worn for warmth; he wears one). Nasarell: From the Japanese name, "nasareru" (a verb meaning "to do"). JUSTINBAILEY: Originally "TOMOYONODAIPINPON", which can be understood as something like "Tomoyo likes this a lot" -- literally "Tomoyo's *BA-DING*", in the sense of a "that's right!" sound effect. This was the tagline to a contemporary Japanese commercial for the Toyota Corolla II Windy starring idol Tomoyo Harada, which as of this writing can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilSzBp7FtCY Obviously, none of this makes any sense in English, so I went for something more recognizable (and spent a thousand times longer debating this dumb throwaway gag than the game designers ever did). Tanuki: The drunken tanuki uses Edo dialect on top of being drunk. We basically just went with drunk-speak. Armadillo: The nameless armadillo speaks in a stereotypical Chinese accent, which the translation hopefully conveys well enough. We have no idea why he has a sign reading "fitness"/"health". Apparently he's just a proponent of a healthy lifestyle. ATSUSHISAKAI: The cheat to view the true ending. Atsushi Sakai is, presumably, some staff member's name. The Japanese version uses hiragana and Japanese name order ("Sakai Atsushi"). **************************************** * IV. About Area 2 * **************************************** While most of this game's puzzles can be solved with appropriate application of logic, there are some very, very unfortunate design issues in Area 2 that make it far more of a pain than it needs to be. The rest of the game is fine, but Area 2 is bad enough that I've decided to include some critical information here to try to make it more tolerable. If you find yourself stuck in that area, I suggest you check the information below, because even if you manage to find the solution on your own you probably aren't going to feel terribly rewarded. *** PUZZLE SPOILERS FOLLOW **** Three required items in Area 2 can be acquired only through a blind hunt. Here's how to get them: 1. From the start of the area, go North, West, West, North to enter the foxes' cave. Choose the PICK UP action, and click on the stalks growing out of the leaves in the bottom-left corner of the screen (don't click on the leaves themselves!). The female fox will then give you the White Flower. Don't do anything else while in the cave; angering the male fox will cause him to permanently kick you out, rendering the game unwinnable if you don't already have the White Flower (note that this is the only unwinnable scenario in the game). 2. From the start of the area, go North, North, West. LOOK at the bush on the left side of the screen to reveal a Red Fruit. Note that if you pick up and subsequently lose the Red Fruit, you can come back here and repeat the process to get another one. 3. From the start of the area, go North, North, East, East, North, North. PUSH the tree on the right side of the screen and an acorn will fall from it. As with the Red Fruit, this can be collected multiple times if needed. The rest of the area, and the game, should be perfectly doable without further help. *** END OF SPOILERS ****