******************************************************************************** * Tengai Makyou: Ziria * * English Translation Patch * * by LIPEMCO! Translations * * v1.0 (06 Dec 2023) * * * * Supper -- Hacking * * TheMajinZenki -- Translation * * cccmar -- Testing * ******************************************************************************** Long, long ago, amidst the seas of the farthest reaches of the Far East, there was once a mystical land called Jipang: a beautiful and terrible place where gods and demons, wonders and horrors, men and beasts alike all coexisted in a strange and fantastic harmony. But that harmony is threatened when a foreign religion called the Cult of Daimon arrives on the country's shores and begins spreading across the land, its leaders aiming to steal human souls in order to revive the sealed demon Masakado and transform Jipang into their own utopia. Will Ziria, the fated hero descended from the Fire Clan which once sealed Masakado, stop the wicked Daimonists – or will Jipang's oriental beauty burn in demonic hellfire? Tengai Makyou: Ziria is the debut entry of the Tengai Makyou series. Published by Hudson Soft for the PC-Engine CD-ROM² system in 1989, it was the first RPG ever released on CD and served as a showcase for the new medium, with elaborate visuals and voice acting far beyond what any competing title could offer. Its success led it to become the first in a popular series, very little of which was ever released outside Japan. Oh, and don't pay too much attention to that first paragraph. The game may wear the trappings of a serious plot, but the real theme is "what foreigners mistakenly think Japan is like." This patch fully translates the game into English. **************************************** * Table of Contents * **************************************** I. Patching Instructions II. Running the Game III. Known Issues IV. Additional Features V. FAQ VI. Bonuses and Easter Eggs VII. Authors' Comments VIII. Special Thanks IX. Version History **************************************** * I. Patching Instructions * **************************************** To use this translation, you'll need to apply a patch to a disc image of the game. Unfortunately, patching disc images is inherently complicated because there are numerous CD image formats in use, as well as many ways that poorly-written disc ripping programs can mess things up and make a patch not work properly. As a result, this is a rather long section – sorry! But please read it over carefully before complaining that the patch doesn't work. Just to be clear: this patching process is designed to support every disc image format it reasonably can. Though a Redump-verified disc image is a definite plus, options are provided to patch pretty much any image so long as it has the correct data track. If you don't have one of the Redump images, just go ahead and try to patch whatever you have using whichever of the options below applies to it. Now then, here are your options for patching, approximately ordered from best to worst: A. Directly patch a single-file Redump-verified BIN or IMG image B. Directly patch a multi-track Redump-verified BIN image C. Automatically patch a BIN or IMG image via binpatch.bat D. Automatically patch an ISO+WAV+CUE image via isopatch.bat E. Manually patch These options are explained in the subsections that follow. ----------------- - GAME VERSIONS - ----------------- Several different versions of Tengai Makyou exist: - Revision 6: The original release from 1989 for the base CD system. - Revision 7: A bugfixed update. - Super CD version: A later (1992) version of the game that targets the Super CD-ROM² hardware. This translation is based on Revision 7, so it's the primary target for the patching process. Because the differences between Revisions 6 and 7 are fairly minimal, patches are also provided for Revision 6. The Super CD version, however, makes many internal changes to the game, including compressing all of the map data, and is therefore *not* supported by this patching process. Please use Revision 6 or 7 instead. ------------------- - BEFORE STARTING - ------------------- It should go without saying, but first, extract all the contents of the translation patch's ZIP to your hard drive if you haven't already. Before you start, you'll need to determine what format your disc image is in. At the very least, you must have an image in BIN+CUE, IMG+CUE, or ISO+WAV+CUE format; more exotic formats are not supported. It's unfortunately not uncommon to come across disc images that don't use the standard file extensions used in this section, or use them differently from normal, which makes things very confusing. Some tips: - One common way of distributing disc images is the "dual CCD/CUE" format. This consists of four files: a CCD, a CUE, an IMG (or possibly BIN), and a SUB. If your image is like this, you can throw away the CCD and SUB files, as they aren't needed for the patch. For our purposes, an IMG is the same as a BIN, so any references to a "BIN" below can also refer to an "IMG" or vice versa. - If your disc image has a CCD but no CUE, you may be able to patch it with method A. If that fails, you'll need to look into creating or obtaining a CUE file for the disc. - If your disc image consists of a CUE and a large number of BIN files, it's in the "split BIN" format. This format is particularly used by the distributions available on certain archival web sites. It's possible to patch this format as long as the BIN files represent one of the Redump disc images, just split up into its component tracks. - You're not likely to see them much these days, but old, lossy formats like ISO+MP3 are not supported. -------------------------------------------------------------------- - A. Directly patch a single-file Redump-verified BIN or IMG image - -------------------------------------------------------------------- Use this method if at all possible. While not as simple as the auto-patching method described later, it gives the most reliable results. You can patch using this method if your disc image *exactly* matches one of the two verified "good" images as listed on Redump.org, and if all the tracks on the disc are combined into one single BIN or IMG file. First, check that your disc image contains a single file with the extension ".bin" or ".img". If it does, verify that that file matches one of the following specifications. (If you don't know how to do that, just go ahead and follow the steps listed below; if you get an error, your disc image is wrong.) REVISION 7: http://redump.org/disc/37134/ Redump name: Far East of Eden: Tengai Makyou: Ziria CRC32: ed6bc123 MD5: 2deae1bfcc13ffe0d4e52b59883a9376 SHA-1: 67fe95097fd18c0e063de947430f538f3893d3ec REVISION 6: http://redump.org/disc/27388/ Redump name: Far East of Eden: Tengai Makyou: Ziria CRC32: 73f049f7 MD5: 6b8e12679d529fbefdea8bda6649774e SHA-1: f47f6ab6ae79fae79354364dfe9ee87c0398b87e If your disc image is a match, all you need to do is apply an xdelta patch to the BIN or IMG file, then rename it and pair it with the CUE file provided in the download. 1. Extract the "redump_patch" folder from the translation ZIP and open it. 2. Run "DeltaPatcher.exe", which should be present in that folder. This is the popular Delta Patcher program for applying xdelta patches. If you're not using Windows, you'll need to obtain an alternate patching program for your system, such as the command-line "xdelta3" program. 3. Locate the .xdelta patch files in the "redump_patch" folder. Select the one labeled "Revision 7" or "Revision 6" depending on which version you have. 4. Use Delta Patcher (or another xdelta patching tool) to apply the patch to the BIN or IMG file. If you get an error, you'll need to try one of the other patching methods below. 5. If your disc image came with a CCD or CUE file, delete it now. DO NOT USE THE OLD CCD OR CUE FILE WITH THE PATCHED IMAGE! Also get rid of any SUB file if it exists. It's not needed. 6. The "redump_patch" directory should contain a CUE file with a name like "Tengai Makyou - Ziria EN [v1.0] Redump.cue". Rename your patched disc image so it has *exactly* the same name as the CUE, except with a .bin extension instead of .cue. IMPORTANT: If the file you patched was originally an IMG file, make sure that you change the extension to .bin. The CUE will not work if the extension is .img. 7. You're done! Make sure you have the CUE and BIN in the same directory, then open the CUE in an emulator. Or if you have the hardware, burn the image to a CD and play it on your PC-Engine. Or better yet, use a Turbo EverDrive or something, because it's a whole lot less hassle. ------------------------------------------------------------- - B. Directly patch a multi-track Redump-verified BIN image - ------------------------------------------------------------- One common distribution of the game found on certain archival sites uses the Redump-verified disc image, but splits it up into separate tracks instead of combining them into a single file. This is easily recognized by the presence of 6 separate BIN files and a single CUE. Before patching: - Make sure that your disc's CUE file has a name like "Far East of Eden - Tengai Makyou - Ziria (Japan) (Rev 7).cue". "(Rev 6)" is also acceptable for the final label, but make sure that it is *not* "(Hibaihin)"; this is the Super CD version of the game, and isn't supported. - Make sure that the BIN files are named like this: Far East of Eden - Tengai Makyou - Ziria (Japan) (Rev 7) (Track 1).bin Far East of Eden - Tengai Makyou - Ziria (Japan) (Rev 7) (Track 2).bin … Far East of Eden - Tengai Makyou - Ziria (Japan) (Rev 7) (Track 6).bin To patch: 1. Copy the CUE file and all BIN files into the "splitbin_patch" directory. 2. Drag-and-drop the CUE file onto "binpatch_rev7.bat" (to patch a Revision 7 disc) or "binpatch_rev6.bat" (Revision 6). 3. If all goes well, this should produce a new, single-track format disc image in the same directory. (This works by simply combining all the tracks together and then applying the same patch as in method A.) 4. Use the CUE file provided in the "splitbin_patch" directory to play the game. -------------------------------------------------------------- - C. Automatically patch a BIN or IMG image via binpatch.bat - -------------------------------------------------------------- If your disc doesn't match the Redump dump, or you otherwise couldn't get method A to work, it may still be possible to patch it. If your disc is in BIN+CUE format or IMG+CUE format, and you're using Windows: 1. Make sure that your BIN/IMG and CUE have the same base name (e.g. "tenma.bin" and "tenma.cue", or "tenma.img" and "tenma.cue"). Note that if you rename the BIN file, you will need to open your CUE in a text editor and make the same change to any occurrences of the name inside the file. 2. Copy both the BIN/IMG and CUE into the "auto_patch" directory. 3. Drag-and-drop the BIN/IMG file onto either "binpatch_rev7.bat" or "binpatch_rev6.bat", depending on which version you think you have. 4. If all goes well, this should produce an ISO+WAV+CUE format disc image in the same directory. ---------------------------------------------------------------- - D. Automatically patch an ISO+WAV+CUE image via isopatch.bat - ---------------------------------------------------------------- If your disc image is already in ISO+WAV+CUE format, you can perform a procedure similar to patching via binpatch.bat: 1. Copy all the disc image files to the "auto_patch" directory. 2. Drag-and-drop track 2 of your image onto "isopatch_rev7.bat" or "isopatch_rev6.bat", depending on which version you think you have. 3. If all goes well, this should produce an ISO+WAV+CUE format disc image in the same directory. --------------------- - E. Manually patch - --------------------- You can also attempt to apply the xdelta patches in the "auto_patch" directory to the ISO of an ISO+WAV+CUE image manually. Pretty much the only reason to do this is if you're on Linux and can't or won't use Wine. If that's the case, then presumably you're smart enough to handle it yourself, so you're on your own here. **************************************** * II. Running the Game * **************************************** ** NOTE: This patch was developed and tested using two forks of v1.29.0 of the Mednafen emulator: the mainline version that you'll find if you search for "Mednafen", and the "pceDev" fork that has improved PC-Engine features and accuracy (https://github.com/pceDev16/mednafenPceDev/). The translation should run fine on either version, but some subtitles won't appear soon enough on mainline Mednafen due to the disc seek delays not being accurately emulated. If you're planning to play on Mednafen, we recommend using the pceDev branch if possible. If you're unfamiliar with the PC-Engine, figuring out how to run CD-based games can be confusing. This section tries to make things clear for new users. The simple version is this: Originally, NEC/Hudson released the PC-Engine. Then they decided they needed a CD add-on and released the CD-ROM² ("CD ROM-ROM") system. Then they decided that their original CD add-on wasn't powerful enough, so they made the upgraded Super CD-ROM². Most CD-based games target the Super CD-ROM² and are not compatible with the original, unenhanced CD-ROM². Tengai Makyou was actually not a Super CD-ROM² game in its original release. However, this patch converts it into one so that the Super CD system's extra memory can be used to provide a high-quality translation, and also improve the game's notably poor loading times. As a result, you'll need to have a ROM image of the Super CD-ROM² System Card Version 3.00 in order to play the translation. Using a card with a lower version number will cause an error screen to appear when the game starts. (Though you can still play the game in Japanese in this case!) You're on your own for obtaining the BIOS image; the No-Intro name is "[BIOS] Super CD-ROM System (Japan) (v3.0).pce". You'll also need to set up your emulator to use this BIOS image, of course. Stock versions of Mednafen will look for a file named "syscard3.pce" in the "firmware" directory and give an error if it doesn't exist, so move and rename your BIOS image accordingly. Mesen2 will prompt you for the BIOS image the first time you try to launch a CD game. Other emulators have their own setup procedures, so check their documentation for instructions. Additionally, make sure to run the game in two-button Control Pad mode. The PC-Engine was originally released with controllers that had two buttons, but later had upgraded controllers released with six buttons. The six-button controllers use a different protocol from the two-button controllers, meaning that games that weren't specifically designed to support them – including this one – will have "glitchy" input unless the controller is put in two-button compatibility mode. Emulators will generally default to two-button mode, but if you have problems with the game not accepting input or pressing buttons on its own, check your emulator's settings. **************************************** * III. Known Issues * **************************************** As mentioned above, in the demo sequences that appear if the game is left idle at the title screen, some subtitles will appear slightly too late on mainline Mednafen due to inaccurate emulation. This shouldn't occur on real hardware or the more accurate pceDev branch. This translation adds a new "Turbo" text speed setting that prints all text as fast as the hardware can handle processing it. This causes any animations that are playing to temporarily freeze until the text finishes printing. If you find this bothersome, don't set the text speed above Fast. In a related issue, if the game is saved with the text speed set to Turbo, and that save file is then loaded in the Japanese version of the game, text printing will not work correctly and become filled with erratic delays. This can be fixed by using the Mode menu to set the text speed to any of the three original speed settings. **************************************** * IV. Additional Features * **************************************** In the interest of providing a slightly more palatable experience for the modern player, we've added a few features to the translation that weren't in the original. Don't worry: the game itself is unchanged, but you can make a few things go slightly faster now. -------------- - Load Times - -------------- This translation converts the original game, which was for the base CD hardware, into a Super CD-ROM² game, quadrupling the amount of memory available. This was done primarily to make it easier to add extra code and resources that were needed for the translation, but since those only take up a small portion of the extra memory, we used the remaining space to make improvements to the game's rather long and frequent load times. (As previously noted, the game's official Super CD conversion tried to do this, so strictly speaking, it's not really a "new" feature.) - The code modules for the overworld and battle system are permanently cached to memory at startup, and no longer have to be loaded from disc when switching game modes. This also means that the ADPCM buffer is no longer used as a middleman when loading those modules, providing further speedups. The small downside to this is that the jingle played when an encounter starts is rarely heard in full in the translation, since the game now finishes loading well before the music ends. We figure that given the choice, most people would take the reduced wait times over hearing the whole track every time. - The two most recently used overworld maps are kept cached in memory. When moving to a new map, the game won't have to load from disc if the new map is either of the cached ones. This greatly improves on situations where you repeatedly switch to the same map (such as in towns, where you're constantly returning to the same map as you go in and out of buildings). It also means the game doesn't have to reload the current map from disc when returning to the overworld after a battle. Combined with the code module caching, this makes transitioning to and from battle extremely fast compared to the original game. - Since a small bit of memory was still free after implementing the above enhancements, it was used to cache the item and jutsu descriptions, meaning there's no longer a load delay when opening the Descriptions menu. -------------- - Text Speed - -------------- The original game's text speed maxes out at one character per frame (when holding Button I with text speed set to "Fast"). To account for the fact that English uses more characters than Japanese, the translation doubles all text speeds, so the fastest "standard" text speed is now two characters per frame. However, an additional "Turbo" text speed setting has also been added. If used, the game will print all text as fast as possible with no delays. As noted in the Known Issues section, this causes animations to temporarily freeze, so don't use it if you're trying to properly savor the game. (But if you wanted that, you probably wouldn't be using the fastest text speed anyway.) Also, it's a small thing, but using the auto-battle feature (press Select during combat) will now increase the text speed just as if you were holding Button I, because if you're using this feature at all, it's a pretty safe bet you want the battle to go faster. -------------- - Voice Skip - -------------- The original game doesn't provide the option to skip individual lines of voiced dialogue. Turning on the "Line Skip" option means that pressing Button II will turn off voice acting and fast-forward through the current text until the box closes, which is "thoughtful," but very clunky and probably not what most people actually want. As a result, we decided to add the ability to skip individual voice clips simply by pressing Button I, though the original "fast-forward" mode is still available in the Mode menu if you want it. ------------------- - Language Select - ------------------- This translation requires the Super CD-ROM²'s expanded memory to run, and will show an error message on startup if run on an incompatible BIOS (below version 3.0). However, the original game is for the basic, non-Super CD system, so we included the option to play the game in Japanese instead in this scenario. Simply press Run on the error screen, as it instructs you. We've also included a code to allow you to play the game in Japanese even on a Super CD-ROM² system. After pressing Run on the BIOS startup screen to start the game, hold Up, Select, and Button II. This will force the System Card error message to appear, at which point you can, as before, press Run to boot into the Japanese version of the game. **************************************** * V. FAQ * **************************************** Q. Hey, I thought this game was called "Far East of Eden"? A. Short answer: Not really. Maybe. Long answer: According to the game's "backstory," "Far East of Eden" is the title of a book written by P.H. Chada, an American devotee of Japanese (or perhaps "Jipangese") history, with this game presented as an "adaptation" of that book. In reality, neither P.H. Chada nor his book exist; they're a framing device to explain the game's wildly inaccurate depiction of Japan, which is supposed to represent foreigners' misperceptions of the country. As part of this conceit, "Far East of Eden" appears prominently on the box art, title screen, marketing materials, etc., for many games in the series, which led many Westerners to interpret it as part of the title (perhaps assuming it to be a translation of "Tengai Makyou," which it is not). However, it's really not a "proper" part of the title. Look this game up on any Japanese-language resource – web sites, old magazine coverage, you name it – and you'll find that it is unfailingly referred to as "Tengai Makyou" with no mention of "Far East of Eden" beyond maybe printing it next to the logo. It's probably easiest to understand if you look at the title screen and try to perceive things as a Japanese person would. The Japanese text, "Tengai Makyou", is the part that naturally draws a Japanese speaker's attention, since it's in their native language. The English text is secondary, and mostly there to create an impression – it's emphasizing the idea that some sort of mixture of Eastern and Western cultures is going on here. It's really not meant to be an actual part of the title (so Redump, please stop labeling the game as "Far East of Eden: Tengai Makyou," thank you). That said, the only game in the series to get an official release outside of Japan was the Neo Geo fighting game Tengai Makyou: Shinden, which was localized under the title "Kabuki Klash" while retaining the "Far East of Eden" text that already appeared above the game's logo. Whether that makes "Far East of Eden" part of the localized title or not isn't clear, but it certainly muddies the waters further. In the end, you probably shouldn't worry about it too much. Q. Okay, so if "Tengai Makyou" doesn't translate to "Far East of Eden," what DOES it mean? A. Short answer: It's not really translatable. For the long answer, we'll first refer to part of a sidebar that appeared in the Japanese magazine PC Engine Fan's pre-release coverage of the game (May 1989 issue, p. 14, translation by Supper): 『天外魔境』のヒミツは…？ What are the secrets of 'Tengai Makyou'...? どうして「天外魔境」というタイトルがついたのか？ これは、原作者のアメリカ人チャダから見た日本（ジパング）が、 「奇想天外な魔境」であったことがひとつ。 また、天上界から地上を支配する悪神がいて、その天上界を呪うことばとして、 その名が付けられたというのがもうひとつ。 Why is the title "Tengai Makyou"? One reason is that Japan (Jipang) as seen by the author of the original work, the American "Chada," was a "kisou tengai na makyou" [奇想天外な魔境, literally "fantastic mysterious place" or "bizarre demon-infested place"]. Another is that there is an evil god who rules over the earth from heaven, and that name was created as a phrase to curse heaven. The individual characters in "Tengai Makyou" and their meanings are as follows: 天 "ten" = heaven 外 "gai" = outside 魔 "ma" = demon 境 "kyou" = place/boundary "Tengai" (天外) by itself means "beyond the heavens" (literally) or "the furthest reaches" (metaphorically). "Makyou" (魔境) means "demon-infested place" (literally) or "mysterious place" (metaphorically). Put together, they don't form a real word, but give an impression that includes elements of "a demonic place beyond heaven" and "a faraway and mysterious place." Basically, it's a title that's meant to sound "cool" while also being a bit ridiculous in context, since to a Japanese person, Japan is obviously neither of those things. You can see how "Far East of Eden" has a loose thematic connection to the actual title, but it's certainly not a translation of it (because, as stated, it's really not translatable). Incidentally, this title is heavily "inspired" by the title of the "Jingai Makyou" (人外魔境, "[mysterious] uninhabited place") serial stories that were published from 1939 to 1941. Q. Ugh, you used Japanese honorifics? Why? A. Well, the entire concept of this series is that it represents the worldview of an idiotic weeaboo who's reverential of the fantastic and mystical land of "Jipang" while understanding nothing about it. From that perspective, leaving honorifics in is the most fitting thing we could possibly do. More seriously, this is an extremely Japanese game, and we felt that honorifics worked well with it. Dropping them would certainly have been the "safer" option – very few people will notice or care if honorifics are absent, and quite the opposite if they're present – but if there was ever a game where keeping honorifics fits, this is probably it. Sorry to anyone who finds it bothersome; as always, feel free to download the source code and edit the script to your liking. Q. If there was already a Super CD version of the game, why didn't you base the translation on that instead of making your own Super CD conversion? A. Because the official Super CD version kind of sucks. It somehow manages to use the system's large amounts of additional memory to make the load times *longer* than the original while adding absolutely no enhancements. Also, that version wasn't even released commercially, or at least wasn't intended to be: it was a giveaway prize for a Duo sales campaign which flopped, allegedly resulting in many copies of the game ending up in stores at discount prices. Using the Super CD version as a base would also have made it harder to integrate the translation into the game, since most of the expanded memory is already used in that version. Basically, despite what you might expect, this was the best option. Doing the Super CD conversion from scratch allowed us to do everything our way, and also to make loading optimizations that actually, you know, work. Q. Why does the title screen say "Tengai Makyō" when you wrote "Tengai Makyou" everywhere else? A. Honestly? Because it was going to be impossible to cram another letter in there without squishing the logo to the point of looking ridiculous, and this was a convenient out. No deeper reason than that. Q. Is there a point to the "thieving school" minigame? A. No, unless you're in desperate need of a few pennies. Originally, stealing was supposed to be a major game mechanic: you would break into the businesses of corrupt merchants and steal money to give away to those in need in order to gain Virtue. As a result of repeated changes during development, this aspect was gradually whittled down until it was completely removed from the main game, with the already-developed code and levels for it recycled as a pointless minigame in Kumogiri Hamlets. Q. How do I beat [name of boss] without grinding for 15 levels? A. Tsukine Powder and luck. Q. So like, this game is fine and all, but when are you going to translate Tengai Makyou II? I've heard lots of hype and buzz about how super long and expensive it was! A. Sorry, we have no plans to translate Tengai Makyou II. Please see Supper's section of the Authors' Comments for more information. **************************************** * VI. Bonuses and Easter Eggs * **************************************** =============== = Auto-Battle = =============== It's less a bonus and more an undocumented feature, but pressing Select during battle activates a simple auto-battle feature that simulates mashing the I Button every other frame, causing your party to use normal attacks on the first enemy over and over. ====================== = Folk Tale Classics = ====================== A small series of bonus scenes can be accessed from the title screen. Use a multitap to plug a controller into port 3, then press Run on it while the title screen is displayed. ================= = Bonus Gallery = ================= After completing the game, when the "The End" message appears, press any button and the game will show a bonus gallery of animations from the game, as well as a few from earlier versions that got cut. (This is speculation, but this feature's length and content suggests that it was repurposed from a rejected credits sequence that got replaced with the final game's more elaborate setup. It's pretty easy to imagine the staff credits appearing alongside these scenes.) =================== = Edo Easter Eggs = =================== In the course of making this translation, we discovered a set of highly elaborate developer easter eggs hidden in Edo that have, as far as we can tell, never before been found. So here they are for your enjoyment! --------------------- - Activation Method - --------------------- To activate the easter eggs: 1. Start a new game and play normally, but don't free the White Deer in Kashima Shrine. In order for this procedure to work, you must not release it at any point. Note that this will make the game significantly harder, since the Wakakusa jutsu is normally an important source of cheap healing. 2. Continue playing all the way up to Edo, the final area. 3. Enter the Show Tent. IMPORTANT: Until you've done everything described below, don't leave or do anything else, or you'll be permanently locked out of using this code. 4. Walk up to the pedestal directly north of the entrance and use the "Talk" command on it. A stream of water will spawn on top of it. 5. Walk 1 step left, 3 steps up, and then 1 step left. You should now be facing the only character on the left side of the audience that's wearing green clothing. Use the "Talk" command again. If the code has been entered correctly, Tsunade will say her normal line about how quiet the audience is, and the easter eggs listed below will become accessible. If nothing happens, then you did something wrong. ---------------- - Coffin Maker - ---------------- A small secret can be found by using the Check command on the third container from the bottom on the left side of the Coffin Maker's shop. --------------- - Stonecutter - --------------- A new character will appear at the Stonecutter's shop. He has a special scene that occurs after the event where Tsunade crushes a block. ------------------- - Earthquake Room - ------------------- Go to Hoteimaru's earthquake experience room and select the "Extreme" setting. The ladder will fall in an unusual location; follow it to reach an extra room with an additional NPC. ------------------ - Kabuki Theater - ------------------ After watching the show at the Kabuki Theater, the curtains will remain open instead of closing. Go to the right side of the long bit of the stage that protrudes into the middle of the room. You'll find that the third block from the bottom is not solid, and you can use it to walk onto the stage. Follow it backstage to find an unusual room. You can "Check" the keyboard at the upper-right side for an additional effect. **************************************** * VII. Authors' Comments * **************************************** ----------------- - TheMajinZenki - ----------------- Tengai Makyou Ziria has been an interesting project. I didn't know about the series beforehand, so I had to do a lot of research. It was a fairly challenging translation due to its many references to Japanese culture, from folklore, to Japanese history and geography, up to modern popular culture (at least, modern for 1989). My favorite character was without a doubt Tsunade, as I'm sure many will agree. At any rate, I hope you will enjoy this PC Engine gem! ---------- - cccmar - ---------- Tengai Makyou is probably one of the most overlooked series in the West. It's important historically, but barely known outside of Japan (no surprise there, seeing that none of the RPGs were released overseas). Red Entertainment in the West is arguably mostly known for Record of Agarest War, but in Japan their most popular series were/are Tengai Makyou, Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and, of course, Sakura Taisen. So, what's the first Tengai Makyou game like? It's a fairly standard RPG, with a good amount of cutscenes/voice acting, especially for 1989 (totally novel stuff at the time). You go from town to town, solve the local issues while fighting monsters/navigating dungeons, which have some secrets every now and then, in order to deal with the Cult of Daimon; rinse and repeat. It stands out in its presentation for the time; it has a good soundtrack and many likeable characters. The difficulty is quite high if you don't know certain tricks later on ('Sleep' spells/items and Ice Mirror will become some of your best friends). Some of the triggers can be a bit obtuse and it's not always fully obvious what to do, but if you talk to every NPC, you should be able to figure things out on your own. Overall, it's a good effort for the time, and while it will be outdone by the later entries in the series (in particular Manjimaru, one of the top bestsellers on PCE-CD), it holds an important place in video game history. If you're interested in learning more about this game, Jimmy Hapa of Import Gaming FTW! has a good video on it up on YouTube! ---------- - Supper - ---------- "Supper, why do you waste your time translating games nobody goddamn cares about like Galaxy Fraulein Yuna instead of the ones people actually want to play?" no one's ever asked me, probably because no one's paying any attention because I only ever translate games nobody goddamn cares about. But if anyone out there has ever looked at the list of projects I've worked on over the last five years, I expect they had a thought that was more or less equivalent. Well, here you are: an honest-to-god "major" game from a big mainstream franchise, an important critical and commercial success that was the foundation of a hit series. Am I in the big leagues now? Will they inscribe my name on the walls next to Gideon Zhi, Tomato, Tom, and Neill Corlett? When do I get my golden CD-ROM? I didn't originally intend to work on this game; I didn't even start the project, really. During a thumb-twiddling period on Yuna back in 2021, I found out dot_lvl (https://www.twitch.tv/dot_lvl) was planning to do a translation of the game as a stream series, but didn't have a script dump to work from. I'm always looking for interesting things to work on, it seemed fairly low-risk, and most importantly I had nothing else to do at the time, so I put together a partial script dump in about a week and offered it up on the off chance it might turn into a full translation project. But while dot was very gracious and I think we were both hopeful, that ended up being the last of things for quite some time for understandable real-life reasons. Near the start of this year, we tried to resume the project. I put together a complete script dump and set up all the basic script insertion, but for various reasons, things again didn't pan out. Ultimately, after TheMajinZenki's schedule opened up, I asked dot to just let us do it instead, and that's what ended up happening. I know it's no comfort, but I feel terrible for the way it all worked out, and I'm sorry all I have to offer are hollow apologies. But regardless, that cleared the way for production to finally get underway in earnest at the end of August. Things went about as smoothly as they could have, and we basically made steady progress from then until now. It's a long game, but not monumentally so; I don't have the statistics on hand, but I believe it's comparable in length to Community Pom if not shorter, so we've certainly done projects on this scale before. It wasn't _easy_ – especially for TheMajinZenki, who had to deal with a lot of intensely Japanese material laced with more obscure jokes and pop culture references than ever – but fundamentally, it wasn't anything new to us. That said, coming from a well-known series resulted in the game having some rather lofty expectations attached. Based on my discussions with other people in the PC-Engine community, this game seems to exist in some strange space where, thanks to being an early and rather primitive CD title, no one is super enthusiastic about the idea of hacking it, but everyone nevertheless feels that it absolutely must have a top-notch translation due to its historic importance. So, with community enthusiasm tepid but expectations high, I perhaps rolled my eyes a little but gave it my all. Battle messages look awkward because there's no automatic word wrap? Well, guess we're adding that in, then. Item names won't fit? Screw cutting them down or using icons, let's implement automatic text squishing. We need subtitles for the attract demos no one's actually going to watch? Ha, that's old hat by now. Oh, whoops, the intro's text is too flowery for a good translation to fit in three lines? Time to add hacks all across the whole printing code so we can use four instead, just for that sequence! And by special request, I even spent some time cooking up improvements to the game's subpar loading times (it really says something about how bad the official Super CD version is that I easily improved on it with a few days and no source code). Honestly, I enjoyed putting this together, but the effort may be a little excessive for what the game actually is: an RPG with high production values and future-facing visuals and voice acting, but also very old-school and orthodox-to-a-fault gameplay. It's a historic milestone, and it's certainly not a bad game – it was undoubtedly considered very good in 1989, when it was going up against the likes of Dragon Quest III and Final Fantasy II – but it's the kind of game you really have to be into old-style RPGs to enjoy playing for long, which unfortunately undermines the aspects of the game which are the most unique and interesting: the unusual setting, high-powered visuals, and oddball characters. And that, I have to say, nicely answers that question no one's ever asked me. This was a major mainstream title, it had high expectations attached to it, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ends up being my most-played translation project to date simply due to name recognition. But at the end of the day, I have to tell you: I work on games nobody goddamn cares about because I'm into them, and I just wasn't that into this. I didn't dislike it, I didn't not enjoy it, but frankly? I'd take Galaxy Fraulein Yuna over it any day. But you know, whatever. I put a lot of work into this in the hopes that people would enjoy it, and I especially hope that you, person who actually reads the readme, will. Even if it's not to my tastes personally, it's a well-made game, and it was worth snapping a two-year, three hundred and fifty-eight–day streak of exclusively doing fan translations of games with girl protagonists for it. So thank you, and enjoy. P.S. Zenki's 100% right, Tsunade is the best character. I kept thinking while working on this about how much I'd rather be playing a game about Tsunade, then I realized that's basically Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. P.P.S. I promised multiple people we weren't going to do Tengai Makyou II as part of fraught negotiations that allowed us to work on this game. Please please please don't start in about Tengai Makyou II, because unless everyone else who's already working on it is wiped off the face of the Earth by meteorites, we're not doing it. Though now that we're finally done with this, I might actually play it and find out what all the damn fuss is about. **************************************** * VIII. Special Thanks * **************************************** The existence of this translation is owed to dot_lvl. Thank you, and sorry for the way things worked out. Additional apologies to Tom and EsperKnight, whose own translation effort we unintentionally sniped. It's unfortunate, but honestly, things could have turned out much worse. Thank you to elmer for some helpful pointers during the map dumping process, as well as for extracting some promises from Supper about optimizing the load times (anyone who plays the translation really ought to be grateful for this!). And, of course, thanks as always for the bugfixed bchunk executable. Thanks to SadNES cITy Translations for the Delta Patcher program, which is bundled with this patch as a convenience. And while Xanathis was sadly unable to participate in testing this time around due to circumstances beyond his control, we'd like to thank him anyway for being a steadfast presence in our little band of weirdos. Sorry you missed it...though considering how brutal the game can sometimes get, you may actually have lucked out there. **************************************** * IX. Version History * **************************************** v1.0 (06 Dec 2023): Initial release.