Far East of Eden Zero translation is finished!

[dejan07]

Yeah, that's right. Far East of Eden Zero translation is finished! The Holy Grail of SNES RPG's is finally translated by Tom's translations!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8kWIm-Bcas

The only thing left to do is to hack a few menus and compile all the data into a patch.

Tom has hoped that byuu will accomplish last part of the job but byuu said he will do it eventually. After a couple of months of waiting still nothing. I know there a good hackers on this forum so please guys help the Tom's translations to finish this great RPG! He did great job translating it!

[bxbcore]

that is incredible news! This game is supposed to be hilarious and rather fun, full of Western references. I'm excited to play it.

[Jorpho]

Tom has hoped that byuu will accomplish last part of the job but byuu said he will do it eventually. After a couple of months of waiting still nothing. I know there a good hackers on this forum so please guys help the Tom's translations to finish this great RPG!

So, in other words, it's not "finished".

I got my hopes up there for a second.

[Tom]

Hi, I'm the translator for Far East of Eden: Tengai Makyou Zero. "Dejan07" sent me a message that he made this post, and told me to come here and clarify things... So here I am.

First, I should clearly state that I'm not requesting help with the hacking. Byuu said he hasn't given up on it yet. He just has other things he wants to do instead, and has no plans to work on it in the near future. LostTemplar (who hacked the game to the extent that I could provide the footage on my youtube channel) may eventually take the reigns again, rather than let the game slip into an eternal "eventually." But much like byuu, he can't commit to it at the moment. The translation is in limbo, unfortunately.

The scripts translation's been finished for ages. It's just the hacking that remains. When people hear that the "translation's finished," they might get the wrong idea and think that the game's available now. The title of this topic might mislead people The game's playable from start to finish, but it'll take more than a couple of months to be in a state worthy of release, even if dedicated hacking progress began right now.

The big issues with the game: not all menus display properly, graphics haven't been touched, the calendar system needs to be retooled since the game stops counting the years a while back, and the credits cause the game to hang. That said, the script itself is some of my best work. The game WILL blow you away... When you get to play it. I just hope that's a matter of years, and not decades.

As for bxbcore's comment, I think you're confusing this game with Tengai Makyou Daiyon no Mokushiroku. This game had very little in the way of western references... However, there are some localized terms that will make more sense to westerners... The usual pun stuff.

And hey, sorry you got your hopes up there, Jorpho. I think dejan07 meant well, and I do hope the project "really" gets finished and in your hands in due time.

[dejan07]

Great to see you here Tom. 
The trick is to let people know about your work and help you to get it even better in the future. It is important to state that there is no a lot of hacking left to do in Far East of Eden but the hacker who accomplishes it will get a lot attention from the gaming community. Happy Console Gamer who has 150,000 subscribers has already announced that he will make a promotional video about this game when it is finished and on this forum we can make it happen.

[KingMike]

Indeed I think the game's clock stopped after 2014. I think byuu said he could raise it to like 2099 or something.

[Tom]

Yeah, Happy Console Gamer is a big Tengai Makyou series fan. I've been subscribed to him for a while. Not too long ago, he posted a video about Kabuki being his favorite character of all time, and he listed Kabuki's appearances, but I was surprised that he left out Tengai Makyou Zero (which features Kabuki as a cameo). Unfortunately, Kabuki's role in Tengai Makyou Zero (and his dialogue) is a far cry from his original appearances, which were much more... boisterous... in the PC Engine games. Compared to those, the SFC version of Kabuki is quite tame, so I can understand thinking of the Zero appearance as totally unrelated to the "real" Kabuki. 

By the way, I hope people refer to the series of games as the Tengai Makyou series rather than the Far East of Eden series... Not all Tengai series games fall under the Far East of Eden label. Far East of Eden is the name of the (made up) "history book" that inspired the Japanese developers to work with the (also made up) "PH Chada" to make a game based on his "masterpiece..." So games that are not about the history of Jipang (namely Daiyon no Mokushiroku: The Apocalypse IV and Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai) do not fall under the Far East of Eden label, but they are still Tengai series games. I hope English speakers understand this distinction. I think starting with Ziria would be best... I've done some preliminary work on a Ziria translation. I've been meaning to get around to it, and I will resume serious work on it shortly.

KingMike is correct about the final displayable year being 2014. That being said, the way the game has to deal with stuff like leap years will probably mean that there may be unforeseen snags in editing the date to work properly now.

[dejan07]

I think Happy Console Gamer is unaware of Kabukis cameo because he didn't played the game. How could he? I am sure he was fanatical enough to buy the japanese version, heck he even buys japanese versions of games that he passionately hates like Double Dungeons. Talk about mental

You want to translate Tengai Makyou Ziria too? You should announce this project on pcenginefx forum which is speciliazed for PC Engine translations and hacking. The people who translated YS 4 - Dawn of YS and Legend of Xanadu games are all there and i know many of them. I am sure some people there will go berserk when they hear this news.
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/

[Hiei-]

I don't think LostTemplar is still active on the Romhacking scene.

I was working with him on a project and it's been several years since the last answer, not to mention the last time he visited those forums is more than two years ago.

[Jorpho]

It is important to state that there is no a lot of hacking left to do in Far East of Eden but the hacker who accomplishes it will get a lot attention from the gaming community.

From the sounds of things, whatever remains of the hacking is monumentally difficult.

[dejan07]

Not more difficult than any other hacking/translating job displayed on the front page of this forum.

[Gemini]

From what byuu's screens looked like, I'd say the amount of work put into the hacking was going to be top notch, basically quite hard to achieve in general (i.e. multiple proportional fonts for everything, stuff we barely see since Bahamut Lagoon). Keeping that level mustn't be exactly easy, even for byuu who happens to be a master at pretty fonts and exquisite hacking techniques.

[Nightcrawler]

The scripts translation's been finished for ages. It's just the hacking that remains. When people hear that the "translation's finished," they might get the wrong idea and think that the game's available now. The title of this topic might mislead people The game's playable from start to finish, but it'll take more than a couple of months to be in a state worthy of release, even if dedicated hacking progress began right now.

I'm not clear on this. Is the script available for a hacker to pick up and complete said hacking? Or should this topic just be ignored as no new news? If you want your work to have a large impact, you might want to get it out there sooner rather than later before someone else's work on the game takes that spot instead. For all practical purposes, this project was abandoned years ago and other efforts may have started.

[Tom]

You want to translate Tengai Makyou Ziria too? You should announce this project on pcenginefx forum which is speciliazed for PC Engine translations and hacking.

I already have a hacker I'm working with on Ziria. He'll get the word out when the time is right. Let's wait until the script is complete to celebrate.

I don't think LostTemplar is still active on the Romhacking scene.

I was working with him on a project and it's been several years since the last answer, not to mention the last time he visited those forums is more than two years ago.

I re-established contact with LostTemplar by email a matter of months ago. He mentioned some personal matters and said that he wanted to finish a different project first, which I suppose must have been your project. I'm sorry to hear that you've had no progress, both for your sake and mine as well.

From what byuu's screens looked like, I'd say the amount of work put into the hacking was going to be top notch, basically quite hard to achieve in general (i.e. multiple proportional fonts for everything, stuff we barely see since Bahamut Lagoon). Keeping that level mustn't be exactly easy, even for byuu who happens to be a master at pretty fonts and exquisite hacking techniques.

The "screens" of the English version were all done by Lost Templar. At the moment, byuu's only contribution to the product has been the customized script editor that he made at my request.

Incidentally, Gemini here is one of the few hackers I'd really like to finish up the project. The best thing about working with him was that he always worked with me very closely to make sure that everything was done right. Most hackers just take the script and then I get left out until it's done. If only you were up to the task of hacking SFC games, Gemini. This and Last Bible 3 would be as good as done.

I'm not clear on this. Is the script available for a hacker to pick up and complete said hacking? Or should this topic just be ignored as no new news? If you want your work to have a large impact, you might want to get it out there sooner rather than later before someone else's work on the game takes that spot instead. For all practical purposes, this project was abandoned years ago and other efforts may have started.

The script's not "available" exactly. See, I've got two hackers who are both saying they'll do it... Just not right now... And no clear date of when. Byuu won't start hacking until he makes the perfect SNES debugger from scratch, and he doesn't want to start doing that because it would take ages, and it's boring work.

Lost Templar is busy now, and he has another project to finish, but said he's willing to work on it if byuu isn't... But again, not now... I don't want to say "Hey, everybody! Have a go with this script! Anybody who finishes it first wins!"

I really want the game to be done right... I love it, and I put a lot of work into it. I want to be sure that whoever works on it puts it into the best shape it can be in. But I suppose I should be doing something to assure people that it's not a dead project. I think what I might do is set a deadline... Once that deadline is up, if work hasn't resumed, I'll give the project to another hacker who can prove they have what it takes to. I will draw up a plan this weekend and let you know.

The only exception is Gemini. If Gemini wants to attempt it, he can start immediately.

[dejan07]

That's the spirit Tom!

This is the last big RPG for the SNES, it must be finished!

[magictrufflez]

I was a bit excited here too before I read through the thread.

I've been following this translation for awhile myself, and knew Tom had been done for awhile----everyone who mentioned the difficulty of the hacking is probably right on the button.  From what I remember, there's supposed to be a lot of unique compression or something with the graphics that basically makes it not particularly straightforward to hack.

I mean, I'll play the daylights out of this when it's done, but OP definitely should be a bit less deceptive next time.

[Bonesy]

byuu would just sperg out and delete everything and start over 50 times

[Tom]

Everybody I've talked to said that byuu would do the best job with it. He said to me that it's okay with him if somebody else hacks it, but he'll hack it himself eventually, unless it's clear that he could do no better.

I don't care if somebody starts over fifty times, as long as there's some work being done on it. I don't care if progress is slow (or if Gemini decides to try, that he doesn't have that much SFC experience), as long as the hacker makes sure it's done right and doesn't cut any corners. I mainly want it to be a steady team effort.

[Bonesy]

yes he'd do a fine job but he's a sperglord and apparently will never finish it this century

do you want your efforts to see fruition this decade or not, tom

[Cargodin]

yes he'd do a fine job but he's a sperglord and apparently will never finish it this century

do you want your efforts to see fruition this decade or not, tom

This obviously isn't my place to butt in, but I question just whose feelings you are really concerned about.

Text extraction/reinsertion is a very back and forth process for most projects, and obviously one with Zero's magnitude is no different. Byuu probably has the most expanded idea of the in-and-outs of Zero at this point, who knows. Tom has his own relationships with certain hackers given his track record, and given the work he put into it as a translator and as a fan, it deserves to go into the hands he trusts to carry out his vision for the game best. If the only thing anyone could toss out this decade was a Bethesda-tier bag of bugs, that would be the sadder ending of the two scenarios and a bigger blow against the efforts of everyone who contributed to the project thus far.