Author Topic: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?  (Read 2014 times)

SignOfZeta

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #30 on: December 22, 2017, 03:05:27 AM »
Now I don’t feel so stupid. I was pretty sure I had been to every accessible square of that town and talked to everyone at least 20 times.

Do you mean stuck as in game ending glitch stuck?

It's not a glitch. It's protection from evil Westerners.

Nah, sounds more like a glitch. This kind of thing could get anyone.

Also, gaijin protection is a real thing and I doubt Telnet ever used it. They weren’t in a position to want to.

Black Tiger

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #31 on: December 22, 2017, 03:08:53 AM »
Monster Maker has a similar game ruining bug late in the game.
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SignOfZeta

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #32 on: December 22, 2017, 03:17:51 AM »
I played something from Enix that did this a long time ago, it used to be much more common on PCs.

pixeljunkie

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #33 on: December 22, 2017, 11:09:17 AM »
Now I don’t feel so stupid. I was pretty sure I had been to every accessible square of that town and talked to everyone at least 20 times.

Do you mean stuck as in game ending glitch stuck?

It's not a glitch. It's protection from evil Westerners.

Nah, sounds more like a glitch. This kind of thing could get anyone.

Also, gaijin protection is a real thing and I doubt Telnet ever used it. They weren’t in a position to want to.

I want to know more about this gaijin protection? Is there like, some known games that did this. Intentionally?!


In terms of Startling Odyssey 2 - who all fought that optional boss?

EmperorIng

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #34 on: December 22, 2017, 03:39:15 PM »
Did you make much sense of Tru's machine translation ?
ehhhh, it wasn't great, but it was enough to keep going. The presentation in the game is what kept me hooked.

From places I've read in regards to the translation work, at least a few talk up how he edited the script to make it more intelligible... But sometimes that barely felt like the case. Unless its raw form was awful, I am curious as to why Tru didn't take a second look at the script to fix up all the weird grammatical errors and ugly phrasings, outside of it being just impossible to reword things to fit into the allotted text data. Maybe I am just too ignorant of the process to speak my mind.

I feel a little slimy speaking ill of a guy's hard work (because I am grateful enough to play the game knowing what to do). Though it does make me all the more thankful for projects like Xak III, Ys IV, Zeroigar, or the upcoming Xanadu releases in which the extra effort is put into making the text engaging.

Black Tiger

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #35 on: December 23, 2017, 04:10:14 AM »
It was probably too much work to do. He may have planned to fix things lije grammar early on, but after it became clear how much time that would take he settled for "will this be enough for someone to get through the game"?
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esteban

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #36 on: December 23, 2017, 05:17:09 AM »
It was probably too much work to do. He may have planned to fix things lije grammar early on, but after it became clear how much time that would take he settled for "will this be enough for someone to get through the game"?

Exactly. I remember the threads/chats at NightWolves’s site where Tru explained his rationale...he just wanted to get it out whilst he was able to work on it.
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NightWolve

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #37 on: December 23, 2017, 08:01:07 AM »
Yeah, it's weird. The plan was for him to find a human translator after I extracted the script and gave him a copy of my translation software. I had translated inventory, magic spells, names, etc. and my software had text pointers mapped, so he could pack a text block to fit full translations, recover space that'd normally cause cropping of lines.

I didn't care about the project anymore, partly because of the 16x16 system font, it needed an expert font hacker like what elmer has done to the Xanadus. So it was once under my lead, but I transferred it to Tru, similar to how David Shadoff transferred Emerald Dragon over to me. Very similar in fact.

Tru disappeared for years, thought it was over, next thing I hear is he translated it himself, someone who knew not a lick of Japanese... NONE! He was not even a known translation hack like The XXXSEED Cock Flasher who could fake a translation with Jim Breen's WWWJDIC text glossing feature which breaks a Japanese sentence down into definitions rather than attempt a machine translation!

People are telling me it was edited well, it's passable, but I still can't believe that! Tru told me to try it as well, but never got around to it. Moreover, he said he lost my translation software and did the whole thing by hex editing the data track, so he lost the benefit I gave him like Xak III of text pointer recomputing to fit full translations in a text block!

I dunno what translation website he used either, but given that it is a machine translation, you, esteban, or I could have produced this ourselves so I've never trusted it!! You can't take short cuts without a SamIAm!

pixeljunkie

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #38 on: December 23, 2017, 08:33:58 AM »
That's incredible. Yeah the translation didn't even feel broken really. Just rushed. Totally passable honestly, in hindsight. There were a few head scratchers in the game but like.i said it's amazing that it came from someone who didn't know Japanese!

SignOfZeta

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Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?
« Reply #39 on: December 23, 2017, 09:13:26 AM »
I found it remanicent of NES RPGs where just trying to figure out WTF they are saying was difficult.