A Brief HistoryThe original Xanadu II translation project started in the spring of 2011, when I had just beaten the game for the first time and decided it was probably the best action RPG I'd ever played. Work progressed swiftly at first. Within three months, I had translated all the text that Esperknight could extract and made a complete fan-dub for the cut-scenes. However, the project stalled in the late summer and autumn as problems related to extracting all of the script
and extracting it cleanly (ie decompressing it properly) got in the way.
It wasn't until the spring of 2012 that Esperknight got the entire script out of the game in a clean fashion. In truth, we had only gotten about 40% of it the year before. Also, I had to cut-and-paste my old translations into the new script manually, so there was a lot more work to do. By then, I was spending all my time on translating Princess Crown, so the new-and-complete Xanadu II script wasn't 100% in English until November 2012.
And that's when things kind of stopped.
The problem was getting the script back into the game and getting it to display. Esperknight is a swell guy and a competent programmer, but I think some of the difficulties involved in accomplishing those tasks overwhelmed him a little. Also, he has a busy home life, a busier job and multiple other projects in the works at all times, so this one just wound up on the back burner, and that's how it stayed for a couple of years.
Finally, in 2015, I met elmer, who in my estimation is nothing less than a hacking superhero. In a matter of months, we cranked out a translation for Zeroigar on PC-FX, and its presentation quality is better than I had ever hoped for, mostly thanks to good hacking work. Naturally, I had to ask elmer if he would like to finish of Xanadu II with me. Delightfully, he agreed.
The Two GamesElmer started hacking Xanadu II from square one. It has only been a few weeks since he began, but already he has not only cracked Xanadu II, but also made enormous headway into opening up Xanadu I for translation as well.
Xanadu II is first in line to get done. At this time, the script is extracting completely, including odd things like the menu text and weapon shop text. Once any remaining kinks are ironed out and the layout of the dump is finalized, we'll be able to transfer my old translation into the new dump (hopefully using automation) and begin reinsertion. No promises, but since the Japanese-to-English side is already so far along, this should come together relatively quickly.
Xanadu I is a beast of a game. It is literally 2.5 times the size of Xanadu II in almost every regard: it takes about that much longer to beat, there is about that much more text, and the cut-scenes are about that many more minutes. Though there are some things about the way it operates behind the scenes that are structurally simpler than Xanadu II, we're also more starved for free RAM with it. A good English translation is going to take up a lot more space than the original Japanese text, so some miracles are going to have to be performed to make everything fit. However, I am very optimistic about it coming together.
I really hope it does, too, because Xanadu I is a hell of a game.
However, at this time,
none of the enormous in-game script is translated. It's going to take a while. Happily, while waiting for new script dumps, I have as of today completed my first draft of an English script for Xanadu I's cut-scenes. They literally total over one hour in running time, and the draft is over 5000 words. And this leads me to...
Dub ProjectsI do intend to make a fan-dub of Xanadu I. If some of the better performers from my original 2011 project are up for working on Xanadu I, then great; if not, I'll probably re-cast their parts in both games. There were a couple of performances in the old project that didn't turn out all that well, often due to poor recording quality, so I'll possibly re-cast them as well.
If people here would like to participate, I'll be very glad to receive your auditions.
However, it is still very premature for that. There is no reason to get started on all of this until the scripts for both games are basically done. That's the only way I can guarantee the same actors in both games, and it's also the only way I can make sure that I'm not missing any sort of contextual information.
Just sit tight for now.
Final ThoughtsIf elmer and I are going to do both games, then frankly, I think it makes the most sense if we aim to release both at the same time.
If we pull this off, I think it will be a great thing both for the PCE community and for English-speaking gamers at large. These two Xanadu games are
wonderful. They're peak Falcom, for heaven's sake, and they're exclusive, too.
Though I hate to clutter up the forums with yet another Xanadu thread, I would hate even more to hijack elmer's excellent development thread, and the old Xanadu II thread is just that - old. It's also limited to the second game only. Therefore, I'm going to talk about the work currently happening on my end right here, where we can keep things focused. In addition to Japanese-to-English related issues, I'll update on other general things, like play-testing, when the time comes.
Stay tuned!
