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Mystic Ark 1.01 Released
http://www.dynamic-designs.us/d-dforum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=86
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Author:  Red Soul [ Tue Aug 10, 2010 5:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mystic Ark 1.01 Released

final has been deleted, and along with him go his posts.

Author:  Xiados [ Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mystic Ark 1.01 Released

I'll just leave this comment here. :]

Thank you to all, that put in work toward translating Mystic Ark. Growing up with a SNES, I was always a bit obsessed with my RPGs. I still remember purchasing my first import of Seiken Densetsu 3 back in '97 or '98 (I only recall being in middle school, really). Back then, it wasn't so simple. Calling up a company I saw in the back of a Gamefan magazine (I think the company was JapanVideoGames). It was at least $80 for the game alone. Those were good days, though.

7th Saga was always a favorite of mine. The different world music still lures my attention away to new ideas and fictional places. Thankfully, in just those few years when I discovered Mystic Ark, I was well versed in the ways of emulation and roms. And even by 2001, it was significantly easier to find imports on eBay. It's still one of two SNES games I've never attempted to part with, though I traded the system away back in 2006 (the other game being Brandish 2: The Planet Buster). And besides these other two mentioned here, MA is still one of the only games I've ever tried to play in its entirety despite having no idea what I was doing. I must have spent countless hours just in the first world, interacting with every NPC and object hundreds of times. I was only ever able to make it to where I currently passed in the translation: the third world. Specifically that simple forest! How many times I tried to find a walkthrough for... well, technically only two real directions. Yet, just those were never enough. I could still never get through it (after doing it, I would imagine it had to deal with being unable to realize I had to talk to certain NPCs yet again and find that page!).

This translation and being able to completely understand it (without trying to use the five years I "studied" Japanese with instruction from a shoddy college teacher) has truly become the highlight of these last few years. It hasn't been a great time: the burden of college (six years, "done," and I'm worse off than when I started), a serious relationship that fell apart suddenly, and the complete depression that has lingered continuously since late '06. Randomly looking on romhacking.net yesterday, I couldn't imagine how much of a positive effect finding this was going to be. I missed the part of my life where playing RPGs brought me genuine joy.

Again, thank you.

Author:  Wildbill [ Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mystic Ark 1.01 Released

Xiados wrote:
I'll just leave this comment here. :]

Thank you to all, that put in work toward translating Mystic Ark. Growing up with a SNES, I was always a bit obsessed with my RPGs. I still remember purchasing my first import of Seiken Densetsu 3 back in '97 or '98 (I only recall being in middle school, really). Back then, it wasn't so simple. Calling up a company I saw in the back of a Gamefan magazine (I think the company was JapanVideoGames). It was at least $80 for the game alone. Those were good days, though.

7th Saga was always a favorite of mine. The different world music still lures my attention away to new ideas and fictional places. Thankfully, in just those few years when I discovered Mystic Ark, I was well versed in the ways of emulation and roms. And even by 2001, it was significantly easier to find imports on eBay. It's still one of two SNES games I've never attempted to part with, though I traded the system away back in 2006 (the other game being Brandish 2: The Planet Buster). And besides these other two mentioned here, MA is still one of the only games I've ever tried to play in its entirety despite having no idea what I was doing. I must have spent countless hours just in the first world, interacting with every NPC and object hundreds of times. I was only ever able to make it to where I currently passed in the translation: the third world. Specifically that simple forest! How many times I tried to find a walkthrough for... well, technically only two real directions. Yet, just those were never enough. I could still never get through it (after doing it, I would imagine it had to deal with being unable to realize I had to talk to certain NPCs yet again and find that page!).

This translation and being able to completely understand it (without trying to use the five years I "studied" Japanese with instruction from a shoddy college teacher) has truly become the highlight of these last few years. It hasn't been a great time: the burden of college (six years, "done," and I'm worse off than when I started), a serious relationship that fell apart suddenly, and the complete depression that has lingered continuously since late '06. Randomly looking on romhacking.net yesterday, I couldn't imagine how much of a positive effect finding this was going to be. I missed the part of my life where playing RPGs brought me genuine joy.

Again, thank you.
It sounds as though all of your experiences wrapped together match what some of us have gone through from time to time. Back in 2008, when I had a tough family situation for a while, initially, I turned away from an opportunity to help with Lennus-II again. Later, when I rejoined the effort with Draken, Bongo`, and eventually Taskforce, I found this work to be part of the medicine I needed to deal with an issue that has since been resolved in a positive way. Heh, I wish NES/SNES RPGs had been around when my first wife and I split up years earlier! Maybe it would have taken my mind off of those worries for a while!

At any rate, you have a friendly place to come visit and talk about this activity you love doing. We have discovered that the magic still exists in these vintage games - in more ways than one. And, if you want to put that Japanese training to good use, I'm sure we can find something interesting to help you (and us) out, hee-hee...! Anyway, MA is indeed a super game. When you get to the end, be sure to let the credits roll until you witness that final short scene that follows the credits.

Author:  Xiados [ Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Mystic Ark 1.01 Released

If there is anything I can help with, I am definitely open to giving it a try. I always list "written translation" as my best skill with Japanese over spoken communication (of course, I wouldn't even be able to speak it to save my life). Though... what I discovered two years ago, after my fourth year of study, is this: while I know a lot of random words, Kanji, and grammar, I really don't know very much at all. What I have with translation, is a process. It used to make me embarrassed to tell classmates about it. Yet even in the classes I didn't have to use it, I was at or near the top in grades. The last class I was in, I would compete with an ex-girlfriend on all the tests. Even if she scored higher, I was the only person in the class who never used a Kanji dictionary. I memorized each and every character and vocabulary word.

Hah, anyway!- It goes like this: I'll spend a few casual hours in copying 10 pages from a book into a word file, due to guessing at pronunciations or drawing the characters I don't know. I take that and run it through an online translator (JDIC) and it gives me a good amount of "word by word" translations. Then I work at putting random English into something that could be understood, a sentence at a time. Avoiding risks of something being wrong, I paste the Japanese into the basic translation tools on the internet- Google and Babel Fish. After comparing and editing, I can step up to fully organizing sentences into paragraphs and looking for the ideas that could tie it together different.

Overall, it is a largely creative process. I would say that it isn't so much about translating the language... as being able to write the same story in your own language and culture. So then! If there's somewhere you need help with in this fashion, I can give it a go; be it throwing words into a dictionary or attempting to make sense of raw translation.

I suppose I like to talk. I'll definitely enjoy my time here! I'm excited to at least play many of the other projects (completed and in progress), as well. I'll look forward to the after credits scene. I only stop when I've hit that typical end screen, where you have no choice but reset or turn off the console.

Author:  Red Soul [ Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Mystic Ark 1.01 Released

Welcome to the forums, Xiados.
Upon reading your posts and glancing at the experiences you've been through, I can safely say you
are among friends and peers here.
For a number of reasons I find games, especially RPGs and SRPGs highly kathartic and relaxing
and as such they helped me more than once in squaring off (no pun intended haha) the tough
turns life sometimes takes.

I am personally very satisfied you find MA so enjoyable, as along with the rest of the team,
I had an important role in the project's testing and quality control (it was my trial by fire so to speak,
after the patch was released I was officially offered a permanent position in the team, something I am
very happy about). MA is a game that can change you if you truly delve into it, a true gem of the past.

We certainly appreciate the help you are willing to give, and we'll take it quite gladly, as you seem highly
enthusiastic and such a situation can bring mutual benefit.

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