Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Somebody needs to blow in Taskforce's ear, because he is the only person I know right now who could do this. He says that because of the diacritical markings, the whole font will need to be shifted in order to line up correctly. So, it's more than a matter of just adding 20 or so upper and lower case characters. Every single symbol will need to be realigned. Once done and loaded however, a multitude of languages will open up for new versions. Feda would be the logical first adaptation, followed by Slayers, Chaos Seed, Hourai High School, Aretha-II, and Burning Heroes. Mystic Ark universal is very fragile, so I'm not too sure about it, but I would really like to retrofit Lennus-II with an international font now that Remelia Scarlet is interested in that series (French).

Within hours of releasing Slayers, Richie has sent us the HUGE Block 10 fully translated, almost 50 kb in raw form. By comparison, most of the blocks appear to run in the 12 to 20 kb range. In addition to Block 10, Richie has also provided some corrections to Blocks 00 through 03. It seems that the deeper he gets into the dialogue blocks, the more he unravels the mysteries of the story, and this in turn clears up ambiguities in the earlier blocks. I'm am confident that the further Richie goes, the closer we will come to seeing the whole tale emerge. Here are his notes sent along with Block 010.

"Block 009 - All 8 heroes' scenarios after they (each of them) have defeated the main boss in the Star Relic. World Map part 1.

Blocks that haven't been translated thus far are "Old Mountain Path, Rain Port, Water City (the dialogs in the castle), Rain City (the dialogs in the castle), and Fire City (the dialogs in the castle)."

These Blocks, once translated, will complete World Map part 1.

I'm still working on those Misc Files little by little.

SPOILERS follow:

Asuka is a man because it was mentioned in Dawn Town (Block 005).

It seems like nobody got along with Gao. In World Map part 2, there is a flashback scene with Asuka, Froze, and Gao in Dawn Town. Asuka insulted Gao, and after that he punched Gao. If Asuka and Gao were friends, they were also rivals.

Taiga didn't kill Asuka. Asuka was killed because he was trying to stop System D who's known as Death Wise."

Richie, the rest of the BH team is excited by this progress!

So, Asuka really is a man then. I had a feeling, but I was never 100% sure since I thought that Asuka is a girl's name. Strange, but not uncommon. "Izumi" is also one of those names that can be used for either a male or female, same thing with the name "Ashley".

Now I'm even more curious as to why no one seems to get along with Gaou. His intro description just says that no one could understand him except for Furoozu (Froze) and Asuka. After Asuka gets killed, Gaou sets off on a quest for revenge. Gack, I need to practice and study my Japanese more! Some courses would be useful. Or at least some more books and web sites on the subject.

This is indeed looking very good! I've always been fond of this game, but even more so now that we're unraveling the story more! Gaou's attack/weapon seems interesting. It looks like an energy or thunderous spherical blast.

*SPOILER* We have some previously translated script near the end of the game that indicates Gaou plans to turn over a new leaf, and maybe he even finds romance. If I remember correctly, Gaou wants to return to his hometown and basically start over.

I haven't had time to refine the formatting for the previous two blocks (8 and 9), but for backup purposes I need to get all of the translated blocks to you and Bongo`.

I also have these corrections from Ritchie for some random strings in Blocks 0 through 3. Do you have time to process these corrections into those previously translated blocks?

I may have already re-written some of those strings and inserted them, so I would need you to look at my changes and Ritchie's corrections and see if they match. If they don't match, I would need you to put Ritchie's corrections in place of my re-writes, then I would sort everything out later when I get into the precise context of the game.

Let me know if you have time to do this. I am still inundated with Slayers work.

Sure thing, no problem! If you send me the blocks translated by Ritchie, I'll be glad to look them over and add the corrections where needed. By the way, are these strings dialogue or misc text (names or otherwise)? Also, has the entire group agreed on what names we should use? Personally, I think that we should keep Gaou and Naga as they are. They're only short, four letter names so I don't think that space is a problem with them. Perhaps we should have a list of them posted here or something?

These corrections are all dialogue (text, not misc). I did give Ritchie the misc dump. He reports he is working on them along, even though I explained that you and LostTemplar had already hit them a lick. I see this is a good thing, having everyone's input to sift through. I'm gonna let you and Ritchie decide on the names.

Here is Ritchie's literal so far:

block 000 - The ending for all 8 heroes after they (each of them) have defeated the final boss. World Map part 3.
blook 001 - Nagha and Mevious' senerio/Ryu and Rouga's scenario. World map part 1.
block 002 - Raira and Shen's scenario/Gao and Shokora's scenario. World map part 1.
block 003 - Ryu and Rouga's scenario/Nagha and Mevious' senerio. World map part 1.
block 004 - Raira and Shen's scenario/Gao and Shokora's scenario. World map part 1.
block 005 - Gao and Shokora's scenario. World map part 1.
block 006 - Raira and Shen's scenario/Gao and Shokora's scenario. World map part 1.
block 007 - Ryu and Rouga's scenario/Nagha and Mevious' senerio. World map part 1.
block 008 - Gao and Shokora's scenario/Raira and Shen's scenario. World map part 1
block 009 - All 8 heroes' scenarios after each of them have defeated the main boss in the Star Relic. World Map part 1.

Personally, I do like Ryu with one "u", but I prefer Naga without the "h". My only other input is that I would really prefer Laila over Raira. Gaou works for me, too. I've sorta gotten used to writing it that way.

I'm very pleased with Ritchie's steady progress. I am starting to feel really optimistic about this project.

I'll get everything organized tomorrow or Tuesday and sent it yours and Bongo`'s way. When you get the corrections entered, send back just the files you changed to Bongo` and me so we can maintain standardized data bases. Ritchie is going about this work in a consciousness, highly organized manner, so I certainly don't want any of it drop through the cracks.

Ah, okay. So I'll only send you and Bongo` the text files which I'll insert the corrections into.

As for the names, here are the main eight character ones from the Names text file (misc files). On the left is the literal Romaji translation and on the right is my suggestions and the ones I've seen from our fellow team mates. Feel free to add any suggestions that you might have too. The more options there are for discussion, the better. Ryuu is my favorite character from the eight.

Ryuu -> Ryu
Rouga -> Rouga (Also possible: Ryouga) / (Better left as Rouga I think.)
Raira -> Laila
Chokora -> Chocola / Shokora / Shokola (I would personally go with Chocola.)
Mebiusu -> Mebius / Mevious (I would go with Mebius as it takes less space.)
Gaou -> Gaou
Naga -> Naga
Chen -> Shen (Which ever is fine in my opinion. Both sound good.)

This is just my take on the names. The other characters that join you in town have simpler names except for a few, but I don't think they're a problem. Here's some of them. Nice selection of characters to choose from by the way. I always chose Uado, Dan, Baabara and that cute girl with a blue ribbon and a blue dress who uses mostly healing magic and blinks a lot. Darn, I forgot her name...

Ekurea -> Eclair (Or we could just keep Ekurea. Which ever is fine.)
Furoozu -> Froz / Froze (I think Froz is better to avoid confusion with the actual word froze.)
Desuwaizu -> Deathwise
Uado -> Vlad / Vad (I would choose either Uado or Vlad. I prefer Uado a bit more though.)
Dan -> Dan
Baabara -> Barbara
Risa -> Lisa (Could also go with Riza, but I think they meant Lisa in this case.)
Airisu -> Alice

There's more, but I don't think that they need any editing. Maybe I'll add them to the list a little latter on.

Chocola sounds pretty funny for some reason, but other than that, looking at the list (if my input is even needed at this point that is), the choices seem pretty sensible.

I like leaving Ryuu as Ryuu (in the SNES days this name usually was modified to Ryu but any more when I see it, it is as Ryuu.)

Raira -> Laila Yep this sounds like what this is meant to be. Darn those Japanese and their missing l's.

Chokora definitely would NOT change this to anything else. It sounds natural and Chokola does not.

Mebiusu -> Mebius I would also use this. Again it sounds natural.

Chen -> Shen Both work fine so if it is Chin, I'd leave it as such.

IMO, what I focus on is what sounds natural and rolls off the tongue well when mixed into English sentences. Now as Red Soul said, nobody asked my opinion, but that never stopped me from putting it forth when and where it wasn't wanted in the past



Ekurea I'd leave it.
Furoozu Again I'd leave it
Desuwaizu (only change this to Deathwise IF he has that type of personality) otherwise something like Desweiz/Dezweiz would be good
Uado Do not change this to Vlad/Vad
Baabara -> Barbara Definitely would do this

Risa -> Lisa (Could also go with Riza, but I think they meant Lisa in this case.)

Ah, you know I actually disagree with you here. Most of the time these days I actually see this as Risa when translated to English, (by professional companies) just as much as if not more than Lisa. I could personally go either way on this. Risa sounds just as natural. So, I would base it on if the girl is CLEARLY of American/British ect style lineage. And you know a good place to start with the decision is via the characters looks and then personality. Western = Lisa/Eastern = Risa. Not hard

Airisu -> Alice OK, now it is true this is the Japanese version of Alice. But you know I actually like the Japanese version of this name. Though I prefer it spelled Arisu. So how I would determine which way to spell this would again all depend on the character. Do they resemble a person of eastern or western flair. Does the game have an eastern or western flair. Do not write off Arisu just because it typically means Alice. If this were Hourai, both of these names would clearly use the Japanese version, but I can't say that for Burning Heroes since I don't know the flair the game has. Not all games made in Japan have a Japanese flair, but not all games made in Japan that are not set in Japan are missing a Japanese flair also. Let the game speak to you on how it should be handled.

Anyway, again my opinions may not be wanted but I'd like to air them none the less

I want all of you guys to resolve a unified list without having a "name food-fight" or donnybrook and just hand it to me like Filler did for Slayers. It's a lot easier on me that way. (I know, I know... Why should anyone take it easy on me?) Anyway, I've yet to discern a national flavor with this game, so maybe a mixture of international appellations would be good, based in part on the characterizations, as you said.