Kingcom asked me to mention that he used devkitPro to make the fake demo patch. He says it’s a really well-done devkit, so he wanted to make sure and give them credit for it.

As is my custom, I like to give a real update following the traditional April Fool’s gag. You can consider it my apology if you didn’t care for the joke, but I regret nothing. In any case, part of this update was already available to you. Everything that was included in the README for the fake demo patch was true. We really have been making great progress in the past few days. The battle subtitles have been timed and the last of the known bugs have been squashed. In short, we are ready to start beta testing. And so, as of today, we have officially entered the beta testing phase. Perhaps I don’t seem like the most reliable source of information today, but this is the truth.

So what does that mean for you? It means we’re one step closer to the end. No, we do not need any beta testers. No, I do not have a release date for you yet. I estimated that the beta would take a month, but in reality, it will continue until we are satisfied that the game is ready for release. The remaining skits will be edited during the testing phase in order to allow more time for testing. I don’t want to hold off the testing for the skits since they won’t introduce any bugs. I will be removing the percentages from the Tales of Innocence page and replacing them with the date that the beta testing started. In the best of circumstances, the patch could be in your hands in a month, but I would suggest that you expect it to take longer. With any luck, we won’t have any major bugs showing up, but sometimes the worst ones are the least obvious. We will do the best we can to get you the patch as soon as possible, but we don’t want to rush it and sacrifice quality after coming this far.

Also, don’t miss the demo that Kajitani-Eizan released for Tales of Hearts! Unlike ours, his demo is real and it’s good stuff. Check it out here!

I know what you’re thinking… All along this guy has been decrying the concept of the open beta and now this… Well good news, I still am! That’s why it’s a demo and not an open beta! What’s the difference? We’re intentionally limiting your access to the game. The game will be set on a timer. We’ve decided to give you a three hour demo. Appetizers are meant to whet your appetite for the game, not spoil it, after all.

Patching instructions can be found in the included README file.

Tales of Innocence Demo Patch

And while I understand that people might want to comment and share their impressions of the demo, please don’t ruin the experience for your fellow gamers.

Well, I’m glad that everyone enjoyed yesterday’s April Fools joke. Seeing the fun reactions to the post made me laugh, so today we’ll do an actual update. As usual, it’s just information on the translation, but it’s been a while, so why not?

Since the last update, a lot of editing and a little translating has happened. The main events are somewhere around 30% edited. All current skits have also been edited, so we’re looking at something like 15% there. It’s worth noting that at least one more round of editing is going to be needed in the end. Spada and Hermana are still fighting me on their accents now and then, so until those are completely settled, I really can’t call the edited files complete. Well, it’ll all be sorted out in the end.

On the translation front, things are moving, but slowly. I’m still kind of putting off skits. I’m working on them, but they don’t go as quickly as the events. Likewise, it’s hard to get really into translating summary files since they’re somewhat dry. Well, they’ll be done when they’re done. Pushing myself to work on them when I don’t feel like it really doesn’t help. Believe me, I’ve tried.

We’re still on track for our summer release. These days its looking more like late summer than early summer, but that all depends on how inspired I get. Much though I would love to dedicate all of my time to this project, school still takes priority. Plus if I don’t take a break now and then, I’ll lose my mind.

So there you have it.

In our ongoing quest for popularity, we’ve added yet another naming option to Tales of Innocence. Do you love Japanese but can’t read a word of it? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! We’re here for you! This newest option, Nihongo, will set you up with a fully romanized game to enjoy.

Forget about localized terms and terrible changes to character names, this option will bring you a presentation so true to the original that it would bring the developers to tears. This is the option for the player who wants to feel like they’re sitting under the sakura on Mount Fuji drinking sake and eating sushi.

Some of the major things to notice are that this option brings back the official names for the characters. Ruca and Asras return, of course, but that isn’t where it ends. Thitose will be back as well her former incarnation Konohanasakuyahime (that is Sakuya’s official name as found in the guidebook).

You might also notice that there are some English words remaining in the menu. These, of course, were present in the original game. Even if heaven would forgive someone for changing them, we will not! We’re 100 years too early to consider doing something like that. Who the hell do you think we are!? Only once we have obtained IT could we possibly think about making changes of that magnitude. But we’ll do our best!

Here at Absolute Zero, we’re proud to bring you the only fan translation smiled upon by the sun goddess Amaterasu herself.

As I’m sure most of you quickly realized, the Tales of Rebirth post was an April Fools joke. At current, Gemini and I are not working on Tales of Rebirth PSP. Gemini is quite busy with Persona and I’m working on my own projects as well. That being stated, I hope you’ll take a moment to read the following. The photos in question were partially faked. The text was all created using ToR PSP’s internal variable width font. I had to copy that text using GIMP to the actual text boxes, but the font and such is authentic. So are we working on Tales of Rebirth right now? No. Do we intend to work on Tales of Rebirth at some point? Absolutely.

1. I thought the April Fools thing would be fun. It was. It was also stupid. There were comments both amused and annoyed. Some people had a good sense of humor about it, others surprised me with how personally they took it.
2. April Fools wasn’t as fun before Rickrolling came around.
3. The original plan was to also create some menu shots, but Gemini didn’t have time to hack them. Even before that, we wanted to do this with ToD2 as a joke. We thought it would be quite funny since no doubt people would assume we had some personal vendetta against Phantasian Productions. We don’t, of course, though it would have been amusing. Unfortunately, the text format in ToD2 PSP didn’t allow it, plus we were short on time.
4. It was really obvious that it was a joke. I mean, it was supposed to be obvious. I never intended to hide it well. I mean, in the first place, nobody actually goes around looking for real announcements on April 1st, do they?
5. This ‘joke’ was partially a test of interest on my part. It worked well in that regard. ToR, as expected, has a lot of, er… passionate fans. The interest is definitely there. ToR is a project that I want to work on down the line.
6. I am working on translating a Tales game right now. It’s not yet time for me to announce which one it is, though it’s not like there are that many left untranslated…
7. I do have Tales of Rebirth for the PSP. Gemini has Tales of Rebirth for the PSP.  I do like Tales of Rebirth.  I like the PSP.
8. The first game that Gemini and I discussed translating after Tales of Phantasia was Tales of Rebirth. He and I are both too busy right now with other projects to work on it, but we hardly intend for ToP to have been our last Tales translation together. Tales of Rebirth PSP was at the top of our list back then and little has changed since.
9. Given Namco’s current localization policy, I think I can confidently state the following: within five years, there shouldn’t be a single Tales game untranslated (whether by fan project or officially).

So, there’s my “every cloud has a silver lining” post. Seriously, don’t get so tense, guys. I mean, we’re all just talking about games. As long as I am willing and able, I intend to continue working on the Tales games. I love them as much as any of you do. If that doesn’t inspire your confidence, perhaps some of the following will: Phantasian Productions is still working on ToP and ToD2. I know that Cless doesn’t intend to stop there either. Kajitani-Eizan is ever the stalwart guardian of Narikiri Dungeon 2 and 3. Even the games without ongoing translation projects have well documented story and menu guides. The newest games are going to be receiving top class localizations. This is the best time it’s ever been to be an English speaking Tales fan. I mean, what possible reason do we have to be so negative?

Thanks to those of you that made this fun. I was glad to see people laughing it off. I know what it’s like to yearn for Tales games in English, so I couldn’t help but poke fun at that. And even those of you who had harsh words for me, I thank you. Translating Tales wouldn’t be the rewarding experience that it has been if there weren’t passionate fans. Finally, I ask your forgiveness, especially the Tales of Rebirth fans. What I did was all in fun, but I hope I didn’t crush too many hopes with this. With my apology, let me once again state that I would have never done this if I didn’t actually intend to work on Tales of Rebirth some day.

Good day to you all.

- Your friendly neighborhood Tales translator, throughhim413

Current View Count: 226

Current Rickroll Count: 50

throughhim413 killed in Rickroll Riots

Tales of Rebirth, a title that has long excited import Tales fans has recently made its debut on the PSP in Japan (along with practically every other Tales more than a few years old).

The PSP game itself has been around for only a few weeks, but as you can see, we’re already progressing. Gemini and I have both been busy and we hope the results will speak for themselves.

These two shots were chosen because we feel they really sum up all of Tales of Rebirth in two simple words. In fact, it could be said that after seeing these, you don’t even NEED to play the majority of the game. We’ll keep you up to date as much as we can, but for now, I’m afraid this is all we have to show.

EDIT: I almost forgot the most important part! (Well, I did forget it…) We have a short clip showing off some of the progress we’ve made with the menus and such on YouTube. Link