Back to work on it soon, really! (January 1st, 2010)

[Cless]

I know someone who wants this finished more than anyone else...

[Cignus]

Who's that cless. oh and throughhim413 i have a rare heart condition that can be fatal because it makes me dependant on good rpgs made by Namco in English. <Ex. Tales of Phantasia>  

[SlicerSV]

I sure hope you were in jest Cignus when asking Cless who that was...  Of course it's Cless himself.  I know how I start feeling after I've been working on a programming project for a long time and I am finally starting to see a tiny little speck of light in the distance.  I'm sure the same feeling equates to a translation hack as well.  And this project has been taking him a REALLY long time.

[Soldatoflife]

I know someone that has been waiting patiently for the release, going about his life till the day the project is finally complete.  At that moment, this person will probably forget to sleep and try to live the story as fully as possible

[Cless]

I'm sure the same feeling equates to a translation hack as well.  And this project has been taking him a REALLY long time.

I've had some motivational issues in the recent past, am honestly still halfway burned out on it, and would love nearly nothing more than to finally have this thing behind me. I'm sure we could release everything we've gotten done at this point and most people would be more than satisfied with it. But I see doing so as cutting corners, and refuse to do that. As much as I want this off my back, I still want it to be done as well as we're capable of. I am indeed finally seeing a hint of light at the end of tunnel right now, which definitely is helping me get through my current workload.

[bajol]

too bad that phantasia x is going to be released (it even has a new character);
now ToP psx seems like very, very old; and a lot of people would want to see TopX translated instead of ToP psx.
Dont you feel like your motivation have dropped with this announcement?
would you like to work on this project instead? (I know you have lost a lot of time with this project to just "kill" him, and you dont have the tools to work on a PSP project, and everyone would prefer to see other projects like ToD DC finished (including me))
I just wanted to know how you all feel about it (im just questioning, im not asking you to begin this project, or to drop ToP psx)

[Carnivol]

<tiny wall>Not that I'm the most important guy on any of the active collaborations, but I tend to stick my nose deep down into anything and everything that's being worked on  (I'm kinda the guy who breaks dreams, gives random input/feedback on a various stuff, and just generally acts like Mr. QA... I suppose.)

I'm in the group of people who only think Narikiri Dungeon is interesting in the "Cross Edition" package. Like, seriously! Sure, the battle system might've finally received an overhaul --which I first thought would be a ToD2->ToR->ToDrDC->NDX->ToPX evolution, but now it kinda just looks like it's ToD->ToP->FVE->ToPX-- and they appear to be adding some new game content (new char/events, which I guess comes with new skits 'n' side-quests too) ... but at the end of the day, ToPX still looks like some weirdo half-homemade fangame effort. You know how there are RPG Maker games and various romhacks (relying on simple and straight forward "you can do anything" editors) that all just look a bit "off", even when they rely almost entirely on the use of content lifted from the game they're spinning things around. That's the feeling I got from FVE  (~Full Voice Edition~) and even more so from ToPX. 

I kinda hated how FVE sounded with all the voice acting slapped in, how awkward the windows and widescreen looked (something it inherited from ToE PSP), and I really disliked how half-assed their sprite update job was (said it before, saying it again; they seriously should have AT LEAST updated all humanoids to use non-SD designs... not just the main cast.) ToPX seems to be recycling as much as it can from FVE, while once more claiming to be "treating us" to a redrawn main cast (w/slightly moe-/lolified Mint... urk and some sort of battle UI that at least isn't as fugly as FVE's). The fact that the battles still use blurred out PSX-era resolution for chars is annoying too (saves them the trouble of redrawing everything, I guess... they should've at least made the blur optional), and my latest addition to the dislike list is how the new playable char looks like she was hacked in by some fan, using the RPG Maker/romhack approach I mentioned before. Seriously, the battle portrait stands out as a sore thumb... why couldn't they just go ahead and at least redraw the main cast's portraits too then? So they at least look like they were made in the same decade.




Anyway, as far as working on the PSP versions goes ... the biggest problems/hurdles are:

-Lack of proper tools to use for debugging and such when adding necessary ASM hacks (Some sort of emulator or useful way to log/trace/mess with the system memory would be handy. I guess one could make a ghetto test kit by just running a plug-in on the system and have everything handshake with a PC via USB or something...)

-ToPX NDX will probably also rely on whatever firmware is out by then, and lately, the progress on the PSP homebrew front has slown down greatly, with only some of the most recent games being playable via decrypting the main exe and patching it to work with older firmwares.

-And, well, motivation. Personally, as mentioned before, I'm not really interested in anything but NDX in that package. Which, as far as hacking/translation goes, should be considerably easier to make a so-so end result with than ToPX. Seeing as it's either a ground up PSP title or somehow deriving from ToDrDC code (3D backgrounds 'n' stuff), both of which should make the need for extensive ASM hacks to prettify things near nil. (Only weirdo compressions and/or new formats would complicate things then.)

However, I wouldn't even consider anything public for NDX until I evt. would know for a fact that Namco Bandai have no plans/intentions of bringing it over. It both feels ethically right and should be considered common decency to at least give the official channels the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these things. +FVE might've been cock-blocked by Sony and their hatred towards ports on the PSP, but the ToPX/NDX combo should have a considerably larger chance (not that I really believe Namco Bandai would touch both, though. Maybe if they dropped ToPX, even though it appears to be a crucial and important part of the package.)</tiny wall>

[Dhaos]

Who's that cless. oh and throughhim413 i have a rare heart condition that can be fatal because it makes me dependant on good rpgs made by Namco in English. <Ex. Tales of Phantasia>  

Me !!! ^^ I've following this project... since, who knows... a little bit since it started, how many time has been?... hell I'm getting old

[leon.dx]

I've been following this since the days of starocean.zophar.net and I will say, seeing this finally completed will feel weird lol, i'll most likely still check PP for ToP updates out of habit haha...

[Cless]

Hahah, from the beginning, huh? Phantasian Productions will be ten years old in a just a little over 6 months.

Good lord...ten years...

[SlicerSV]

I've been following this since the days of starocean.zophar.net and I will say, seeing this finally completed will feel weird lol, i'll most likely still check PP for ToP updates out of habit haha...

My goodness.  I remember that old page as well.  That was actually my first time hearing about any of this stuff, but I didn't really pay attention to it then, not until I played Star Ocean 2 over at a friends house later...  and then I was like... didn't I hear about something called star ocean before?  googled, and rediscovered the link between Tales and SO, and soon discovered PP...

Man...  sometimes things are mighty strange indeed.

[Dhaos]

My goodness.  I remember that old page as well.  That was actually my first time hearing about any of this stuff, but I didn't really pay attention to it then, not until I played Star Ocean 2 over at a friends house later...  and then I was like... didn't I hear about something called star ocean before?  googled, and rediscovered the link between Tales and SO, and soon discovered PP...

Man...  sometimes things are mighty strange indeed.

Who... the hell, I almost forgot from which page the project started!!! nice memories

[BassForever]

I dunno when I first found this project, 03 maybe? I dunno I've lurked this translation for a long time

[leon.dx]

Hahah, from the beginning, huh? Phantasian Productions will be ten years old in a just a little over 6 months.

Good lord...ten years...

Mmhmm, I would have never found out about Star Ocean EX or Tales of Eternia anime without that page lol, not to mention I did my first sprite edits when I was young with the sprites you had at the top of the page. =P

[xAschx]

I just found out about this patch a while back and was wondering if the project was dead or something. Hopefully it is not. *crosses fingers* It looks quite interesting, was hoping to play it one day in full. In fact I made an account just to find out if it was dead or not = P I'm that interested. Tales of series all the way!!!!

[Soldatoflife]

I don't believe this project will ever die.  Quite on the contrary, I'm pretty certain that we are pretty much nearing the end.  Just tell yourself this:

It'll be done when it'll be done and that'll be that.  I've been doing it since 2003 and I still have plenty of patience and hope left in reserve ^^