A couple of you have linked Tales producer Hideo Baba’s brief interview wherein he recommends a Japanese game for its story to English-speaking Tales fans who can’t understand said story, thereby proving that Namco Bandai Games is more than a match for KAJITANI-EIZAN’s Patch Site in the arte of trolling, and additionally that Mr. Baba is a pretty cool guy. I would feel bad pulling a double whammy on you guys, so this will be a post that is (almost) entirely free of trolling.
You may have noticed that updates come every few weeks or months and that I don’t really communicate much with each update. The former part of that statement is true, and the latter is also true, if you are one of the few individuals that may be somewhat observationally challenged. There often isn’t really much to tell you regarding the translation progress front. For example, our translator is busy with multiple other commitments and progress is therefore currently slow. Other times he gets stuff done. I doubt this is news you would find particularly interesting, so instead I have been entertaining you with updates about exciting new Translator’s Cut game features. Speaking of which, in case you hadn’t worked it out, yes, Translator’s Cut is a real thing. No, the features will not necessarily function exactly as they appear to function in my trollan-laden posts, but there is a modicum of truth to them… maybe even more than a modicum.
There are other features that have been shown but not verbally mentioned. I will mention one now that I had not previously talked about, at least on this site. You may recall that I had previously talked about a bug fix for the Heal Stone. Translator’s Cut will also feature a change in how the Heal Stone operates. The original game limited your use of the Heal Stone in two ways: the amount of Heal Energy you had available, and the number of times you could use the Heal Stone per battle. As you generally had plenty of Heal Energy, this encouraged you to make each individual usage of the Heal Stone as effective as possible; the optimal strategy was essentially to set it so that it would fully resurrect your party from a party wipe, completely reversing what would otherwise have been a Game Over… an incredible 5 times per battle. This rendered all other Heal Stone setups pointless, stifling any creativity you might invest in an otherwise fun game mechanic. Enter Translator’s Cut. The number of uses per battle has been changed to a “charge” system. Each battle, the Heal Stone is charged with a certain amount of Heal Energy from your total Heal Energy pool. Only up to this amount may be used in the current battle. So, you could save your charge for big Game Over-preventing heals like before… but then you won’t get as many uses out of the Stone. Or, you could opt for many little heals. You could focus on stat boosts and elemental resistances. You could have the stone obsessively heal you every time you take damage and actually have it be a semi-legit strategy. It’s all up to you. As an added bonus, this change makes one of the game’s many accessories not be completely useless… Hooray!
Of course, this and all other Translator’s Cut changes are completely optional. If you want to experience the original game that Mr. Baba played, you have that option as well — after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available.
And with that, I bid you adieu! As a parting shot, I would like to note that those of you that like to cheese their way through difficult battles using strategies that would be described by most people as “cheap” will find their efforts, shall we say, stymied in Translator’s Cut. I look forward to the delicious tears.
(Postscript: If you want some numbers regarding the Heal Stone: fully upgraded, the Heal Stone can hold 2000 Heal Energy. A full revive costs 150 energy (100 for 100% HP healing and 50 for reviving from KO). Five of these would cost 750 energy. Therefore, under the old system, you could easily have 5 full revives for a tough boss battle, assuming you had at least 750 energy going into the battle. Under the new system, fully upgraded, you have up to 300 energy per battle. You could spend it all on 2 full revives, or you could spend it on various tactical perks throughout the battle: each stat boost costs 10-20 energy, and each 1% HP healing costs 1 energy.)
September 18, 2012 at 4:47 pm | Permalink
So you are a group after all. There goes my theory this project was taking so long because you had to do everything yourself. Well, I just hope the translator can find time to work in this again soon.
Tales games in general aren’t challenging, you need to do your first playthrough in hard, otherwise you will beat any enemy in less than 10 seconds and any boss in 2 minutes by simply button-mashing. I guess the changes you’re making are good. I “guess” because I don’t really know how much of what you showed up to now will be in the 1.0 patch.
It would be nice if you released a new demo showing some of the new features you’re planning to add.
September 18, 2012 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
I agree with Aze…It would be nice if you released a new demo showing some of the new features , a new simple demo should be great!!!
September 18, 2012 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
I agree with the above two people.
Make it like the Vesperia demo so we can fight the boss in the volcano.
September 19, 2012 at 5:18 am | Permalink
thank you for that frightening serious post. your plans sound great! 🙂
September 19, 2012 at 9:01 am | Permalink
“Optional” better mean actually fucking optional.
September 19, 2012 at 12:25 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the info about the heal stone. I missed that in my first playthrough of ToH.
I’m really looking forward to your translation.
September 19, 2012 at 5:02 pm | Permalink
Nice article, man!
I’m just genuinely wondering how far you’ve progressed. I mean, story-wise: is only the 1/3 of the story done or 1/16 something?
Hell, I don’t even know how long this project’s going on. 3 years or something? Time sure goes fast. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be impatient or anything like that, my apologies.
September 19, 2012 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
Your apologies? Who the hell apologizes for something said in the same post? If you are sorry delete it before clicking submit.
LOL
September 19, 2012 at 9:51 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the update, Kaji! A question though, do you plan on doing anything about damage break? Like making it easier to tell when an enemy is about to do it?
September 20, 2012 at 3:10 pm | Permalink
I doubt he will do anything at all to make the game easier.
Aside from translating it to english, of course.
September 20, 2012 at 10:43 pm | Permalink
Seems awesome.
This will be the ONLY game that will undust my old fat DS.
Can’t wait to play, are you expecting a 2013, 2014 or 2015+ release ?
Do you have a vision on when the game will be ready ? 🙂
September 20, 2012 at 11:32 pm | Permalink
The game is already ready, just the patch remains unfinished.
September 21, 2012 at 6:53 pm | Permalink
God, this post was boring for sure. Great news, though. I’m really looking forward to this translation.
If it’s not too much to ask, could you detailedly list all the changes done in the Translator’s Cut when the patch is out? It would be a good help, since there won’t be any in-game tutorials about these features, I suppose.
When I saw that interview to Hideo Baba a couple days ago I thought the Tales of Hearts trolling would never end, lol.
September 22, 2012 at 8:58 pm | Permalink
Since when were you under the impression that there won’t be any in-game tutorials about these features?
September 22, 2012 at 9:52 pm | Permalink
Yay, so glad to see a real update *-*
September 23, 2012 at 6:52 am | Permalink
so there will be tutorial for those feature too, wow ….
can’t wait 🙂
September 23, 2012 at 4:13 pm | Permalink
Well 😀 no offense but this translation reminds me of duke nukem forever and final fantasy versus 13… i dont know for how long i am actually waiting for this
September 24, 2012 at 7:05 pm | Permalink
^ Someone has obviously never followed an RPG translation patch’s progress before. If it’s not Pokemon or Kingdom Hearts, it’s going to take a while.
September 28, 2012 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
Hmmm interesting but that doesnt change the fact that its actually taking almost as long as SE needs to develop Versus 13.
September 28, 2012 at 5:57 pm | Permalink
lol @ comparing a game company to a fan translator.
September 30, 2012 at 8:20 pm | Permalink
@Ex
““Optional” better mean actually fucking optional.”
“after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available.”
Lololololo, gonna cry? Lrn2nihongo
September 30, 2012 at 9:47 pm | Permalink
The issue isn’t that this project is slow, the issue is that Kajitani seems unable to communicate anything without trolling those who are patiently waiting for a patch.
I don’t know if those gameplay changes are just another unfunny joke on his part, but it’s pretty bad for a fantranslator to arbitrarily change the game he’s working on, aside from obvious things like fixing bugs.
Normally, one of the tenets of fantranslations is respecting the developer’s vision, and the idea of forcing the fantranslator’s ideas on the game with this snarky “you can play the original in Japanese!” attitude is pretty arrogant and shows a complete lack of concern for the developer’s concepts and balancement.
While this project is only yours, the game you’re working with isn’t, and since most of those who will use your patch won’t know of your gameplay changes the original vision of the game won’t be respected and people won’t be able to judge the original game, even if the differences are marginal.
Of course, there would be nothing wrong with this if you actually provided two patches (or a “Kajitani option” to toggle off your changes).
October 1, 2012 at 2:21 am | Permalink
I think I might have been too ambiguous in my post. I meant that you can play with the changes off, OR you could play the original Japanese version. So to clarify:
– You will be able to choose between the “Tales of Hearts” or “Tales of Hearts: Translator’s Cut” settings.
– You will not be able to play in Japanese. If you wish to do this, you will need to play the original cartridge. Of course, this means you cannot play Tales of Hearts: Translator’s Cut in Japanese. (I might consider doing this as a side patch in the unlikely case that Japanese fans request it.)
I think the developers should have done things differently in a few areas, but I do respect their efforts and the end product they decided to ship. I’m not sure why you think it should be “obvious” to fix bugs, though. The bugs are also a part of what they decided to ship. Sometimes bugs are even treated as intended features later on. For example, if Super Smash Bros Melee were never brought overseas and it was being fantranslated, would you have appreciated it if they bugfixed the wavedash as you’re saying should be “obvious”? Fixing bugs is also a decision to be made, and sometimes it’s unclear if a given behavior even is a bug. I think you’re giving the developers’ original vision a bit too much credit and not enough to the vision of the people who have to work on the following version while trying to follow in the footsteps of the original devs. (Not just fantranslations; this also applies to things like ToV 360 –> ToV PS3.)
So to add one more bullet point:
– Choosing the “Tales of Hearts” setting will not result in the same game as the original Japanese Tales of Hearts. Many slight changes in how the text is presented, slight changes in the meaning of the text due to localization, and fixes for what I consider bugs (e.g. Heal Stone triggering inappropriately) will still be included. These are in addition to the obvious goal of a Japanese-to-English fantranslation, to translate the language from Japanese to English. Are these in accordance with the original vision of the developers? I don’t really know. I would like to think so.
October 1, 2012 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
Serious question regarding the tutorial.
Does the tutorial screen “pauses” the game?
I hate when tutorials pop up in battle and stops any action, it breaks the flow of the game.
The Last Story, for example, triggers some tutorial in the middle of the battle and I find them rather annoying since I have to stop seeing the battlefield and watch some monochrome explanation video, meaning I’m distracted and lose some of my insight on the fight.
I’d rather have small windows either at the side/top explaining things, yes, that means I have to focus on other things, but at least I can keep track of everything on the field.
October 1, 2012 at 2:38 pm | Permalink
@Kaji
Is that really what you meant? Because if it was I think you should rewrite that 4th paragraph.
“after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available” – this isn’t ambiguous at all, at least I don’t thing it can be interpreted in any way other than “if you don’t like the changes go play in japanese”.
Sooner or later your explanation will lose itself among the other comments, so I think you really should revise that post.
October 1, 2012 at 3:04 pm | Permalink
“Of course, this and all other Translator’s Cut changes are completely optional. If you want to experience the original game that Mr. Baba played, you have that option as well — after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available.”
Note the “as well”. It indicates that this is an additional option in addition to the one mentioned in the previous sentence. It was pretty clear to me when I wrote it and I now see that it is ambiguous, but I don’t think it is unambiguous in the other direction. I think I will simply leave it alone for now as it is a testament to my trollan power level — I can troll hard even when I am specifically trying not to
October 1, 2012 at 4:25 pm | Permalink
“If you want to experience the original game that Mr. Baba played, you have that option as well — after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available.”
IMO that em dash signs that “after all, the Japanese cartridge is always available.” is an explanation of what the adverb “as well” means in that phrase.
This is not about trolling, it’s about credibility. What will people think of a translator that writes ambiguous sentences? Will the translation be ambiguous too?
—Most likely!
Said Mr. Baba.
October 1, 2012 at 4:46 pm | Permalink
Sometimes, ambiguity is what you need.
Sun Tze, The Arte of War
It’s pretty cool.
October 1, 2012 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
Isn’t it “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu?
October 2, 2012 at 3:48 am | Permalink
I see what you did there.
October 3, 2012 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
pobenflabbles
October 4, 2012 at 9:00 am | Permalink
@ ZnTxn
“Does the tutorial screen “pauses” the game?”
Did you mean the tutorials that are already in the game or the additional ones that Kaji [will possibly] add for the changes? If it’s the former, they only pause your game and show you a window once you fulfill the criteria (ie. ATTACK, GUARD AGAINST AN ATTACK.) There are some other helpful messages after battle that appear every now and then.
I’d assume that whatever tutorials Kaji adds will go the same way, depending on where he intends to place them.
October 16, 2012 at 4:19 pm | Permalink
You know, I wonder if I may have too high expectation of Tales of Hearts story-wise and character-wise. To be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the plot of Innocence, neither the main character (except Luca/Ruca and Spada) – though what really killed the fun were the dungeons, the continuously respawns of enemies and the fact you couldn’t command your other characters to target enemy 1 or 2 (while in Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss, if I may recall, you could have them target a different enemy or the same), BUT I DIGRESS.
From what I’ve seen, I’m really interested in Jadeite (Hisui), Amber (Kohak) and especially Shing (and the other 3 are interesting, too). The story about despir and soma (have played first 3-5 hours) gives me this Persona 3/4-vibe when it comes to confronting the darkness within your or someone else’s heart.
Am I giving the story and the characters too much credit, or are they superior if not equal to the stories and cast of Symphonia (2), Abyss and/or Graces?
October 16, 2012 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
Equal. But if you are playing a Tales for story and character development you are doing it wrong.
October 17, 2012 at 11:25 am | Permalink
You know, not all people play Tales Of games only for the gameplay, some like the way how the stories are dealt with, the themes, the optimistic tone, the characters, the interaction between characters, et cetera.
I mean, Tales of the Abyss is a brilliant masterpiece. I mean, everytime I think about it, I have to think about all the bittersweet and sad moments in the game and the… ending theme :’)
But okay… what would YOU recommend then?
October 17, 2012 at 7:21 pm | Permalink
same here :), the only reason i’m waiting patiently is to understand how the stories goes, at the first time i saw the trailer, “wow!! i had to know tales of hearts chronicle”. :), if you want gameplay there’s ton’s of game that has it. bad engllish sorry.
October 17, 2012 at 8:03 pm | Permalink
Huh considering that people are saying that ToI:R had hits that another remake is on its way and people are hoping for Hearts I dunno but whatever Im still rooting for you KAJITANI-EIZAN.
October 19, 2012 at 8:33 pm | Permalink
GUISE!
FAT BEN MADE POOP!
October 24, 2012 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
Oh Man I can’t believe!!! Bandai Namco has announcied Tales of Hearts R for PSVita(at moment only in japan), Please Kaji never stop the DS version, We have been waiting for 4 long years
October 24, 2012 at 7:30 pm | Permalink
Tales of hearts , just like innocense will never make it past Japan.
I’m actually dumbfounded at the choice of platform, the Vita is on its last legs. You would think they would at least release it on the 3DS aswell and aim for a worldwide release.
I mean, i abyss sold more in both europe and the US tha innocense R sold in Japan.
Namco, always eager not to make money.
October 24, 2012 at 7:36 pm | Permalink
So is not necesary an US release, maybe in japan this game will sell a lot, but in Europe and US…
October 25, 2012 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
Nah even in Japan it wont go past 100k most probably. Thats less than abyss, a straight port onthe 3DS sold in the US. I think in europe it was up to 80k last i checked.
If they are going to release tales on portables, they have to go with the 3DS if they want to make money. On main consoles, they should be releasing them multi-platform for maximum profits aswell.
Alas, Namco is always competing with Konami on worst managed japanese company.
October 25, 2012 at 1:23 pm | Permalink
To say the Vita is “on its last legs” so soon is… hasty to say the least. Vita has a good set of games coming and it has potential, which is probably being seen by Namdai. Of course there’s no guarantee it will live to fulfill its potential but it’s way too soon to call it a commercial failure.
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/63642/tales-of-innocence-r/Global/
As of october 13th ToI:R sold 93.910 copies. Mesmerizing? No, but enough to convince Namdai to keep investing on the Vita.
The Vita will never surpass the 3DS in sales, just like the PSP/PS3 always sold less than the DS/Wii. But I’m sure Sony realizes their public is smaller than the huge Nintendo fan base. I have a Vita and got 4 great-looking upcoming games pre-ordered, which will probably boost Vita sales.
The PSP also had a slow start, a lot of people said it would only have a bunch of low quality ports but it has some of the best portable titles ever. In the beginning of this generation a lot of people said the Ps3 had no games, but look at it’s game list now.
By no means do I want to start a fanboy war here, the 3DS is great and I might buy one if MH4 gets localized, but I do believe the Vita will become a successful portable over time.
October 25, 2012 at 3:39 pm | Permalink
I’ll wait till it gets more cheaper… or if I can get my hands one on a second-hand one in great condition. I’m still interested in playing Persona 4 Golden, to be honest.
However, if I may ask, does the Vita also play PS1 games just like the PSP could?
October 25, 2012 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
Tacoo, depite you agreeing with my analisys or not, and i totally disagree with you as far as Vita performance is going and it is behaving totally different from the PSP… the fact is Tales games released on the Vita at this point have zero chance to make it to the west.
At least make them multi-platform is what im saying. That way namco can actually make good money and bring those games to us.
What happens now is that if this translation patch gets axed, we will never play Tales of Hearts (until someone picks up a fantranslation patch again).
So, yeah… im not the biggest fan of Namco’s development decisions at the moment.
October 26, 2012 at 10:34 am | Permalink
Well, I just think you are being hasty when you say the Vita is about to fail, or whatever you mean by “on its last legs”. I don’t deny it’s selling very poorly worldwide, I just have faith it will do better with time, specially after a much-needed price cut. And let’s be sincere here, did you really had any hope Xillia and Graces f would ever get localized? I sure didn’t, despite PS3 selling well. I still believe both R games will make it to the west partly because I also believe the Vita sales will grow. Being realistic is not the same as being pessimistic.
If Namdai really took hardware sales all that seriously Destiny 2; Destiny DC and Rebirth would be localized now. The PS2 is a monster as far as sales go. And Symphonia wouldn’t since, well, the NGC didn’t do all that well.
As for HeroOfGames16 question, yes, the Vita is backwards compatible with both PS1 and PSP.
October 26, 2012 at 10:47 am | Permalink
Oh, and let’s not forget both DS titles. The hardware sold like hotcakes, but both of it’s Tales games never left Japan. And the PS2 also has Destiny Remake which also never got here. If an escort title like Radiant Mythology was localized why not believe Namco will again bet on a Sony system and localize at least one of the R games? At least they wouldn’t have to hire a crapload of VAs like they would to localize ToW:RM3.
October 26, 2012 at 3:58 pm | Permalink
Vita is only selling poor because it indeed has no games. If 3rd parties decide to make good games for it luck will start smiling to Sony. Currently its library sucks. BAD. What’s there to hate about Vita? The beautiful screen? The dual analogs (not pads)? The touch functions? It’s amazing specs for a handheld? No, its the horrible lack of good games. I’m not gonna pay 250~300 dollars fot it if Nintendo offers a less powerful handheld that’s much cheaper and has a 10 times better game library.
There are 3rd parties investing on the Vita because they know it can succeed. If console sales was part of Namco’s logic to localize Tales we would have all the titles taco mentioned. Or at least Atlus or XSeed would be allowed to bring them over.
October 26, 2012 at 4:32 pm | Permalink
@taco_llama
Well, the problem is that back in the day, SCEA was very anti-2D graphics. Although, Fighter games were quite the exception and people have said to me that Disgaea and its popularity may have caused a change in Sony’s perspective.
However, the reason and then-popular notion that 3D/polygons > 2D may have been one of the reasons why Namdai not decided to publish the 2D PS2 Tales Games.
Namdai may also have decided to only bring polygon Tales games due to Symphonia’s popularity. To be fair, Legendia and Abyss have a greater resemblance to Symphonia graphic-wise than say Destiny or Rebirth.
Also, around Tales of Legendia and Tales of the Abyss sales dropped compared to the massive success Symphonia had on Gamecube.
Let’s also not forget that between 2007 – 2010, Nintendo DS Piracy was at its height. I even talked to Namco Bandai representatives and they said that one of the major reasons Namdai is very reluctant to publish games like Hearts is because of the R4 cards and their successors.
Nowadays, 3DS has a strong anti-piracy barrier – though unfortunately, it’s region-locked. PS Vita is either on its last leg or has a slow start. Its library indeed sucks compared to the 3DS’s, and to add salt to the wounds, the 3DS can play all DS games while the PS Vita can only play digital PSP games but not the physical versions.
PS Vita may have powerful hardware and an extra analog stick compared to the 3DS, but the latter is easily solved by the Circle Pad Pro.
Tales Games in general aren’t focused on graphics, so it could easily be put and played on the 3DS without major changes in terms of gameplay.
However, I’ll play the Devil’s advocate for now and say that Namdai may have a reason to choose Vita over 3DS, even if TotA 3DS has sold more than ToI R did (nevermind the fact that the original ToI still outsells the R-version): “Less competition OR better demographic”.
That’s maybe the reason why they also, in the end, chose the PS3 over the Wii. However, the demographic of 3DS is pretty mixed right now. While Wii was in its most active and stronger years casual-centered, the 3DS offers a great variety of hardcore 3DS games and player-friendly but still above-casual games (Devil Survivor, MGS, Kid Icarus, Mighty Switch Force, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil, Street Fighter 4, New Super Mario Bros. 2, Sonic Generations, Cave Story and of course, Tales of the Abyss 3DS).
I’ve the feeling that I may sound a bit condtradictory, but I can’t really think of another solid reason (or a truly reasonable one) that Namco Bandai would put their fate on the PS Vita instead of the 3DS.
October 27, 2012 at 8:45 am | Permalink
@HeroOfGames16
Right now both systems have a strong anti-piracy barrier, though there are already flashcarts for 3DS that can play DS roms, and CFW for Vita that run PSP ISOs. I’m not sure anti-piracy measures of either portable will be strong enough to keep pirates away for long.
I myself think ToS did so well because it had no competition. NGC library is awful compared to the PS2’s, but that’s specially true in the RPG department. Besides all the Nintendo exclusive Tales ended up going to a Sony console, usually in enhanced versions. IMO Tales games virtually belong to Sony, I don’t find it surprising at all Nintendo’s last two exclusives are on a PlayStation now.
In a way you and Loopy said the same thing. Vita is more powerful than the 3DS, but in the end the game library is what really matters. So I think the more good titles for the Vita the better. If after 3rd parties investments the Vita keeps selling poorly the companies themselves will withdraw. Only then the Vita will have failed, but right now it’s still to soon to judge.
As for Namdai’s logic for localization, I have given up on comprehending it a long time ago, but I still doubt hardware sales are that important for them. There will always be piracy, I myself know people that will only buy a Vita or 3DS when they can play games on them for free. Yeah, piracy has a thing or three to say even when it comes to console sales.