Romancing Sa Ga 3 English Translation release 0.30
July 2000

By Mana Sword, Lee Chaolang, Disnesquick
See the Credit section for the complete credit list.

Read at least the section "Known Problems" before complaining.

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Table of Contents:
- Disclaimers
- Revision history
- Introduction
- Reference material
- Notes on save-state transfer
- Name editor
- Known problems
- Other problems (which are NOT problems)
- Credits

___________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimers:
- The patch file is provided as is, so use it at your own risk.
- The patch provides a translation of the original scripts which are owned by 
  Squaresoft.  The file can be freely distributed but it cannot be sold for 
  profit.  The file and the rom are separate items and the user will bear 
  sole responsibility to distribute the original rom or the patched rom illegally.
- This file must be included with the patch when it is distributed.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Revision history:

Version 0.30: July 23, 2000
- First public release, update fixes to Z-Song and Sheex's final report
- Ruling Game and War Game completely fixed (well, say 98%) 
- Business Game now playable. Though the look is not very satisfactory
  due to some technical difficulties, players should have no problem
  finishing the game.
- Japanese in the Tournament is translated and inserted. Only the "miss",
  "dark", "stun" in the battles and the ending credits contain Japanese.
- Release name editor with the patch so that the player can enter their
  names with a better look. 
- A secret hack has been inserted. 

Version 0.23: June 9, 2000
- Update fixes up to (wraith)'s final(?) report, plus some of my own updates. 
  Basically made for new beta testers for the final phrase of beta test. 

Version 0.22: May 12, 2000

- Remove the infinite loop which makes the game crash at certain locations. 
  This is an emergency release, so nothing reported after May 7 is implemented 
  in this patch. 

Version 0.21: May 7, 2000

- Fix about 95% of all bugs reported before May 6.
  Ruling game should work better.

Version 0.20: April 22, 2000

- A formal beta release (for beta testers only)
- Everything translated, inserted and formatted, except that the Business Game 
  is glitchy and the Credits (Names that appear in the ending) are not 
  changed. There are other minor places which remains Japanese (like the 
  "Miss" that appears in the battles). 
- Alpha testing done. Julian’s scenario has been completely (well, as far as I 
  know) play-tested and debugged. Other characters have been play-tested up to 
  the end of the Reward ceremony. The War game and Ruling game are not fully 
  tested yet, and the Business Game is glitchy. 
- Comparison of Lee’s scripts and my scripts is complete. 
- Release of various documents 

Version 0.10: Nov 15, 1999

- First release to one of the beta testers. 
- Everything in the Prologue of all 8 characters completed, including most 
  non-dialogue stuffs like monster names, item names, tech names, descriptions 
  etc. Only dialogues up to the reward ceremony are completed.

______________________________________________________________________________
Introduction:

Welcome to the RS3 Translation.  Though this patch is not perfect, much time
has been used to make it as good as possible.  The best reward for me is to
know that some people out there actually recognize and appreciate our work.
Feel free to tell me what you think about this translation on my message
board (see below for address).  Write a review if you want (and give me a
copy :))  See my web page for more details about this translation!

All I want to say about the translation is in the Translation FAQ on my site.
If you are interested in how this project survives through the whole 15 months,
you can read it and get an answer.  In any case, if you have a question, you
can post it on the messageboard, too.

Besides the translation FAQ, I have written some others which relate to the
gameplay, walkthrough, and others which I think are interesting.  They are
long.  But even if you think you have mastered the game, you may find some
tidibits in there.  Many info are already published in others' FAQ, but
there are many new secrets that have never been exposed.  Read anything you
like, and if you have some interesting clues that are not covered in those
FAQs, you are more than welcome to let me know.

Before you complain:
- Keep in mind that this product is created by the team free of charge using
  their own free time.  Don't complain to me if it doesn't meet your
  expectation.  Constructive comments are welcome.
- If you want to complain or report bugs, read the following "Known problems"
  section or the Patch FAQ at my site before complaining.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Reference materials:
- lots of information about the game, the translation, and screenshots can be
  found at Mana Sword's web page at 

        http://www.geocities.com/mana_sword/rs3.htm

  Use the FAQ link to get different documents.  Or drop a note on the
  message board at

        http://donut.parodius.com/rs3board/index.html

  to ask specific questions.

- Also look at some other FAQs at

        http://www.gamefaqs.com

  if necessary.  The Credit section also have some other links.

- Check the Whirlpool site's FAQ if you don't know how to use this patch.

        http://donut.parodius.com/faq.htm

___________________________________________________________________________________
Notes on Save-game transfers:

If you had played the Japanese rom before and have old save-games,
they will work on the patched game, but the name of the main character
will screw up.  You just have to rename or copy the old .SRM file so
that it has the same name as your new rom.  Then you can do the following
to change your name:
- play the game in ZSNES using the savegame.
- Make a ZSNES save-state
- Modify the character's name by using my name editor on the save-state

Transferring save-states (zsnes or snes9x), however, may cause unexpected
bugs.  Avoid using the save-states of the Japanese rom on the patched rom,
especially if your save-states were taken in the middle of battles or
special events.  This also applies if you made save-states using the
old patches (like the beta patches) and then try to use them in this
new patch or some newer patches that may come.  There is no guarantee
that it will work.

The safest way to make transferrable save-states is to load the save-state
using the original rom.  Make a save-game and then transfer the save-game
instead.  However, if your save-state was made while you are walking in town,
dungeon, etc., it has a great chance to work by simply copying/renaming the
old save-state.  Save-states created within dialogues or battles are very
likely to cause errors if you use it later on new patches.  The reason is
that pointer tables of dialogs usually change from one patch to another,
making the data inside the save-state no longer valid.  Many events happening
between dialogs can easily go wild if the pointers are changed (like battles).
You may be able to finish the battle but then the game will crash afterward.
Of course, for the same patch you can make save-states anywhere and can still
load it back without problem.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Name Editor:

When one starts a new game, he/she has a choice to assign a new name to the
character rather than using the default names.  Due to the compression technique
used, the alphabets have been shrunk to take only half a tile.  This results
in wide space between each alphabet.  e.g., if you enter "Katarina", it will look
like " K a t a r i n a".  This is not very good.

That's what the name editor is for.  You can use it to hack into an existing
ZSNES save-state to change the name, so that it looks better.

Usage:
1. Extract the nameedit.exe file from the zip file.
2. Start a new game (the English game of course) using ZSNES.  Enter any name
   you want.  Choose your stat and preferred skill carefully, though.
3. After the game starts, make a save-state.  Then exit the game and the emulator.
4. Run the program

nameedit <zstfile> <name>

<zstfile>: the ZSNES save-state file you just made.  It usually assumes an
           extension of ZST or ZSn, n=1-9, depending on which "slot" you are
           saving (if you don't know, you can press F3 to select the slot
           to save to in ZSNES).  Its location is probably in the path where
           you configure the ZSNES to put the save games.  You must find it
           out yourself.

<name>   : The name of the main character that you choose.  I would recommend
           normal names (names start with a capital/small letter and consist of only
           small alphabets for the remaining letters).  Examples are Viktor, 
           Alexander, Denis.  If you enter wierd names like "rAGnaRok" or names
           with more than 1 capital letter, the program will most likely fail and
           give an error message.  The length of the name allowed can vary from
           word to word.  The shortest is 7 letters, and the longest can be 15
           letters, depending on whether DTE can be applied or not.  The program will
           give the error message if what you ask for is too long to be inserted.
           It's best to put the name inside quotation marks.

Examples:

nameedit rsaga3e.zst "Drakken": The name "Drakken" will be inserted into the save-state.

nameedit rs3e.zs9 "Happy 400": This one still work!  Space is not invalid as long as
                               everything is put inside the quote.  However, this
                               is simply lucky to work (e.g. Happy 401 won't work).

nameedit rsaga3e.zst "biLdo": This one won't work since the tile "iL" does not exist.

nameedit d:\ZSNES\savegame\rs3e.zs9 "Katarina": this is valid as well.

The simpler the name, the better chance it will work.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Known problems:

If someone can help with these, send Mana Sword an e-mail (mana_sword@yahoo.com)
or drop a note at the RS3 English message board.  Otherwise, most of these
will be left as is.

1. The "miss" (mi-su), "stun"(su-ta-n) and "dark" (da--ku) that appear in the
   battle are still Japanese.
   - Yes, currently there are problems finding the fonts and the pointers for
     these letters.  Can't proceed without help.  Just learn them.  There are
     only 7 Katakana in these 8x8 fonts!

2. The credits at the end are in Japanese.
   - Most of the names are in Kanji and many of them can have 2 to 10 different
     translations.  Without knowing the exact pronounciation of those Kanji,
     translation cannot be done.  It will be left as is until someone can
     be sure about how to Romanizing the names.

3. "Spear/Epe up!" should be "Spear/Épée up!"
   - The box will somehow become too long and wrap around to the left side
     if the correct spelling is used.  It will be left as is until someone
     has time to do some ASM work on this.

4. I enter my name, but the letters are widely spaced.
   - I have used some strange compression techniques to fit the text.  Each
     tile actually consists of 2 letters.  When one selects letters "Tim",
     it actually becomes " T i m" because the tile consists of a space and
     a letter.  The only way to overcome this is to keep the original name,
     or use the name editor program attached.  The name editor makes things
     better, but you still cannot enter any name at your will.

5. Some words are wide apart; or
   Some words and punctuations are wide apart; or
   The first letter of some names should be capitalized but it is in small 
   letter.
   - Again, this is related to the compression scheme.  Unless vast ASM is
     done or the whole thing is hacked from the beginning, this cannot be
     corrected.

6. Some item names/tech names/etc. are misspelled or just some Romanized
   Japanese.
   - In order to fit some names into limiting space, names are truncated,
     (like "Fish Scale Armor" becomes "Fish Scale", abbreviated (like "Life
     element" becomes "Life elemnt" or kept as Romanized (like "Fang Dragon
     Dance" remains as "Kibaryu dance").  Unless there are legitimate reasons,
     they will be left as is.

7. Why do you keep the "Aurum" symbol in the Business Game?  And what are the
   small 'm' and 'O' between the digits of the money amount?
   - Again, the pointers and special symbols in the Business Game still
     haven't been located.  As a result, things are not well hacked.
     That's why the 'A' is still there.  This may be fixed when the stuffs are
     found.
     And in Japanese, big numbers are represented in "man", "oku" and "chou"
     just like thousand, million, billion in English.  It is very hard, without
     expert ASM skill to change how they are displayed.  To compromise, I replace
     the Japanese "man", "oku" and "chou" with small "m", "o", "c"
     The 'm' means 10,000 (man in Japanese), and 'o' means 100,000,000 (oku in
     Japanese).  And 'c' means 1,000,000,000,000.  So 123M means 1,230,000, and
     2o3456m means 234,560,000.  Sorry, but please bear with it for now.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Other problems (which are NOT problems)

1. The menu of the game does not appear correctly. The font looks 
   blurred/missing a few columns/scrambled. However, normal game dialogues 
   appear to be fine.
   - RS3 uses special high resolution mode for menus. For ZSNES, you need to 
     use 640x480x16B (or 8B) with VESA2 display mode with all other options (like 
     interpolation) off to display the menu correctly. This is not a bug of 
     the game or the patch. For SNES9X you will also need high resolution mode 
     plus transparency enabled for correct display.

2. Looks like lots of text in the Business Game are trimmed.
   - The Business game uses a even more special display mode that ZSNES will
     fail to display it in 16-bit mode. You will be able to see only the text
     on the left as the text on the right will go off the screen. Use 640x480
     8-bit video mode, or you can use SNES9X just to play the Business 
     Game (or you can always playing the game with a console).

3. The text basically looks fine, but I saw wierd characters/symbols all over
   the places, especially on punctuations.
   - You have to apply the patch to the original (i.e. pure Japanese) game 
     rom. If you are not sure, play the rom you have and see if the intro or 
     any dialogue has English in it.  If there is English, the rom is not
     clean and it won't work.

4. In the tournament, the team names are screwed up.
   - ZSNES doesn't display this screen correctly.  Try using SNES9x if you
     want a clean look.  I haven't tried the 8-bit mode on this, but it 
     may work as well.  The glitch won't affect the game play anyway.

5. I don't like your translation.  That monster with fire should be named
   Ifrit.  Dialogues seem too plain.
   - Simply stop playing this and play Vagrant Story to meet your English
     need.  I'm doing a translation at my very best, but definitely not
     to an extent to localize the scripts.  You may think a monster should 
     be named Ifrit, but others may like another name.  I try to keep things 
     as original as possible.

___________________________________________________________________________________
Credits:

The translation and the documents are written by Mana Sword with the following 
help:
1.  Lee Chaolang for discussion and help on translation in the early stage, and 
    later joining me in delivering the best translation. He could have finished 
    his own patch the same time as I did, but real life makes things difficult.
        
2.  Disnesquick for sending me his dumper program and script dump. He is the one 
    who makes this project fly. Also don't forget he still owns the best parts: 
    his ASM and VWF.
    
3.  Sheex, the official beta tester since early stage of the project (when he 
    was still known as Blues_). Sorry I couldn't put much effort on your 
    project.
    
4.  "Elite" beta testers: (wraith), Badaro, John, Sheex, Z-Song. These are the 
    beta testers who sent in neat reports regularly until the end of the game, 
    and finish the testing before the first release. These are the main people 
    who make the first release playable. :P 
    
5.  Other beta testers: Shido_V2.0, Gilgamesh, Kueller, Megaman X, Gideon Zhi, 
    Ronfar. These beta testers work quite a bit on testing the game, but due to 
    variety of reasons they haven't finished the reports before the release. 
    Anyway, they have been quite informative and have submitted quite a few 
    reports. 
    
6.  FAQ/Walkthrough by Hassan, Daniel Thompson, and Dshort. These are basically 
    found at http://www.gamefaqs.com. Pretty helpful and have lots of 
    information on the game. I also use some of the translated names in Dshort's 
    document.
    
7.  The Romancing SaGa Waza list and Mikiri list located at 
    http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/2851/rs3waza.html and 
    http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/2851/rs3mikiri.html. Almost a must 
    have for learning techs in the game. I don't really know the name of the 
    person who owns the page.
    
8.  FAQ/Walkthrough by Matthew Weng found at 
    http://sites.netscape.net/rs3faq/index.html . Have information on almost all 
    the quests. I read it when I get stuck in the game (really get stuck a lot).
    
9.  http://www.thehaucks.com/learn.html, where I learn a lot of Japanese 
    grammar, free of charge.
    
10. http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/dict, the famous online Japanese-English 
    dictionary. It uses the EDICT database which can be downloaded from Jim 
    Breen's homepage (http://www.rdt.monash.edu.au/~jwb/). With a program to 
    access this database, translation becomes much easier.
    
11. People who translated and hacked this game in the first place, including 
    Drakken, Dark Force, Jmigs, Amethist and Ballok, Dragoon X etc. and those 
    who tried to translate FF8. Their effort inspired me to play and translate 
    this game. (If Evilhero does not quit on me, I wouldn't start hacking. :) )
    
12. The ZSNES development team and the SNES9x development team. They provide 
    nice and handy tool to play and test the game.
    
13. People who create programs like Hexworkshop, Thingy and Naga. These make the 
    project possible and save us a lot of time.
    
14. Square Corp. for making this nice game.
    
15. Other people that I can't remember, but may indirectly help me.
    
© July 2000
