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    |         \                        /\                        /    __        
    |          |            __  __    /  \    /                 /    /  \       
    |          |              |   |  /    \  /                 /     |    |     
    |_________/               |   | /      \/                 /     _|_ --|--   
    |         \      ___      |   |        /\                 ___    |    |     
    |          |    /   \|    |   |       /  \ \   |  ____   /   \   |    |     
    |          |   |  o  |    |   |      /    \ \  | (____  |  o  |  |    |     
  __|_________/     \___/|   _|_ _|_           \ \_|  ____)  \___/  _|_   \__/  
                                                \  |                            
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                             /                  \__/   /                        
                            /                      \  /                         
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                                   __________                                   
==================================(Industries)==================================
                                                                                
                                                                                
             ~~Proudly making rom hacks about once every 20 years~~             


Soul Blazer Relocalization
Version 1.1 (06-22-2026)

This hack cleans up Soul Blazer's many, many typos and grammatical issues,
along with some occasionally rewritten text. This is not a full retranslation;
think of it as some moderate copy-editing to make the game's story more
presentable. It still retains much of that early-90s Japanese-to-English
"charm," if you want to call it that. Things are just now spelled correctly
and make more sense.


~~==INSTALLATION==~~
Apply this patch using your favorite BPS patching tool onto a clean Soul
Blazer US rom that does *NOT* have a header:

Database match: Soul Blazer (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210222-050638)
File/ROM SHA-1: F2832EB02547C39CAE3BDAAB5C2A53E4F8B31810
File/ROM CRC32: 31B965DB

Two versions of this patch are included: the default patch does not modify the
game controls, while the other uses lightbulb-sun's button remapping patch
(more info further down). 

Need a BPS patcher? Try Near's beat (https://archive.org/details/beat_v01) or
an online patching tool such as https://romhack.ing/tools/patcher/

This game should be compatible with all major flash drives and SNES emulators.


~~==CREDITS==~~
Ballz -- Project lead, copy-editor, hacker

Contributors:
ChronoMoogle -- Spot Japanese to English translation
lightbulb-sun -- Title screen skip, optional button layout patch
kandowontu -- FastROM conversion


~~==PATCH NOTES==~~

Version 1.1
-Minor bug fixes
-kandowontu's FastROM hack is implemented. More details are found in the
 "Non-script Changes" section of this readme.
-Some dialogue after the final battle has been revised. Discussion on this can
 be found in this Bluesky thread (some light spoilers):
 https://bsky.app/profile/newsfedora.bsky.social/post/3mooouakomc2a

Version 1.0
-Initial release


~~==PROJECT HISTORY==~~
As a kid I had Illusion of Gaia on SNES, and loved it. Years later, I learned
about its spiritual sequel -- Terranigma -- played that on emulators and
again, absolutely adored it. Which eventually made me wonder what the first
game in the series, Soul Blazer, was like. In 2018 I finally decided to sit
down and give it a go, knowing full well this was going to be a very early SNES
action RPG that would probably have a translation on the same level as its
contemporary, Final Fantasy II.

About 30 seconds into the game I opened a treasure chest, which informed me
that I "recieved Sword of Life."

Oh. Oh no. Oh noooo.

As someone whose day job involves reading, writing, and copy-editing, I knew
there was no way I could get through this game if I was going be greeted
with such a typo every time I opened a chest. Who knew what else was lurking
in the game's script? I decided right then that I had three options:

1. Deal with it, as countless other gamers had done before me.
2. Turn it off and play Final Fantasy VI for the 78th time.
3. Go into the rom and fix the typo... heck, go and fix every typo as you
   play through the game.

Like any rational person, I went with the obvious choice: let's hack this
sucker!

I did look around to see if anyone else had beaten me to this, but I only
saw a retranslation project that had some mixed reviews. I wasn't looking
to fully retranslate the game from scratch, I just wanted the game to be in
a state that didn't trigger my grammar OCD. 

So I went about fixing any spelling and grammar mistakes, while also
occasionally cleaning up dialogue that I felt was too nonsensical. In a few
instances, I had absolutely no idea what the dialogue was trying to convey,
so I went to the original Japanese game Soul Blader, and politely asked
Quintet superfan ChronoMoogle to offer up a better translation.

I whittled away at it over the course of several months in 2018 and was
nearly done with my work... but I wanted to hack the title screen so that
the opening intro could be skipped (like it was in Soul Blader) and I wanted
to redraw the item graphic for Actinidia, which I had renamed Catnip. I'm a
writer, not a pixel artist, and honestly calling me a rom hacker is probably
also open to debate. Suddenly, I hit a wall in the project.

I took a break and focused on another rom hack: EarthBound MSU-1 Hip-Hop
Journey. I eventually finished up and released that and then... I kind of
forgot all about Soul Blazer until 2021. I puttered in it again for like a
week and then... forgot about it again. Until now. In the Year of Our Lord
2026.

I went and knocked out the last bit of dialogue weirdness I wanted to
rewrite, and a humble request I made online to skip the title screen got an
immediate response from lightbulb-sun (naturally it was a single byte 
fix). I then finally took a day to draw a new sprite for Catnip. I'm sure
people far more talented than me could have made a better one in a fraction
of the time, but it'll do. With that, I think I'm about done with this
project. Sorry if anyone was looking forward to it back in 2018, it
definitely was not worth the eight-year wait.


~~==NON-SCRIPT CHANGES==~~

-Press "Start" as the title screen animation begins to play in order to
 skip it. You can download this patch on its own at lightbulb-sun's
 github:
 https://github.com/lightbulb-sun/soulblazer-intro

-An optional patch remaps the game's buttons to make "A" attack/talk,
 "B" to use magic/cancel, and "Y" to open the stats window. You can
 download this patch on its own at lightbulb-sun's github:
 https://github.com/lightbulb-sun/soulblazer-buttons

-kandowontu has graciously given permission for their FastROM hack to be
 featured in this project. This greatly reduces or eliminates several
 instances of flicker and lag throughout the game, including in the final boss
 fight. You can download kandowontu's original patch here:
 https://www.patreon.com/Kandowontu/posts/soul-blazer-usa-81954451
 And definitely check out and consider joining their Patreon for many other
 rom hacking projects! https://www.patreon.com/Kandowontu

-Since Actinidia (originally listed in the Items screen as "Leaves") was
 changed to Catnip, the icon for it on the Item screen has been modified to
 better reflect its new name. This is the only graphic change made in this
 hack.


~~==SCRIPT CHANGES==~~
Look, it's been eight years, I don't remember 99% of what I did in this
thing. I did find a text file from back then that noted some major changes
I made, so this is about as comprehensive as it'll get:

-The aforementioned recieved/received typo has been fixed, along with
 plenty of others.

-You are no longer simply "releasing" things, you are "releasing the soul of"
 things. This is Soul Blazer, after all, gotta blaze them souls somehow.

-Instances of "allright" are now "all right." I'm not here for an "all right
 vs. alright" debate, just know that "allright" is 100% incorrect, so I
 changed it to something that does exist in the English language. Plus,
 thanks to the way the game's text compression works, "all " takes up a
 single byte of space while "al" takes up two.

-Magic Flair is now Magic Flare.

-Red-Hot Stick is now Red-Hot Staff, and Red-Hot Ball is now Red-Hot Orb.

-Ellipses are now consistently three dots (...) instead of however many dots
 they felt like adding.

-"Tool" shop is now "Item" shop. I wanted it to be "General Store" but ran
 into space limitations.

-"Lev" is now "Lvl." I was kind of going back and forth on it, but a Twitter
 poll was unanimous in its responses.

-Abbreviations on the inventory screen have been removed or expanded: Wep. is
 now Weap.; Arm. is now Armor; Mag. is now Magic.

-"Mountain of Souls" is now the "Mountain Spirit's abode." This is a bit of a
 retranslation and also done to distinguish between all the souls you've been
 releasing all game and that something a bit... bigger is dwelling inside that
 mountain.

-Fixed a bug involving the tulip outside the village Chief's house, where it
 would repeat the dialogue it gives you from the beginning of the game, even
 after rescuing the Chief from the painting. This bug was present in all
 translations of the game, including the original Japanese.

-The actinidia plant is now catnip, as I don't believe the majority of the
 English-speaking audience is familiar with the East Asian actinidia. But
 the plant serves the same function as the much better-known catnip, which
 is it makes kitties go crazy. :3

-Without going into spoilers, some text in the end-game has been reworked.
 Among the changes was a bit of dialogue involving Nome that got overhauled,
 based a bit on the original Japanese text. But it's not a strict
 retranslation, per se.

-There are a couple of instances where you are given a Yes/No choice in
 dialogue that I wanted to touch on (GAME SPOILERS for 2 and 3):

1. In Leo's home, there is a talking chest of drawers that asks if you want
   to store a medical herb inside him. In the original English, he is glad
   if you do store a medical herb, and if you say no... he is still happy.
   In fact, he is the "happiest chest in the world." I thought it odd he
   would more or less say the same thing based on your answer, and after
   looking at the original Japanese, ChronoMoogle confirmed rejecting his
   request has him say something along the lines of being "the most
   unfortunate chest in the world." Literally the exact opposite of the
   original translation! I revised the text accordingly.

2. When Lisa asks if you are an angel or a human, you get the same response
   no matter what you choose. I looked over the original Japanese, and it
   appears to be the same there, as well. I left it alone.

3. In the game's post-credit sequence, Lisa asks if you remember her. Saying
   yes you do remember her (which would be a lie) still has Lisa get upset as
   if you actually said no. I made some changes so that the "Yes" response is
   her stopping you before you answer and saying she knows the answer looking
   into your eyes (this is more or less what the "No" response was in the
   original English, but I felt it was more logical a response here).
   Answering "No" now gives a more natural reaction of her being shocked
   before coming to accept he had forgotten her.

-And a whole bunch of other stuff I'm sure.

~~==FURTHER DISCUSSION==~~
I don't really post much on message boards any more and I don't have a discord
or anything. Your best bet if you want to reach out to talk about this project
is by hitting me up on Bluesky: @newsfedora.bsky.social


~~==SPECIAL THANKS==~~
- ChronoMoogle, for being super supportive and helping out with random
  translation questions
- lightbulb-sun for title screen skip and button patches
- kandowontu for the FastROM patch. It's a huge difference maker!
- Iriliane (@iriliane.bsky.social) for an additional spot retranslation
- Whoever posted Soul Blazer's text table and rom map to Data Crystal 
  (https://datacrystal.tcrf.net/wiki/Soul_Blazer). Saved me a lot of
  trouble in the early going.
- The creators WindHex, SNES9x, and Tile Layer Pro (lol), whose work all got
  put to use in this project.
- The fine folks who were at Quintet and Enix back in the day. Thanks for
  the old childhood memories and for also giving me some brand new ones!


~~==LICENSE==~~
lightbulb-sun's work is included in this project under the MIT License:

Copyright (c) 2023, 2026 lightbulb-sun

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

~~==EOF==~~
