Watercrown Productions

Breath of Fire 2

I shoulda done this like a million years ago!

by on Jan.10, 2011, under Breath of Fire 2

Introducing the BoF2 ROM Check application!

Cobbled together in a few hours and rigorously tested, this app will check your Breath of Fire 2 ROM to make sure it’s compatible with the retranslation patch. Better still, if you have a U.S. version ROM with a header, the BoF2 ROM Check application will offer to remove it for you. Once your ROM has been vetted by this app, all you have to do is patch it!

Uses Alforata’s Super Nintendo ROM Icons, artfully edited with the Breath of Fire 2 title screen logo.

Get it here!

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Second Verse, Same As The First?

by on Oct.09, 2009, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

The BoF2 Retranslation is now version 1.2b, fixing a few more typos as well as one obscure bug with the Shaman interface (more info in the readme).

Get it here.

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Because Updating The Same News Entry Was Getting Obnoxious!

by on May.27, 2009, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

The Breath of Fire 2 Retranslation Patch has officially hit v1.2.

Get it here.

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Through the Fire and the Flames, We Carry On!

by on Apr.29, 2009, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

At long last, the Breath of Fire 2 Retranslation Patch (v1.0) is done.

Enjoy, one and all. Enjoy.

UPDATED 05/07/2009 – The Breath of Fire 2 Retranslation Patch has been upgraded to v1.1! The new patch fixes a handful of minor but pesky bugs present in the initial release.

UPDATED 05/14/2009 – The Breath of Fire 2 Retranslation Patch v1.1b is out now! This one fixes several further text errors.

Get it here!

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10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4…

by on Feb.15, 2009, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

And now, almost a year later, I have both an update and a confession to make.

The project has been in beta for the past few weeks. For most intents and purposes, it is done. I could release a perfectly playable patch right now…if I were absolutely insane, that is. The beta testers (thank you all; you’ll all get special mention in the readme file) have ferreted out bugs and typos my initial alpha missed, and their suggestions have proved invaluable in resolving some long-standing issues. The German version’s disappearing cursor issue has been resolved: the cursor would vanish in empty inventory slots due to there being nothing to highlight, but now empty slots in all menus display a string of hyphens (like “—–”) so that the cursor no longer vanishes. I’ve also taken the liberty of rearranging the name entry screen to solve this issue there as well, and the cooking interface has been rearranged to take advantage of the longer item names (read: things have been moved around so they actually fit). Speaking of the cooking interface, an issue where the quantity of items produced wouldn’t display properly has also been fixed, as has the mysterious missing gradient in Wyndia’s textboxes.

And all that’s on top of the other bugfixes and improvements I made before the beta started. The English version of the patch will overall be much more polished than the original German version, fixing numerous issues both minor and major and restoring features missing from the German patch.

Breath of Fire 2: The Fated Child is coming, bigger, badder and better than ever. Be ready for it.

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The Countdown Begins!

by on Mar.11, 2008, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

…Well, not really, but work has resumed in earnest on the BoF2 retranslation. d4s has kindly given me the source code, so I’ve begun hammering out some tweaks that will make the finished product play much more like the original.

That’s a good thing, BTW.

For the sake of aesthetics, d4s intentionally broke a few features like the ability to buy items in bulk and the AP cost display in the magic menu. Basically, they just wouldn’t fit. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make to fit longer item and spell names into the space allotted with minimal effort. I decided the wrong things got sacrificed. So I went back and tweaked his work a bit further: we still have longer item and spell names, but now you can buy stacks of items just like in the original, and the AP cost display has been restored (though now it’s a single-column menu, and hence a bit harder to navigate). The item menu will undergo a similar change to restore the original HP displays.

But why listen to me prattle when you can see for yourself?

bof2stackbt8.png

bof2battlemagicdl2.png

Won’t be too long now. See you next progress update.

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The Wait Is Over!

by on Feb.25, 2008, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

…Or more accurately, it’s just begun again, this time with a different context.

That’s right…if you’ve been following the progress of the Breath of Fire 2 retranslation (or lack thereof), you know that the project has been indefinitely logjammed for the past 3 months owing to a bug in the string printing routines (fixed strings for locations and spell names would be truncated in certain contexts) and project mastermind d4s’ apparent disappearance from the English-speaking scene.

Today, just for the hey of it, I gave fixing the bug another shot. And this time, I squashed it, as far as I can tell.

So I really have no excuse now for not hammering out one more rewrite of my script, going over sundry details and making sure everything is in shape, and making preparations for beta testing in a month or three. All I’ll say is that it’ll hopefully be beta-ready before Fall, which gives me a fairly wide margin of error.

Oh, and if something seems missing, that’s because I’ve decided to clean up my front page. Older news is now relegated to the news archive, which you can reach from the link on the left. I’ve been repeatedly considering overhauling my entire site, but alas, Googlepages is a cranky beast to work with. That’s the price you pay for the convenience of 100MB free webspace to work with, I suppose. ^_^;

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This Is A Tiny Tale Of Time…

by on Feb.10, 2007, under Breath of Fire 2, Watercrown Productions

…concerning one of gaming history’s most infamously bad translations. Happy belated new year, Watercrown fans.

Thanks to Tauwasser’s help, I’ve gotten a handle on Sylvanian Melodies’ end credits, though I’ve been too busy on another project to delve into the finishing touches: a little SNES game by the name of Breath of Fire II.

Yes, you heard me right.

Not too long ago, d4s finished his German-language translation/enhancement patch…and what enhancements they are. His improvements are so unbelievably professional-looking, I might have thought they were part of the original game if I hadn’t seen the original myself. The title screen music is now a vocal piece, background artwork has been added to several screens, text boxes now have transparency and gradient effects, the world map now has a nice Mode 7 pseudo-3D effect (more like a scrolling sphere than the perspective background used in Final Fantasy VI), VWF has been added in numerous places…this is some genius work, and I’m proud to be able to make his work accessible to the English-speaking world.

Find out more at d4s’ homepage for the patch: http://bof2.blogspot.com/

This is the first time I’ve had the luxury of multiple translation scripts to help provide context: they’re not the perfect solution, but they help me work through the spots where my Japanese knowledge is imperfect.

Breath of Fire II’s localization is infamously weak, and I have every intention of rectifying this problem. Names were changed due to lack of space: since this is no longer a problem, you’ll be able to fight with Ryu, Bosch, Nina and Lin in both Breath of Fire V and Breath of Fire II now. And don’t forget Rand, Tapeta, Aspara and Sten. The demon who rips into you at the start of the game is Barbaroi; as it happens, this is actually the Greek word for “Barbarian”. The English script has been rewritten in my inimitable style: I’ve tried to give all the major characters distinct speech patterns to match their personalities, and I’ve added detail and flavor to NPC dialogue. Never again will you feel like you’ve wasted 10 seconds of your time talking to someone.

My translation effort is currently up to the Capitan scenario; I will probably need to make some edits for context and for textbox space, but things are going smoothly. Like d4s, I’m not ready to make any estimates regarding a completion date, but expect it sometime this year.

I really want to finish this. I like the story and I want to see it done justice. I just hope everybody is satisfied with the end results of my work.

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