"A word from Cless:
I started the Tales of Phantasia PS1 project for the simple reason
that I really wanted it in English. I liked it so much more than the
Super Famicom original that it kind of killed me back then to see only
the “inferior” version available in English, so I felt like something
had to be done. Thus I did the crazy thing and announced a project for a
game on a gaming platform that was basically uncharted territory for
the ROM hacking/translation scene. I was pretty much on my own, and…very
lost. Help fortunately arrived, and though things started to unravel
and go at a nice clip for a little while, a wall was soon hit which
prevented the project from really going anywhere particularly meaningful
for another four to five years.
Better tools for deeper level hacking were finally being made
available for PS1, and rapid progress began getting made on the
technical front, but we hit another wall, this time in terms of script.
Translation and localization editing. An existing partial translation
was donated and the remainder was finished some months later.
Localization editing definitely took much, much longer than it
reasonably should have. It took three inexperienced people, a lot of
time, and a lot of effort to beat the script into the shape it is now
and what I hope is of an acceptable level of quality, what I hope has
managed to strike an ideal balance between readability and accuracy. I
won’t claim it’s “perfect”; in fact, I can still think of ways to
improve it even more, and there are still some things I’m feeling a bit
iffy over, but I definitely want to move on now. And I wouldn’t doubt
there are plenty of others who feel the same way.
The Tales series as a whole has evolved so much since this project
began. This game is quite basic comparatively and it’s a lot harder for
me to go back to after being spoiled by the growth seen in later
installments. I really don’t put it on a pedestal like I used to, but it
still has some considerable nostalgia value. Though I’ve had my long
battles with burnout at times, I think that’s one of the reasons why I
continued to give this project everything I had and see it to release.
I’m not so sure I would call this the true end of the project,
though. Anything more is certainly far less of a priority now that it
has finally reached a stage that I think is acceptable for prime time,
but there are still some things currently in the programming pipeline
from Habilain. Some sophisticated tweaks to improve presentation in a
few areas, but also somewhat more important things like adding subtitles
for voices in tiny corners that remain unsubbed. And just coming from
beta testing, it’s come to my attention that some of the skits in the
game are entirely unused, while several others seem misplaced, and
Habilain’s looking into a means of integrating the unused ones
seamlessly into the game and possibly moving the seemingly misplaced
ones into a more sensible place. As long as he continues to stick
around, I’m sure these will materialize eventually. Besides me, he’s
been around the longest of anyone still actively on the team, but is
unfortunately often short of time. To be sure, I’ve had my share of
frustrations with that, especially in the last few years, but I’m very
grateful he’s stuck around.
Of course, I would like to thank everyone who helped make this
project come to fruition over the years, as well as those who’ve kept
the faith and waited us out patiently.
As for the future… Well, we’ve obviously got two more big Tales games
to finish up. With the experience gained from ToP, I’m hopeful we can
get these out much more quickly now that they won’t be held back by
another project. I’ve also gotten an idea for a possible translation
project of a somewhat prolific game that’s perhaps a bit more niche than
a Tales, but I don’t see myself announcing what that is anytime soon,
if I even decide to go ahead with it.
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