Tales of Innocence Translation Projects News

Tales of Innocence is, for those who don't know, a very ambitious game developed by Alfa Systems and published by Namco Bandai. The game was released on December 6th 2007 in Japan. There has been no word on an English release, much to the distress of the English speaking world.

If you haven't seen this game, do check it out. Its amazing. The game features voice acting in key scenes, multiple characters, a complex storyline which is not childish, amazing graphics considering the DS'es limitations, and great gameplay.

Basically the game could be described as an action RPG, and a quick play of the game shows how addictive this can get. You don't slug through menus choosing attacks and watching the show, you actually take direct control of any of your characters in a 3D battlefield and are able to guard, attack and perform special abilities. But I'm not here to review the game (not this time, anyway) so lets get to the meat of the problem. Lets just say Tales of Innocence received a 9/9/9/8 (35/40) score from Famitsu. Nuff' said.

So we cant play the game if we don't know Japanese. And when I say know Japanese, I mean it. This game is literally swimming in text. The storyline is an important element of the game and is pretty much necessary to enjoy the experience. So you have 2 options right now: Learn Japanese, or Wait for a translation patch (provided you have a Flashcart /or plan on playing on an emulator).

I don't know about you, but I'm currently learning Japanese. I don't think I'm getting very far very fast, but I'm moving. At this point in time, I'm waiting for which comes faster. Now, lets get to what has been done and whats being done.

There are 2 projects that I know of working on Tales of Innocence. The first patch to appear was by a guy called psycoblaster. He's released a fairly low quality patch at the moment and he's changed the main thread of his translation over at gbatemp.net to a new location. Here's a slice from his post:

"Current Progress:

Main Menu - Done
Options - Done
Sub menus - Done
Skills - Started
Style Skills - Started
Items -
Stats - Done
Item captions -
Skill captions -

Known Bugs:

Because I've changed the font, many things are misplaced, especially in the character stats menu. The name is misplaced, and the stats (ATK, DEF, etc) are misplaced due to the font height. (check screens)

Many graphic glitches on the Emulator. Hope this doesn't happen on a DS.

Crashes everywhere. Hope this is also only because it's an emulator."

Quite an unspectacular patch but considering this guy knew pretty much nothing about romhacking before he started this project, its a good achievement.

Now lets move to a more ambitious and 'serious' project. The brilliant team of translators at zettaizero have announced that they are taking on Tales of Innocence. These guys have done Tales of Phantasia on the PSX and its an awesome product. Extremely professional. If you want to see some screens on how these guys are going, jump into their site here.

In short, they've completed the item names, some menus and some dialogue. They are not disclosing a completion date for the project but the lead translator throughhim413 said:

"We're talking about this project being done in months, not in years." Link.

They have also disclosed that their project will be released only when it is 100% complete and ready to be enjoyed by gamers. They have also stated that there will be a CLOSED beta phase.

In any case, their project is extremely professional and I for one believe that they will provide us a full patch soon.

I will keep you guys posted on the developments for these patches and any others that crop up.