Endless History

Unfortunately, there's nothing out there in the way of complete fan translations. I've seen someone doing a subtitled run of 3rd on youtube, though I don't know the user off the top of my head, and I don't think they're too far into it.

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I've been doing some of the side quests from 3rd in my Translation Tuesday articles, as well... but I have no intention to translate the whole game either, since I don't have the time to properly dedicate to it.

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I've heard that AGTH works with it, but you would need to do research on it, since I've yet to really play around with that tool, myself, unfortunately.

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Another note is that Hatsuu from XSEED has been saying that if SC and both Cold Steel games show enough promise and support, they may go to release 3rd when the opportunity arises. So there's that potential route as well.

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It would all depend on whether or not Falcom would find such an endeavor to be financially viable on their end to justify it. Doing a PC port would mean removing some of their small staff from other current projects. Now, they made both games in PhyreEngine, which does output to PC, so the chances of this are higher than them having the manpower to remake their older PSP-only titles to PC. (Joyoland did that for the most part with several of them anyway.)

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Falcom got burned pretty hard in 2008-2009 regarding PC game development, though. They may poke at it now and then, or rerelease some things they've already done (or someone else has done), but I imagine it'll be hard to coax them out of their past experiences. (More info here: http://www.esterior.net/2011/03/falcom-and-publishing-pc-games/ )

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They've even said as much when Ao no Kiseki PC was brought up to them- they'll only release it if it looks financially viable. And the PC gaming market in Japan isn't even a fraction of what it is here. Here's a two part set of videos from imagine-nation on NHK World. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0QwVVPv6zY / Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-VvVz73j3s - Kondo actually talks about abandoning the PC market in the part 2 video, too.

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I have the PC version of Zero no Kiseki that Falcom released in Japan. It's clear that they can't put much money into their PC titles. It came as a CD in a sleeve, in a box. That's it. No manual, no extras. Not even a jewel case. From that, I imagine that they don't sell all too well these days.

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As a result, Falcom's going to have to make the first move with those games, because XSEED's not a developer, they're a publisher. They can work with games already out on PC, but porting a game from console to PC is outside of their scope. And while it may sell well here, not only do North American sales still pale in comparison to what goes on for them in Japan, but it we don't know what kind of manpower testing and so forth would require to be able to put out that kind of product, on top of other production costs.

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So! TL;DR version: Falcom has to take the first step to port these games to PC, and at this point, I don't see any inclination of such a thing happening. Not easily for them, anyway. Falcom abandoned the PC market in 2009, did a tiny dabbling with it, and we've not seen any sign of them returning to it otherwise.

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I know that this has been unanswered for awhile, but I went through and did some quick tracking down for him according to some Japanese sites. It's okay- since I was curious since you asked the question, so some minor research wasn't too big of a deal.

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It looks like after Quintet, in the late 90's he was involved in some PC correspondence stuff using the handle 'Kinoko.' (It translates to 'Mushroom,' also.) Afterwards, he became president of a company called Gigafactory in 2009, and he became the president of a credit card settlement company afterwards. It seems that after that point was when he's fallen off of the map.

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I can probably go digging into some more details, since it looks like this appears to be a rabbit hole of some sort, and most of the stuff I'm finding is from 2010. It's been 5 years, so it'd be interesting to see if there's more information beyond that.

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Thank you for the interesting question, though. It seriously makes me curious and I'll probably end up trying to dig into this some more, too!

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My Japanese class had us learning vocabulary and grammar right off the bat, but we didn't start delving into kanji until after we were done learning the kanas. I agree with this formula, because by learning two of the three alphabets, you will have some empowerment with the language instead of floundering around with it regardless.

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One of my teachers had a very different way of teaching the kanas- and he chose by teaching katakana first. Since it's an alphabet devoted for foreign words, he said that we would be able to recognize the terms and words that *we* knew, since it would help a bit.

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My other teacher was more traditional. We learned hiragana first, then katakana. Once we tested on those two and were able to successfully work with them, then she started to teach us kanji. All of this was alongside our regular grammar and vocabulary lessons.

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Beyond a certain point, though, I almost view vocabulary and kanji learning as one and the same, as well. You are learning to recognize the kanji while learning the meaning behind it.

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First warning, sorry for the spam. Second: this is going to be a weird question, since I think there are at least two levels to the situation regarding the Kiseki games and their frequency:

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1) I see the frequency of the games coming out to be something akin to an author trying to get their story out. From interviews I've seen, it's clear to me that they really want to tell this story- and they know fairly far into it in advance. Kondo's stated that they have a basic concept in mind how it's supposed to end, and that they're dedicated to finishing it as they can.

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2) Unfortunately, other games from Falcom at this point actually don't sell as well as the Kiseki games. In fact, Zwei 2- their last PC title- had terrible sales, from the sounds of things with their statements on twitter and what not. Looking at the sales of the Ys titles and even Nayuta, they've not been able to achieve the same amounts with them or other games. Kondo's also said that he likes working on the Ys games, and there's definitely "not an Ys game" around the corner, but looking at all the evidence it's clear that it really is, and he's trolling people.

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This probably took far longer than I'm willing to admit... but... I went digging for Media Create numbers (and had to resort to Famitsu numbers to a degree as well.) Let me show you the numbers for first week sales for each of the PSP titles as I found them. Another note: I could not find any listing of numbers for Gurumin or Vantage Master Portable either, unfortunately. These numbers also do not count the subsequent rereleases over time, as well. - http://i.imgur.com/6NPg0tG

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From a business perspective, it makes sense to focus on what gets more money- as a result, this will allow them to create other games reliably. It's kind of a give and take sort of situation. As the Kiseki games give them a lot more income, they are fully capable of putting that income into other titles eventually. But as the Kiseki series is not only continuous, but they usually have two Kiseki titles in development at the same time.

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However, Falcom also has long development times. And there are supposedly two Ys games in the works- whether one of the projects is still viable: this would be the Ys Seven multiplatform project that Falcom revealed back in 2009. Whether or not this pans out or if it's been appropriated into something else- we don't know. Hopefully we'll hear about it one day... Then there's that unannounced title in the works.

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For my opinion? Understand I'm a Kiseki fan, so I don't really mind it, but I do like the other games. My dream title is an HD release of Nayuta no Kiseki, and can't wait to find out more about the other Ys game(s). Then as they go to the PS3 and PS4, the development costs go up, as well. So they need to use these numbers to create neat, innovative new titles for those systems, too. While I miss the variety of titles, I'm also willing to wait for others to show up, at the very least.

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There's a lot of voice acting in Sen no Kiseki. It was kind of startling that a lot of scenes with dialogue for *Rean* however were not voiced, so it was kind of weird and jarring to have the characters around him talking, but Rean not.

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Looking back at Zero and Ao no Kiseki (not Evolution as a note), coming off of Ao no Kiseki to Sen no Kiseki still surprised me at the amount of voice acting, since Ao's use of voice work, while minimal, still had a lot of voice acting at key moments in scenes. (And even used the voice acting on a meta level to hit the player harder- the effect and impact of said scene is actually lost in Ao no Kiseki Evolution due to all of the voice acting even.)

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What I will say, though, is that I was surprised at the amount that was in Sen- it's not a fully voiced game, but there's still a LOT of voice work in it nonetheless.

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I'd say it depends. The primary issue with this would be the case of some misinformation where there are some areas that I feel corrections should have been acknowledged, but way too much time has passed to be able to stop that misinformation at this point.

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While it wasn't their mistranslation originally, Siliconera perpetuated the "prequel" misconception of the game that was in a bad translation from Gematsu. When Gematsu made the correction, Siliconera didn't. Even 2-3 months after the game's release, when all the info for it was out, the wikipedia entry was STILL referencing the Siliconera article claiming that Sen no Kiseki would be a prequel to Trails in the Sky. (Which is absolutely is not.)

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Here's the exact quote from the Siliconera article: "The story takes place Erebonian Empire before other games in the series. Falcom is keeping the specific time period as a secret for now. Remember the great invasion of the Erebonian Empire referenced in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky? Players will see that war unfold in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Flash."

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This comes from the fact that the original interview with Toshihiro Kondo referenced a 'great war' in one of his answers. There have been multiple wars spoken of since Trails FC, and after playing Zero/Ao no Kiseki, the 'great war' that Kondo mentioned will be very obvious. Tip: It's not the Hundred Days War talked about in FC.

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The other issue I see is the fact that they don't know what is and isn't spoilers in most cases. This is more of a matter of having not played the games, however. They don't know the context that (REDACTED) actually is (REDACTED) and helped work with (REDACTED) to (REDACTED) with the party and stuff. ;) In most cases, avoiding most English sites might be a good idea since they will be translating the information straight up, as it comes, if you're interested in avoiding spoilers.

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Regarding the translation of the title? I don't believe they have, no. I do know that XSEED has commented that they would not use that translation at all if they released Sen no Kiseki.

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"Updated artstyle?" I understand a new art direction for Sen no Kiseki, but Ao follows the original system in terms of graphics and style. The character designs in Zero/Ao were very different due to having Enami Katsumi working on the artwork, specifically. Since Falcom has hi-res data for the original Sora trilogy still, I don't see it being a stretch if the original assets were used once again for it, but with the voice work added in, ala Zero and Ao. The big primary differences for the Evolution versions WAS the full voice work for the main scenario, and the hi-res assets in the game, compared to the lo-res images from the PSP versions.

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Something important to note, however, is that Chara-Ani, as far as I've seen, is only gauging interesting. There's not been any real sign of whether or not they will take it. I'd say to keep an eye open for if that survey shows itself again, at the very least.

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Second Chapter is still being worked on, script-wise, as far as I know. I remember seeing some information from Andrew Dice not too long ago on the XSEED forums that he wants SC to be released in English as part of the 10th anniversary of the series. While the anniversary itself has passed, it's still 2014, so there's still time to get it in place. I do know that the changes that are having to be implemented into FC shouldn't be too hard to get done and added into SC, at the very least. So we won't have the programming issues to contend with on that end.

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