Alpha Build

[Borman]

Hey everyone.

Most of you won't know who I am, but I collect gaming prototypes of all kinds in an effort to preserve them for the future. I've gotten my hands on an alpha build of the English translation for FFT, and I've started a playthrough over on my Youtube channel, which Ill resume when I wake up in a few hours.

So far, there have been a lot of little differences, in addition to the debug functions mostly working as you would expect.

Ill drop this here, showing some of the major differences going on. (Playing on a PS3 CFW for the time being).

[Kaijyuu]

New user + reasonably out there claim = suspicious...

...He checks out, though! Link to his stream for those interested.

[Borman]

New user + reasonably out there claim = suspicious...

...He checks out, though! Link to his stream for those interested.

What can I say, I like to make a grand entrance.

If there is anything people want me to keep an eye out for, let me know. Going to start streaming in a little bit. I have a list of things in my head anyway.

[3lric]

What I'd like to see is a picture of the game itself. While what you've posted here does indeed show changed text, everyone here also knows that that can easily be done in FFTactext (one of our tools here on the site).

Not to say I'm doubting you, but we've heard these claims before, and seeing is believing.

[Borman]

It's a CD-r from 1997. Not much to see, but here you go:


Took it on top of my GBA capture hardware from a different developer. Just take a look around my Youtube channel, and you'll see that I have no need to make things up. The builds itself is from September 1997, so after the JPN build but before the US release obviously. The debug functions work as they should, minus the party function which cant be selected

[3lric]

Oh no, you misunderstand, I'm not accusing YOU of making things up. My worry was that whoever sold it to you could've easily made some changes in tactext and burned it to a CD-R.

[Borman]

Not the case. This build has been floating around for 9 years now in the same persons hands, and pictures from that time period are still around if you look hard enough that show the same disk. File dates are all different.  I have bought multiple prototypes from him, including Diablo on the Gameboy, and have received many more. He has a huge collection of prototypes, and has for a long, long time.

[3lric]

Fair enough.

Screenshots/video of the entire sets of bravestory treasures, bios, lands, and rumors would be nice, some people might find that interesting if there is anything different.

[Borman]

Streaming here if people want to catch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWs0yXwsZSU

Edit: When would you normally unlock the sound novel bits in the JPN version?

[3lric]

Sound Novels are unlocked during propositions. They are a reward, you then go into the treasures menu, select the novel and hit triangle. However, on the USA version you need to do some hex editing to enable the actual novel portions of them, so I'm not sure you will have access to them in there other than to look at the novel description. They also will likely be in japanese, though we already have translated versions here on the site which will be released with TLW and Jot5.

[Borman]

The thing is that since this build is between the JPN and US releases, they might still be in the game despite this. Even if it is in Japanese, it's worth looking at. Are there specific propositions I should be doing?

[3lric]

Oh, i have no doubts that they will be there, i just have doubts that they will be any different than what we already have access to by changing 4 bytes of hex in the usa game. Since they were never translated I doubt the japanese in them will be different than what we ended up getting.

I honestly don't know which propositions would be best for them since i normally just activate them using the debugger in pSX. You can find their variables/flags on our wiki

[Borman]

Searching for more differences now
http://www.twitch.tv/ptoponline

[LastingDawn]

Wow! What a find, I do sort of wish while watching your stream replays that you wouldn't dash through text, since that's where everything different would be andthe only differences here seems to be a translation in transition as evidenced by that terrific picture where it shows that they flirted with the idea of referring to the Orders in a more proper syntax before throwing their hands up and just calling them by their Japanese names.

Some differences I noticed throughout...

Stasis Sword - Steady Sword

"little money..." line is missing!

When you say "Something keeps popping up..." - It says "Reading..."

"A gang of thieves tortured is trying to..." Should be "gang of tortured thieves..."

Alazlam is currently Arazram.

In the Alpha, Ordalia is called "Sea Gull" by Zalbag.

Full stop when he mentions "Zeltennia".

Dycedarg is called Dycedag in the alpha, at least all throughout Balbanes's deathbed scene.

The intro text with Alazlam is different, I believe, but you skipped right by it so I can't say for sure if it was right or not.

Kind of surprising that they don't let you access the "Party" menu in this Pre-release. Party would let you choose from enemy formations as set by ENTD's as seen with the normal Debug code, but I suppose they didn't think a QA playtester would have needed those functions possibly?

[Borman]

It depends on which ones I played before. I have other footage of the beginning part of the game, so I went quickly. Most of the time, unless I zone out, Im quickly comparing the script on Gamefaqs with the alpha build.

[LastingDawn]

It depends on which ones I played before. I have other footage of the beginning part of the game, so I went quickly. Most of the time, unless I zone out, Im quickly comparing the script on Gamefaqs with the alpha build.

Well that is good. A microscopic lens should be taken to the script as you are doing. I believe the value of this will lie in seeing what steps the translators were taking as they seemed to nearly be finished by this point and why they chose what they chose or what errors they just didn't notice or care enough to fix.

Have there been any delineations in terms of events? Since this was a late preview model I highly doubt it, but you can't be too sure until all avenues are explored. For instance Ocarina of Time supposedly had you earning the Fire Arrows with the Fire Medallion even late enough for this bit of misinformation to get into the guides.

[Borman]

I doubt it since this is after the Japanese release. More likely would be things that were changed between the JPN release and the US release not being changed. Also the possibility of other leftover files. I havent quite figured out how to make the most of the full debug menu in battle though.

[LastingDawn]

You can open the files with CD Mage (back it up first, of course) and post pictures of the files and we can tell you whether the files are the same size or not, or what files are missing or added.

[Borman]

Some random screens. Some have typos or differences, some dont. Going to upload to it from now on I think.

Edit: It took a while, but I finally hit non-translated parts.


Edit: Back to English, shortly before this


Edit: Just beat it. Stays English through the end. Didnt really do any sidequests though.

[LastingDawn]

Was Elmdor's death line the only non-translated part?