Can you believe it!? After an extended silence, a Tales of Innocence update has come at long last! New screens and some information about when we expect this project to be complete.
So, we’ve been silent for a few weeks now. It wasn’t intentional, just kind of how things worked out. Kingcom and I have been busy with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia lots of real life things. Progress on Tales of Innocence has admittedly been rather slow since the last posted update. Some sections of story, a few scattered skits, and more menu revisions have been the main focus during this time.
So, here are our screens for this week. The left screen gives a shot of the menu in battle, which I think is looking great. The right screen shows off the Strategy window, which I don’t believe we’ve shown up until now. One of the biggest things to notice in both images is the bottom screen. As was suggested, we have changed the names to match the rest of the text in the window. The layout of the lower window has also been altered slightly to try and fill the space more effectively. Below we have one more screen, but it’s nothing different. The reason for showing this screen is that we want your input. Do you prefer the vertical layout as shown above or do you prefer the horizontal layout shown below? Let us know if you have any suggestions for the layout of the lower screen!
Finally, I want to talk a little about this project and when it will be released. I know people are excited about this, but we aren’t willing to rush it. We initially wanted to shoot for a release by the end of the year, but that is looking highly unlikely. To provide the highest quality at release, we really want to take our time both with the translating, the hacking, and the testing. I release that many people are used to fast paced, incremental release of patches from places like GBAtemp, but that simply isn’t how we operate. Do not expect Tales of Innocence to be released until early 2009. We thank you for your understanding and hope that you will still look forward to the final product. We assure you, it will be worth the wait!
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EDIT:
Version Kaji
Please note that these are shopped, so we can’t promise that we can reproduce them perfectly in-game.
Great! The battle Menù looks great, good job. About the layout i prefer the vertical one. Keep it up.
Great news! I’m glad you guys got some work done :]
I prefer the top screen. It’s much easier to read.
Thanks your efforts, and good luck!
Good to hear that we might get it early 09. My psp will keep me busy till the patch is released.
I prefer the horizontal layout. For the vertical layout, my eyes tend to jump around because of the gap between the two rows (the diagonal name column to the actual name). Either way, it’s still easy to read, but the horizontal layout seems to flow more fluently. In other words, it doesn’t seem “forced”. But, it is a bit clustered compared to the vertical layout. Great job with the update guys. Hope you guys had a nice week playing castl– being busy with your lives.
-Anakir.
The top screen looks better and easier to read IMO.
looking awesome as usual I prefer the at the bottom, awesome job guys I would still be interested if it was summer of 09 because this freaking awesome. now after tales of innocence you guys should check this game out Archaic Sealed Heat the graphic are awesome, I have a decent knowledge of the japanese language but not a whole lot a menuse tranlation would do good
I prefer the horizontal lay out. I really love how you guys are doing this and putting much work on it.
Vertical. It makes the HP/TP status easier to read, since the name text isn’t scrunched up next to it.
I preffer the vertical layout : D
Oh and also I thought of a suggestion. How about just removing the ‘name’ and have the names of the characters just remain there? I think it would be better and you’ll have more spaces. Just my opinion though.. ^.^
Actually, removing “Name” was one of the first thing we tried. Unfortunately, it left the whole screen feeling very empty. Kingcom and I weren’t comfortable with how much blank space there was.
I really apreciate your iniciative and your work is just awesome!
Have you guys thought about becoming official translators/editors of some game company? =D
Anyway, I prefer the vertical layout as shown in the first pictures.
Go for the vertical one, yo.
The horizontal one makes the “name” portion look out of place.
About the update: sorry if I’m nitpicking, but I can’t help but read “battlemenu” at the top of the in-battle screens. Couldn’t it use a little more space maybe? >_>
That said, the rest of the menus looks perfect. *_*
About the release date part: I have so many games to play already, early 2009 ends up being just the right time. Don’t rush it, great games require great translations and great translations require time to get done.
Definitely horizontal, I think. Otherwise, the “Name”s mess with the visual space, what with those diagonal columns, plus the names appearing on the second line as a result doesn’t help.
Or, another idea… remove “Name”, but center their names in the whitespace? (I assume it should be a simple sprite movement hack + some bitmap trickery.) Here’s a rough mockup:
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/775/toimockdl6.png
I also touched up a few of the letters… not sure how good they came out though, as I didn’t really notice the existence of the third shading color until later.
Though, actually, I’m not sure if it can be centered between the lines like that. If not, I would imagine it would still look good aligned with the top row.
Square711: The graphic (and others of its kind) was like that in the original, we didn’t change it. There’s another pixel between words, but it’s really clear, you’re right with that. I can look into it if it’s possible to extend the gap, but I can’t promise anything. The game has quite a lot in VRAM, so I don’t know if I have some space left (or maybe I’m lucky and don’t need any extra tiles, but things usually happen to be unfortunate…).
Kaji: The names are simple tilemapped graphics, so I can basically move them around however I like. Some of them would need additional space if they are centered between the lines, but that shouldn’t be a problem on the bottom screen. I don’t really like the look of it, but none of the options are really optimal in my opinion, so we’ll have to see what’s most famous and use that.
horizontal, just looks right …
the vertical one looks … too strange …and uncomfortable … def. horizontal
and take you time with the translation, you guys have lives to live too ^^
pre-happy Halloween!
Yay, an update! *_* Anyway… I prefer the vertical layout. IMHO it is most comfortable. xP
Definitely vertical layout. Thanks for a update! It’s a sign you guys are thinking of us fans!
Wow, the vertical alignment looks awesome!! Keep it
Thanks for your efforts ^^
Thanks for the news!
As for the layout, my choice is for the vertical one.
Such an amazing job…
You know what? Just keep it up. It’ll be done when the right time comes, no? Just knowing this keeps my hope filled up.
Well, I wnat to make a sugestion… Are you thinking about working on any of the PSP Tales? I think that you’d do an amazing job with “Tales of Phantasia Full Voice Edition”, or even “Tales of Rebirth”…
Stay well,
R.Mestre
wow, one of my mates told me some guys were doing a ToI translation but i didn’t know it would looks so professional
keep up the great work
As for layout, go for Horizontal, vertical looks forced and, well ugly
KC: no problem, it’s not that big of a deal anyway. If it ends up being too much work or impossible to do, just leave it as is. We all know it’s two separate words anyway.
Here is a suggestion from thedicemaster on GBAtemp. I have to say, I’m quite fond of this one.
http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/7286/toimockrl2.png
I prefer the horizontal layout myself.
throughim413, the “new” suggestion from GBAtemp is HOT! O_O Use it!! ^^ Also, it would be wise to add it in the post, so people can compare it to the others
Keep up the good work. I prefer the “thedicemaster” version
Definately go with thedicemaster one. It just seams to ‘flow’ better than the other two
I like dicemaster’s.
Yep, thedicemaster’s probably the best one.
Yes, definitly the one from thedicemaster’s ^_^. Looks better and organised.
great job guys!!!
I like how much you want to make this traslation not just perfect, but actually giving us options to choose from, this is just too awesome =D
I have to admit that the thedicemaster’s one looks better(but the others are nice too), but you are doing all the work, so anything you decide we will hapilly accept 8D
I prefer thedicemaster’s when I saw the first two you had shown, I liked neither because they were both a little convoluted and having the text for “Name” is a bit unnecessary and redundant, so in general, I think it is a lot better to remove Name from the menus
Yep, definitely the best by far.
thedicemaster
thedicemaster’s version is definitely the best. I’m really don’t think that writing “name” is necessary.
How to download patch
Here’s another vote for thedicemaster.
thedicemaster’s is by far my favorite. But if that’s not possible… I’d have to go for horizontal. In the vertical version if their name is short–like Iria’s–the gap between “Name” and “Iria” is really awkward, I think.
thedicemaster’s is the best one.
I liked how the level and EXP got centered on screen, because I look at it A LOT =P
I would have to say that thedicemaster’s version looks the best. If his is not possible then any horizontal configuration would work. The vertical style looks a little off to me.
Looking great so far! My favourites are thedicemaster’s version and the vertical version. But I’ll be fine with everything. Keep up the good work
. And early 2009 sounds rather early to me. Better then not getting this game at all, isn’t it?
Actually I think the Kaji version looks even better then the vertical. So my first choice would be thedicemaster and my second choice Kaji.
I liked thedicemaster`s version! =D
Even though it`s shopped, you should definetly try to use it
I like thedicemaster’s version as well. If that’s not doable, then probably the first one you posted, the one that is on the first two shots.
Too bad we won’t get too see this until at least 3+ months more, but you can’t rush quality, now can you? ;p
Thedicemaster’s version looks pretty good, it’s well organized and easy to read.
But imho, whichever format you pick we’ll eventually get used to
I prefer thedicemaster/kaji’s versions.
I like thedicemaster’s version, but if it’s not possible… The horizontal version works well. I prefer the right-alignment of the names to Kaji’s version where they are centered.