Spoiler

"It all started back in the Spring/Summer of 2015. I had a strong interest in the DQVII project that was going on, and after working on some translation projects in the past, I was wondering if my skills were anywhere near what they would need to be years later, to attempt a 3DS game.



And so I started dissecting the files, the .BINJ files being the easiest to break down. With these dumped, I started machine translating with my rudimentary knowledge of Japanese as well, and a strong knowledge of this franchies/series. I soon had a way of getting my english translations back into these files. In my excitement, I tried out the game changes using NTR, only to discover that though I translated cutscene dialog for the intro, it was all still in japanese! I soon discovered based on another members own investigations years ago, where this dialog was. Though he had no real idea how to extract it or recreate the files. So I set to work...



Many months later, I felt defeated. I could not figure this out. I had it to a point where I extracted the dialog fully (or so I thought), but could not for the life of me get the text back in without the game crashing! So I sat on it until the end of 2015. It was around this time, another member of these forums decided to take this project on as her own. Naturally, this pissed me off, as I had never totally given up, admitted failure, or passed the torch in any way shape or form. I'm sure some of you may remember this.



This newly acquired aggression put me back to work, for many late, sleepless nights to figure all of this out. I built many analysis tools to try to assess these files. I finally broke the majority of what barriers were holding me back, and in later bug testing, would find more along these lines, eventually squashing almost all of them.



I set out now, to find viable translators, interested in this project. With the help of Callandor05, I found Easton West. This guy... Wow! I won't drone on much, but the lush translation, puns, humor, and everything he added to it. It was remarkable writing, which we would eventually polish up, and incorporate into the entire script. It was around this same time I discovered Blark on these forums, and what we DQ fans know as the Dragon's Den. He has been google translating the game with his phone, making a screen shot guide, and compiling his own resources into english. I quickly snagged him up for menu translating. He provided a lot of work, which our editors later polished up, and he editted almost 100% of the in-game images after I showed him exactly how to do it. A huge thanks to him as well for testing! He would shortly be joined by Darkshowdo who assisted with Image edits, the new logo ideas, the trailer, and all the PR and support provided to you guys upon launch.



Of course, prior to this, the old large in-game font held us back, and limited us to only so many characters, per 2 lines, per text box. I quickly set to work on this, and discovered how to do it, but didn't have the time, let alone patience. Doing all of this stuff was quickly taking it's toll on my mental health! Callandor05 set out to create the font. Which he on his own, once I explained the complicated process of how to do it from scratch. He did a beautiful job on it, and you have him to thank for not going to large, small, or putting any more strain on your eyes!



Easton West eventually finished the main game script, and it was up to me to finish it. He also left us a bit prematurely with more of the random town NPC dialog completely untranslated. This is when I set to work, alone, and this took me quite some time. As I started to struggle going on this alone, I stumbled upon JasonPK. Now you've seen this name here, as he provided support on launch. This guy... You might say between him and Easton West, they collectively restored my faith in completing this project, and continually inspiring me to continue. JasonPK kicked some serious butt in editting, and expanding the script, since we had a smaller font, and much more room. Tackling menus, descriptions, and the story, I was now re-inspired to continue translating. It was around this time, I discovered MasterofMemes from another project. He ended up providing us with a little bit of work, but helpful none the less. JasonPK and I often turned to him for tough translations. Additionally, I was talking with the group of fans working on the Great Ace Attorney project. I must give them a brief shout out as well, as many of their translators helped point me on the right path on certain things I was just lost on (context wise).



Showing JasonPK how to machine translate, edit, and expand the text then was the next step. He showed no signs of slowing down, and was not having any trouble catching on either. Together, we steam rolled the rest of the script, until we hit a breaking point... This was the new, never before seen in english, post-game dialog. It made absolutely no sense to us.



I set out on my play test, and got to this. Conquering it in Japanese. Making many rough drafts of what I believed the story to be based on translation work. I then went through and rewrote, expanded, and fixed lots of the dialog in the entire game a 2nd time.



This is when all of you started seeing those progress updates and getting extremely excited. I occasionally ran into snags along the way, especially towards the end of the game. Every 2 gates of so, the entire town would grow more, adding new NPCs and all of their dialog changing along with it. Adding the post-game areas to the game as well, with all those NPCs further complicated this exponential growth and testing phase.



But, we got through it. I finished all of it, very late on 10/6/2016. Let me the team know, and we started working on a release plan. There were a few hiccups along the way, and some of you did an excellent job reporting bugs to us as we continue to improve this project.



Thanks again for all of your patience! We all started off doing this for ourselves, but grew tired of the game along the way after much play testing. We finished it for all of you though, and are extremely happy we saw it through to the end! Will there be more project? Who knows... We have a huge amount of respect for the publisher and do not ever wish to infringe on their IP, or disrespect them in anyway. We thought, being this was older than DQVII and that only recently got an announcement, along with VIII, this was safe to say we were not getting this one over here (like DQM1+2 on PSX).



So... here's to a successful project, much fun had by all, and to the future!"



- Z6n4