A new translation from the past
Posted by Gemini on September 6th, 2009
Finally Dracula X is ready to be played with a real English translation. Check the download thread for links and instructions on how to apply the patch.
Enjoy the pictures:
Posted by Gemini on September 6th, 2009
Finally Dracula X is ready to be played with a real English translation. Check the download thread for links and instructions on how to apply the patch.
Enjoy the pictures:
September 6th, 2009 at 10:59
“Come to me, my boy?”
I already like it! ^^
Great job, Gemini. I still can’t believe you’re able to hack all this games. Oh, and I’m also really impressed with your Castlevania knowledge.
…
Yeah, I know – an obvious and thus pointless comment… :P
September 6th, 2009 at 16:21
Congrats! More Castlevania is always good, even if it’s a retranslation of a game I’ve beat a million times before. :P
September 6th, 2009 at 18:56
I remember when I ran a video game store a few years back. This guy called me and asks, “What is the first Castlevania game?”
It took me awhile to explain.
September 6th, 2009 at 19:24
Hello there.
Congratulations of completing the retranslation.
I was wondering if you’ve considered translating the Sega Saturn version?
Seeing as that version with it’s added areas and items have never been translated in the first place.
September 6th, 2009 at 19:30
Gemini won’t hack Sega Saturn version. He don’t hack Saturn games, he don’t even own that console. Besides, Sega Saturn version of Dracula X – contrary to popular believe – is the inferior one.
September 6th, 2009 at 20:34
In your opinion that is.
I’d take more areas and items over graphics any day myself.
September 6th, 2009 at 20:57
What What???
Its done!? Damn it thanks Gemini.
September 6th, 2009 at 21:46
Take is absolutely right about the Saturn Dracula X. The new areas are plain horrible and don’t even get along with the rest of the castle, Maria feels like a cheap clone of Megaman, and there are like a million flaws introduced by the fact that they didn’t even bother to optimize the game for the console they were porting it to. So yes, it’s probably the worst version of Dracula X, definitively inferior to the original.
September 6th, 2009 at 23:45
Exactly. It’s easy to shot your gun and say that if has bonuses, then it’s better. It isn’t that simple, though. Sometimes it’s really better not so see how lame devs were by adding some crap in desperate attempt to justify making the same game all over again. Saturn Dracula X is a perfect example of it – those extras aren’t worth a shit and the game plays awful because the conversion is badly flawed.
As a side note – I’ve just watched that big-ass trailer of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (600 MB+ since it’s 720p) that’s available from Playstation Network and for Dracula’s sake… IT SUCKS! This game isn’t Castlevania! What was Konami thinking when they’ve slapped Castlevania name over this crappy Prince of Persia clone from some lame Spain-based devs that already made flops before (those are the people that created PC shit called Severance: Blade of Darkness and recently they’ve made Clive Barker’s Jericho)? They’ve even started to lie that Kojima is involved in this. He said two or three things to those devs and that’s all.
Well, anyway… Where’s that IGA next-gen Castlevania with Alucard-like hero? It got canceled because of Lords of Fails? Why is Konami doing this? First they’ve killed Silent Hill by giving the series to weak Western devs and now they’re doing the same thing with Castlevania…?
September 7th, 2009 at 01:41
Firstly it’s great to see perfect translation and I will definitely try it.
But not so sound like a prick is this doable in the psp version? Or you have no plans at all to do the psp version?
Because that version has all the extra’s so it should be the ultimate version of SOTN
September 7th, 2009 at 02:46
Great job, guys!
I always wondered what the Japanese version sounded like with its top cast of voice actors, so I’ll definitely play this. Too bad the game is way too easy to be much fun beyond nostalgia, with all of that grinding and stat-increasing. I remember that the ingame-videos of developers (or other experts) beating various bosses showed them succeeding without getting hit at all. It would have been sweet if the game had really forced players to adopt similiar techniques of shield-using and backstepping, learning the bosses’ attacks by heart along the way. If this game is hackable, I wonder why noone has bothered to do a difficulty fix yet? Lack of challenge seems to be the only flaw that basically everyone complained about back in the days, yet we get a whole re-retranslation before a simple difficulty fix.
Anyway, nice one. Keep up the good work!
September 7th, 2009 at 03:37
Yeah, the new Castlevania game looks like poop.
The Saturn Dracula X was choppy and poorly done. If you want to weigh better graphics against more areas and items and horrible load times including a ten second lag practically every time you open the window…then yeah. Besides, there were two new areas, both ugly as hell, and by my reckoning one new item that I can think of, and that’s the spear.
I still own the game…is is a CV game, but only because I love my Saturn.
Now I have to import this game for PSX. I only have the original US launch of it.
September 7th, 2009 at 03:42
Thank you !
September 7th, 2009 at 13:09
@droid: no, we don’t have any plans to go for the PSP port for several reason. First I’d have to redo all the hacks because the stuff isn’t a 1:1 copy of the original. Second, said version has a ton bugs. Believe me, the original for Playstation is really the only worthy of working on.
September 7th, 2009 at 13:17
ok thanks for clarifying it
Still a very good job!
Look forward to your other projects
September 7th, 2009 at 16:46
But, but… what is a man?
Anyway, you guys are the awesome.
September 7th, 2009 at 17:16
Corrales, you’re a miserable little pile of secrets, you know that?
September 7th, 2009 at 17:57
Awesome patch. But Gemini, have you tried starting a new game with no memory cards in?
NO DATA looks broken.
I’ll get a screenshot if you want it.
September 8th, 2009 at 02:48
Yay thanks, SotN is one of my favourite games :D What about Saturn version, yeah it is poor port. Only thing that I was always liked in it were Maria as playable character. I don’t give a shit about bonus areas but playing as Maria in PS1 version would be nice. Thankfully PSP version have that option even if it is not the same as Saturn. What about Lords of Shadow, I’ve watched trailers but I will wait with my opinion till the final version of the game. It can be a fail as SH: Homecoming but it can be a quite nice game, we will see. Only thing that I already like in it is that Patrick Stewart will have a role. I liked him as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The sad thing is that Lords of Shadow won’t have music of Michiru Yamane, but on the other side orginal Castlevania: Rondo of Blood didn’t have it either and soundtrack was good. I think IGA was moved away of being producer of that game because his last game in the series, Castlevania: Judgment had generally negative reception and Konami didn’t wanted a repeat of that situation so they placed Kojima instead of him. Konami know that his games are selling good and he is a big name on the west so they coosed him. When I heard of that I was shocked, sorry but in my opinion Kojima and Castlevania don’t match together.
September 8th, 2009 at 08:59
Sorry but Patrick Stewart in Castlevania? No way…
September 8th, 2009 at 11:32
I firmly believe that all of the best games have already been made. I watched one trailer for Judgment and passed on it without protest. There are plenty of games out there that are still good and needing of a translation, so even if you finish every good game in English you may still rely on translation groups to keep you in anticipation of a good RPG. A couple suggestions on PSX would be Escaform and Tear Ring Saga.
September 8th, 2009 at 12:25
um sorry if this is a common question. Were there anything different between the US/Jap version?
September 8th, 2009 at 17:30
The Japanese version was in some crazy language that I’ve never even heard of. The English version distinctly lacked said crazy scribbles.
September 8th, 2009 at 19:33
Congrats on your second release!
September 8th, 2009 at 22:19
Actualy it’s the third.
September 9th, 2009 at 00:24
It’s really the fourth. :0
September 9th, 2009 at 01:10
:D
Downloadin’
September 9th, 2009 at 03:05
Tnx alot Chaoticprime… you’re a ****ing big help. Sorry didn’t know you get this kind of reply here for questions like this *sigh*…
September 9th, 2009 at 03:39
I do not represent the owners of the this site in any way. Do not regard anything I say as the consented opinions of the owners. With that out of the way, I just watched the E3 FFXIII trailer. There is a chick version of Sephiroth! I henceforth dub her “Shepheroth.” I will play any FF game out of principle, but I don’t have to enjoy it!
September 9th, 2009 at 11:00
Actually the author said it’s a female version of Cloud, not Sephiroth.
September 9th, 2009 at 15:06
No, watch the video, I am not referring to Lightning. And it was not he author who said that, it was Tetsuya Nomura, the character designer. There is a villain in the video at the Square Enix website that looks remarkably similar to Sephiroth…should he be female.
September 9th, 2009 at 20:39
This is great. I haven’t this version yet so I don;t know. I hope you put the Voice Actor clips in the sound test.
How hard would it be to make an alternate patch where lines without dialogue boxes have subtitles?
September 9th, 2009 at 21:58
@xnamkcor: there is no sound test in the Japanese version. All you can get is an interview section at the librarian’s, but it’s nothing too special. It contains only a few weird comments from the voice actors, like Norio Wakamoto’s “Action game lines are so stressing!”.
September 10th, 2009 at 02:37
I have an interesting problem, here. I bought a copy of Dracula X (http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-5s-77-2-49-en-15-gekka+no-70-gt8.html) from PlayAsia and had it basically over-nighted here. It runs fine on my modded psx, but after I ripped the disc to a .bin with CDRWin and then apply the batch, the burn will not run. I get the Devil Hackers screen and then the not for Ebay warning, but then it just hangs up.
Anyone else having this problem?
September 10th, 2009 at 09:02
CDRWin? Try using http://www.imgburn.com/ and burn the disc as slowly as possible.
September 10th, 2009 at 10:12
@Gemini:
That’s all I wanted.
On another note. I have “defeated” “Shaft” in the Richter fight. I have a save file in the reverse caste. When I try to start a new game and put my name as Richter, it doesn’t work.
September 10th, 2009 at 15:38
An impressive achievement, especially considering that (at least judging by your own description) the only truly miserable pile of secrets involved in this game is the Konami code itself….
September 10th, 2009 at 20:35
I burned the disc using imgburn, I only ripped it with CDRWin. Imgburn is one of the greatest things from the internets. Still, that does not explain to me why the Devil Hackers screen comes up, but the game does not.
September 10th, 2009 at 23:17
Tough call, maybe try ripping and burning with Imgburn? It probably won’t change anything but it’s a worth a try.
September 11th, 2009 at 02:01
I think maybe I got some freak hybrid CD or they packaged a BEST version in the wrong jewel case. I’ll just go play Parasite Eve some more…
September 11th, 2009 at 07:20
Am I a bad person if I bought the game 10 years ago(new(greatest hits version)) and still own that copy, but I downloaded an IMG/CUE?
September 11th, 2009 at 11:52
No. You’re a good person. Go with God, boy.
September 11th, 2009 at 13:27
Hey, I still got the copy of the game I bought from Wal Mart in Eureka, MO in like, October or November of 1997. The only reason I bought the import was because I had a good excuse to.
Man, I still hate the ending song. It made me hate this friend I had with tourette’s who WOULD NOT STOP SINGING THAT FUCKING “I AM THE MOON” SHIT!
Luckily (or not) once we started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion he switched the Cruel Angel’s Thesis…at least it was a change…
September 12th, 2009 at 05:16
Hello Gemini. I have a question that is unrelated to Symphony of the Night but I figure if anyone has a clear answer for it, it would be you. Anyways, I bought Persona for PSP and although I am happy with it but I am disappointed at how atrocious the tracks that were remade sound (especially the battle, which will have to be listened to over and over). So I was wondering if you knew whether is difficult to hack a PSP and remove the new tracks and add the old one from the PSX version. i have seen this being done with PS2 games (notably P3 where someone added remixed tracks).
But yeah like I was saying is this an easy enough task for someone like me to just replace files here and there or is it something that would require me to have a background in programing?
Thanks in advance.
September 12th, 2009 at 10:11
Ha! See, what did I say? There was no need to remake that game and change the music just to make it more compatible with P3 and P4. Fix the interface problems and the localization…the music was fine and it was horror-themed and that was great. Now its sugar-pop stupid and this guy wants it gone!
September 12th, 2009 at 10:20
@Launder:
Have you tried extracting the files from the ISO, Converting the PSX files to WAV, Converting them to AC3, then putting them in the Persona ISO and re-compiling it.
September 12th, 2009 at 19:38
I have extracted the WAV files from the PSX game but Persona for PSP hasn’t been released yet so I don’t even know how that is going to look yet. I have never done that before that’s why I was asking.
I’ll let you all know how it all goes once its released.
September 16th, 2009 at 06:45
I just played through Batman Arkham Asylum, and I would like to let everyone know that after all was said and done, I ended up paying ten dollars an hour to play that game. Hopefully I can trade it in and reduce my overhead a bit. It was an okay game, I would have liked more than the one boss fight they offered.
September 26th, 2009 at 15:51
I really like this translation. Richter actually sounds… thoughtful and intelligent. Wow. I didn’t mind the DXC script and the original translation’s good for the lulz, but it’s nice to have a literal translation out there. I’ll have to play it when I get the time. If the new localization of Persona for the PSP doesn’t suck by your standards (I haven’t played it yet) and you feel you can be bothered to do so, might you consider porting the script to the Japanese original for Playstation? Not trying to pressure you, just a suggestion if Atlus USA’s script is any good. I’d love to compare the two side by side. If you don’t want to, I can wait ’til I learn Japanese, though. Thanks for the awesome work on Innocent Sin, Tales of Phantasia, and now this.
September 29th, 2009 at 03:10
I finally got the patch working on my disc. For some reason it finally just worked. I don’t know what I did. It’s like burning Sega CD games, sometimes they work and sometimes they do not. Go figure.
October 15th, 2009 at 12:49
Hi, is anyone alive here? I was just curious on the status of Echo Night 2 and Soul hackers.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:15
I believe Gemini has put them on hold until he is finished with his Castlevania game. I’m just waiting until he’s ready to work on them again. In fact, I’m just as eager as the rest of you.
October 19th, 2009 at 21:53
Hi Tom!
Excellent work you guys did with Innocent Sin!
About your comment…is Gemini translating another Castlevania game?? Which one?
October 19th, 2009 at 22:42
He’s actually making his very own original game.
October 19th, 2009 at 23:17
Looking forward to it. But I have been feeling like a hopeless mooch recently and I will be talking a trip to Japan in the summer and I want to learn Japanese so can you give me the names of some resources that can help please?
October 20th, 2009 at 12:43
Start by learning “katakana.” Katakana are letters that are used to spell out foreign words in the Japanese phonetics. Learning katakana is just about as easy as learning your ABCs, and you will be able to increase your vocabulary dramatically (without even learning a single Japanese word) because you’ll be able to read words like “taxi” or “restaurant.” (You know, the important words for travelers to know… Some of them, anyway.) :) I always recommend that people start with katakana. Good luck to you!
October 20th, 2009 at 23:39
The only words I really looked for in Tokyo were “Gundam Crisis” and it was in English.
Best half-hour of my life.
October 21st, 2009 at 04:31
Thank you Tom. That also lines up with every other source but one for learning Japanese.
October 21st, 2009 at 07:37
Faolin, the best way to go is to find a local Japanese class. You don’t need to find one at a university if you don’t want to do that, I found one locally myself that’s run at night. Besides that, you can try the Japanese for Busy people books. These will give you a bit of a crash course but aren’t 100%. Also good: Pimsleur, Barron’s verb book, a dictionary and the Rosetta stone (rent it from the library). None of these is going to make you a master of the language, but it’ll get you on your way at least.
Also, watching/listening to things in Japanese helps a lot with pronunciation and listening comprehension. Don’t try to speak like they do in Games or Anime though, you’ll sound incredibly funny to regular speakers lol.
October 21st, 2009 at 13:31
This is a small town,nothing like a local Japanese class exists here, so I might just ask one of the exchange students to help me. Also I remember my sister telling me that Rosetta stone is detrimental for learning Japanese.
October 25th, 2009 at 20:04
btw, did you guys watch this..?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6-FlV1XuN4
xD
October 26th, 2009 at 05:57
Man, I love that movie. I saw it in the theater four times. I am not a Nazi supporter, it was just a really well-made film.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:57
I feel ignored.
October 29th, 2009 at 04:42
Did somebody say something?
October 29th, 2009 at 09:18
I guess nobody really noticed what Iggy said in the last part of his message (I for one didn’t). So Iggy, balancing the difficulty is not a simple hack as you make it sound, that’s why nobody ever completed one (Esco is “too busy with gym”). Not to mention that this hack is entirely based on the Italian translation I did 2 years ago, so all I had to do was making sure that text would fit and resync the dialogues to match the audio. A difficulty hack would literally take months and would have to be done more or less from scratch.
October 29th, 2009 at 13:11
Haha, Ta-chan that was awesome. The original film is a great chamber drama too.
February 14th, 2010 at 02:40
What happened to Gemini ? He vanished …
February 15th, 2010 at 12:42
I’ve seen him online a few times. I guess he’s just not hacking anything right now, so he has nothing to show.
February 15th, 2010 at 17:09
Thanks for the info, Tom. I often come to see if Echo Night 2 translation is ready yet.
February 15th, 2010 at 19:38
Thanks for the info Tom, and sorry for asking. I know romhackers hate this kind of questions.