MYSTIC ARK
ENGLISH TRANSLATION V1.00
Copyright 2009 by Aeon Genesis
http://agtp.romhack.net

ToC

1.About Mystic Ark
2.Patch History
3.Patch Credits and Contributors
4.Known issues
5.Application Instructions
6.Translation Notes

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1.About Mystic Ark
------------------
Mystic Ark is a fairly unusual RPG from Enix and the people
who brought us The 7th Saga ("Elnard" as it was known in Japan.)
The gameplay mixes old-school adventure/puzzle elements liberally
into the RPG formula, and it tosses out the concept of an
overarching plot in favor of seven seperate vignettes.

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2.Patch History
---------------
Mystic Ark is, unfortunately, a project fraught with drama.
However I will spare the reader most of that, and say that this
project was started well after the previous group working on it
stopped updating their website. After the script translation
finished, I spent a good year or two formatting the damn thing.
The script is full of EVIL, and after finishing up the more
difficult work, I didn't really feel like looking at it. So it
languished for a year or two, then the old group came back to
life and released theirs. Two weeks and lots of midnight oil
later, AGTP's Mystic Ark was ready.

September 26, 2009 - V1.01 release
--Fixes a bug which causes random battles to stop entirely.
  Bug occurs immediately prior to fighting the final boss of
  world 3. This one was a real head-banger, and occured
  simply because a string started at a particular place in
  the ROM... I swear, sometimes I want to punch the people
  who made this thing. 

September 22, 2009 - Initial v1.00 release

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3.Patch Credits
---------------
THE MYSTIC ARK TEAM
Main Team:
Gideon Zhi - Project leader, romhacker, utility
             programmer, assembly hacker
Ian Kelley - Translator
disnesquick - Proportional font hack

Special Thanks
Wildbill - Kanji table
Klarth, MKendora - Utilities

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4.Known Issues
--------------
A cat in the first world and the Wolf in the seventh, at
one point, will continue to walk around after talking to
them, to the point where they walk through the wall. We're
not sure what's causing this at present; it's very possible
that the issue is symptomatic of something that occurs
rather earlier in the game. Frankly though, these two
problems are purely cosmetic and should not effect your
enjoyment of the game.

No other known issues! Enjoy.

Please report any bugs, spelling errors, and such
on The Pantheon (http://donut.parodius.com/agtp)
Screenshots are preferred, as are savestates.

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5.Application Instructions
--------------------------
Quick ROM Info:
4.00MB (32mbit HiROM), WITHOUT Header (*exactly* 4,194,304 bytes)
*DEINTERLEAVED* If you need to deinterleave your ROM, use NSRT.

If using ZSNES, make sure that the patch has the same name as your ROM.
In other words, if your ROM is called "mysticark.smc" make sure the patch
is "mysticark.ips" okay? If you're using a Mac, a Mac IPS patcher is
available. Check the AGTP Links page. If you're using a copier, you
probably already know how to patch the ROM :) Be sure to apply the
patch to a clean copy of the ROM, and make sure your ROM DOES NOT HAVE
A HEADER!. If you right-click the ROM and select Properties, it
should read "Size: 4.00 MB (4,194,304 bytes)".

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6.Translation Notes
-------------------
*PALACE*
Yes, the fireplace is supposed to talk like that. It
talked like that in Japanese, so it talks like that in
English.

*FRUIT WORLD*
The character "Sly" was originally "kosukkara" in Japanese;
"Coskkara" romanized. According to Ian, this is a pun on the
word "Kosukkarai" which means "sly" or "crafty." We elected
to go with the name "Sly" to convey the meaning, rather than
literally romanizing the name.

*GRAY WORLD*
Many of the characters are named after people of historical
importance. We paid special attention to getting the proper
romanizations of these names. In particular, the curious
reader will note that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart did express an
interest in marrying one Aloysia Weber...

*FAIRYTALE WORLD*
The names are deliberate transformations of "real" fairytale
and nursery rhyme names. Most of these are fairly obvious.

The King       <---> The Emperor
Hensel         <---> Hansel
Gresel         <---> Gretel
Little Red Hat <---> Red Riding Hood
Hinocchio      <---> Pinocchio
Cinderenna     <---> Cinderella
Woz            <---> Oz

*ITEMS ETC*
One piece of equipment for Lux could have been translated as
either "Chitin Plating" or "Titanium Plating." We originally
translated it as "Chitin" as it literally romanizes to such;
however, one of the betatesters pointed out that it could
just as easily been translated as "Titanium." This was more
in line with the rest of Lux's equipment (which are metals,
not shell) so we went with it.

The same tester pointed out that "haken" is german for
"hook." So "Rock Haken" became "Rock Hook."


*CONNECTIONS TO 7TH SAGA*
They are few, but they exist. Here are some of them...

--The male main character's name defaults to "Remeer";
  katakana "REMI-RU." The katakana matches the name of the
  first town in Elnard/7th Saga, which was translated as
  "Lemele." Note that while 7th Saga refers to the King
  in this town as "Lemele" as well, Elnard has his name in
  katakana as "SHI-DA", so Sheeda or Cida or something.
--The mechanoid character Lux appears in both games.
--Several enemy sprites and animation are reused from
  Elnard in Mystic Ark. These include at the very least the
  Tole enemies ("Demon" in 7th Saga), the Undead Tole enemies
  (just "Undead" in 7th Saga), and the Metal Gate enemies
  ("Statue", I think.)
