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エストポリス伝記ＩＩ
Estpolis Denki II

...copyright Taito, no doubt. The NA version of this game is called "Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals". The images used are also from the game. Don't go claiming them as your own or anything silly like that. This document is not intended for any commercial purpose, real or imaginary. It exists primarily out of curiosity about both the Japanese language and the changes between the Japanese and English versions of the game. If you're interested in the game, go out and buy it if you haven't already... a summary of what happens can't compare to actually playing it. One of the most underappreciated games on the SNES, in my opinion...

• Except in the opening, characters talk with speech bubbles. As the text appears, the game plays a sound, at a different pitch for each character. Since text doesn't give these visible and audible indications of who's speaking, I always show who the speaker is.
• If I'm not too comfortable with how I translated something, I've put a * after it. A (*) stands for something that I can't figure out even well enough to guess.
• Lines that are colored like these are my comments. Anything in gold is background information the dialog doesn't explain. There are also thought bubbles now and then. Game narration (e.g. "Found a key") and characters' unspoken thoughts are in this teal color.
• I've gotten sick of trying to come of with English approximations of name suffixes, and it doesn't seem right to drop them, so I'm just leaving them as is. If you need an explanation, go here: name suffixes.
• Since I feel like it, and it sort of contributes to the mood, significant music changes are indicated by the OST track number (first time only) and track name. For example, the load screen's music is 1-3 "Start of Journey", meaning track 3 of disk 1, entitled "Start of Journey". This may occasionally look strange, since the translations of the track names may not match my translations. Sound effects are also noted when appropriate.
• The characters are more animated while interacting than I can realistically describe. They walk around, lean into each other, jump with energy, wave their arms, occasionally make facial expressions, shake each other, and so on... They just seem more lively than characters in most similar games.
• Original (JP version) text, my translation, and the official English (NA version) text are displayed side-by-side in columns for easier viewing, and to allow comparisons. As of now, only part of the file has been converted to the new format, but I'm also revising my translation as I go along, so there's more going on than just making it pretty.

I've found the dialog and other text in the ROM (both versions), but dumping it directly isn't feasible at the moment. In addition to normal encoding and compression, this game uses sort of a sophisticated 'ditto mark' that allows blocks of text from the recent lines to be repeated concisely. It works well enough, but normal script dumpers aren't equipped to handle it, so I'd have to write my own if I wanted to do any meaningful dumping. And considering how slowly normal progress is going, I'd probably never finish it if I tried (on second thought, it probably wouldn't be too hard to write a byte parser with a lookback buffer... hmm). So that's why I don't just copy and paste from text dumps like I've started doing with most of the other games. All text is coming from playing through the game and copying it manually...