Trails From Zero, Trails from Zero Updates

Trails from Zero: 50%

Posted on Author supremezerker

With great pleasure, I can finally say that the Trails from Zero editing is at 50%.  Despite the longer gap between updates, progress continues to move forward, relentlessly.  I hope you enjoy the treat we’ve thrown together for this big milestone! For this update, I’m simply going to talk about the journey thus far and plans for the project.

Personal Thoughts

Sitting at my desk, I’m quite giddy at the fact that we’ve managed to get halfway through this massive, wonderful game.  It’s insane to think about how I managed to fall in love with this game, and somehow started working on bringing it to English. The whole experience is and continues to be a joy to work on.  Nothing is quite like working on a passion project with a group of friends.

This semester at college has been pretty tough, if I’m honest. Being with my amazing girlfriend, my friends, and working on this has made it an unforgettable one. Besides, I can partially thank this project for convincing me to change my major to English. With that, I plan to become a teacher someday.  The semester is almost at its close, and I can’t be more excited to take on different coursework that I think I’m going to enjoy.

Plans for Zero

As of now, Guan, Catasplurge, and I are primarily focused on editing the dialogue of Trails from Zero.  While we’re doing that, Ribose continues to proofread and keep consistency throughout the script. He’s sort of our issues tracker, so to say.  Floofy has been our resident image editor, creating awesome edits of things in-game, like the chapter cards.  Jose, our programmer, is busy fixing bugs with script insertion and fixing the sloppy PC port.  Speaking of the PC port, you should try to get your hands on that. I won’t go into it too much, but that will easily be the superior way to play Zero.  In our project, the game’s dialogue has been split into four spreadsheets: Crossbell City, Towns, Roads/Events, and Dungeons.  Currently, Roads/Events and Dungeons have been completely edited. 50% of Crossbell City has been edited, and I’m working on Towns before jumping back into that monster of a spreadsheet.

Plans for the Future

The future is pretty exciting. I’ll go ahead and say now, a few others and I already have a team together to tackle Trails to Azure when Trails from Zero is finished.  If everything goes as planned, I intend to bring Crossbell home, in its full.  I really want nothing more than to be able to do that. And, after that, I doubt I see myself calling it quits on fan translations.  It’s just too damn fun.

If you’re a Falcom fan (I’d be surprised if you aren’t, if you’re reading this), you should be excited about all the fan translations in the works. Guan, Jose, and Preta just finished up and released Brandish 2 for the PC-98, so check that out! Our friends Wheat and Aliseyun are still heading up Trails to Infinity (Nayuta) and Ys II Special, respectively.

Sample Video

Well, here’s what a lot of you were probably waiting for! We decided, hey, why not go ahead and show off a little bit of what we’ve done? And what would be better than a video of the beginning of Zero, trailing right up to the OP (plus some other stuff)? The beginning of the game has turned out great, and I hope you all, individually, watch it at least 50 times.

We’re halfway over the barrier now, as a wise detective would probably say.  Fortunately, we don’t intend to stop climbing until we’ve gotten over it.  That’s all for this update, I can’t wait to share more with you in the future!

Note from omgfloofy

As I state in the description of the video, there are some quirks here that aren’t finalized in it. There is an audio quirk at one point, which was caused during rendering- this wasn’t from the game at all, so don’t worry about that. Last but not least, while the video is running 60 FPS at 720p, this is because of my recording software. I actually had the game running at 1080p, and it held a steady 60 FPS through it.

44 Replies to “Trails from Zero: 50%”

  6. Seriously, from the deepest pit of my stomach, thank you so very much for doing this. Small unfinished bits cast aside, (since they’re clearly unfinished yet, duh,) what I’ve seen in this video has serious polish and is worthy of standing beside the official translated Kiseki games in my library. I can not wait to get to play the Crossbell games, and yet, O Cruel Fate, I must wait. Not much longer, based on how BLAZINGLY fast you guys seem to be moving, smiling text emote here.

    I would like to ask a couple questions, though, as I’d rather not risk spoilers by trying to look them up on a Crossbell wiki or anything.

    1) I notice that in these “Enigma” Orbments, it keeps track of quartz numbers in the different Lines; do these guys work like the standard Liberl orbments that I know and love, with each quartz increasing elements and unlocking different arts as you go, or is it like the Arcus orbments that I never really felt I liked, where I had to often choose between stats and arts, and often found myself needing to waste 5,000,000 EP completely healing my entire party because I had swapped out my small heals quartz for Humongous Heals, when I only had to give one guy back, like, half his HP at most? Only played Cold Steel 1, BTW, so if you were going to compare to something in CS2, please don’t, I’m waiting for the PC port. Seriously, though, how many times did CS1 say “Hey, I undid all your quartz, aren’t I SO helpful? Good luck trying to remember how you wanted to build your characters!” I mean, damn, just let me build my guys and if they go off on a fun vacation without me and take their Magic Cell Phones, SO BE IT, I’m a big boy, I can do a little extra work and shop for new Combat Gumballs for my new friends. But I digress…

    2) I see a compass instead of a minimap; there a big ol’ map I can bring up by pressing something? I get lost easily, you see…

    3) Everything here was from the beginning, as you’ve said, but let me just ask, if/when/WHEN I play this game, how long will it be until I overtake everything I’ve seen in the video? Like, say that I’ve been playing for 45 minutes, am I going to be fully caught up with all the stuff here? Except maybe Lloyd’s train dream, if somehow that’s prophetic, again, no spoylz, please.

    Again, thanks so much for all of this, I check this all every single day waiting for the next update, and I really and truly wish there was something I could do to help and/or reward you all for this.

  7. Thank you so much for your work on this. Eagerly awaiting future updates and the eventual release! After much work proofreading and improving consistency of the Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ English version in the last couple of weeks I can relate to Ribose’s job now, so keep up the good work!

  8. Wow!! 50% already?! If that’s not dedication to a passion project I don’t know what is!
    Glad to hear everyone is having an awesome time working on this! Hopefully once Zero is done you could retain and apply this same hard work and enjoyment to Ao/Azure!

    I see you’re working hard on getting it to work on PC, will it be possible to port this translation into to Evolution version on the Vita?

  12. To be honest, a teacher is great. But considering all your team’s works in the gaming field. I wouldnt be surprised if you guy started a company similar to xseed. But that aside, please continue to support this franchise

    1. That’s going to be necessary, isn’t it? To actually own the PC version?

      Good. They deserve my Monies.

      Is there a PC version of Ao/Azure? Eh, I’ll worry about that once I’m firmly hanging from the cliff at the end of Zero.

      1. As I understand it, the PC version of Zero didn’t sell very well, and they didn’t port Ao as a result. The PSP version is around, so at least there’s that.

        1. Shoot. Gonna have to emulate that, and it’s probably gonna look like ass on a big monitor. Fortunately, I’m too poor for a big monitor, so I’ll go nearly-sull-screen on my moderate monitor. Oh well.

          1. There is a PC version, done by the Chinese company Joyoland. In fact, the Japanese PC port of Zero is actually based off of Joyoland’s Chinese port of Zero. Falcom just didn’t do the same for Ao. It might be possible for the upcoming Ao translation to work with that version as well.
            It might be harder to purchase something from Joyoland, though. However, as far as I know, they are actually offering Ao digitally as well. Just might need some VPN, in the worst case, to actually get your hands on it. (And get rid of the DRM, even if you got it legitimately, I wouldn’t let that run on my PC)

  14. i almost rushed things and played the unfinished one which got around for a while. thankfully i didn’t. take your time, i’ve played both in original Japanese (and buy the evolution, even. just because how awesome is Ao no Kiseki)

    1. Zero will work on the Japanese PC release for certain, as seen in the video.

      It is unlikely (but not completely impossible) that we will make the patch work on the Chinese version. It will require dealing with the Chinese version’s DRM, most likely recreating all of the same hacks for a different executable, and possibly additional unforseen problems. Just get the Japanese version if you have neither.

  16. This is seriously amazing. Moving from 15% to 50% in five months almost seems hard to believe.
    That said, a question. will the team’s modding of the PC version include making it run natively on an english locale? I ask since i had that problem when i was testing the original JP version out with wine, as i am a mac user.

    1. From what I understand, there isn’t a PC version of Azure, so you’ll have to emulate it, at least until the companies get around the Legal Limbo that’s preventing proper Crossbell ports. But hey, better something than nothing, yeah?

  18. Ooh, new question!

    I was rewatching the video again (like my 8th time, lol) hunting for little details about the gameplay that I may have missed before, and I caught something odd.

    When one of the chests is opened and checked a second time, it brings up a little box in the middle of the screen that says “The Chest is Empty,” but when every OTHER chest is checked, it brings up a big text box on the bottom of the screen that says “The Chest is Empty.” What’s up with the one odd-box-out, there?

    Also, no fun chest phrases? Was that just a U.S. port exclusive in the TITS games? Or are these guys some of those silent Erebonian chests that are too busy running an empire to chat with me?

  22. Any chance of us getting Jose’s fixes of the PC port as a standalone download?

    I intend to play Zero in the original Japanese, though I’m very, very interested in the renovations alleged to have been done to the hot mess that is Joyoland’s port.

    1. Yes, the fixes will be provided as a separate download. You can apply the fix patch first, which allows the loading of the English patch, but a member of the team said that it works fine with just the fix patch.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.