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==================================Idol Hakkenden================================
======================================V.1.00====================================
Genre: Adventure

Source language: Japanese

Patch language: English

Authors : Supper/TheMajinZenki/cccmar

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CONTENTS
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1. Idol Hakkenden - General Info
2. Hacking Info - from Supper
3. Translation Info - from TheMajinZenki/cccmar
4. Game Tips (from the manual)
5. Patching Instructions
6. Disclaimer
7. Credits

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1. Idol Hakkenden - General Info
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This time around we decided to tackle a little, wacky game by Natsume called
Idol Hakkenden. It's about Erika Saionji, an easy-going, klutzy girl who wants
to defeat her sisters in order to get the family inheritance. She has a month
to prove that she's successful at what she does, which in her case is singing. 
So, she wants to become a world famous idol. She is aided by 7 people who
have varying talents, and know how to use them. The title of the game is
a reference to a very popular novel in Japan, Nanso Satomi Hakkenden,
the title of which is sometimes untranslated, but means something along the 
lines of Eight Dog's Chronicles/Tale of Eight Dogs. 

The game is your standard adventure game, in which you have to use your wits
and available items to get by. You need to solve various riddles, mostly 
involving clever use of commands/available items, in order to lead Erika
to victory. Another interesting aspect of it are idol talents - sometimes they're
also necessary to solve certain riddles or move the plot forward.  
Some commands may lead to a game over as well, especially in the
later chapters (of which there are 5). All things considered, this is a fun
adventure game with charming visuals and a cool soundtrack by Natsume. 

We also included the online manual that we found with the patch, so be sure
to check it out for some tips, clues and character descriptions. 

Also, special thanks go to Filler for the initial script dump that we used to
translate this game! 

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2. Hacking Info - from Supper
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So when we were kicking around ideas for games to translate, a vague half-memory 
surfaced in my mind of some Famicom game about idols. I checked a list for games
with "Idol" in the title and said, "Oh yeah, Idol Hakkenden, why don't we do 
that one?" Some time after the entire script had been translated, I realized the
game I was actually thinking of was Rasaaru Ishii no Childs Quest. That game 
doesn't look nearly as interesting as this one, so good thing for my screwups!

The hacking for this was mostly straightforward. The biggest issue was the ending
karaoke sequence, which was originally designed to display only 18 characters at
once, not to mention the need to time it to the music. It took some finagling, 
but I managed to get both the translated and romanized lyrics in, so I hope the 
effort shows.

Aside from the hacking, I also ended up editing the lyrics for the insert songs 
to better match the rhythm and rhyme of the originals, so you can blame me for
those too. Sad to say my lyrics about otters cracking open nuts aren't even the
dumbest I've written.

You'll probably notice there's a lot of weird flickering and glitches every time
the game switches scenes. This isn't the patch's fault -- the game was just
kind of haphazardly programmed to begin with. It's all about the music anyway, 
right? Also, a special no-thanks to the original programmer for using the wrong
attribute map for a graphic in Act 5, which looked okay in the original game 
but terrible in the translation and forced me to spend an hour shoehorning in a
fix right before the patch would otherwise have been finished. It's bad enough
just fixing my own bugs.

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3. Translation Info - from TheMajinZenki/cccmar
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Translating this game was a greater challenge than I had first anticipated, 
mostly in regards to translating the songs and the main antagonists. Yet again,
there are some dialects (Kansai-ben, a weird French-English patois etc.), and
there are also references to actual sportsmen, like Ben Johnson. We mostly 
changed the names of the antagonists, due to their original connotations to
Iromono - which are basically Japanese variety shows, largely unknown in the West. 
One character (Kuwashi) also spoke using trivia. Another challenge was the 
main song and the "hoehoe" term, which we tried to localize and not translate
too directly, as we realized the direct translation was really bad. 
Shitenno - or The Four Heavenly Kings - also appear in this game, so yet again
we had to come up with a clever way to name them (what a prevalent trope this
is!)

With that said, it's definitely a charming game, and I hope you will enjoy its 
goofy plot and quirkiness.

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4. Game Tips (from the manual)
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1. Take a good look at your surroundings, and try as many commands as possible.
2. Always listen to every conversation to the end. There are times you must 
perform an action before you can progress in the conversation, such as buying an 
item at a store.
3. Your friends are more useful than they appear to be, so you should try asking 
their opinion as much as possible.
4. Erika's talents are the key to progressing the game, so don't forget to put 
her skills to test.
5. Whenever multiple locations are available, try going back and forth and
talking to everyone multiple times.
6. Please note that sometimes a command may have a different use than normal.

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5. Patching Instructions
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We've included an IPS patch and a readme file in the package.

You can use a program such as LunarIPS to apply the patch.

Apply the patch to the original Japanese version of the
ROM:

Idol Hakkenden (J).nes

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6. Disclaimer
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This translation is a non-commercial and unofficial project which is in no way 
affiliated with the game creators or distributors. We don't own anything here 
and have no copyrights.

We release this translation in the form of a patch. Please, don't ask us to send 
you the ROM, or where you can find it - we can't help you with that.

You can redistribute this translation freely as long as you don't ask money for 
it and include this readme.txt file with it. We don't condone any form of 
commercial redistribution. Please, keep that in mind.

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7. Credits 
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Supper - Hacking

TheMajinZenki - Translation/Manual

Cccmar - Script Editing/testing

Filler - Initial script dump

Also, thanks to RHDN for hosting our patch!