===================Digital Devil Story==================
======================Megami Tensei=====================
=========================V 1.00=========================
Genre: First-Person RPG/Dungeon Crawler

Source language: Japanese

Platform: Famicom

Patch language: English

Author: EsperKnight/Tom/Pennywise

E-mail: esperknight@yahoo.com
        translatortom@yahoo.com
        yojimbogarrett@gmail.com
		
http://yojimbo.eludevisibility.org/
 
======================================================
About Megami Tensei
======================================================
Project History:

Most people, aside from fellow old-timers, probably don't
realize that Esperknight and Tom are dinosaurs of the
fan translation scene. Tom gained notoriety later on
by translating Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Esperknight's
been gaining in popularity bit by bit with a slew of
announced translations. The truth is that both of them
have been at this hobby for over 15 years.

The story begins around 1998 when Esperknight formed
SGST (Some Good Shit Translations) with thefreak and
began various translation projects. The first of which
was Lunar Walking School for the GG and the second was
Megami Tensei for the NES. While browsing the internet,
Esperknight had come across some site in which Tom had
translated something Megami Tensei-related.

So Esperknight contacted Tom and one thing led to another
and Tom agreed to translate Lunar with a commitment to
do Megami Tensei at a later date. It was around 2000 that
Tom eventually translated the script and throughout the
years he would continue to revise the script as he studied
the Japanese language.

On the otherhand, the hacking of the game wasn't such a
straight-forward process. Back in the early days, things
weren't so much developed as they are now in the ways
of romhacking tools. Thingy might have been used to extract
the script, but more likely is that the self-professed
coding nut coded his own script extractor in C to rip the
script from the ROM. When the script was either initially
translated or in-progress, it was inserted back into
the ROM with Thingy, but the text pointers were not
updated and had be done by hand in an Hex editor.
Usually doing anything that wasn't simple/quick in an
Hex editor was a pain in the ass and a huge time sink.
In fact, this was a common method a lot of romhackers
used. No one really had the luxury of automated tools
like we have now.

The project was also hindered by being unable to expand
the ROM for a English script. In the early days NES
ROM expansion carried with it a certain stigma that
led ROM hackers to believe it was impossible to do
for a number of reasons including a lack of tools
and information. To a certain extent, this belief has
carried on throughout the years and isn't really a common
method ROM hackers employ on the NES. Given the physical
limitations of NES ROM sizes, it should be an ideal choice
for any ambitious hack or translation.

So throughout the years, Esperknight worked on and off
on the project, but it wasn't until around 2008/2009 that
he successfully expanded the ROM and gave the project a
shot of life. Over the next few years it eventually progressed
into a near-completed state, but various issues kept it
from being completely hacked.

It wasn't until around 2012 that the project really
started to go places. Esperknight had contacted his
friend Pennywise to ask him if he would be interested
in helping to finish Megami Tensei with him and Tom.
Esperknight knew that a lot of work was still ahead of
the project and that the NES was kind of Pennywise's
specialty. Having received a bit of help from Esperknight
in the past and also interested in being part of an
important translation, Pennywise agreed to help out.

And so the project started to take shape in 2012, but
frustration eventually took hold and the folks involved
eventually gave up on the project to focus on other
stuff and the project collected dust once again for
well over a year. It wasn't until late in 2013 that
work on the project started up again. Reluctantly,
Pennywise agreed to start working on it again, but had
decided that he had had enough and was going to finish
it no matter what. Over the course of several months,
he worked on the game until it completely and perfectly
hacked while also being issue-free.

Some of the issues and hacks Pennywise did included
tackling a myriad of misc text stored outside of the
main script. During alpha testing this led to several
portions of the game being untranslated and when you
find text after text untranslated, it becomes a redundant
process of translating and hacking said text when the
game is supposedly translated already. There was also
a nasty issue with the ROM expansion. Megami Tensei is
very sensitive with interrupts and timing, which in
layman's terms is when some code is being executed by
the NES's processor, it randomly jumps to an unrelated
routine where the flow of the code is interrupted
temporarily. This became an issue with demon names
that were relocated to the expanded area of the ROM,
but sometimes as the demon names were being read in battle,
an interrupt would trigger in the middle of that process
and when it would return from that interrupt, it would
go back to the original ROM bank where the demon names
initially were stored, but were in fact no longer in that
location. This caused problems to say the least and
finding a solution was not easy. After hours of heavy
thinking, the problem was solved and work continued.

Some of the extra hacks Pennywise implemented were
increasing demon names from 8 characters to 10, which
isn't huge, but it made a difference in not having to
abbreviate demon names due to interface limitations.
Through use of squishy tiles, we were able to fit in
Quetzalcoatl and Yomotsu Shikome without compromising
the font. Also equipment names were increased to 14
characters, which enabled us to have full, unabbreviated
names with no icons whatsoever. It worked out perfectly
as we were able to fit the whole name of the iconic sword,
Hinokagutsuchi, perfectly. Lastly, key items were increased
to around 16 or so characters, so that something like
White Dragon Orb fit perfectly.

January 2018 Update

Well, this took longer than expected. This current version
was supposed to be released back in 2015, but things
went terribly wrong. Anyhow, plenty of bugfixes and tweaks
to the script. Also an additional hack that swaps the
Purski sprite with the Behemoth sprite. Years ago I had
noticed that Purski was supposed to be one of those
Hindu elephants, but for some reason was a horse demon.
This persisted into Megami Tensei II, but Atlus corrected
it when they did SMT. I took it upon myself to correct it.


======================================================
Translator Comments
======================================================

I always wanted to translate Megami Tensei on the Famicom,
particularly because I wanted English-speaking fans to
experience the classic beginnings of the series.

One of the things that made me take a different approach to
this project (compared to most of my other translations)
is that I found that the original script of the game didn’t
convey the fact that the Megami Tensei game is actually a
sequel to the books it’s based on, and not a re-telling.
The game’s manual makes this clear, however the game itself
does not. Since this release is through a digital patch,
I feel that most people playing the game wouldn’t actually
read the manual… Therefore, I decided to slightly “update”
the game’s intro to clarify the actual situation for the player.

The terminology of Megami Tensei is often quite different from
the series as it stands today. A lot of the spell names may
seem new or unique… Finding out what these new spells and
skills do is part of the fun of the game.

You may also notice that the demon class terminology is quite
different. I put aside the present-day conventions and created
a localized set of demon class terms that may seem unfamiliar
at first, but are true to the original meanings. Given that this
game is from a different era of Megaten, I feel that this new
set of terms is appropriate for the game. I hope you enjoy them.

Translating the game itself was the easy part. The toughest part
was going through and formatting the game so that it wouldn’t
break any windows. I had to basically create a tile counter
pattern and manually line break and tag practically every bit of
dialogue in the game, then play through the whole thing and make
sure that none of the lines, windows, screens, or menus were glitchy.

The game was really finicky, and it took a lot of trial and error
to get some scenes and options working as intended. It was only
through constant loading, testing, patching, and consulting with
Pennywise that the script was able to get into a workable state.

For instance, there were a lot of “hidden” lines throughout the
game that had not been included in the dumps. The only way to
find these lines was to encounter garbled text in the translation,
switch over and confirm the original line in the Japanese version,
and then send everything in for hacking. That was a lot of work
for everyone involved!

One little flourish that I added was a slight pause at commas
or periods. I feel that it adds a sense of pacing to the text.
Also, I got rid of the double-spacing that was in the original
game. The English version is single-spaced, which gave me a lot
more room to work with, so I could afford to be “wordy” with some lines!

With that said, I’m proud of the script. I hope people can
dig in there and really explore the game. It’s a tough one.
That’s for sure. But this translation is for the fans, and
I’m sure that the most dedicated ones out there will really
enjoy the full, classic experience in English! Have fun!

Oh, and one last thing! Do you like the title screen?
I actually pieced the part that says “Megami Tensei”
together myself, adapting the title screen of another
translation that I worked on.
(Megaten Gaiden: Last Bible 2 on the Gameboy Color).
Unfortunately, I don’t know who made the original title
screen for Last Bible 2.
(Thank you, whoever you are!)
I requested the version I had edited to be used in this
translation, and I believe it was hacked in quite well.
It’s bold, and flashy, and the “Digital Devil Story”
looks pretty slick as well! Hopefully people feel pumped
up and ready to play when they see it flashing on the screen!

======================================================
Pennywise's Comments
======================================================
Every once in a great while there comes a game that is
just pure hell to work on. Megami Tensei was one such
game and it wasn't due to the complexity of the game as
Megami Tensei is a rather simple game. What made it so
difficult was how the game was coded. The ton of misc
text randomly spread throughout the ROM was annoying,
but the most frustrating part was hacking all the menus,
game screens etc. to accept 10 character demon names.
Getting the game to accept the new limit wasn't very
hard, but making it universal was incredibly difficult.
The menu on the bottom of the screen might work fine
and then all of a sudden the healer menu would be
broken. Next the fusion shop and on and on. It was a
lengthy process of fixing one screen and breaking another
until I finally got it right, years later I might add.

I came into this project late in the game with Esperknight
having already tackled the main portion of the game.
Considering what he was up against, he did an admirable job.
Basically my goal was to present the best translation
possible and get the game fully playable. Easier said
than done.

======================================================
Cargodin's Comments
======================================================
It's been a while since Tom and I collaborated on this
manual (we finished it mid-January, 2017.), so it's not
fresh on my memory. Still, I know I had a lot of fun
working on the project, so I hope those curious Megaten
fans out there have fun peeking at the manual too!

======================================================
Game Tips
======================================================
*There is also a hidden programmer message that can be
triggered when you encounter the BUG enemy. Hold Down,
Left, A, and B and choose to start auto-battle mode.

*After you beat the game and END appears, if you wait
5 minutes some text will appear and by pressing start
you can start a "Second Quest" that features slightly
different maps.
======================================================
Known Issues
======================================================
The translation should be issue-free,  but beware that
this game doesn't play well with savestates. Especially
in the middle of battle.

======================================================
Patching Instructions
======================================================
Due to the changes in the ROM, the traditional patch
format, IPS, is not used for this translation. The
patch is in BPS format, which can be applied with
Floating IPS or FLIPS, which can be found here:

http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1040/

Digital Devil Story - Megami Tensei (Japan).nes

We would be highly grateful, if you find some time to 
contact us with proposals or corrections. Information
on found bugs or corrections would be highly 
appreciated.

P.S.

Support the game industry by buying used games!

Even if the money doesn't go to the developers
directly, as the games become rare and harder
to find, the price goes up, and people become
more inclined to buy new releases "while they can!"

======================================================

Credits go to:

EsperKnight - hacking

Tom - translation

Pennywise - hacking

sin_batsu - title screen design and misc graphics

Ryusui - misc spot translations and general advice etc

DvD - title screen hacking and misc graphic hacking

Cargodin - english manual, box, label design

EricofTroy - english manual design

Lord Oddeye - testing

cccmar - testing

Xanathis - testing

All those who contributed into this process.

======================================================


Compiled by Pennywise. January 2018.
