********************************************************************************
*            Madou Monogatari III: Kyuukyoku Joou-sama (Game Gear)             *
*                          English Translation Patch                           *
*                              v1.2 (14 Feb 2020)                              *
*                                                                              *
*                        TheMajinZenki -- Translation                          *
*                               Supper -- Hacking                              *
*                               cccmar -- Editing and Testing                  *
*                               Novyal -- Manual Scanslation                   *
*                             Xanathis -- Testing                              *
*                          Oddoai-sama -- Testing                              *
*                               Filler -- Special Thanks                       *
*                        Kingofcrusher -- Special Thanks                       *
********************************************************************************

Having vanquished Satan in the events of Sorcery Saga II, magician-in-training 
Arle Nadja and her new companion Carbuncle continue their journey to the Ancient 
Magic School. But trouble once more finds them on the road when they are 
mysteriously ambushed by Rulue, who declares her undying love for Satan and 
traps them in a labyrinth. Aided by the citizens of the Frog Empire, can Arle 
escape the Minotauros's labyrinth and exact vengeance on Rulue?

Sorcery Saga III: The Ultimate Queen (Madou Monogatari III: Kyuukyoku Joou-sama) 
is a dungeon crawler by Compile that's probably best known as the basis for the 
Puyo Puyo series. The game was originally released on various Japanese home 
computers, but this patch targets the later port/remake for the Sega Game Gear.

This patch fully translates the game into English.

                    ****************************************
                    *          Table of Contents           *
                    ****************************************

  I.   Patching Instructions
  II.  Basic Gameplay
  III. Authors' Comments
  IV.  Version History

                    ****************************************
                    *       I. Patching Instructions       *
                    ****************************************

You'll first need a ROM image of Madou Monogatari III: Kyuukyoku Joou-sama for 
the Game Gear.

There are two known revisions of the game. Due to the two versions being nearly 
identical, this patch will work with either one. Make sure your ROM matches one 
of the following specifications:

  Original release:
    No-Intro filename: Madou Monogatari III - Kyuukyoku Joou-sama (Japan).gg
    CRC32:             0A634D79
    MD5:               B8B5305EC2F68D7BB3C9F622A13EBA7C
    SHA-1:             DD590C9086161B1F97573C48720C32CC5506DABC

  Revision 1:
    No-Intro filename: Madou Monogatari III - Kyuukyoku Joou-sama (Japan) (Rev 
1).gg
    CRC32:             568F4825
    MD5:               1294C965ABDD845F554B30B311DEE272
    SHA-1:             673670F954176FFAB28A0280AA49856A457F36B1

The patch itself is a standard IPS patch. Use a tool such as Lunar IPS to apply 
the IPS file to the ROM. The patch will expand the ROM to 1 MB, so don't use 
ancient patching utilities that don't support that.

                    ****************************************
                    *          II. Basic Gameplay          *
                    ****************************************

********************************************************************************

NOTE: Thanks to some extraordinary work by Novyal, we now offer a full 
scanslation of the entire user manual. The section below is still provided as a 
quick reference, but the manual is a more complete (and infinitely 
better-looking) resource. You should have gotten the PDF of the manual along 
with the patch. If not, it's available on the patch's web site: 
http://stargood.org/trans/madou3_manual.php

********************************************************************************

Sorcery Saga III is a dungeon crawler, but has a few unusual features compared
to other games in the genre. Here's a quick overview of the gameplay.
  
  ***********************
  * Dungeon Exploration *
  ***********************
  
  The main part of the game is, naturally, exploring dungeons. In this mode, 
Arle can walk around and search for items, stairways, and so on.

  Controls:
  
    D-Pad Up/Button 1    Move forward one square.
    D-Pad Left           Turn to the left.
    D-Pad Right          Turn to the right.
    D-Pad Down           Turn to face the opposite direction.
    Button 2             Open the Main Menu.
    Start                When a menu is open, pressing Start will show a help 
                         message explaining the currently selected item.
  
  While exploring, the screen consists of five parts:
  
    Top-left        Dungeon view.
                    Shows what Arle is currently looking at.
                    
    Top-right       Arle and Carbuncle's faces.
                    Indicates Arle's current health, and Carbuncle's current
                    hunger (see below).
                    
    Bottom-left     Compass.
                    The four icons indicate Arle's current orientation. The 
                    direction at the top of the compass is the one Arle is
                    currently facing.
                    
    Bottom-right    Message window.
                    If Arle finds something in the dungeon, text may appear 
                    here.
                    
    Screen border   Experience meter.
                    Arle earns experience for defeating enemies. As she does, 
                    the gems around the edge of the screen will light up.
                    Once all the gems are lit, Arle will gain a level and
                    become more powerful.
  
  Unlike traditional RPGs, this game doesn't use concepts like "hit points" or 
"magic points"! Instead of numbers, Arle's current state is shown by her 
expression. If she's in good health, she'll be happy and smiling, but if she's 
hurt, she'll frown or looked pained.
  
  Another clue to Arle's status is the music. If the normal background track is 
replaced by "unhappy" music, Arle is very low on HP or suffering from a status 
problem.

  Additionally, Sorcery Saga III contains a feature known as as the "Carbuncle
Hunger System". After Arle walks a certain number of steps, Carbuncle will get
hungry and want to eat. Carbuncle will eat Veggies if Arle has any, but if she
doesn't, he'll eat any edible item she's carrying. Always keep stocked up on
Veggies!
  
  *************
  * Main Menu *
  *************
  
  While exploring the dungeon, the Main Menu can be accessed by pressing Button 
2. It contains the following options:
  
    Map             Opens the dungeon map, showing Arle's current position and 
                    orientation.
                    As Arle explores, the map will automatically be filled in 
                    with the locations of walls and doors. Note that some
                    features aren't recorded on the map.
                    When the map is open, press Up and Down on the D-Pad to 
                    switch between previously-explored floors.
                    
    Magic           Allows Arle to cast spells.
                    Note that spells used in this way may have different 
                    effects from when they're used in battle.
                    
    Items           Opens the Item Menu.
                    From here, Arle can use the items she finds while 
                    exploring the dungeon. Press the Start button after
                    selecting an item to receive an explanation of its effect.
                    
    Save            Allows Arle to update her journal, saving current progress.
                    Up to four save files may exist at once.
  
  Additionally, while the Main Menu is open, the amount of gold Arle is 
currently holding will be shown in the Message Window.
  
  **********
  * Battle *
  **********
  
  While exploring the dungeon, Arle will encounter many enemies that she must 
defeat in order to progress. When an enemy appears, the game switches to Battle 
mode.
  
  In Battle mode, Arle and the enemy will take turns attacking each other. 
During her turn, Arle can do one of four things:
  
    Magic           Allows Arle to cast spells.
                    Arle is a magician, so she can't attack enemies physically!
                    Instead, she can cast spells to do damage, heal herself,
                    or cause other effects.
                    
    Items           Opens the Item Menu.
    
    Run             Attempts to run from the battle.
                    Note that there's a chance Arle won't be able to escape, 
                    and certain battles may be impossible to run from.
                    
    ?               Uses the special "LIPEMCO" ability.
                    "LIPEMCO" may be used only once per battle, and can have 
                    many different effects.
  
  During battle, the current health of both Arle and the enemy is indicated by 
the messages shown when they're hit by an attack.
  
  Arle has a limited supply of magic power. While basic attack spells don't 
require any magic power to cast, most other spells will deplete Arle's magic 
power when used. If Arle runs out of magic, she won't be able to cast most 
spells. Whenever Arle gains or loses magic power, a message indicating the 
amount remaining will be displayed, so make sure to use magic-restoring items
if it gets low.
  
  Defeating enemies causes Arle to earn experience. As she does, the experience
meter around the edge of the screen will fill (see "Dungeon Exploration"). Once
it's full, Arle will gain a level, increasing her power and restoring her
health.
  
  ********
  * Tips *
  ********
  
  * If Arle tries to walk into a wall, she'll bump into it. This technique can 
sometimes be used to uncover secrets. If you come across a suspicious dead end, 
try bumping into it and seeing if anything happens.

  * Pay attention to the dungeon map! Make sure you explore every area possible,
or you might miss important events. Sometimes, you may have to get additional
skills before you can visit every space on a level, so make sure to occasionally
check levels you've already visited (Up/Down Buttons on the map screen) for
blank areas.
  
                    ****************************************
                    *        III. Authors' Comments        *
                    ****************************************
  
  -------------------
  -- TheMajinZenki --
  -------------------
  
  Having already translated Madou Monogatari II (GG), working on Madou 
Monogatari III was a no-brainer. I was already invested in the series, and 
besides Arle's shenanigans are always fun to see (and translate). From what I 
could gather, the plot is similar to other versions of Madou Monogatari III, but 
it is told in a very different manner (the PC98 version has a whole plot about 
Arle needing medicinal herbs for her frostbitten hands, this doesn't exist at 
all here). I personally think this version is funnier, but I'll let you be the 
judge of that.
  
  At any rate, I hope you enjoy this game as much as I did translating it. Have 
fun!

  ------------
  -- Supper --
  ------------
  
  Well, here we are again. This is my first release in a while, despite having 
been working on projects constantly in the meantime. It's been so long it feels 
kind of weird to actually be putting something out...
  
  This project has actually been a pretty long time coming. Immediately after we 
finished with Madou Monogatari II back in... wow, May? Really? Anyway, right 
after that, I went ahead and ported all of the core code for the translation 
over to this game, which uses almost the same engine. But it was a while before 
TheMajinZenki could get around to translating it, so it sat on the shelf for 
several months before I was finally able to finish things off. Then it ended up 
being another month and a half before we released it, so I had to go back and 
play the game again today to remember enough about it to put together the 
release package. That's my excuse, anyway.
  
  This wasn't too hard a project as far as the technical end goes... with the 
exception of the cutscenes. If you play this, please try to take a moment to 
appreciate that the characters' lips move in sync with their dialogue, because I 
had to manually redo all of the mouth movements and the cutscene timing to line 
up with the new text. It's like dubbing anime in reverse. Seriously, I'm pretty 
sure I spent longer tweaking the cutscenes one line at a time than I did on 
anything to do with the gameplay.
  
  Anyway, hope you enjoy the game. The balance is very different from II, but 
it's still got that zany Madou Monogatari feel to it. Oh, and watch out for 
Carbuncle -- he gets hungry sometimes. By which I mean all the time.
  
  ------------
  -- cccmar --
  ------------

  Sorcery Saga 3 is the final mainline story entry of the series for the GG. We 
released the patch for the second game in the series a while ago, and so it was 
only natural to pick up the third game. Interestingly, this and "A" are the 
entries which were changed the most compared with the PC originals. There are 
completely new plot points, dungeons, enemies and friendly characters involved, 
but the main story remains more or less the same. It’s still quite fun and 
unique due to the changes, so we definitely enjoyed working on it. When it comes 
to the script, there were a couple of puns here and there which needed to be 
localized, but nothing too major overall. So, we hope you enjoy this game… and 
stay tuned for SS: A in the future!
  
  ------------
  -- Novyal --
  ------------
  
  This was the hardest manual to work on so far, due to the way the backgrounds 
had so much artwork overlapping Japanese text. I started by converting the pdf 
from SEGA Retro into png files, removed the Japanese text, then inserted the 
(awesome translation!) text and made the final adjustments.

  Since I don't have access to Photoshop (which can remove text from images in 5 
seconds), I would take 1 hour or more per page just to remove text, as I had to 
do it manually with GIMP.
  I can't complain though, GIMP is free and very useful. Using my method, you at 
least get a “crafted” and personal version of the manual.

  The most complicated thing to do is recreating background art details lost 
when removing Japanese text. Additionally I had to rotate most pages since the 
original scan was askew. Re-arranging text boxes and re-position images in some 
pages to make the text fit had to be done.

  Fonts are selected depending on the mood of the manual, I also use fonts that 
capture the look of the original text (curvy, blocky, angular, etc). The colors 
are as close to the original as possible, I only change them when it's 
illegible. I tried to use as much of the original layout and material as 
possible, to be as faithful to the original as I can.

  As to the cover - I had no choice but to remove most of the cool logo 
decoration since it was intertwined with the Japanese text and I couldn't 
recreate it. I used the same fonts as the translated title screen made by 
Supper, to make it consistent.

  Pages 4 & 5 - I couldn't remove the Japanese text without altering the 
background artwork, so I had to get creative. Tried different approaches, in the 
end I settled for a glow around the English text to cover the removed Japanese 
text, otherwise you could tell where the removed text used to be and that would 
break the illusion. It still shows a lot of the background artwork (but not as 
much as I'd like to).

  Page 8 - As in previous manuals I worked on, when there's vertical Japanese 
text, I instead insert rotated English text, since vertical English text doesn't 
read well. To keep it consistent, I always rotate the text in the same direction 
in all pages (when needed).

  Page 12 - I always try to use the original Japanese manual text symbols. For 
example, the symbols for buttons 1 and 2 in this page. Same goes for all pages 
with text symbols.

  Page 13 - When replacing the Japanese screenshots with English ones, I use a 
filter so they blend better. The images for “Start” and “Load” in this page are 
actually details from screenshots.

  Page 14 - The color of the lines was changed to a pink hue, since the original 
lines were red and barely visible in contrast with the screenshot. The Japanese 
manual also had text going out of the colored text bubbles, so I did the same.

  Page 17 - Originally didn't have a page number, but the team agreed we should 
add one.

  Page 27 (Carbuncle sale) - English text usually takes up more space than 
Japanese text, so I had to play around with font sizes/types to make sure it all 
fits *and* looks readable. In this page, “number of items” had to be decreased 
in size and divided into two lines.

  Page 30 - The original Japanese manual had a different background artwork, 
unfortunately I couldn't save it, so I removed it entirely and added 2 related 
artworks (Carbuncle from this manual's SEGA contacts and fax club, Minotaurus 
from an artwork card).

  I wanted the manual to look like it was a scan from a real English manual. I 
had a lot of fun working on this manual and I hope you (the reader) will also 
find enjoyment in perusing it!

                    ****************************************
                    *         IV. Version History          *
                    ****************************************

v1.0 (30 Dec 2019): Initial release.

v1.1 (30 Jan 2020):
  * Fixed a typo in the script that caused the Sheepder's damage message to 
erase part of the text in the right-side dialogue box.
  * Updated a handful of messages for consistency with other games in the 
series.
  * Fixed a bug from the original game where a screen-shake effect used in a few 
places, such as the earthquake and sea lion LIPEMCO effects, did not correctly 
reset the screen position after finishing. This could cause the screen to get 
"stuck" at a slightly offset position.

v1.2 (14 Feb 2020): Added scanslated manual by Novyal to package.
                    Patch content is unchanged.
