Actraiser - Retranslation Hack
Jul. 29th, 2013 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroIn a battle against the demon lord, the master was defeated and his power stolen. The world was overrun by demons and humanity was wiped out. But the master will return, inhabiting a statue to destroy the demons and directing his angel to revive humanity. (In what is one of the only fusions of simulation game and action-platformer in the history of gaming.)
I've played this game many times before; this time I played the retranslation hack for a change of pace. This version is based on the Japanese version of the game, which was significantly harder than the US release: The action sequences are harder (with more instant kills from spikes and the like; and more "cheap trick" deaths from traps and blind jumps) and time passes slower in the simulation mode, which means each area takes longer and spawns more monsters you have to fight as the angel. (I think the action mode time limits might be more strict, too, but I'm not certain about that.)
In this translation, your character is most certainly "God" (also referred to as the "Holy Father") and the villianous Tanzra is instead translated as Satan. The "Sky Castle" is just "Heaven". It's also clearer about you needing the faith and worship of the people to regain your stolen power.
In the US version, you learn to plant wheat and can replace cornfields with it. In this version, you learn to plant rice and can replace wheatfields with it--which makes sense with the artwork, as the new fields are blue (It's water, because they're rice paddies) which I never really understood before this.
The text is well-written and well-formatted, though the original wasn't terrible, this is definitely more elegant.
I had forgotten how similar this was to Soul Blazer (the next game by the same developer) both in themes and in sound effects, and in some of the artwork. Quintet had a tendency to reuse sound and art assets from game to game, but I'm not always aware of it.
I didn't know until recently that your score in the action stages matters for something: It affects the max population of your cities. I actually didn't realize that there was a real strategy to maximizing population, rather than just persistance. (There's a FAQ for it, as you could probably guess.) Of course, in this version of the game, where you're going to die a lot in the action sequences and dying resets your point counter to zero (often without the opportunity to rebuild that total), you'll need to be amazing at the early action sequences to stand a chance in the later ones--without the high point totals and high population, you'll have lower levels and hit points for the later sequences. It's rather devious, really. (Though, to be fair, the max level is 17, which you can reach while being far from the max population in all areas. After that it's just completionism.)
Overall: This is a great game, especially given the mixed genres. But this version of it is hard as balls and the retranslation isn't really worth the difference; play the US original release unless you're really into playing on hard mode.
I've played this game many times before; this time I played the retranslation hack for a change of pace. This version is based on the Japanese version of the game, which was significantly harder than the US release: The action sequences are harder (with more instant kills from spikes and the like; and more "cheap trick" deaths from traps and blind jumps) and time passes slower in the simulation mode, which means each area takes longer and spawns more monsters you have to fight as the angel. (I think the action mode time limits might be more strict, too, but I'm not certain about that.)
In this translation, your character is most certainly "God" (also referred to as the "Holy Father") and the villianous Tanzra is instead translated as Satan. The "Sky Castle" is just "Heaven". It's also clearer about you needing the faith and worship of the people to regain your stolen power.
In the US version, you learn to plant wheat and can replace cornfields with it. In this version, you learn to plant rice and can replace wheatfields with it--which makes sense with the artwork, as the new fields are blue (It's water, because they're rice paddies) which I never really understood before this.
The text is well-written and well-formatted, though the original wasn't terrible, this is definitely more elegant.
I had forgotten how similar this was to Soul Blazer (the next game by the same developer) both in themes and in sound effects, and in some of the artwork. Quintet had a tendency to reuse sound and art assets from game to game, but I'm not always aware of it.
I didn't know until recently that your score in the action stages matters for something: It affects the max population of your cities. I actually didn't realize that there was a real strategy to maximizing population, rather than just persistance. (There's a FAQ for it, as you could probably guess.) Of course, in this version of the game, where you're going to die a lot in the action sequences and dying resets your point counter to zero (often without the opportunity to rebuild that total), you'll need to be amazing at the early action sequences to stand a chance in the later ones--without the high point totals and high population, you'll have lower levels and hit points for the later sequences. It's rather devious, really. (Though, to be fair, the max level is 17, which you can reach while being far from the max population in all areas. After that it's just completionism.)
Overall: This is a great game, especially given the mixed genres. But this version of it is hard as balls and the retranslation isn't really worth the difference; play the US original release unless you're really into playing on hard mode.
Yeah...
Date: 2013-07-30 12:13 pm (UTC)One thing I like about this version vs. the US release is that in this version, when you Earthquake the old cities (to max out your population), the people build following the original route you commanded them (meaning they replace the oldest houses first). In the US release, the people'd start rebuilding in the new sections you just pathed out for them, and the resulting city tends to look really barren close to the temple as a result.