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Post by Falcarius on Apr 23, 2014 14:36:27 GMT -5
Now that the Zoids Original story is finished, it's time for me to start working on other translation projects. I am planning to do some work for Hanyoutai over at The Iron Bible, particularly on the Zoids Web Comic and what's left of Zoids SS, but I'll probably have time to work on other things as well. So I was wondering, what would people here most like to see translated? (Note that the more specific you are, the more likely it is I'll get that thing translated. Please don't just say "everything"  ) - Battle Story (e.g. History of Zoids, Zoids Bible, Official Fan Books) - manga (e.g. Planet Zi, Raiga, Teru) - games (e.g. Saga series, VS series, Cyber Drive) - web content (e.g. the Web Comic, fansites, old versions of Tomy sites) - something else (e.g. card games, box text, anime deleted scenes) |
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Post by Snowflake on Apr 24, 2014 11:33:52 GMT -5
Man, so that's all we're getting, modelwise? I thought the line would be a bit bigger..
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Post by Maethius on Apr 25, 2014 15:24:41 GMT -5
Hopefully it will only be serving as a "Phase 1" type of thing (kind of the indication, at least on Koto's side it is only a hiatus). I have always been curious about the Cyber Drive story since I have the tiger... still want Cyclops. I would think the whole Battle Story would be quite a chunk of time and effort.  |
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Post by Falcarius on May 2, 2014 1:34:03 GMT -5
Yeah, Original is finished and MSS is on an indefinite hiatus. Let's just hope the HMM line isn't going under too... By the way, the Zoidspoison version of this thread got more responses, so I'll probably be focusing on it from now on. As for the Cyber Drive storyline, it's rather... fragmentary. The Battle Story material (boxes + the Monthly Graphics timeline) says that the Diablotiger comes from a future era (after the war has ended) where it is the strongest Zoid around, so it travels back in time in search of opponents stronger than itself, while the Cyclops is discovered in ancient ruins on the Western Continent. They happen to meet each other (sometime towards the end of the Battle Story) and become "eternal rivals"... and that's all it says. Other than that, I only know of two games that actually involve the Cyber Drive Zoids in the story. From what I know of VS2/Battle Legends, it just uses them as MacGuffins - the Republic and Empire each find one, and are trying to steal them from each other for the secrets they might contain (including ZOS, I think). Even the Cyber Drive game, with its intricate and partly non-linear plot, went into very little detail about the Zoids themselves. Apart from their healing factor, and suggestions that they might contain systems that couldn't be created with existing technology, there's no real hints at their powers until an epilogue mission you get after starting the story a second time. Hugh (the main character) and Loki (his rival) have one last battle, then their Zoids just disappear without any warning and it's suggested that they had time-travel abilities. Then it cuts back to Hugh's first morning in the city, and when he goes to check on his Zoid he mentions that it seems different somehow (since all your data and equipment gets carried over). Yep, the game uses their time-travelling powers solely to justify a New Game Plus.  Still, it's a pretty cool game, and I hope to translate it eventually. Just as a spoiler teaser, one reason that Hugh and Loki are such good pilots and so in tune with their Zoids is because they're "Corenoids" - they've had part of their Zoid's core implanted into their chests, giving them a stronger connection... |
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Post by Maethius on May 5, 2014 12:13:23 GMT -5
What was the official weaponry of the Diablo Tiger? I seem to recall it was like sort of blach hole or hyper-dense anomaly weapon? I know it heals itself and I recall that the Zoid is fully sentient.
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Post by Falcarius on May 6, 2014 12:36:34 GMT -5
Actually, the Cyber Metal Cannon (the Diablotiger's only ranged weapon) seems to work as a fairly normal energy weapon in the various games. It shoots lasers in the Saga series, various strengths of laser-y energy blasts in Cyber Drive, and either energy blasts or (when using the EX attack) a massive green beam in the VS series. It also has Cyber Claws (normal melee in Saga/Cyber Drive, glowy in VS), Cyber Fangs (normal melee in Cyber Drive, glowy in VS, laser melee in Saga), Laser Blades on its face (not a separate attack in any game, but probably combined with the Cyber Fang attack in Saga), E-Shield Generators on its front legs (not used in any game), Chaff Dispensers on its hind legs (likewise), and Optical Camouflage (only used in Saga). Supposedly, Alpha specialises in shooting and evasion, while Beta is good for speed and close combat, but there's no difference in their official stats. The Cyclops, meanwhile, has an Exploding Iron Ball Cannon (bullet attack in Saga, same as Cyber Metal Cannon in Cyber Drive and VS, actually launches spiky exploding cannonballs by VS3), Smokescreen Jets (only used in Saga) and Surface-to-Air Dual Guided Missiles (not used in any game) on all four legs, and different horns depending on the type. Cyclops Type-I has the Strongest Assault Long Spear Horn, while Type-II has the Strongest Defense Two-Pronged Horn (yes, the names are ridiculous). The box also gives alternate readings for some of the Type-I weapons: the cannon is a "Dynamite Bazooka", while the spear horn is the "Ultimate Long Horn". As you might guess from their weapon names, Type-I specialises in attack and Type-II in defense, but other than Type-I being 0.2 tons heavier, the stats are again identical. As for healing abilities, they vary between games - I don't think there's any healing equipment anywhere in the VS series, while Legacy/Saga II (but not Saga DS) gives Diablotiger an automatic healing device, and Cyber Drive gives all Zoids the ability to spend a turn healing instead of moving or attacking (and the player's Zoid fully recovers between each battle for convenience). The Zoids Wiki mentions something about "liquid metal" being involved with the Diablo's healing ability, but I don't remember seeing this anywhere official. And yes, Diablotiger and Cyclops can act of their own accord, as can any Zoid in the Battle Story and Cyber Drive (well, almost any, but that's getting into spoiler territory...) And for one last bit of trivia, here are the Zoids' "personalities" and default names from the Cyber Drive game: Diablotiger α: Rebel ("cool") Diablotiger β: Hellion ("ferocious") Cyclops Type-I: Stampede ("reckless") Cyclops Type-II: Brave ("my-pace") And depending on which one you choose, your rival will either have a black Diablotiger named Fenrir or a black Cyclops Type-I called Jormungand. ...Yes, I like to info-dump. REALLY LATE EDIT in case anyone uses this post as a reference later: Found where the "liquid metal" thing was from - the Cyber Drive website states that Diablo's body is made of liquid metal, which its gun forms out of when attacking (that would explain why it seems to pop out of nowhere in the game), and that Diablo is solar-powered and can repair itself instantly. Meanwhile, Cyclops was created 100,000 years ago and is powered by a steam boiler. |
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Post by Maethius on May 20, 2014 0:01:30 GMT -5
Wouldn't it be nice if the stats and stories for any given Zoid were ACTUALLY taken into account in any medium? Someone put some thought into the original concepts, then everyone else just attaches a picture and things, "that looks cool!" and does their own thing with it.
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Post by Falcarius on Mar 1, 2015 23:39:50 GMT -5
Rescuing this from Zoidspoison... Well, that was... even less consensus than I was expecting. Requests/suggestions so far: Tactics - The only thing that really got multiple votes, so I'll try to make it a higher priority. The gameplay can be rather tedious, but the storyline for the Battle Story route is indeed pretty cool (haven't played the Anime route yet). But before you get your hopes up, the ending is exactly the same as in Jet Falcon's Fan Book EX (with a couple more sentences of waffle)  Gairyuki's Battle Story - Now that I've typed this one up, I have the Battle Story text from all 16 Fan Book EX volumes (well, 13 - Whitz/Raser/Rayse don't have story, but I do usually consider the Seismo/Gairyuki/LZP/EL manuals to be Fan Books) so I could do the entire series sometime soon... Zoids Bible - I've been typing this up for quite a while now, although the lack of furigana is a pain. If I can get scans of Hammerrock's Graphics booklet, I could do all three versions of the info - the Zoids Bible, the Monthly Graphics and the panels from the Big Zoids Expo in 2003 (although the photos I've found aren't brilliant). Shirogane no Juukishin - Fairly short and fun, so there's a good chance of me translating this sometime soon. Unfortunately, I have zero knowledge about ROM editing Struggle - The story is interesting, relatively short and almost linear, so this is definitely on my list. VS.III - I found all the raw text while poking around in Dolphin, which was handy I might try to do the VS series in order, although III doesn't really have any story connection to the first two. Cyber Drive (from Maethius) - I do quite like Cyber Drive, and I own the game and both walkthroughs, but the non-linearity is going to make a full translation rather challenging. I might just have to record one or two playthroughs and translate them... (I should really pick up an actual GBA at some point.) Battle Story books (HoZ, AABMB, Battle Story [OJR], Official Fan Books [NJR]) - Definitely on my to-do list, but it's going to take a while to get through an entire book, let alone 11+. I'll probably start with History of Zoids and All About Battle Machine Beasts, since they're the earliest ones and the Zoids Archives had transcripts of them. If you have requests for specific books or chapters, let me know (HoZ is mainly retconned story, AABMB has lots of world-building info, and the others have major story content, maps and fact files). ?Card games (ZBCG, Scramble, Card Colosseum, maybe others) - The main problem with these is availability. I do have decent pics of Scramble (minus promotional cards), Trading Collection and all the non-anime pilots from the Battle Card Game, but I don't have any starter packs to tell me exactly how to play. Pretty sure Hanyoutai has starter packs for at least ZBCG and Scramble, though. ?CC and Fuzors edits - I'm not too good at making out spoken Japanese, but most of the clips are short so I could make an attempt at them someday. (As for access, I've found the Japanese CC episodes online, but Japanese NC/0 and Fuzors are surprisingly hard to come by.) ??Chaotic Century manga - Very low priority since there's already an English version, but I would like to try translating this myself someday. It'd be interesting to compare my work to that of a good-quality professional translator... Also, if you're feeling impatient, I can write up plot summaries for most of these pretty quickly (although if you don't want lots of spoilers, I'd recommend waiting for full translations). |
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Post by Maethius on Mar 2, 2015 11:29:57 GMT -5
Mostly I wanted the cyber-drive tech references and some idea where it falls into the Battle Story (if it actually does). I did my custom Diablo Tyrann based to on the Diablo Tiger and thought it might be fun to poke a few more elements into my AOW story line.
Thanks many times over for all of your efforts, it is a huge body of work you are amassing!
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Post by Falcarius on Apr 30, 2016 3:36:17 GMT -5
It's been two years since I posted this, so let's see how much progress I've made... Tactics - ...I know I said I was going to make this a higher priority, but the game is full of crossovers and shoutouts, so unless anyone is in a hurry to see it translated, I might wait until I have at least the Official Fan Books and the VS. games translated before doing this one. (Plus I've made practically no progress transcribing it >_> ) Gairyuki's Battle Story (and the rest of the Official Fan Book EX series) - Done! Zoids Bible - Done! Shirogane no Juukishin - I recently finished playing my physical copy, and I'm thinking of translating this next as a change of pace. Haven't transcribed much yet, though. Struggle - I've got about two-thirds of the story transcribed, so it might get translated relatively soon. VS. III (and the rest of the VS. series) - I now have full transcripts for everything except VS. II, and the resources are easier to get at than Struggle's, so I should be able to translate these pretty soon as well. Cyber Drive - ...Maybe someday. (It's a really interesting story, but transcribing non-linear stuff = argh) Battle Story books - I might translate History of Zoids after Shirogane no Juukishin, so that people can see what's in this super-rare, super-expensive book. Alternating between books and games would help keep things interesting and varied... (I'd like to leave the Official Fan Books for a while, because they're a great read and a massive part of the Battle Story, so I really want to do justice to them. Same for the Shogakukan Battle Story series.) Card games - Scramble starter pack done, others... not at all. I could theoretically make a translated version of the Battle Card Game now that I have a starter pack, but it requires all sorts of game pieces as well. Maybe I could adapt the Card Colosseum arcade system into a 2-player card game? Anime edits - I'm getting better at transcribing audio, but this is still pretty low on my list of priorities. I have transcribed about half of the Japanese version of Fuzors episode 2, though. Chaotic Century manga - Maybe someday, but still very low priority. Maybe not as much as I'd like, but I'm making solid progress. I'm still open to other suggestions, so if there's anything you particularly want to see, let me know! |
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Post by Hanyoutai on Apr 30, 2016 5:00:53 GMT -5
Time for a spammy rambling post~
If you want your own translations for things, by all means have at it~! In terms of the CC manga, I already have the full extension translated on TIB if it'd save you the trouble. I may also have transcripts for it somewhere if it'd make it easier for when you wanna tackle it later on down the line? At least most of them.
Really looking forward to Struggle, just because it sounded like it had a really nice plot from what you told me before.
(Random curiosity, what do you mean by non-linear for Cyber Drive?)
If you're open to suggestions, I'd love to suggest the Zoids Web Comics? These are something people really enjoyed back in the day, and I'd be willing to chop up a video edit of them. (Better than my last one because argh all the mistakes I made, but I've got a better idea of what I'm doing now.) They're personally something I'd really love to see, and one of the big nostalgias and old loves from when I first got into Zoids.
I think its a good rate of progress, just having a translation for the Zoids Bible is quite a feat! You've done excellent work and it's amazing that people can start to learn more about the Japanese media.
On a more minor suggestion, it could be interesting to see equipment lists for HMM Zoids? They have a lot of similarities to the normal ones but some have unique weapons.
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Post by Falcarius on May 2, 2016 7:11:33 GMT -5
I actually transcribed the EX manga myself a while back, but since you and Emeryl already made a scanlation, I'm unlikely to translate it myself any time soon. I've also got all but four of the Web Comics transcribed, and I can do even better for the Bucks vs Maya ones  Cyber Drive's main plot is relatively fixed, but I call it "non-linear" for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's based around picking missions from a list, so many of the less important missions can be played in different orders or even not at all. Secondly, the game actually allows you to fail any mission (apart from a couple of special cases), including plot-critical ones, and will occasionally change future events based on whether you won or lost. There's even a handful of missions that can only be unlocked by failing certain other missions. Thirdly, even your choice of Zoid changes some text, although I'm not sure if that includes anything more significant than different roars. Sure, some other games have simple branching plots (e.g. Tactics, FMC) or separate win/lose story for certain battles (e.g. Struggle, Battle Colosseum), but nothing as tangled as Cyber Drive. It's the only Zoids game I've played where I absolutely needed the walkthrough book for 100% completion. On the other hand, Cyber Drive and Struggle do have some of my favourite plots among the Zoids games (Struggle gets bonus points for having possibly the politest protagonist in the franchise). HMM equipment lists should be pretty easy thanks to dalong.net, so I'll try and get onto those soon. I might have a go at OJR/NJR stats/equipment lists while I'm at it, although OJR in particular will be tricky to find certain box pics for... |
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Post by Hanyoutai on May 2, 2016 8:28:03 GMT -5
Ahh, this makes me mourn the OJR box threat on ZP. Was it ever transferred over, or did we lose that one?
If you could figure out how to edit the K Wuf comics, that'd be even more amazing~ I tried a while ago but when I opened them in a flash editor, I didn't see the actual like ... individual pieces to edit? But admittedly I've only used flash for like ... one thing ever, so I'm completely illiterate in what I'm doing there.
That's fascinating about Cyber Drive. I never would've guessed that the game would've been so unique in comparison to the rest of the franchise, but it's interesting to know!
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Post by Maethius on May 2, 2016 9:33:43 GMT -5
I thought the OJR thread was archived, but I'm not sure where.  If not, that was a loss. |
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Post by Vig on May 23, 2016 2:59:03 GMT -5
I have something if you get any free time maybe. Pixiv/ Twitter member Crisis1983 has a lovely zoids comic series featuring a Deathsaurer I believe is called Vlad (in English),whom can talk, as well as a Gilvader, or many gilvaders at times. It is fantastic looking work for a fan comic and looks very cute at times. It still has updates every couple of months and whenever a new one shows up I have just been looking at the pictures admiring it. Here is the link to the Artists manga list It's just the ones titled with "zoids extra ZAC2056" The order on the page appears to be very mixed up not sure what is going on there. Assuming it starts at the volume 0. I know for sure the latest manga is titled with "Recall your wish" Currently up on their twitter page as a pinned tweet. I wonder to myself, any reason why the front page/ titles are in English but the manga itself is in Japanese? Is that a normal manga thing? Makes it easier for us at least. Something to tackle one at a time even . I would love you for it. |
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If not, that was a loss.