By now, you know that I’m going to post something on this day, and you know it’s been a long, long time since your favorite game has gotten a news update. Worry no more, because both news update, and patch release, are finally here.
But first, let me talk about my other favorite character in Tales of Hearts, Kunzite. There’s nothing really important in this paragraph, so feel free to skip it if you want, but if you want to listen to me exposit about what a cool guy he is, stick around. Where do I even begin? First of all, he’s a robot, which automatically makes him awesome. (Technically, a Mechanoid, but whatever.) He has a bunch of armor, so he’s sturdy in combat–he can tank all the punishment all the baddies across Celland can dish out and then some, all without batting an eye. (Just make sure none of them cast any spells; he’s allergic to those.) And he even covers it up with stylish corduroy pants so you’re not blinded by the sun reflecting off that plating all the time. Second, despite being a robot, he learns to form Bonds and Fight with his Heart, because he realizes that doing so is only logical in a world where friendship literally makes you more powerful. Third, he has USB ports handy to charge your smartphone (probably). Don’t you hate when it runs low on battery halfway through the day? The Hearts party never has to deal with that. Fourth, he is the straight man that shuts down the rest of the party whenever they are saying something stupid. This is an important feature to have when a lot of the party, despite their other merits, is or acts stupid fairly often. Fifth, his weaponry. A dagger on each arm? That might be enough for most people, but not for Kunzite. He has a Soma that generates more tentacle arms that also have daggers on them. How cool is that? Seriously, check out how he uses all four daggers in tandem in some of his artes in battle–it’s really neat. There are plenty of other reasons why Kunzite is really cool, but my fingers are getting tired, so I’ll stop here for now.
Anyway, back to the patch release. You guessed correctly–it’s Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3!
Released in 2005, this handheld escort title once again places you in the shoes of orphans Julio Sven and Caro Orange (no relation to Julio and Caro from Narikiri Dungeon 2). In a universe where the Tales games all took place on the same planet, far in the past, the youths’ mentor Doc Brown has restored a time machine they found in the ruins of an advanced civilization conveniently located just outside town. Just as they are about to act out the greatest self-insert fanfic of all time, the time machine is stolen from under their noses!
Luckily, Doc Brown comes back from the future again in a second time machine so they can travel to the past to save the present with the fabled power left to them by the advanced civilization–the power of Roleplaying.
It’s another Tales crossover title, this time with the twist that it’s an SRPG in which you can have up to 12 party members that you can order around a map. As for translation progress, you can now play up to the end of the second mission in English. After that point, I hope you’ve brushed up on your Japanese skills. If you’re interested, head on over to the Narikiri Dungeon 3 project page to grab it.
That’s all for now. Have a happy April Fools!
April 1, 2019 at 12:26 am | Permalink
Time travel is always better on a Pizza !
April 1, 2019 at 12:27 am | Permalink
Congrats on the release and thank you! Another great April Fools post as usual. Always looking forward to all of your projects.
April 1, 2019 at 8:20 am | Permalink
Haha I’m excited for next year’s April Fool’s already.
April 1, 2019 at 7:43 pm | Permalink
Great April’s Fools just for this one!
April 12, 2019 at 6:57 pm | Permalink
I gotta say. It’s been years since ToH R was released, and I doubt you releasing the DS version will affect its sales revenue. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Please release the 99% finished patch, blah blah blah. Those of us who don’t speak Japanese don’t even know who Kunzite is (much less anything about him), since your initial translation only covers the first 10 min of the game, and 2nd translation doesn’t really have Kunzite scene.
Also, if you aren’t going to release ToH, have you considered working on Keroro RPG for the NDS? It’s an excellent Tales game (yes, it’s a Tales game), and it’s great. Imho, it’s even better than ToH in gameplay. I’m willing to pitch in to help make that into reality.
April 15, 2019 at 6:39 pm | Permalink
I mentioned it in the comments of a different post, but that’s not my call to make, and almost hasn’t been from the beginning.
To recap, I translated the first demo, and a certain unnamed translator helped edit it. After that, he took on the role of main translator. Recently, he has decided to delete his fantranslation presence from the internet. I don’t think it would be beneficial to attempt in vain to undo what has already been released, and so the demo links stay up. But I also don’t think it would make sense to release something new against his wishes.
Regarding Keroro, I did hear good things about it, but it’s not a Tales game and I have no familiarity with the Keroro Gunso franchise. If a capable team is working on it, I might be interested to lend some targeted expertise, but otherwise that’s a no from me.
April 18, 2019 at 10:34 am | Permalink
It’s a Tales game in the same way Lost Paradise, or Hokuto ga Gotoku, is a Yakuza game. Same team, same gameplay. While I agree Keroro isn’t technically a Tales game, by all accounts that matter to most players, it’s more of a Tales game than most if not all of the escort titles. And it’s certainly better than most of them. It was made by Tales Studio, a studio that exists solely to make Tales games.
Also, in a developer interview, they stated something to the effect that it would use many of the familiar systems and mechanics just as the other games in the franchise before it had, suggesting that at least the developers considered it a Tales game as they developed it.
May 11, 2019 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Hey there, I’m overjoyed that you’re still working on this after all this time. Looking foward to the day I can finally play ND3 fully in English!
I have a question though. Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to change Frio and Kyaro’s names to “Julio” and “Caro”?
May 12, 2019 at 3:19 pm | Permalink
Because Aselia said so
More seriously, because Frio and Kyaro aren’t names, and the latter isn’t even a word. Previously, most people had assumed they were going for some kind of frío/calor (cold/hot) theme, in part because of confusion over the first syllable in フリオ (hu/fu). But if you read it as “hu”, “Julio” springs to mind. If I’m not mistaken, Julio means “courageous” and Caro means “beautiful”, which seems pretty sensible. Perhaps it would be best for us to contact Mr. Daigo Okumura to get a definitive answer regarding the inspiration for their names, as well as for some of the other names in these games.
May 12, 2019 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Where did the wiki get those names from?
Frio and Kyaro sound like they could be names though, and it’s not like this series is any stranger to just making up words and names. (A isn’t “Kyaro” the name of a town in Suikoden 2? Not that that game has any relation to the Tales series, but I have seen that word before.)
I dunno, suddenly changing their names after all these years seems kinda…
May 13, 2019 at 11:37 am | Permalink
The infamous artbook that also gave us “Kreed Grafyte”, I believe.
May 13, 2019 at 10:30 pm | Permalink
I’ve never heard of that artbook before.
Also, I feel like using the name “Roleplayer” for the main characters’ abilities sounds kinda silly. “Narikirishi”, while technically not translated, sounds cooler. Sometimes using foreign language words for the names of things just works better, you know?
That’s just my opinion on the matter. Consider it just some feedback for you though.
June 3, 2019 at 11:31 pm | Permalink
I can only assume Roleplayer sounds silly to you because it isn’t in “cool” Japanese. It’s appropriate for what the intended meaning is and quite honestly is such a tiny detail to complain about that the only thing I can imagine it would do is demotivate Kajitani Eizan.
August 12, 2019 at 3:43 pm | Permalink
What are the chances of you covering the Vesperia remaster’s garbage localization?