Amia's Adventure

Greetings and salutations gentle gamers. Welcome to another episode of Disappointment Theater. Well, that is what I said after playing Phantasy Star Online for the first time. The game was absolutely devoid of any sort of story, and seemed to have very little to do with the celebrated series I had become so fond of in the past. Yes, it seems that Sega simply used, or as I say, raped the name from the franchise for the underhanded purpose of marketing a very basic and repetitive online game.

I suppose that had the game not been called Phantasy Star Online I would not have taken such offense, but I had expected so much more. While it is easy to conjecture from the few fragments of story in PSO and the name itself that the game probably takes place before the series; however, the location of the game in the series is not the problem here. The problem is the game offers none of the things that make the original games so wonderful. There was little story, the magic animations were simple and unexciting, and it was amazingly simple. No travel to other planets, four basic environments, nothing at all. You couldn't even explore the spacecraft at all!

As one can easily see, I was immensely unimpressed and extremely let down by PSO. If this world were from the Phantasy Star universe, all the hate and sadness I felt from that which is PSO would have allowed me to release a Megid technique (MEKIDO to those in the know) of epic power. But rather than convert my anger into something negative I used it to fuel a very different pursuit.

Yes, in a strange twist of fate, it was the release of PSO that caused me to inquire about any sort of translation efforts for the Phantasy Star II text adventures. Much to my dismay I found little information or interest until I contacted an entity known only as "Naflign." I soon learned that this "Naflign" and a woman named Rebecca had begun working to bring an English version of Nei's Adventure to the fans via PC. I quickly signed on to assist and I began working on Amia.

To be honest I chose Amia simply because I had little interest in the character. I figured it would be better to start with the hard work and finish with the easy. However, as I began working on Amia I found the story to be most impressive. Something about not judging books by their covers comes to mind

As a constant fan of anime and Japanese video games I decided to make this translation as perfect as possible. Often I notice many differences and things left out when I play or watch English versions of things. This saddens me about as much as PSO does, and so I set out to leave nothing out of the translation or make any changes at all. In some ways I felt this made the text feel unpolished, but Naflign and Rebecca were both happy, and I hope you will be too.

In my quest for perfection I took the following steps:

1. First, I typed all the Japanese from the game word for word into my computer. At first Naflign and I talked about just doing one basic line for the inappropriate use of items, but after some consideration I went as far as to misuse every single item in every possible place just so that the player would be cheated of nothing, not even the most insignificant of experiences. I also made a map of all locations including when each would be available to assist in the programming process.

2. Second, I began translating the Japanese into simple English. I would call it some kind of rough draft. I made sure to keep the English next to the Japanese in this draft for the purpose of writing the final text.

3. Finally, I wrote the final edition that you would see if you play the actual game. This was written using the Japanese and English translation drafts.

And that is everything. I would like to thank all those involved in this project, especially Naflign because he has to do all the real work. Translation is easy, but designing and programming a game engine is some serious work. And way to go Rebecca for tackling Nei so well. While Amia is good, Nei probably has the most exciting story of them all. Many thanks go to the programmers and storywriters involved in the Phantasy Star II Text Adventures and the original PS games. Also, thanks to Eiko and the various others who helped me to confirm any Japanese translation that I was not 100% on.

Game programmed by Naflign. Translation by Toby.

Download Amia's Adventure (PC) 1.1.