#Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart

[nintendometro]

The Japanese commercial for 'Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart' on the Game Boy Advance.

[retphienix]

So we've stumbled a bit further (just a tiny bit, I've been busy lol)

Random bits- I mentioned this many years back when I was toying with this game but there are random encounter events alongside random encounter fights. Nothing incredible just yet, some free rations, some lost rations from a trap, randomly encountering fellow adventurers who can teleport you back to camp- but it's always nice to have a little extra going on :)

Also forgot to mention how the caravan travel works altogether, I'm not mad about it. But it has a rather terrible introduction lol

You start with no ration capacity and no way to make money. It gives you a "freebie" market in the very very first area for rations, but after that you're stuck "playing the game", but the thing is money in this game at the very beginning is simply horrendous.

We're talking like 2 gold a fight, that's 2 rations at the best of times and you have to walk usually 8~ rations worth to encounter that fight to begin with.

You are not in a position to "grind" your rations at the very very beginning- but you're not supposed to- but it's still ROUGH that it's balanced around that lol It basically tells you "Hey, no grinding levels yet, go to the next town and finish this intro" and that's okay but still doesn't feel great.

The reason I'm not too upset though is because conceptually I get that, and mechanically I like the idea, AND I just got a new party member that kind of explained to me how this is supposed to be better handled this early on (and how it should become a non-issue later on).

Among these early hires I got a merchant and merchants are a profitable caravan member that basically erases the worry the first couple minutes put on you for money.

When the merchant's turn comes up they simply "find" 10 gold- immediately that's a net positive that makes rations a non issue :) And it shows that at least in part, problems like ration management are being considered in the tactics you bring in your caravan party and that's cool, I dig that :)

Anyways, I did some hiring and exploring of this early area, and I found this funny re-imagining of the DWM breeding.

So instead of breeding, we uh, "capture the hearts with the heart getter" and then combine them. I think it's novel. It's a bit disappointing because I like how DWM was just kind of blunt like "Yeah the monsters breed and a baby egg appears" but now we're obfuscating it for child-friendly language I guess? IDK, it's fine.

I'm stoked mostly because, well duh, the monsters are the best part of exploring DQM games :D We're on our way!

And after talking with that dude and being told to go to the port to show the heart getter to a merchant I dove into a nearby dungeon to see what's up.

It's probably progress towards the merchant but in my head I was just like "I'm gonna take a detour to fight some stuff" so we'll see :P

Also shows a bit more on the ration struggle- I've only just got the merchant so money is still REALLY tight- it's part of why I want to grind against some monsters with her in my party- so I can afford some rations lol

Thankfully I came prepared, this early game ration grind is finally going to take shape :3

[turqrambles]

the hell

[evilmidnightlurker]

okay. okay i can deal with this video game.

No maybe I can't.

So way back in Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland, your character was an AU child version of the angry anti-hero Terry from Dragon Quest 6. Similar story beats, but much more kid friendly.

Then later in Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, your character was explicitly Prince Kiefer from DQ7 in his childhood, but it had no real relevance to the plot of 7 except as a retconned reason for Kiefer to know that other worlds existed and to desperately want to recapture the adventures he once had.

But this one. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. At first I thought it was another Terry case. Just a similar character.

No. This is a direct prequel to Dragon Quest 4. This is the story of the demon prince Psaro. Of his journey to becoming the tragic villain of the tale, manipulated by his closest ally, doomed to lose the only person he ever loved.

God this is going to hurt. 😢

[questersrest]

wait so the dark prince is dqm3? so dragon quest monsters is a spin-off series from dragon quest. dragon quest monsters: joker is a spin-off series from dragon quest monsters?

what the hell is dragon quest monsters: caravan heart?

[whiskiijack]

Couldn't sleep so I drew young Kiefer from Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart! Also digitalized it a bit for an icon for my discord.

[slothattorney]

My local record store has a little bin of Pokemon fan games and bootleg Japanese fan translations, so I think I'm gonna break in my Analogue Pocket with a bootleg copy of SMT: Last Bible 2. I also picked up a copy of Robot Wars Taisen and Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart.

[dragonichaven]

RIP Metal Slime

[goothemighty]

It’s important to keep rations stocked when running a caravan.

[athena1138]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! This week, I want to know: what's in the woods? Whether spooky or mundane, myth or history, I wanna know what sort of tales the people of your world tell about the woods (or equivalent large swath of potentially dangerous wilds)

:D eeeee

So, one of the two main continents of my story is like 30% forest. See here 

This is still a wip so there’s a few more wooded areas still to fill in, but that big forest in between Zether and Bayview is called the Lumin Forest. It’s huge. It’s like 3,000 acres of just dense, dark woods. There’s a handful of paths through the two cities that have been hashed out by trade caravans, but it’s dangerous for common folk. If regular people want to pass through the forest, they have to either hire body guards, or go around the long way. They could take a boat along Siva creek and either cut through the thinnest part of the woods or just come out on the other side of the mountains, but there’s dangerous things in the water, too. 

The Lumin Forest itself is filled with all manner of creature, but Ochrane (continent) is a freezing cold place all year round, so it’s arguably less dangerous than somewhere like the Provider Islands which are tropical and populous. The cold is the biggest threat, as warm shelter is rare outside the towns. There’s standard woodland things like deer and rabbits and bears and the like, but there’s also monsters and beasts, such that even the best hunters dare not venture more than half a day into the woods. Thick-furred creatures similar in structure to bats the size of children but who spew acid and whose claws are sharp as razors stalk their prey (smaller humanoids or even children or babies and other similarly sized animals) for hours until they find the time to strike, and when they find the chance to strike, they take it and their prey is rarely seen from ever again, swept off into the darkness to die a horribly painful death. There’s an animal which looks like a cross between a buffalo and a ferret called a Volus. They’re a herd animal, traveling in rabbles of 4-8 generally, but they’re wildly territorial. To stumble into a Volus’s territory is like kicking a hornet, and they’ll chase you for an entire day before they relent. Then there’s a type of big cat called a Lens which resemble lynxes a bit, with comically large murder mits and large ears. Where they vary, though, is that they’ve got seven eyes, two rows of teeth, and two sets of ears designed for up-close and long-distance hearing. They won’t usually attack large parties, but if anyone is dumb enough to wander away while a Lens is about, you can pretty much just start writing the death certificate then and there because they’re sturdy little things. But worst of them all are the Litherings. These are solitary, silently moving 10-foot-long 8-legged beasts akin to wolves who are able to alter the patterns in their coats to blend easier into their environment. They’re patient and they’re intelligent. They’ll follow their prey for days, learning basic habits and structures until they find an optimum time to strike. They can take a group of 10 men down within minutes. Thankfully they’re rare, but they’re a huge threat. 

Also within the forest are said to be witches, hags, naiads, even faery folk with all the inherent dangers that those include. There are tales of people gone to seek these creatures out, to make deals for wealth or love or other such desires. Some return, most don’t. Of those that return, very few can say they met with success in their quest, and those that do are changed and not entirely for the better. It’s said that to make a deal with beings like these means you’ve to give up something precious to you, and if you’ve nothing precious to give, they’ll take a piece of your heart and leave you half a person. Some 500 years ago when the land was still called Zethra, there was a King Puriss and he was always said to be a kind-hearted, wise, strong-minded man. He was a very kind king, loved by most, but had recently lost his queen and their beloved daughter to an illness which swept the nation, and in his grief, he went into the woods to find something powerful enough to bring his family back to him. It was believed he’d fallen prey to the darkness of the woods until, two months after entering, he emerged, his queen and daughter by his side. He lived just long enough to sit upon his throne once more before invading forces burst into the hall, and he was beheaded by Ochis, a prince of the neighboring country which was then known as Meposa (which would later fall into revolution and be split into 2 new countries known as Pike and Hosta.) It’s believed that in order to bring his wife and daughter back, Puriss traded his country which he loved so well. 

And, though it’s been several hundred years since anyone has seen it, there’s said to be a dragon that dwells within the Mist Valley Mountains, somewhere along the edge of the forest. Lots of idiots try to go find it every year, but none have. It’s been so long that most people believe it to just be dead, if indeed it ever existed at all. 

Up north on “The Unsavory Isle,” there’s dense, dense woods, but since it’s an area so secluded from the rest of the continent, the dangers there are sparse. The worst is as the rest of the anarchist state--bandits, mauraders, thieves, murderers, etc. 

The splot woods to the west are rather tame, as well. They’re not nearly as frightening as the other forests of Ochrane, well-lit and healthy, even inviting. There’s a tribe of druids who protect it, and they’ve been led for centuries by a single being. Her name is Lithara, and she is rumored to be a princess of the fae folk, but instead of ruling in her own Realm, she has made her home here, with the mortals. She’s wildly smart and wise, and lovely to behold, but she has a temper, especially in defense of her people and her home. The current queen, a Queen Minariel, grew up in the small town of Lurst just to the south and she often goes on “hunting trips” to these woods, and it’s wildly speculated that she and Lithara are lovers which just absolutely pisses off King En.

[gamearamamegathons]

Dragon Quest Marathon: Updated Play Order

Circe here! I was poking around info on the Dragon Quest series to make sure I was on track with the current play order, and I stumbled upon something that made me rethink my approach. An interesting fact about the Dragon Quest series is that Enix/Square-Enix is really only the publisher, there have always been other devs behind the games.

I considered Mystery Dungeon in particular to be its own distinct series which merely crosses over with other popular game series, so it shouldn’t be included in the marathon. But, as it turns out, the developers behind Mystery Dungeon, Chunsoft, are the same devs who made the first five Dragon Quest games, and the Mystery Dungeon series started as a direct spinoff of Dragon Quest. So it becomes a lot harder to merely ignore it.

The bad news is that I already skipped over the first Mystery Dungeon game, so if I wanna pick it up now I’ll have to go backwards chronologically to play it. But that’s not a big deal. The larger concern is that Mystery Dungeon is a roguelike series, and could prove to be quite difficult to complete. But we’ll see how it goes. I’m interested in adding the Mystery Dungeon games back into my list, and in the process I revisited Dragon Quest series as a whole to revise my play order. This time I used Wikipedia’s list, which turns out to be considerably more complete than the one I originally used from the Dragon Quest wiki. I’ve also decided that rather than leaving a bunch of games off the list that I might not be able to play, I’m going to defer figuring out if I can acquire the games until I get to the point where I’m going to play them. It could be a good couple years before I work my way through the list, so it seems premature to say that I’m not going to be able to get them.

That said, there are a few things I’m cutting. All mobile games are off the list, because it would be a massive pain to get them and make sure they work correctly, especially since there’s been no official US release for any of them and it’s much harder to circumvent that for mobile games than for old SNES games. Kenshin Dragon Quest is still off the list, because I can’t imagine paying a premium to import a silly TV game. Dragon Quest X is still off the list because I’m pretty sure there’s literally no way for me to play it, being an MMO that also never got a US release. Two spinoff series also got the cut; Itadaki Street, a computer board game series a la Mario Party that has had virtually no US releases and doesn’t really seem to have much to do with Dragon Quest; and Monster Battle Road, which largely consists of arcade games involving physical cards, which of course would be quite impossible for me to play.

Thus, without further ado, this is the official play order as it currently stands:

Dragon Quest [COMPLETE] Dragon Quest II [COMPLETE] Dragon Quest III [COMPLETE] Dragon Quest IV [COMPLETE] Dragon Quest V [COMPLETE] Dragon Quest VI [IN PROGRESS] Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon Dragon Quest Monsters Torneko: The Last Hope Dragon Quest VII Dragon Quest Monsters 2 Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko no Daibōken 3: Fushigi no Dungeon Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest: Shōgeki no Shippo Dan Dragon Quest VIII Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime Dragon Quest: Shōnen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors Dragon Quest Wars Dragon Quest IX Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest 3: Taikaizoku to Shippo Dan Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below Dragon Quest Builders Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 Dragon Quest Heroes II Dragon Quest XI Dragon Quest Builders 2

[retphienix]

I /think/ I'll start another playthrough for the blog- I need to shake myself out of my constant slumps or I'll go mad after all :P

So what about Dragon Quest Monsters? One of my favorite series.... if you consider being obsessed with 2.5 gameboy games and wanting to try all the others "favorite" material :P

So Joker was "fine". It wasn't my favorite by any means- most of the changes from 1-2 were "meh" to me, but I did enjoy it enough to complete it with a pretty decent amount of fun being had.

Joker 2's intro got me hyped! It really felt like something I'll love!

So how about instead of playing Joker 2 as I logically would- I go backwards a little and play Caravan Hearts instead lmao

I know very little about Caravan Hearts, as I've hinted at before on the blog (if you count mentioning it in passing like 4 years ago).

I "Think" it's one of those games I booted up in the early 2000s when emulation started getting more popular, in japanese of course being a japan exclusive and all, but I could be mixing it up with me booting up FF legends and the like.

The most I know is that a fellow DWM enjoyer said it was crap many years ago when I was playing some DWM stuff on the blog, and I took that to mean it's "probably" experimental and easy to dislike lol

Starting it up I'll say I'll be playing the fan translation, obviously, from kaioshin on Romhacking dot net. Any "funny business" in dialogue or re-interpretations of events is because it's a fan translation and I will be experiencing it as it is here, not as the original text defines the game because they never bothered to tell us this tale in english and I'm dumb and can't read the OG lol

Basic intro, we're a kid (10 years old) who craves adventure. Instead of being native to a monster world (2) or coming here because our sibling was kidnapped to be a monster master (1) we come to the monster world to escape punishment from our father- the king- after trying to escape the castle to explore the (reportedly) very tiny world we live in.

Basically we're a bored prince who craves adventure, and we stumbled into an opportunity to do that while hiding in our cabinet... a fun nod to DWM1 :3

Yada yada, in the monster world now, oh look a caravan lacking a leader:

What a coincidence, we just magically appeared here and listening to kids in RPG settings is normal as hell.

So right out the gate things DO appear rather different from the prior DWM games I love.

The caravan is key to combat for one, and our team appears to be entirely shaken up from how the prior games played it.

Instead of befriending and capturing 3 monsters to make a team and splitting up responsibilities among those 3 monsters for cohesive RPG party stuff- it /appears/ that we will always have ONE monster who takes the main stage for combat (kind of like DQ1?) and the caravan plays the role of... equipment? Passives? I guess you'd call them?

You have various adventurers in the party who don't directly participate but instead act as assistant abilities during combat- I am too early in to know how deep or how much control I have just yet, but I can pick what order they appear and from how the first encounters went it APPEARS as if the order determines when they get a turn to assist (if applicable), MAYBE.

Regardless it means I have a warrior who can swing an extra time for some more damage, a cleric who can heal if their "turn" comes up and we need it, and a map expert who can buff(?) our speed during his turn and also gives us the passive ability to use the map on the overworld.

This, could be neat.

It could also feel like a less hands on version of a combat system that was already kinda hands off since I'm only leveling up 1 party member and the other party members are not /real/ and instead are just passives that happen based on order (I think).

Hm. Looking forward to finding out!

I like that little wind effect :3

[psychic-emotion-consumption]

Sobbing because I still need to play Dragon Warriors Monsters (the first one) + Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart + Dragon Warriors Monsters Joker 2 (and also 3) but two of those games never received an English translation and the first DWM game is so old so like . . . I might have to do some browsing around and hope it doesn’t cost too much T^T

[kahran042]

My personal manual of style for RPGs

Numbering Roman numerals for: -Arc the Lad series -Breath of Fire series -Dragon Warrior/Quest series -Final Fantasy series -Final Fantasy Legend series -Growlanser series -Might & Magic series -Phantasy Star series -Shining Force series -Suikoden series -Ultima series -Ys VII Arabic numerals for: -Dark Cloud series -Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 -Kingdom Hearts series -Mother 3 -Persona series -Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series -Romancing SaGa series -SaGa Frontier 2 -Seiken Densetsu 3 -Star Ocean 2 -Tales of Destiny 2 -Wild ARMs series Roman numerals and subtitles for: -Ar tonelico series -Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter -Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals -Ultima VII: The Black Gate -Ultima VII: Serpent Isle -Ys series (except for Ys VII) Arabic numerals and subtitles for: -Atelier Iris series -Disgaea series -Persona 2: Eternal Punishment -Persona 2: Innocent Sin -Lunar 2: Eternal Blue -Mana Khemia series -Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria "Episode" and Roman numerals for: -Xenosaga Subtitles without numbers for: -Arc the Lad: End of Darkness -Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits -Castlevania series -Fire Emblem series -Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart -Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker -Lufia: The Legend Returns -Mario & Luigi series -Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door -Shadow Hearts series -Star Ocean: Blue Sphere -Star Ocean: The Last Hope -Star Ocean: To the End of Time -The Legend of Zelda series Always use subtitles: -Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean -EVO: The Search for Eden -Lunar: Silver Star Story -Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis -Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure -Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis

Alphabetization -Roman numerals count as their Arabic equivalents for purposes of alphabetization. -Even if a game comes before another in a series, alphabetical order will take priority, with the following exceptions: --The Pokémon series always goes in generational order: Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, FireRed/LeafGreen, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, HeartGold/SoulSilver, Black/White/Black 2/White 2, X/Y, OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, Sun/Moon, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, Sword/Shield. --The Dragon Warrior/Quest and Lufia series are always listed in chronological order. --Ultima VII: The Black Gate always comes before Ultima VII: Serpent Isle.

Dragon Warrior/Quest series titles I, II, III, IV, VII, Monsters, Monsters 2: Dragon Warrior V, VI, VIII, IX, Monsters Caravan Heart, Monsters Joker, Swords: Dragon Quest

Miscellaneous -For Fire Emblem games, translated subtitles are only used if the game has been officially localized. In addition, "Rekka no Ken" is left untranslated, as its subtitle was never officially translated. -All four parts of .hack count as a single game. -For the Wild ARMs series, ARM is always capitalized, since it's an acronym. -For Dragon Warrior/Quest games, the DQ8/DS localizations will be completely ignored, unless it's completely unavoidable - i.e., most of the new skills from Dragon Quest VIII. Because, frankly, I would rather tear out my brain stem, drag it to the nearest four-way intersection, and skip rope with it than use most of those names. -Same goes for Final Fantasy Tactics - War of the Lions is to be ignored at all times, unless unavoidable. However, I'm willing to make a special exception for Rafa and Malak's skills, because the War of the Lions names for those are actually pretty cool. -However, Sword of Mana trumps Final Fantasy Adventure, and if the SaGa/Final Fantasy Legend games are rereleased in English, chances are that the new translation will take priority. -Pokémon games are listed as all games for the appropriate generation and setting - i.e., Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow, Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver. The exceptions are Black 2/White 2 and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, which are listed separately from, but directly after, their respective precursors. -The E in Pokémon always has an accent mark. -"The" is always used with The 7th Saga, The Granstream Saga, The Final Fantasy Legend, The Legend of Dragoon, and all games in The Legend of Zelda series. -NetHack is always written in CamelCase. -Ar tonelico is always written in "big A, small t" style.

[liquidmetalslime]

SE Japan launched a site to celebrate the 20th anniversary of DQM: http://monsters20th-sousenkyo.dragonquest.jp/

Some games -like the arcade card games- are not considered part of the series eventhough they have "DQM" in their titles, apparently!

Only the following are part of the DQM series:

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland (GBC)

- Dragon Quest Monsters 2: Coby's journey / Tara's adventure (GBC)

- Dragon Quest Monsters 1 · 2 (PS1, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart (GBA, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (NDS)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 (DS)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional (NDS, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D (3DS, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters 2 3D (3DS, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 (3DS, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 Professional (3DS, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Parade (web and mobile, Japan-only)

- Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light (mobile, Asia-only (it had an English text option in its southeast asia release))

The site also allows fans to vote for their favorite monster.

There's plenty of art for hundreds of monsters! You can search by (Japanese) name or by game!

[larrue]

Interview with Translator Tom

Today, I spent some time digging into the mind of one of the neglected heroes of the jrpg community. I asked good guy Translator Tom some questions for your reading pleasure. I personally stumbled upon him via his youtube channel where I saw his videos showing off some obscure megaten games.

Translator Tom is responsible for a laundry list of games that are all great in their own way, here’s a list of the megaten ones: Last Bible 2 (2014), Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible Special (2017), Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei (2018), Last Bible III (2018). For the sake of the interview I refer to myself as my handle, Larrue.

 Larrue: How did you get into the translation game?

Translator Tom: It's been so long (about twenty years) that I can't even remember the full situation, how I encountered any translation groups, or anything! I can't even remember the first game I attempted to translate! I suppose it was as soon as I discovered emulation. I'd started learning Japanese around that time. Back in those days, I didn't know half as much as I did now, but I learned as I went, paging through paper dictionaries.

 Larrue: Wow that's still impressive! Do you remember how you found megaten?

Translator Tom: Like most people these days, I found out about it through Persona. The first Megaten spin-off I played was Revelations: Persona on the PS1. I loved it, even though pretty much nobody knew anything about it at the time. I learned about the Snow Queen Quest, and after beating it, I ended up going to Japan and buying the Japanese version. I imported IS, EP, SMT 1, 2, if.... I remember buying the Famicom version of Megami Tensei on ebay for $20 and being so relieved nobody else bid on it. I was devastated that nobody knew about the series. I think the first one I attempted to translate was Last Bible II, but that project fell through until much later.

At one point, Gemini and I were even toying with the idea of a Persona 1 PS1 retranslation, at some point after we did Innocent Sin. I still sort of want to do that, even with the PSP release. But active PS1 hackers aren't exactly a dime a dozen.

My favorite Megaten game is Megami Tensei II on the Famicom. DDSTranslation already sort of finished that up with a different translator on the Super Famicom, but I love the aesthetics and sound of the Famicom, so that's another one that's on my wish list.

 Larrue: What is one thing you'd want all fans who use the translation patches to know?

Translator Tom: Some translators get really protective about "their" work, but I don't believe I have any claim over the patches. They don't belong to me. All of the translations I've worked on were (of course) done unofficially, so they don't really belong to anyone, and people can use them as they see fit. If people want to sell repros, they can go right ahead. I don't mind.

 Larrue: Do you have a dream translation project?

Translator Tom: My dream translation project right now is to translate all of the PC Engine Tengai Makyou games and add them all to the PSP Tengai Makyou Collection. That would be a MASSIVE undertaking, though. When it comes to Megaten, I'd love to do Last Bible 1 for the Game Gear and finish off the series completely. I'm also a huge Devil Children fan, and I want to translate Black, Red, and White Books for the Gameboy Color. (They blow all of the GBA entries out of the water.) (Earlier, I mentioned Megami Tensei II for the Famicom as well.) I doubt working in the game industry would be as fun as working as a fan translator. In the industry, I imagine you have your hands tied a bit, be it by deadlines or company standards and policies. Censorship and stylistic differences would be hard to deal with, too. I'd have to turn a blind eye to that, and it's possible I wouldn't enjoy it as much.

Case in point: My Dragon Quest Monsters Caravan Heart translation. That was done years ago, when I would play the Japanese game, translate the script, and then never play the English version. I used to leave the English version entirely in the hands of the hackers and their editors. I just passed over a rough translation of the script and then washed my hands of it. I later found out that one of the editors suggested changing the menus to the modern Dragon Quest translation conventions (which I can't stand). The patch was released in that state, and I was incredibly frustrated when I eventually found out. It is one of my biggest regrets as a fan translator, and from that point on, I always made sure to play through the English version of the rom before a release.

 Larrue: Would you want to do this work for any company in the industry?

Translator Tom: Which company would I want to work for? I can't imagine working for any of them. Maybe Spike Chunsoft? They said they want to become a leader in visual novels in the west. If I was translating anything professionally, I think visual novels would be the most entertaining, and the best opportunity for me to grow as a writer.

 Larrue: Last few questions for you: do you have a favorite demon and favorite protagonist?

Translator Tom: My favorite demon is probably Horus as seen in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. That golden gleam made him seem really unique! Megaten usually has silent protagonists, which I'm not really a fan of, but there a few that talk. That puts them ahead of the pack, in my opinion. I liked Masaki from SMT Devil Children: White Book and Naoki from Majin Tensei II Spiral Nemesis the best. If I had to pick a favorite, I guess I'd go with Naoki, because he's older, so I can relate to him more.

Be sure to follow Tom on twitter here: https://twitter.com/RetroTranslator

Watch his youtube uploads here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Q6I1inXxSd6sSgXcOBOyA