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232 lines
11 KiB
232 lines
11 KiB
Dragonball Z Gaiden: Plan to Eliminate the Saiyans
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English Patch
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Version 1.00 IPS
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Current Release: Apr. 29, 2007
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Intial Release: Oct. 30, 2006
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by Twilight Translations
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copyright 2006
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--------------------------------------
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1. Introduction
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2. Development
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3. Notes
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4. Patch History
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5. Bugs
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6. Credits
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7. Acknowledgements
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--------------------------------------
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1. Introduction
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--------------------------------------
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Dragonball Z Gaiden: Plan to Eliminate the Saiyans is the fourth and final DBZ RPG released
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for the Famicom. It was released on August 6, 1993 and is probably one of the last games
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to be released for the Famicom. Unlike its predecessors, this game does not follow any
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arc in the manga/anime. Instead, this game features an entirely original storyline made
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especially for this game.
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The gameplay is very much like the other DBZ RPGs, with a few notable exceptions. This time
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around the card battle system has been given an upgrade, allowing you to choose different
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cards to form combos. If you string together the right cards, the character will be able
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to perform one of their signature moves.
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Gone are the days of leveling up. So, beyond figuring out the card combination for each
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technique, there's really no reason to not run from every enemy you encounter. This is
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really a weak point, in my opinion. The frequent enemy encounters only serve to frustrate
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the player for no real reason. Defeating a boss nets you a rise in HP and allows you to
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use one more card per turn, which is rather useless.
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The one thing that was added that I really like is the Auto Move feature. This makes
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traveling around the maps (which are pretty big compared to past games) a lot easier.
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The thing I can't understand is, seeing as how this game was released after The
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Legend of the Super Saiyan (Chou Saiya-jin Densetsu) for the Super Famicom, why they
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didn't simply remove the card-based movement system. Entering training and healing houses
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require you to land on the building using a card that has either a dumbell or a heart
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respectively in the bottom right corner.
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Dragonball Z 3: Killer Andriods (known as Hot Battle! The Androids in some circles,
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more on this in a little bit) is the third DBZ RPG released for the Famicom. It was
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released in 1992 by Bandai. DBZ3, as I will refer to it from here on, is a
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continuation of the first two Dragonball Z RPGs for the Famicom:
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Dragonball Z: Assault of the Saiyans and Dragonball Z 2: Lord Freeza's Fury (an
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English patch is available for the former from Twilight Translations, while the
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latter is still in production).
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Overall, I would have prefered a sequel to Dragonball Z 3 that finished up the Androids/Cell
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saga. I wish they had based the aforementioned Legend of the Super Saiyan around the
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Androids/Cell sage instead of the Saiyans/Namek sage, but that's me.
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Also, a direct-to-video OVA was released in conjunction with this game that was essentially
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a visual walkthrough for the Famicom game. It features brand new animation and I'd really
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recommend checking it out if you can find it. Personally, I found the OVA more enjoyable
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than I did the game. Also of note is an interactive version of the OVA was released a
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couple years later for the Playdia system.
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--------------------------------------
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2. Development
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--------------------------------------
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After I finished translating Assault of the Saiyans, I decided that I'd tackle all of
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the DBZ Famicom RPGs. In the summer of 2005 (or earlier) I started working on dumping
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the text from the remaining three games. I was trying to convince a close friend of mine
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(Crotanks, who, at the time of this writing, is exporting more awesomeness than the states
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of Chuck Norris and Steven Segal combined) to take up hacking, so I suggested he work on
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Gaiden and we'd release it under the Twilight Translation flag. Actually, this is where
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the idea of Twilight Translation first sprang up.
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Anyway, Crotanks was up for it and so I helped him learn the basics of the trade and walked
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him through most of the process. He built the table, found all the text, and dumped all the
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scripts. This is where D.D.S. enters the picture. He had signed onto help me out with
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DBZ3 and unbeknownst to me at the time, he had also signed on to help Crotanks with Gaiden.
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Since originally the patch was planned to have any compression or assembly level hacks
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implemented, Crotanks was going to handle the entire project, but then we released that
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the translated text simply wasn't going to fit. Luckily by this time I had learned ASM
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and how to add my beloved huffman compression. So once the editting and formatting was
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complete, I took over as the head of the project.
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As far as things went on the assembly side, I'd estimate that nearly 90% of the routines
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that I was interested in were copied and pasted directly from DBZ3's source. As such, I
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merely copied and pasted my code for DBZ3 and tweak it. Even with the dictionary and huffman
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compression, there still wasn't enough room for the text, though! I ended having to create
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a program (WordCount) to generate an additional dictionary to compress the game further.
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Finally the game was ready for testing, so I brought back snesmaster and mrfreeze (who
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had previously helped with testing DBZ3) and they gave the Beta patch a run through.
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Fortunately there was only one major bug (and that was caused by a typo), which I fixed
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pretty quickly.
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Which brings us to today. I'm extremely proud of the patch. Everything should be top-notch
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and provide any Dragonball Z fan with a weekend's worth of enjoyment. Plus, I'm giving
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English players a shot at something not even the Japanese gamers had access to: Vegeta.
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In the original Japanese game, Vegeta, though a member of your party, is controlled by
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the computer. Why they made a fan-favorite unplayable, I don't know. I do know, that it
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was a matter of changing one byte to gain control of him though. If you'd rather play the
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game the way it was meant to be, I've included a patch that retains the CPU-controlled
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Vegeta.
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--------------------------------------
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3. Notes
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--------------------------------------
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Unfortunately, I had to abbreviate some of the characters' techinque names in order for
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them to fit within the various windows. I even had to employ squishy tiles in a few places.
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These are easily the low point of the patch, but they in no way affect your experience.
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The "you are here" bubbles that appear above your character on the overworld map are
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still in Japanese. I didn't think I could fit the translation in that small of space, so
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I left it.
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The Tenkaichi Budoukai mode may or may not be completely playable. The only emulator that
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will run this game is one in the FCEU family (FCEU, FCEUD, FCEUXD, FCEUXD SP) and FWNES.
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I couldn't get complete a single tournament in either the Japanese rom in FCEUXD SP, so
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I know for a fact it's not the patch causing it. I'd like to test it with FWNES, but it
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doesn't work with Windows XP and I'm DOSBOX-retarded.\
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Due to the nature of the card system, I've included screenshots that show the combination
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for every technique. There's a few places where NPCs will give you a card combination, but
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unless you can read kanji, it won't help. Feel free to use them or not.
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The only thing I would have liked to do is add the translation credits below to the credits
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roll at the end of the game. Sadly, space just didn't permit. Be sure to read the
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acknowledgements section below to see who did what!
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--------------------------------------
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4. Patch History
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--------------------------------------
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-Version 1.00 IPS
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The patches are now available in both NINJA format and the more common IPS format. NINJA
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can apply both or you can use LunarIPS. No changes have been made to the contents of the
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patches.
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-Version 1.00
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Everything is translated and thoroughly tested. That doesn't mean that there aren't
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still bugs lurking around, just that we didn't find them. If you find any read
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below in section 5 for reporting them.
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Included are two patches:
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*dbzg.rup - The english translation.
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*dbzg_veg.rup - The english translation plus control over Vegeta when he becomes a
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member of your party.
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Both patches are in NINJA format, for information on this see the official site at:
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http://ninja.cinnamonpirate.com/
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Over all, I'm extremely happy with this patch, and do not see an update needing to
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be made in the future.
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Please note that the rom only works in FCEU (and its offshoots) and FWNES. Rocknes
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won't play the game, nor will NEStopia. This isn't due to the translation; the original
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unpatched roms will not play either. I suspect there are more than just these two that
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won't play the rom, though. If you're emulator of choice doesn't work, you may consider
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switching to FCEU temporarily. See section 3 above for more information.
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--------------------------------------
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5. Bugs
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--------------------------------------
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There's one minor bug in the items menu. If you have 2 pages worth of items, the '1' will
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flicker and become a two. I had to rewrite a little of the VRAM routine for the Roulette
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card to work properly and unfortunately this bug is a side-effect. It shouldn't cause you
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any problems whatsoever, though. I couldn't think of a way to fix this without breaking
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a lot of things. It might be fixed in a future release or it might not.
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Other than that, there are no known bugs. However, if you manage to find one, I would like
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the following sent to me: a screenshot, a save state in FCEU format before the bug occurs,
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a brief description of the bug (even if you think it's obvious), and the circumstances
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under which it occured. Send that to my email at redcomet at rpgclassics dot com with
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Dragonball Z Gaiden or something similar in the subject line (so I won't trash it with
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the mountain of spam I get every day).
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--------------------------------------
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6. Credits
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--------------------------------------
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Dragonball Z Gaiden: Plan to Eliminate the Saiyans
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Translation Team:
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RedComet - Programmer (me)
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Crotanks - Script Extraction
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D.D.S. - Translator
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Elf - Graphics
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Testing and QA Team:
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snesmaster
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mrfreeze
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--------------------------------------
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7. Acknowledgements
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--------------------------------------
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In addition to the people listed in the Credits section, a few people deserve a special
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mention, without whom, this project would have gone no where fast and ended up being
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"just another dead DBZ translation":
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* The fans - The fact that my site has gotten about 5000 hits since DBZ3 was released
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proves you care; I appreciate that.
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* RHDN's Script Help Board & the many wonderful translators who frequent it.
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* ROMHacking.net - a great place for getting help, feedback, and spreading news.
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...And all the ones I cannot remember, which, knowing me, is a lot.
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