ReadMe

1. About the patch

The Heroes of Shadow presents the "Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow" English translation patch. This patch [completely] translates the original Japanese version of "Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo ~Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu~" a.k.a "Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~" into English.

You will need the original Japanese ROM to use this patch and a Nintendo DS emulator or flashcart to play the patched game. Do not ask us where to obtain any of these.

This patch is provided free of charge, for the benefit of the fans. If you find anybody charging money for the patch, do NOT pay them and, if necessary, contact the Heroes of Shadow.

[Small] donations to the Heroes of Shadow are welcome, however: these will be used to fund non-profit and non-gain Fire Emblem endeavours. To donate, please visit the Heroes of Shadow site/blog. If in doubt of the site's authenticity, do NOT donate!

If you want to thank the group, feel free to post a message on the Heroes of Shadow site/blog.

If you wish to support the group, please consider buying the upcoming Fire Emblem: Awakening on the Nintendo 3DS; that way you'll support Nintendo, so they can develop and translate more Fire Emblem games, which is the same as supporting us.

2. Check for updates

This version (3.01) of the patch is by all means complete.

However, to maximise your enjoyment of the game, please click here, to check you have the latest patch version:

The higher the version number, the more up-to-date the patch.

To apply an updated patch, you will need the clean Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow ROM, just like the first time you patched.

Save files (battery saves) are unaffected by the patch. But, just to be on the safe side, we recommend locating and backing up your save files before applying a new patch. For further details, please refer to section 5. of this ReadMe.

3. Patch version and history

You are looking at version 3.01 of the translation patch.

3.01
Fixed a bug, which could not have been fixed earlier, that caused the letters g, j, p, q and y to be cut off in dialogue name boxes.
Removed a passing joke in Archanean Chronicles Episode 3.

Change list

3.00
First public release of the COMPLETE translation patch

2.01
Completely revised menu patch

1.00 ~ 1.2
Blazer's menu translation patch

4. Help with patching

For patching instructions, you're looking in the wrong place; go back and check the initial folder.

However, if you're struggling to apply the patch, visit this link.

5. Transferring saves

Battery saves (.sav or .dsv) can be transferred between ALL versions of Fire Emblem 12: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~ [Shin Monshou no Nazo ~Hikari to Kage no Eiyuu~].

This includes the original Japanese version, the version 2.xx menu translation and the version 3.xx complete translation.

Savestates cannot be transferred.

NO$GBA battery saves (.sav) are found in the BATTERY folder, in the same folder as the emulator.

DeSmuME battery saves (.dsv) are located in a folder as defined in the "Path Settings" of the "Config" menu.

To transfer a save file, all you need to do is make sure the save file has the EXACT SAME NAME (barring the file suffix) as the ROM. Eg. if your new ROM is called "FE12-patched.nds", the save file should be "FE12-patched.sav" or "FE12-patched.dsv". Then place the save file in the relevant location, as described above.

DeSmuME also has the ability to "Export Backup Memory" and "Import Backup Memory", which is slightly more fiddly, but more safer.

Obviously, if your new ROM has the same name and is in the same location as before, you don't need to do anything.

As usual, we recommend backing up your save files before doing anything reckless!

6. Patch issues

We'll spare you the details, but translating a video game is NOT easy, especially when you must reverse-engineer it. As such, there are some tiny glitches that we cannot fix right now or ever.

A. During dialogue, character names get cut off towards the bottom of the name box.

FIXED: As of Version 3.01.

B. The text rewind function (press R when in dialogue) cuts off towards the far right.

Fix: Available, but causes graphical glitches.

C. Various graphical oddities in the Wi-Fi setup utility. Notably, when creating a new connection, there is a mysterious "blank" option in the middle of "AOSS" and "Manual Setup". If you press this option, nothing will happen, but you can press B to cancel.

Fix: Probably not worth the time.

D. The white horizontal lines under the location names in the world map dialogue are inconsistently sized.

Fix: Possible, but hardly important.

E. Some of the dialogue
is spaced rather awkwardly. Kind of
like this.

You may notice this from Chapter 15 and onwards and in the "character and you" base conversations.

Fix: Possible, but requires a LOT of time and effort, and doesn't really affect much.

F. Emulator bugs: these are NOTHING to do with the patch and thus are not our responsibility to fix.

NO$GBA:

i. Missing sound effects, eg. damage, walking sounds
ii. Top screen during chapter openings looks like a glitched mess

Other:

iii. Some music makes your speakers cracklezzz. Particularly the opening demo and the title screen musics. If this occurs, you could try fiddling with your emulator's audio settings.

If you believe you've found a new issue or have a suggestion to improve the patch--even something small like fixing a spelling mistake--please make a comment here, thanks!

7. Translation notes

[We shall visit the palace!]

Most references to "the palace" or the "palace town" actually refer to the Kingdom of Archanea's capital city, which is known as "Paresu" in the Japanese version and can be transcribed as "Palace." Confusingly, there is an actual palace building in Palace.

To avoid baffling players with phrases like "we shall visit Palace palace," we've followed the official English localisation of Shadow Dragon, where "Palace palace" is just "the palace" and "Palace," the place, is also "the palace" or, if context deems otherwise, "the palace town."

[Hi, Tar-Tar]

In the Japanese version, Tiki affectionately refers to Marth and the Avatar as "Marth-oniichan" and "Avatar-oniichan" (if male) respectively. "Oniichan" literally translates to "big brother," so Tiki is essentially saying "Big Brother Marth" and "Big Brother Avatar."

The English version of Shadow Dragon localised "Marth-oniichan" as "Mar-Mar." However, due to the limitations of our hacking knowledge, as well as limitations of the English language, it's impossible for us do a similar play with the Avatar's name, eg. Vin-Vin for Vincent, and stuff like Chr-Chr for Chris would look silly.

After much argument and apathy, we decided to stick with "Tar-Tar", which is derived from the word "Avatar."

By the way, Tiki still has "Avatar-oniichan" syndrome in Fire Emblem: Awakening, but we could hardly have afforded to wait for Awakening's English release before releasing the translation patch...

[Call me "Honey"]

During Julian and Lena's luvvy duvvy conversation, Lena asks Julian to stop calling her by name and call her "honey." Originally, in typical anime fashion, Lena asked Julian to drop the "Miss" in "Miss Lena" and call her "Lena" directly; in Japanese culture, calling people directly by name is a sign of affection.

However... in the English version of Shadow Dragon, Julian calls Lena "Lena" and not "Miss Lena," so, um, yeah. Ironically, Julian actually calls Lena "honey" during their first appearance in Shadow Dragon, so you could say "honey" in this game is a passing reference to that scene, or a sign of protest.

[Bob's Tome]

Due to space limitations and theming purposes, the following item names were completely changed:

Mediocre Staff -> Healer [Heal + "er" as in "er, this is a crap staff"]
Wrys's Staff -> Polish [what else is Wrys going to do with his staff?]
Nurufire -> Ember [originally "weak flame"]
Yurublizzard -> Sleet [probably "slow blizzard"]
Merric's Tome -> Razor [stronger version of Shaver]
Katarina's Tome -> Hellfire [a "dark" variant of Bolganone]

8. Staff and credits

[The Heroes of Shadow]

Aveyn Knight - Reluctant project head and chief editor. Designed the tutorial help cards.

Blazer - Project leader and hacker. Fell to the enemy before the battle was won. But was later revived with the Aum staff.

Agro - Translator of the prologue and main story.

TheEnd - Translator of the base conversations, sidequests and bonus chapters.

Nintenlord - Programmer. Created the FEDS text editor.

NomadicTrooperGirl - Graphic editor and hacker.

Martze, Pandorakun, Illumio, Ryan - Hardened team of localisers and proofreaders.

[Beta-testing team]

The Heroes of Shadow minus Nintenlord, NTG and Ryan

[Other helpful people]

Arch - Proofread some files and gave general support.

DarkTwilkitri - Helped with editing the menu font.

Nagato - Implemented lots of VERY useful hacks. Before Nagato, there were no lowercase letters in the dialogue. True story.

pleonex - Translated the Wi-Fi connection utility.

Prof. 9 - Fixed the dialogue name box issue.

Sirius - Testing the game.

Snow - Translated Prologue I.

Vi - Proofread some files.

Zaishi - Created the English "Fire Emblem" logo.

Zak - Designed the main menu and the Wi-Fi battle help card.

...And everyone who's supported the translation in any way, be it by posting on the Heroes of Shadow blog or arguing about Vergil on Fire Emblem forums.

9. Links and contact

Some links that may interest you.

Heroes of Shadow.net - The headquarters of the Heroes of Shadow. Contains the patch download, patch news and other cool stuff.

Nintendo Kingdom - Interview with Agro, the translator of the main story.

Iwata Asks - The translated "Iwata Asks" interview for "Heroes of Light and Shadow".

Serenes Forest - Various "Heroes of Light and Shadow" data and information.

To contact the Heroes of Shadow, visit our site above or send an e-mail to:

aveyn_knight [AT] yahoo (dot) co <dot> uk

Please have the subject header as "Fire Emblem 12 Patch" or it may go unnoticed.