Testament - English translation patch

The action-RPG game Testament has finally been properly translated from Japanese to English language. Frenchman Django released his MSX game translation patch for this 1988 MSX2 title.

Leave it to monsieur Django when it comes to unchaining Japanese narrated MSX games. As slave to the translating business, this free spirit has certainly a reputation to live up to. Looking at the long list of work he'd done, you might wonder if he gets paid over time. The man is spitting out MSX game translation faster than you can say "Hurray for boobies!". His latest work covers the game Testament.

Released in 1988 by Basho House and developed by Glodia, on 2x2DD Disks, running with 128KB VRAM for graphics and the standard PSG for sound, the game Testament never really got a firm grip on soil in the western worlds, like Europe. With Dango's latest craftwork, this might change as the game's context is now fully understandable.

relevant link: Django's translation of Testament
relevant link: Video footage of the Testament's intro in English

Comments (30)

By tfh

Prophet (3347)

05-10-2021, 20:11

Hurray for boobies!

ehm,.. ehr...

Hurray for Django! Thanks for this new translation!

By hamlet

Scribe (4106)

05-10-2021, 20:39

Always one of my fav games. Walking around, eating too much burgers, feeling sick.
Now I noticed it wasn't all about the burgers. Nice!
Thanks Django!

By The Apeman

Master (245)

05-10-2021, 21:22

One of the first MSX2-games I bought, now in English. Burgers and screaming spiders! Thanks, Django.

By ren

Paragon (1934)

05-10-2021, 22:19

Cheers!
Does anyone know of a Testament .kss btw?

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5672)

05-10-2021, 23:51

ren wrote:

Cheers!
Does anyone know of a Testament .kss btw?

Of the PC-88 version, yes:
http://snesmusic.org/hoot/sets/pc88/testamnt.zip

By turbor

Hero (520)

06-10-2021, 00:10

I have been waiting for this translation for decades!!
Thank you Django! thank you, thank you, thank you!

By Pippo

Hero (521)

06-10-2021, 05:10

Thanks a lot also from me, DJango!
Your work is always excellent!

By JGM

Master (140)

06-10-2021, 09:42

Thanks! Great work!

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

06-10-2021, 11:42

Nice work, and with tiny yarou's nice Scc tool, you can enjoy the game with scc music

By black hawk

Expert (124)

06-10-2021, 14:35

Chapeau!

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5672)

06-10-2021, 18:30

Indeed, excellent work again!

Some little notes:
The protagonist's name is probably to be spelled not as "Lyle" but "Laille" (as he's French).
(EDIT: the game's manual also spells it as such)

Regarding the continent on which this story takes place - here it gets spelled as both "Diodrun" and "Diodoran".
My guess is that it should actually be "Diodola".

Regardless of this - there is no actual record of any such continent in both the Old Testament or New Testament. So it's born from the fantasy of the developers, anyway.
(Even if we can draw parallels to bibilical concepts and themes involving God's wrath, causing civilizations/communities/customs to disappear and be swallowed by time and history, like (from the top of my head) the fate of Sodom, Assyria, and the Canaanites)

By QBee Sam

Champion (291)

06-10-2021, 18:31

Thank you... again!

By Bas040

Master (221)

06-10-2021, 20:16

Thanks a lot!
I have been waiting for this translation for a long time.

By Victor

Champion (509)

06-10-2021, 20:44

I'm optimizing the game....

wait some days and you'll can play it better...

it's a real disaster...

By Zandig Slaytanic

Resident (44)

06-10-2021, 21:31

Thanks Django !

By tfh

Prophet (3347)

06-10-2021, 22:15

Victor wrote:

I'm optimizing the game....

wait some days and you'll can play it better...

it's a real disaster...

So we will get an "ultimate" version

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5672)

06-10-2021, 22:28

tfh wrote:

Victor wrote:

I'm optimizing the game....

wait some days and you'll can play it better...

it's a real disaster...

So we will get an "ultimate" version

Almost. It would need FM sound for it to be.

By ren

Paragon (1934)

07-10-2021, 08:18

JohnHassink wrote:

Almost. It would need FM sound for it to be.

So how are you progressing on 'porting' the soundtrack then? ;)

By ro

Scribe (4964)

07-10-2021, 08:18

FM? neh, SCC bro!

By ren

Paragon (1934)

07-10-2021, 09:50

Victor wrote:

I'm optimizing the game....

Looking forward to that Victor!

Do you think it would be possible (& feasible) to implement the TT Re-Player? :) (Let's get John motivated? ;))

By KdL

Paragon (1452)

07-10-2021, 10:45

I love that game. Thank you!!

By st1mpy

Paladin (938)

07-10-2021, 11:52

I guess there is a text length limitation in the intro, and not sure if it really matters in the game but there are more details/info in the Japanese text than the English translation.

By meits

Scribe (6544)

07-10-2021, 19:49

fm, scc, all good... as long as psg still is an option

By Victor

Champion (509)

07-10-2021, 20:43

ren wrote:

Do you think it would be possible (& feasible) to implement the TT Re-Player? :) (Let's get John motivated? ;))

No space in the DSK... sorry... the game should be converted to files .. as I did with YS II.. but that's a lot of work... sorry...

By dan

Master (243)

08-10-2021, 07:23

can't wait to play this game once again. thank you all!

By sunn

Expert (104)

09-10-2021, 12:07

I tried the game in SofaRun and sometimes the game flashes in purple. Is this supposed to happen? And there seemd to be some graphical glitches especially after I tried to save with F4.

By Udderdude

Supporter (13)

09-10-2021, 22:32

Thanks!

By turbor

Hero (520)

09-10-2021, 22:51

sunn wrote:

I tried the game in SofaRun and sometimes the game flashes in purple. Is this supposed to happen? And there seemd to be some graphical glitches especially after I tried to save with F4.

if you eat too much burgers you get temporary sick and the games makes the screen flash purple. Is this what you're talking about?

By sunn

Expert (104)

11-10-2021, 07:18

Probably.

By SLotman

Paragon (1242)

13-10-2021, 14:06

I had the intro of this game translated many years ago. Ricbit sent me the translated text, and since the intro was just a raw image on disk, it was easy to translate.

But then I found out there were much more text to translate: if you let the game idle, it starts to show a bunch of info on enemies - and that isn't stored on disk as images.

Glad to see someone actually took the challenge and translated it all

Testament - English translation patch

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