                                             -----------------------------------
                                                     46 OkuMen Present
                                              Appareden -The Sacrosanct Dragon-
                                                         v0.9.91
                                             -----------------------------------
                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                        
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------------------------
Table of Contents
------------------------
1.0 Basic Information
	1.1 Version History
	1.2 Patching
		1.2.1 Windows
		1.2.2 Mac/Linux/Other
2.0 Project
	2.1 Running the Game
	2.2 About the Game
	2.3 About the Project
	2.4 About the Team
3.0 Credits
4.0 Special Thanks
5.0 License
6.0 Contact
------------------------

------------------------
1.0 Basic Information
------------------------

1.1 Version History
------------------------
v0.9.9.1 - February 21st, 2025 - Fixed a softlock right before the final boss, some glitched in-battle images.
v0.9.9   - February  7th, 2025 - Initial public release.

1.1 Patching
------------------------

1.1.1 Windows
------------------
	Place your disk image files, or the game's files themselves, in the same directory as Pachy98.exe.

	Run Pachy98.exe and it will automatically locate your disk images. Confirm it has found the correct files, and it will back them up to the "/backup" directory and then apply the patches to the images in the root Pachy98 directory. 

	Once completed, you will be able to play the game in English using the disk files you placed in the root directory.
	
1.1.2 Mac/Linux/Other
------------------
	The patcher executable is Windows-only (for now), so if you’re using another OS, you can use the provided xdelta patches in the "Mac+Linux Patches" folder. Use a utility like Delta Patcher to patch your copy of the game ( http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/704/ ). Note that this method is a lot less flexible, and only supports a few particular builds of the game.

	If you're patching the floppy disk images you will need to patch each individual disk with the respective patch.

------------------------
2.0 Game
------------------------

2.1 Running the Game
------------------------
	If this is your first time emulating or playing a PC-98 game, we've written a short setup guide on our site that should help you get a PC-98 emulator setup and ready to play: http://46okumen.com/pc-98-emulation/

	***
	We recommend the latest version of Neko Project 21/W, and NOT np21 FMGEN as we do for previous releases. This is a CD-based game and has high memory requirements, and sometimes cause issues in np21 FMGEN.
	https://simk98.github.io/np21w/download.html
	***

	If you're using a hard disk image, simply put the hard disk image in IDE #0. Next, you simply start up (or restart) your system and the game will autoboot. This process applies to both hardware and emulators.

2.2 About the Game
------------------------
	Appareden -The Sacrosanct Dragon- is an RPG from the later stages of the PC-98’s life cycle released in 1995 by TGL, the same developers who released the Farland Story series of games that were among some of the first translated PC-98 games. It features a nicely animated battle system, and a story rich with history and lore from Japan’s past.

	The game takes place on the Japanese islands and stars Gento, a not-too-bright swordsman who will do anything so long as he gets paid, and his talking cat monster companion, Benimaru. They are given a scroll by a dying samurai and told to deliver it to Edo, but find themselves in the middle of plots to take over the world!

	For more information, check out the fully translated manual. (Coming soon!) If it wasn't included with this download, you can find it on the Appareden project page on our website: https://46okumen.com/projects/appareden-fukuryuu-no-shou/

	Please also note, Appareden is known to crash. This occurs in the original Japanese release as well. Save often.

2.3 About the Project
------------------------
	The 46 OkuMen team, creators of this translation patch, are a romhacking and translation group focusing on games for the PC-98. Our previous translations are:
	 - E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution
	 - Rusty
	 - CRW Metal Jacket

	Hard to believe we released those three projects within a year, and this one took 8! Appareden's script was longer than the other three combined, and being a nonlinear JRPG meant testing was much harder.

	We had issues with text space, so we hacked in our own dictionary compression code to let us fit more text in the menus.

	This game uses a custom graphics format called .GEM. Since there is a lot of text in images throughout the game (maps, battle sprites, fullscreen images, minigame graphics), we reverse-engineered the format enough to write an encoder for it. .GEM is used many of TGL's other games, so our tool can potentially be used for those as well.

	A few things are not translated as of this patch.
		- Map graphics (shop signs) in 3 cities.
		- Cat platformer minigame text graphics.
		- CD-exclusive voice acted cut scenes. These are available on YouTube with subtitles:
			- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlxRHnG8c
			- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR2kAmawoxc
			- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYIF0yrjKrg
			- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF3nxW-Wqz4
			- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W-Sqcd3XEk
		- Game manual. (Coming soon!)

2.4 About the Core Team
------------------------
	hollow is a software developer. He grew up playing fan-translated games like Seiken Densetsu 3, La-Mulana, and Mother 3, and is excited to finally have the skills and free time to give something back to the community.

	kuoushi is a professional Japanese translator who just so happens to also translate as a hobby. He has worked on a lot of translations over the past 10+ years in many different fields, such as short stories, manga, mobile games, and more. E.V.O.: The Theory of Evolution was the first full romhacking translation project he has ever undertaken, and he's happy to have been a part of it.

	SkyeWelse is a web developer / graphic artist and a hardcore retro-gaming enthusiast / collector. Some of his past websites include miraigamer.net, gameflaws.com, suikocastle.com, cavestory.org, shantae.net, usamsx.com, and more recently retro-type.com, which is planned to become a gaming community at some point in the near future. As a visual person, he really enjoys turning graphics with Japanese texts into English versions.

	You can find more about the team and our future projects at our website: http://46okumen.com

------------------------
3.0 Credits
------------------------
hollow       - Hacking
kuoushi      - Translation, Editing
SkyeWelse    - Graphics
not log      - Manual Scanlation
ElTipejoLoco - Testing, Reverse Engineering
Highwang     - Testing
Inuchiyo     - Poem Transcription and Translation Help

------------------------
4.0 Special Thanks
------------------------
	We・d like to thank anyone who helped us on this project and whom we may have forgotten to include in the above credits. Thanks to the users of the PC-9800 Series Central Discord server for their support, enthusiasm, and tolerance throughout the project.

	Many, many thanks to euee, developer of the NDC utility, the foundation of our custom patching program. He improved and expanded the program in all the ways we wanted, and we never needed to ask him! You can find him here: http://euee.web.fc2.com/

	kuoushi would like to thank his wife for putting up with him translating old Japanese video games at odd hours.

------------------------
5.0 License
------------------------
	This translation patch is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. A human readable version of the license (as well as the full text of the license) may be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

	You are free to share and redistribute this patch in any format. You are free to adapt or build upon this patch in any way. However, you must give appropriate credit to us, indicate any changes you’ve made, and you may not use it for any commercial purposes.

	The patcher program Pachy98.exe is covered by the Apache Public License (version 2). This license can be found here: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

------------------------
6.0 Contact
------------------------
	If you need to get in touch with us for any reason, you can send an e-mail to hollowaytape AT 46okumen DOT com or swing by our website at https://46okumen.com .
