Part 1

Eien no Filena was released in 1995, late into the life of the SNES. The title translates to Eternal Filena, more or less. It's a pretty standard JRPG that bears a strong resemblance to Final Fantasy V in the graphics department, but for some reason has held a certain charm with me as long as I don't listen to the awful music.
It's the story of a girl called Filena, who is raised to be a gladiator by Zenna, a kind of foster parent to her. Since girls can't be gladiators, she's been brought up as a man, and despite her long hair, feminine features and miniskirt, no one seems to suspect a thing.
This game was not released in English, but with the help of a hacker called Disnesquick I've been producing an English translation. I've been getting back into working on it, but I thought a Let's Play while I was working on the game at the same time might be a neat idea and would help me keep translating files for it at a regular rate. Hopefully there'll be some interest in this.
So without any further ado, here we go.

"Beyond endless time, sealed in the light of a distant planet...

This is the legend of a heroine, passed down in a world where man has not yet learned to soar through the sky...

The world was controlled by the fearful might of the Empire, and the people were divided into three ranks: "Imperial citizens", "Colonials" and the slaves of the Imperial citizens, "Clechia"...

Clechia, the lowest people of this world...
They are forbidden all means to turn against the fate that had been imposed upon them.

But among them was a chosen one...

Although born as the queen of Filosera, a beautiful sea kingdom destroyed by the Empire, she is now disguised as a Clechia...
Hiding the fact that she is a woman...
She lives as a "Battler", a gladiator who fights for the Imperial citizens' pleasure.
Still unaware of the life she must lead or the dream she must search for, she gazes at the dry skies...

Her name is Filena...

The soul of the sea..."


Yeah, I know that says Filerna.


Crap. Sounds like some RPG heroes haven't been doing their jobs!



Clechia is the general name of what appear to be the slave class of the Empire. They're easily identifiable by their blue eyes and blonde hair. It's like bizarro-nazism.




Nothing like tiny SNES sprite violence. The guy facing left just got run through, and were the graphics of the time any better his 16-bit entrails would be spilling all over the floor. Thank goodness technological limitations grant him an easy death.


We'll be seeing more of him later.





CHRIST FILENA ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!


Zenna administers some punitive child abuse. That'll learn her.



OW GODDAMNIT


Zenna follows up his child abuse combo with a bit of sexism. What a gent.




I missed the sword slash animation here, so just imagine that Filena tripped and fell on her face while Zenna laughed at her or something.





I remember back when you were a little girl and I would beat you into submission daily. How I laughed!








FILENA, WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE ME HIT YOU?!


Selecting the sword icon brings up this menu. You can cycle through the weapons you have equipped, and choose to use a generic attack or a special move. There are special sets of moves for Blades, Hammers, Medicine Boxes and Crystal equipment, and you can also learn melee special moves. Using this special move would be a good choice now, since this looks like a freebie battle.


Damn it Zenna, why do you always try to show me up?



Filena, you remember that trick where I put the bar of soap in a sock, right?

The rest of this is mostly hitting Zenna for one HP and him raining blows on Filena.



(more 1 HP violence)








Note to self: fix glaring grammatical error.



If you don't equip your weapons before battle, you deserve to get beaten up by old men every day.


Yeah, this is definitely a Japanese console RPG.





I like the sound of that.

Okay. We're free to wander around the Academy now. Will Filena go around and talk to everyone, or shall we just try and progress in the story for now?
(Also, those of you who wish to play at home can grab the latest patch here. When I get to translating new sections, I'll also be linking to special patches for this thread at the end of the relevant update.)