UPDATE:
Here’s the bottom line… This is a fairly straightforward translation project that basically needs a programmer…
Angel Devoid: Face of the Enemy was a 1996 FMV based cyberpunk / tech-noir graphic adventure game developed by Electric Dreams Inc. and released by Mindscape for MS-DOS and Mac OS. The game was very reminiscent and even derivative of BLADERUNNER, albeit in a cheesy-good way. A Japanese language version of the game was released under the title DeathMask for Sega Saturn and PlayStation.
Both the PC and Saturn versions of the game implement TrueMotion Video by Duck Corporation and Dr. Eric Ameres was the guy who worked on the game and handled all of the video compression.
Incidentally, the video files from the PC version of the game (which are in English) seem to play back fine when inserted into the Saturn version of the game. This immediately makes Deathmask a great candidate for a fairly straightforward translation project. Since all of the visuals and menus in the game are already in English (perhaps they considered releasing the game in the west..?), with the original English voice acting, the game is basically good to go.
However, the “catch” is that the English video from the PC version runs at 10fps while the Saturn’s video files run at 15fps. This means that all of the games “quick time” events aren’t triggered at the right time, since the game is basically counting frames to determine when an event or prompt should occur…
Perhaps the “easiest” solution would be to swap the English audio into the Saturn’s existing video files, however, there is currently no one available to work on this. Knight0fDragon was able to get the project going by proving the videos could be swapped and played back on Saturn hardware, however, due to several other projects which are on-going at the moment, he does not have the time to continue work on Deathmask.
That means this project will languish and perhaps even be forgotten unless someone out there picks up the ball and runs with it. If you like the Cyberpunk film and game genre, and you would like to help see this project to completion, please reach out and make contact with us on our Translation-Project Discord channel. https://discord.gg/frxpcCcV
A massive Saturn fan since Christmas ’96, Dave is enthusiastic about growing the community and spreading Saturn love and knowledge to fans old and new. Co-founding the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! podcast back in 2017 and creating the SHIRO! SHOW in 2020, he seeks to create interesting and engaging Saturn-related content for the community. Dave’s interests circle around game preservation, and he is a huge fan of game magazines and developer interviews.
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