Silviana (FDS)
Mute's English Patch (Version 1.0)
http://mute.vblank.net/

Silviana was an Ys knockoff released in the summer of '88 by
Pack-In-Video. It's a semi-interesting twist on the genre --
rather than controlling a boy as he strives to save the
princess or the world, you play a girl (Silviana) who's just
trying to get medicine for her mother. Along the way, you'll
drink tea, collect flowers and dolls, and converse with cute
little dinosaurs.

Despite the predominance of pink in the palette, the game
itself should be pretty familiar. As in Ys, attack and
defense are automatic, which means you basically run into
the enemy until one of you dies. You don't gain levels, so
the only way to improve your chances is to collect items:
hearts to extend your life gauge, weapons to increase
offense, and shields to increase defense. While you're
looting chests for them, though, there are two kinds of
traps you'll need to watch out for. THORNs poison you, which
isn't so bad; SCYTHEs kill you, which does kind of suck.
Luckily, there are consumable items called THIRD EYEs that,
when equipped, automatically alert you to traps. If you run
out, the game has a quick-save feature that can and should
be abused. There's a more permanent regular save available,
too, but, depending on your emulator, you may be better off
using save states.

Until you have the BRONZE SWORD (for sale in the nearby
town), you won't be strong enough to enter any of the caves.
After that, the most important items are BREAD (restores hit
points), POPPIES (cure poison), and TULIPS (warp you back to
your house). The other items either handicap enemies or
temporarily increase your own stats. To use the currently
selected item, press A; to bring up the status screen, press
Select.

To get started, you'll need five things: use a patching
program (1) to apply the accompanying patch (2) to the
original Japanese disk image (3), which you then load into
an FDS-capable emulator (4) in conjunction with the disk
system BIOS (5). I imagine this patch has a pretty small
audience and that everyone in the audience knows, and knows
where to get, all of the above. I nonetheless recommend
testing and backups at every point in the process. Also, if
the patch appears to do nothing, make sure your emulator's
not keeping its own copy of the image.

This is the part where I ask you to write in with any bugs
or typos, but it's far enough after the fact that I doubt I
could fix them -- which anyway would go against the bootleg,
fly-by-night, "my God what were they thinking?" spirit of
romhacking in general.

 - Mute (16 November 2002, 23 March 2007)

Notes:

 (*) "the summer of '88" -- Two years later, Pack-In-Video
     released another version of Silviana for the MSX. The
     graphics were improved and the intro revamped, but
     otherwise it was the same game.

 (*) "the original disk image" -- might turn up with the
     subtitle "Ai Ippai no Boukensha" (something like
     "Loving Adventurer").
