I feel like I tried just about everything:
1. I first tried just adding torcher's patch to the pre-patched download, from the 1st page of this post, and overwriting the files.
2. I also tried deleting the pre-patched 'patch' folder and add.xp3 file, downloading the 2.02a patch, from the 1st page of this post, and putting those in the game folder, and finally adding torcher's patch and overwriting the files.
I also made sure my folder's name was using latin characters, my locale was set to japanese and I tried putting the game folder in C:\Games\ to ensure the path wasn't too long like some people mentioned.
Also, I tried playing with the plus mode enabled, even though I'm not entirely sure what it does. I didn't try playing without it.
If you have any other ideas, I'm all ears