What PCE games would you like to see translated?

[Arjak]

DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NO ABILITY TO TRANSLATE, AS MUCH AS I'D LIKE TO LEARN. THIS IS NOT ME LOOKING FOR A PROJECT.

Now that that's out of the way, what are the Japan-only PC Engine games that you are dying to play in English? I certainly have a few projects I'd like to see!

-Ys 4 Dub
-Anearth Fantasy Stories
-Double Dragon II Dub
-Far East of Eden: Ziria

And these are just a few off the top of my head. What games do you want to see in English?

[override]

I'd like to see the Emerald Dragon translation released! David (i think thats his name) is working on it but man when will it hit the net???

I would also like to see:

XaK I & II
Akumo Dracula X get finished...
Cant think of any others at the moment....

[TurboXray]

Something happened to Dave's translator for Emerald Dragon. Dunno much more. It's on perma-hold I guess. There is some other news. I'll see if the hacker can come here and comment ;)

 Dave said that his translator for Emerald Dragon couldn't finish the translation (because of real life stuff I guess). He had 62% of the script translated too.

[Arkhan Asylum]

the entire Cosmic Fantasy series
Emerald Dragon
Anearth Fantasy


I would like Xak and Fray, but they were translated for MSX, so no TOTAL loss. Itd be nice.

[blueraven]

Gulliver Boy, Kabuki Den, Kisou Louga, Fang Of Arunam(?).

[Nazi NecroPhile]

The short answer is that I'd like to see all of 'em translated.  More specifically, I'd love to have translations for the Far East of Eden series, Gulliver Boy, Snatcher, Legend of Xanadu I and II, Anearth Fantasy Stories, Startling Odyssey I and II, Fray, Laplace No Ma, Madou Monogatari, the Cosmic Fantasy series, and Götzendiener.

P.S. - Click here for last year's discussion of this topic.

[override]

The short answer is that I'd like to see all of 'em translated.  More specifically, I'd love to have translations for the Far East of Eden series, Gulliver Boy, Snatcher, Legend of Xanadu I and II, Anearth Fantasy Stories, Startling Odyssey I and II, Fray, Laplace No Ma, Madou Monogatari, the Cosmic Fantasy series, and Götzendiener.

P.S. - Click here for last year's discussion of this topic.

Yes Yes I agree! I would like to see all of em or atleast all the good ones! I Def. agree with Xanadu Series! It would be cool if someone could figure out every title translated 100% (as in being able to understand throughout game - dubs) and make up a list....If I knew how to extrace game data and what programs to use and how to re apply the new language...I would be hard at work on some titles!

[Nazi NecroPhile]

If I knew how to extrace game data and what programs to use and how to re apply the new language...I would be hard at work on some titles!

If you ask him nicely, Tom may be able to point you in the right direction.

[Ninja Spirit]

Outlive

[override]

If I knew how to extrace game data and what programs to use and how to re apply the new language...I would be hard at work on some titles!

If you ask him nicely, Tom may be able to point you in the right direction.

Which one is tom? I think it would be kickass to learn to do that, lemme tell ya! I have an advantage too I know a chick in japan!

[Arkhan Asylum]

Which one is tom?

Tom, is Tom.

lol

He posted in this thread I think.

[override]

Which one is tom?

Tom, is Tom.

lol

He posted in this thread I think.

Yeah I feel stupid....lol I overlooked his name on the thread...Im gonna shoot him a PM!

[blueraven]

Also, Legend of Xanadu part II, Sorcerian, Necromancer, Vasteel II, The entire Dragon Knight series, 3x3 Eyes, Any Far East Of Eden game not already mentioned including the Kabuki Den ACD. If I can come up with some more I will post them here.   

[TurboXray]

EsperKnight should be here soon (he's waiting on login validation process)"

 Here's some pics mean time

/TMZ_Fin1.JPG
/TMZ_Fin2.JPG

 This is going to be awesome...

[Arjak]

YES! Far East of Eden is being translated! How's progress? When do you estimate it will be done? Is Old Rover going to make an official CD?

[Nazi NecroPhile]

This is going to be awesome...

To the nth degree.  I can't frickin' wait! 

[FraGMarE]

How about Street Fighter II' Champion Edition?  

/sf2_title03.gif

lol

[Mathius]

Legend of Xanadu I. God, that game is giving me a headache And I am using the walkthrough that is linked to this site!!

[Arjak]

How about Street Fighter II' Champion Edition?   

/sf2_title03.gif

lol

ROFL!

[Arkhan Asylum]

Does FS ][ Champion edition include helmets?

[JoshTurboTrollX]

Gulliver Boy and any Far East of Eden would be the shit!

[Arkhan Asylum]

Gulliver Boy and any Far East of Eden would be the shit!

far east of eden is being translated!

[blueraven]

  That is Excellent!

Gulliver Boy and any Far East of Eden would be the shit!

far east of eden is being translated!

[ParanoiaDragon]

That is Excellent!

Gulliver Boy and any Far East of Eden would be the shit!

far east of eden is being translated!

Ziria to be specific

[EsperKnight]

Thanks Tom!

To answer questions about Ziria, so far the intro's been translated (and in the process of being inserted), as well as up to (and including) the first cave you come to.  I've inserted up to the town right now.  I'm not sure of how long before a release but once the font gets inserted (the screenshots below are using a custom syscard3 rom as I was being lazy in setting up the font ingame ;)  ), progress will be much faster on getting the blocks extracted and inserted.

Also, for the versions we'll be doing, it'll be both the SCD and CD versions (I'm working with Dave Shadoff on the CD version).  Luckily the differences between the two seem to be mostly compression (LZSS if anyones curious).  The positions of the blocks appear to be the same so there shouldn't be any slowdown on doing both (I'm primarily working on the SCD one though as that's what I started with, figures I'd had to pick the harder one first )

[FraGMarE]

Touching on SF2:CE thing again.  It wasn't completely a joke.  Tomaitheous and I have been tinkering with the PCE version of SF2:CE off and on for the past year or so.  While translating the endings, win phrases, and switching the boss names to their US names is on the agenda I have taken the liberty of also touching up a few of the stages i felt could use some work.  I was never really happy with the way the Ryu, Guile, and Vega/M.Bison stages looked on the PCE version as well as a couple others.  Oh yea, the title screen will indeed be changed to 'Fighting Street II' Champion Edition'.  Had to do it  ;)  Here are some shots of the newer touched up stages next to the original PCE stages.  original ones are on the left, touched up screens are on the right...

/sf2_title03.gif


/sf2ryu_back01.gif

/sf2guile_back01.gif

/sf2blanka_back01.gif

/sf2mbison_back01.gif

[CrackTiger]

Wow, I've seen the full Guile stage and an early version of the Ryu stage, but these are still shockingly amazing!

The graphic quality is so strong all round that I don't think that even Genesis or SNES fanboys would argue that it doesn't look much nicer overall even without all the layered bgs.

I'm also glad that this new version is going by Fighting Street II'. It makes it stand out as something original and Turbo/PCE all the more.

If you guys manage to complete the upgraded rom, I hope that you'll also improve the palettes for sprites like alternate Dhalsim & alternate Vega and touch up the few imperfections (like alternate Saggat's shorts).

SFIICE is still my favorite SF game, so this is as big a deal for me as a port of another version SF.

[FraGMarE]

If you guys manage to complete the upgraded rom, I hope that you'll also improve the palettes for sprites like alternate Dhalsim & alternate Vega and touch up the few imperfections (like alternate Saggat's shorts).

Oh?  Please elaborate on these sprite/color issues.  I'd be happy to do some tweaking anywhere it's necessary.

[esteban]

This thread is full of goodness. Good luck to everyone working on these projects.

Touching on SF2:CE thing again.  It wasn't completely a joke.  Tomaitheous and I have been tinkering with the PCE version of SF2:CE off and on for the past year or so.  While translating the endings, win phrases, and switching the boss names to their US names is on the agenda I have taken the liberty of also touching up a few of the stages i felt could use some work.  I was never really happy with the way the Ryu, Guile, and Vega/M.Bison stages looked on the PCE version as well as a couple others.  Oh yea, the title screen will indeed be changed to 'Fighting Street II' Champion Edition'.  Had to do it  ;)  Here are some shots of the newer touched up stages next to the original PCE stages.  original ones are on the left, touched up screens are on the right...

/sf2mbison_back01.gif

I am so out of the loop that I actually read about this at nfgworld and thought that it was a brilliant... farce. To hear, now, that you are actually working on this is totally crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

I love it.

[CrackTiger]

If you guys manage to complete the upgraded rom, I hope that you'll also improve the palettes for sprites like alternate Dhalsim & alternate Vega and touch up the few imperfections (like alternate Saggat's shorts).

Oh?  Please elaborate on these sprite/color issues.  I'd be happy to do some tweaking anywhere it's necessary.

Even though I'm happy with the sprites as they are overall, it'd still be cool to see some of them colored more like the arcade version. I'm not crazy with how some are colored, such as alternate Dhalsim and Vega (not that I want them paled-out like the SNES version).






Saggat's shorts are missing detail, but only for his alternate colors-



It looks like the shade is there, but it's too close to the other shade of red.


One other thing is that Guile's Sonic Boom sprite animates incorrectly.



It uses horizontal opposites instead of diagonal opposites for frames. The SNES and Genesis versions do it the same as the arcade-

[Arjak]

It's been about a month since this thread has been posted in, so I must ask: Has any progress been made on either the Ziria or Fighting Street II projects? I'm really excited about Ziria in particular, and I know there are some who are excited about the FS2 translation/upgrade.

Also, this just popped into my mind: Does anyone know anything about what's going on with the Dead of the Brain 1 & 2 translation? This is a project that I've been quite excited about for a while, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

Sorry to bug; I tend to get in an "Any progress? Any progress? Any progress?" mode when I'm excited about something...

[hcf]

<DREAM MODE>
I know that this is almost impossible, but let's dream: I would LOVE to see a version of the Sherlock Holmes games with translated audios or at least with English subtitles 

Why? Because in the Sherlock Holmes games (like in the Sherlock Holmes books) it is very important to catch every fineness of every sentence, and people who don't speak English (like me) have a very hard time trying to understand the dialogs.

So, I would love a translation of the audios... or a version of the games with English subtitles (many people have problems when listening, but no problem when reading English). Well, now let's wake up.
</END DREAM MODE>

[shubibiman]

Also, this just popped into my mind: Does anyone know anything about what's going on with the Dead of the Brain 1 & 2 translation? This is a project that I've been quite excited about for a while, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

Hi, glad to read that someone's still waiting for the Dead of The Brain & translation. Actually, I think I'll finally be finished with typing in the script of DOTB 2 this week end. Yes, you are not misreading. It will certainly be complete tomorrow or on sunday. After, it will be up to Dave and Tom as I don't know how long it's gonna take to insert the text (I knwo that they finished inserting the script for Dea of the Brain 1).

I have to remind you that I'm talking about the French translation as I know that Dave is currently translating the game in English.

I could have done that long ago but I was working on a shitty computer, the program I'm working on crashed quite often and of course, I was quite busy in my personnal life.

Still, as I got a new computer and a very confortable desk and as I see that many of you would like a translated version of Gulliver Boy -a game that I really like and that I played through recently- I'd like to work on this one, hoping I will work faster than on the DOTB translation.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

<DREAM MODE>
I know that this is almost impossible, but let's dream: I would LOVE to see a version of the Sherlock Holmes games with translated audios or at least with English subtitles 

Why? Because in the Sherlock Holmes games (like in the Sherlock Holmes books) it is very important to catch every fineness of every sentence, and people who don't speak English (like me) have a very hard time trying to understand the dialogs.

So, I would love a translation of the audios... or a version of the games with English subtitles (many people have problems when listening, but no problem when reading English). Well, now let's wake up.
</END DREAM MODE>

Surely you jest - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vols. I and II are in English.  In fact, they appeared on the TG-16 before they were released on the PCE.

[EsperKnight]

Just to give some updates, Ziria is still in progress, although it may be a bit slow for a bit.  Right now the translator is moving to Japan and will have some connection issues for a while but he'll still be working on the Ziria scripts.  I did dump everything out (I believe) or at least 95% of everything.  The bad thing is, it's well over 500+ files.  The good thing is, each file does not have a lot of text usually (maybe a paragraph or two).

Also, interesting about Gulliver Boy, as I recently looked at that and determined it's uncompressed.  I haven't dumped out any text or anything but I can do that for you shubibiman (I still need to look at the pointer system, but I don't think it'll be too bad, or at least as bad as Snatcher's, now that's an evil game).

Also, if anyone is interesting in translating any games but needs help with the hacking side of it, feel free to hit me up as I would love to see more games translated on the PCE.

[shubibiman]

It would be great if you could do that!

[nat]

Couldn't someone, after dumping the uncompressed Japanese text from a given game, just feed it through Babelfish or an equivalent software-based translator to get the general gist of the dialog, then tweak the English output by hand to flow more smoothly? It seems to me like you could do an entire game this way in less than a week.

[termis]

The babelfish idea isn't bad, but you'd still need a decent working knowledge of Japanese to really get the job done, sorting out all the weird results that it would spit out.

I can help a bit out a bit with translations during my break times.  My Japanese isn't super, but I can give it a shot to see if it's doable...  (I'd actually use a Japanese <-> Korean translator software to clear up the bits I don't understand directly -- the two languages are similar enough to get pretty accurate translations).  PM me if you have any text dump you want to pass on to me.

[TurboXray]

Couldn't someone, after dumping the uncompressed Japanese text from a given game, just feed it through Babelfish or an equivalent software-based translator to get the general gist of the dialog, then tweak the English output by hand to flow more smoothly? It seems to me like you could do an entire game this way in less than a week.

Not a good idea for so many reasons 

[nat]

For example? Really, one good reason is all I'm looking for, but I'd be interested in hearing about all of them.

The reason termis (and I) mentioned is really the only argument I can think of against it, and even that factor could be pretty much nullified by having a real human edit for proper grammar. Even in those extreme "weird results" cases, you can still comprehend the meaning behind the original text 95% of the time.

[shubibiman]

When I started translating DOTB 1&2, I had a try with Babelfish and it took me longer to try and connect what was supposed to be said than translating directly by myself. Notwithstanding that it wouldn't have helped me to improve in japanese, which also was one of the main reasons why I wanted to translate that game.

[Arkhan Asylum]

One other direct translation problem is something Ill always remember from the making of Lunar disc for PSX in which the guy says they have to rework some things that make no sense during translation, like rhymie words in Japanese that turn into something like

PICKLE!? I THOUGHT YOU SAID BASEBALL!

[termis]

Translating to get the gist of the meaning isn't too difficult.  On the other hand, accurate & smooth-flowing translations need to take the context & culture into consideration, and that's a helluva a lot more time consuming.  Basically, I can't imagine translating a text-heavy RPG in a short time span unless the translator already knows the storyline inside and out, and don't need to refer back to anything by having to play the game himself in the first place.

Of course, software translators don't take any of the above into account.  It'll also easily break when you start using slang, idioms, different dialect, etc.  Or worse yet, it can spit out results that are completely incoherent and confusing -- and as shubibiman said, may take more time to fix rather than doing it from scratch (at least for anyone that has enough knowledge to even attempt translating in the first place).

[TurboXray]

For example? Really, one good reason is all I'm looking for, but I'd be interested in hearing about all of them.

The reason termis (and I) mentioned is really the only argument I can think of against it, and even that factor could be pretty much nullified by having a real human edit for proper grammar. Even in those extreme "weird results" cases, you can still comprehend the meaning behind the original text 95% of the time.

One really great reason is that babelfish isn't great at Japanese translating. You have to translate what it translates, but not understanding the source - you can't really reliably do that. And for the bits and pieces that you *might* get correct, without knowing the original language - you're not going to get the different level of complexities of the sentences/conversation/dialog. Stuff that's part of character development and story building. After all, an RPG/adventure's strong point is the dialog. The closest analogy I can give is; someone trying to translate Shakespeare to modern English but never had experience with old English (let alone his poetic writing/dialog style) or manuals or guides or anything. You might get the gist of it sometimes, but you lose sooo much in the hackjob process. Not only that, but the Japanese language is itself heavily compressed by reference and especially implied meaning (not to mention common phrases compressed down to single words like "here/there" instead of "here/there, take/catch/put/etc this"). More so than English. Add this on top the fact that most scripts are stored in strings or blocks and majority of the time - not in order. That makes it really hard to understand specific things being talked about, and easy to misinterpret - even for skilled translators because you don't have the context which the dialog is referring to (this is more of a problem in Japanese than in English). Playing through FF7 (PC version) currently, I can see lots of translation mistakes in the small dialog parts. And that's a professional translation. Stuff that often shows up in patch/block translations - like "here" instead of "there" and other incorrect or awkward referencing. I even had this problem in a few areas in my first script of Spriggan Mark 2 couple of years back. And the translator knew Japanese. He even played the learn to see the script in order of appearance.

 There's a reason why good translators are sought after for ROM/game translation. Game/rom translators often play through the game in Japanese and English (their translated work), to capture the correct meaning of the dialog. Babelfish projects are the laughing stock of romhacking scenes. You'll receive nothing but scorn for doing such a project with babelfish and for good reason that I mentioned above. Babelfish is for websites and a lesser extent simple manuals.

[shubibiman]

Tom said it all.

[EsperKnight]

But games translated this way are great ;)

http://elsallia.com/time-capsule/lfd2003/lanigrasser5.html

(And others... http://elsallia.com/time-capsule/lfd2003/)

(If anyone's wondering, the above is actually an april fool's joke, a great one too, it was rereleased later with a more accurate and professional translation )

[hcf]

<DREAM MODE>
I know that this is almost impossible, but let's dream: I would LOVE to see a version of the Sherlock Holmes games with translated audios or at least with English subtitles 

Why? Because in the Sherlock Holmes games (like in the Sherlock Holmes books) it is very important to catch every fineness of every sentence, and people who don't speak English (like me) have a very hard time trying to understand the dialogs.

So, I would love a translation of the audios... or a version of the games with English subtitles (many people have problems when listening, but no problem when reading English). Well, now let's wake up.
</END DREAM MODE>

Surely you jest - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vols. I and II are in English.  In fact, they appeared on the TG-16 before they were released on the PCE.

I didn't explain it well: I know that the Sherlock Holmes games are in English... but I don't understand those English audios well, because I DON'T speak English! In fact, my proposals were:

1) Make the game with English subtitles, because people that don't speak English (like me) many times can understand it when we read it (but not when we listen to it).

2) Or maybe, doing an Spanish translation (my native language).

I know that both proposals are almost impossible, but... dreaming is free.

[TurboXray]

 Sherlock Holmes uses uncompressed video. You can (somewhat) easily draw on to those frames. It still would be a huge project though.

[hcf]

Sherlock Holmes uses uncompressed video. You can (somewhat) easily draw on to those frames. It still would be a huge project though.

Wow, that's interesting! So maybe inserting subtitles is not totally impossible...

[Arjak]

After reading a review by The Brothers Duomazov, I am now greatly interested in 3x3 Eyes; it looks like an incredible digital comic, and I have a love for horror stories.