Bonk's Adventure: Level Names

nat · 05/23/2007, 11:14 AM

So we all know the USA version of Bonk's Revenge features actual names for the levels while the first game and Bonk 3 feature Mario-esque "1-1" nonsense.

Bonk 3 even goes so far as to throw you for a loop with TWO level "2-3"s and completely forgetting about "2-2" (or maybe it's the other way around).

I recently acquired the Japanese version of Bonk's Adventure (for play in my GT) and was surprised to find out the levels actually have names in this game, too. Why these weren't translated and used for the USA version is beyond me.

EDIT:
With the help of thumpin_termis and Chris Covell, we have determined the following:

1-1: Ankylo Desert (Ankylosaurus Desert)
1-2: Decadent Volcano
1-3: Stego Hill (Stegosaurus Hill)

2-1: Amigo Desert
2-2: Elekin Waterfall
2-3: Looper Cave
2-4: Sara-Zara Desert
2-5: "Buruka's"/"Burka's"[?] Swamp
2-6: Giant Fern
2-7: Ozone Wilderness

3-1: "Dekotan"[?] Desert
3-2: Bone Bone Bridge
3-3: Tropical Islands
3-4: Korigori Trench
3-5: Aurora Zone

4-1: "Hirobiro" Desert (Wide Wide Desert)

Keranu · 05/23/2007, 05:34 PM

Very good thread! I never noticed that Bonk 3 labeled 1 - 2 as 1 -3 either, nor have I put much thought at all in the level names used in Bonk's Revenge! Would be interesting to read translations from the Japanese version

.

termis · 05/23/2007, 05:42 PM

I'd give it a shot if I had nice, clear, screenshots.

(just sold my copies of PC Genjin a few weeks ago)

nat · 05/24/2007, 11:21 AM

So if I give you some screenshots you'll do it for me? Cuz I'm just dyin' to know!

termis · 05/24/2007, 12:19 PM

As I said, I'd give it a shot. My success rate would depend on the complexity of the Kanji involved.

nat · 05/26/2007, 04:06 AM

Here's all the levels from the first stage. Try your hand at these:

termis · 05/26/2007, 04:53 AM

Ankylo(saurus) Desert

Decadent[?] Volcano

Stego(saurus) Hill

edited: to show shortened words.

nat · 05/26/2007, 06:27 AM

Cool, I'll post some more tomorrow.

OldRover · 05/26/2007, 07:09 AM

Well, that all explains why the US versions got level numbers instead of names...it'd take tons of letters to scrawl out all of that.

nat · 05/26/2007, 01:36 PM

I actually disagree. I don't think that's the reason at all.

I believe they used numbers in the US version to make it more similar to the Mario games. May seem like a silly concept, but from a marketing standpoint, it would add a small sense of familiarity for those "upgrading" to the TG-16 from their old NES.

Hell, maybe not, but I can't believe "too many letters" is the reason they didn't use the names.

You have to remember Bonk's Revenge used the level names and a lot of them aren't much shorter than those above:

"Hatchet's Hometown" (one letter shy of Ankylosaurus Desert)
"Conveyer Tunnel"
"Orange Waterfall" (the same length as Stegosaurus Hill and Decadent Volcano)
"Volcano Castle" (only two letters shy of Stegosaurus Hill and Decadent Volcano)

...and so on. Most of the rest are around the same length as "Volcano Castle."

guyjin · 05/26/2007, 02:25 PM

Suprise, another blindingly stupid decision by NEC America.

termis · 05/26/2007, 02:35 PM

Yeah, since Japanese kana characters contain a whole syllable, Japanese words will usually take a lot less width than the equivalent English words. And on top of that, they're shortened the words itself as well. In the above example, they actually wrote "Ankylo Desert" and "Stego Hill" instead of the full ~saurus name of the dinosaur.

It'd even be shorter if they used some Kanji instead of only Hiragana for some things like volcano: from かざん to 火山, or Hill: from おか to 岡. (Though I reckon the game resolution may be too low for some complex kanji with a lot of strokes to be clearly legible on a small signboard like the ones above)

I'm sure they could've just lengthened the signboard to accommodate the English characters, but as nat said, they either went the Mario way, or just got lazy. I'd imagine the space shortage issue has got to be a bitch for people who translate games -- especially for fan-translating groups without proper support from the original developers.

Reminds me of playing old school 8-bit RPGs and wondering, why the HELL can I _only_ put in 4 characters for player names? Makes sense now.

nat · 05/26/2007, 03:53 PM

God, I've forgotten how much playing emulated games sucks. Uncomfortable chair, no controller pad (yeah, I'm using the keyboard), lame screen.

Here's all the levels from stage 2, except 2-3, the cave. For some reason I forgot why I was putting myself through the punishment of playing a game via emulation during that level and forgot to take a snapshot of the sign. Oh well, I'll get it on the next pass through....

termis · 05/26/2007, 04:18 PM

I'm not sure on a couple of them.

I know there are a few others who can read some Japanese on the board, so if you know any of these, or read any differently - post away!

Amigo Desert

????

Sara-Zara Desert

Buruka's/Burka's[?] Swamp

Giant Fern

O-Zone Wilderness

nat · 05/26/2007, 04:44 PM

I'm curious about the swamp level name....

I don't know of any characters in the game called Buruka or Burka. Anyone else want to give a second opinion on that one, and have their guess at the forest level?

Also, I've updated the original message to show what we've determined so far.

Stage 3 coming soon...

Keranu · 05/26/2007, 05:58 PM

Thanks a lot for the translations so far, these are neat My favorites are Amiga Desert and O-Zone Wilderness, especially the latter!

ParanoiaDragon · 05/26/2007, 06:38 PM

It's AmigO, not AmigA

Keranu · 05/26/2007, 07:30 PM

Whoops, that's what I meant! Not sure how the computer name got in my post!

ccovell · 05/26/2007, 10:13 PM

Quote from: Keranu on 05/26/2007, 07:30 PMWhoops, that's what I meant! Not sure how the computer name got in my post!

Only Amiga! ... makes it possible.

Some suggestions:

"Dekadan" volcano - I don't think it's "decadent". It could be part of the name of a dinosaur (though none exists with this name), or it could be onomatopoeic, which is what I think it is. Deka DAN! (deka(i)=huge dan=blast?)

"Elekin daki" - The electrified enemies are named Elekins, aren't they? Taki means "waterfall".

termis · 05/27/2007, 03:02 AM

Ah yeah, it sounds like it'd be taki (waterfall) as the ~n sound before modifying it to "~daki - is there a waterfall on the stage? And I dunno what enemy characters make an apperance there, but "elekin" being some enemy character definitely sounds plausible. Are there many fish enemy characters in this scene? (I never really played through Bonk.) I'm thinking maybe えれきん（erekin） is something like an "electric kingyo", - "electric goldfish"? Just a guess.

And I'm definitely not too sure about "Dekadan" being Decadent, but デカダン is supposedly the word for "Decadent". It doesn't sound too bad in context, but the fact that they don't use katakana actually throws things out a bit - as I'm not sure if the word I don't know is a native Japanese word or a borrowed foreign word.

esteban · 05/27/2007, 11:36 AM

Yay!

This is a fantastic thread that I had not seen until today. And to think... if someone hadn't posted a reply today, I wouldn't have seen it!

Does the Deka Dan level have volcanoes? That's the first thing I think of when "big blast" is mentioned.

nat · 05/27/2007, 06:24 PM

Quote from: thumpin_termis on 05/27/2007, 03:02 AMAh yeah, it sounds like it'd be taki (waterfall) as the ~n sound before modifying it to "~daki - is there a waterfall on the stage? And I dunno what enemy characters make an apperance there, but "elekin" being some enemy character definitely sounds plausible. Are there many fish enemy characters in this scene? (I never really played through Bonk.) I'm thinking maybe えれきん（erekin） is something like an "electric kingyo", - "electric goldfish"? Just a guess.

Never played through Bonk's Adventure? What is wrong with you, man?! This game is an ultimate classic.

The whole stage is basically a waterfall. There are many electrifying fish enemies as Chris mentioned, although I don't think they are called Elekin in the North American version of the game (I'll have to look up their name).

So "Elekin Waterfall" it is for the literal translation.

termis · 05/27/2007, 08:53 PM

Quote from: nat on 05/27/2007, 06:24 PMNever played through Bonk's Adventure? What is wrong with you, man?! This game is an ultimate classic.

I tried a few times, but never could get into it. I know it's blasphemy of me to say something like this on a TurboGrafx board, but my expectations were raised quite a bit after something like Super Mario 3.

nat · 05/28/2007, 09:45 PM

OK kiddies, time for stages 3 and 4....

??? Desert

??? Desert

And here's that cave I missed in stage 2....

ccovell · 05/28/2007, 10:22 PM

"Dekotan" (??) Desert

Bone Bone Bridge

Tropica Islands

"Korigori" (an onomatopoeic word suggesting ice-like stiffness) Trench

Aurora Zone

"Hirobiro" (Wide??) Desert

Looper Cave (loopers are those circular enemies with big smiles...)

nat · 05/28/2007, 11:25 PM

My guess is "Dekotan" is the Japanese name for either the large red birds with the giant heads or the duck birds. That level is filled with both.

The English names used in the game are "R. Ed Beaker" and "Bill Duck".

Tatsujin · 05/28/2007, 11:33 PM

Quote from: ccovell on 05/28/2007, 10:22 PM"Hirobiro" (Wide??)

certainly yes. or better say, wide-wide.

Tatsujin · 05/28/2007, 11:38 PM

Quote from: thumpin_termis on 05/27/2007, 03:02 AMbut the fact that they don't use katakana actually throws things out a bit -

in fact, they don't use katakana for any of the other names, which should be as well. so, don't worry about it

ccovell · 05/29/2007, 02:14 AM

Could you post the enemy cast list from the ending? That's where we could get a few more clues from the names.

Ninja Spirit · 05/31/2007, 02:45 PM

heh this is definitely interesting. It's just like Megaman/Rockman 7, as the Japanese version has proper names for the stages.

ccovell · 06/02/2007, 08:32 AM

This ought to help out a little bit with checking out the levels in PC-Genjin:

I hacked the round select back into PC-Genjin!

Does anyone know if Genjin 2 has such a menu?

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/245/

It's in IPS patch format; your PCE ROM should be the Japanese ROM WITHOUT any header (393,216 bytes).

Enjoy!

p.s. Regarding the level names: the first boss seems to be named "dekotan"... so "Decadent" just looks silly now.
Also, Ozone Wilderness is wrong. "Kougen" in Japanese usually means "plateau".

nat · 06/02/2007, 01:34 PM

Cool, I'll get the last few posted up sometime this weekend. I'll also try to get an enemy cast listing.

nat · 06/03/2007, 12:40 AM

Dude, I can't find a ROM without a header. I've downloaded like 16 and they all are 393,728 bytes.

Is there any way I can remove the header with a hex editor or something?

ccovell · 06/03/2007, 09:48 AM

Yes, of course. Get a good hex editor, highlight the first 512 bytes, and do a cut (ctrl-x), then save the ROM. Headers on PCE ROMs are completely useless (unless you're one of the lucky(?) few with a Magic Griffon.)

offsidewing · 06/03/2007, 10:59 AM

Hexen??

nat · 06/03/2007, 07:12 PM

Quote from: ccovell on 06/03/2007, 09:48 AMYes, of course. Get a good hex editor, highlight the first 512 bytes, and do a cut (ctrl-x), then save the ROM. Headers on PCE ROMs are completely useless (unless you're one of the lucky(?) few with a Magic Griffon.)

OK, I removed the 512-byte header. The ROM played fine after that.

After I applied the IPS patch the ROM won't play at all now. I load it and just get a black screen.

Oh, well.

Looks like I'll have to play all the way through again.

ccovell · 06/03/2007, 09:59 PM

Oh, for Chrissake, can anyone else get the patch to work normally? It should work fine with any decent IPS patcher.

nat · 06/03/2007, 10:53 PM

FWIW, I'm using IPS Patcher v2.0 on a Macintosh. The program has a copyright date of 2004.

ParanoiaDragon · 06/04/2007, 02:44 AM

Yeah, I can't seem to find one with a perfect header either, that pisses me off. Roms that are hacked being passed off as originals

TurboXray · 06/05/2007, 06:44 PM

Quote from: ccovell on 06/03/2007, 09:59 PMOh, for Chrissake, can anyone else get the patch to work normally? It should work fine with any decent IPS patcher.

Don't forget there are still bit swapped roms floating around. ME and a few other emus still support these which is lame IMO.

ccovell · 06/05/2007, 11:03 PM

Ah, yes, I had forgotten about the bitswapped ROMs. So, yeah, it's time to get a good PCE tool, swap the bits and remove the headers. One can't even start ROM hacking otherwise.