Translations of wapanese games

[MrRichard999]

For anyone interested, I did a partial translation for Sorcerian Forever (Windows / PC) - http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2699/

 

[TigerKnee]

You should do Sorcerian Original instead - since the partial is just menus and stuff, you can probably save yourself a lot of translation work and just have to do implementation

 

[aweigh]

Courtier

resumed elminage 2 translation. not gonna worry about any of the dialog, just doing all of the items/spells/enemies/classes/etc.

as can be seen from that pic already running into issues with latin (english) characters being displayed by the game in double-width monospaced fuckery.

...yeeeah... :\

on the plus side slapping on the menu command/textures from elminage 1 psp onto elminage 2 psp has worked flawlessly. obviously the names inside the commands are not the locations in elminage 2 (for example, there is no Marcia's Bar), but the buttons work just fine.

 

[Haba]

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Trying to play 428 without N3 level competence?

Sorry, in short of making a custom tool, I can't see any easy way to hook the text. And even then, since there is an emulator in between, the results will be unpredictable.

 

[MrRichard999]

LUNATIC DAWN - BOOK OF FUTURES IS NOW COMPLETE! - http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...oject-completed-current-version-0-98b.107208/

 

[aweigh]

Looking for advice on text extraction from a problem game: 428

I started with OCR methods first. Here's what the game text looks like:



Capture2Text (Tesseract OCR) just chokes on it.



Google Translate android app OCR (through bluestacks) does a bit better but fails to recognize most of the text as text.



At this point I gave up on the OCR approach and tried hooking from PPSSPP memory using cheat engine, by converting lines to hex and searching for them. I couldn't get it to work with 428. Basically I would find the memory location for a certain line, but going to another line did nothing. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

When I need to quickly and definitively determine whether the NPC dialog/conversation I am seeing on-screen is available uncompressed in a "file" that allows editing and therefore translation what I do is this:

- I take a screenshot of the NPC dialog.

- I fire up my electronic japanese dictionary; I use one titled JWSP or something similar.

- I hunt down a word, or part of a word, from the dialog and find the corresponding hiragana/katakana/kana-ascii in the electronic dictionary and reconstruct the sentence/word.

- Then I open up every single possible file I managed to get from the game in question (.BINs, .PAKs, "text files" ending in weird extensions, etc) and I open each one of the files inside a Hex Editor (CrystalTile2 is my recommendation) and I simply...

- CONTROL + F, then copy/paste the reproduced japanese word(s) I have just gotten from my work on the electronic dictionary program, and let CT2 search for it.

- If the dialog is present in said game file then it will show up, simple as that, and then you can simply begin editing it. However the vast majority of game text, especially large scripts like with RPG-type games; these scripts/text comes compressed and sometimes even encrypted using a soft-touch form of dictionary encryption. They claim it is for saving space, and sure, I'll believe it since we're almost exclusively talking about PSP/NDS-type hardware.

- If the CONTROL + F turns up nothing, even after searching in every single nook and cranny (every file) from the actual game itself, then it only means one thing: The dialog you screen-shotted and have searching for in the game files is 100% there, but it cannot be found via searching for the text itself as you (i.e. me) is doing because the entire text/script is "scrambled" because the text is "compressed".

It will turn up looking like this:

[XxxyJAPANESECHARxxiyJAPANESECHAR...123434nnn...JAPANESECHARJAPANESECHARxxyyYYTY
......1..1.1..\n]

that would be a representation of the a game dialog scrambled because you're looking at it in its compressed form. this is where the extent of myadvice goes unfortunately as it is this very "problem" that has most impeded my efforts. Traditionally only Windows PC released games come with uncompressed or simply un-archived files, of which one or two is hopefully the damn GAME SCRIPT. PSP/NDS/etc games almost always have everything laid out and able to be "translated", yay, except the actual game script: that they compress the fuck out of and put in weird as shit places/files/containers/etc.

EDIT: Looking over your posted game pictures again it is also possible that game utilizes simple canned text which are in reality simply automated textures the game spits out when the game code is triggering the corresponding "dialog". This means for example when Alice the game character says hello the game begins immediately initializing the functions for creating rectangles (sometimes triangles) in order to draw the game scene, or more commonly known as the "boxes"; then the game calls for the routine(s) that the game devs implemented to automatically send whatever text is needed to another seperate system whose purpose is to take that game text and start creating TEXTURES with the words ON THEM, but they are never actually words that can be edited in that specific sense.

BTW, I probably explained this badly as i don't know really much at all. All I know is this particula--well, BOTHo f the things I mentioned in my reply to you, are ongoing topics of enduring education, learning, and unending tears and frustration over at GBATemp and Romhacking dot net and will forever be so.

Every game's font is 100% weird, and it's the truth. Nothing can really be taken for granted from one game to the next, even working on a single copmany's output. Every single time requires doing extreme grunt work (such as the part where I mentioned reproducing by electronic dictionary a screenshotted dialog of a game soI could therefore search each individual game file for it; that is the almost perfect definition of "gruntwork" and the type of thing that no one will do but you).

EDIT:
You do learn tricks, of course. For example by the time I began working on Elminage 2 I already had picked up on the fact that the jap devs utilize the same kanji and the same characters for a LOT of "medieval-type fantasy RPG stuff"; such as for example the LONGSWORD.

so i went and had google translated the english word longsword into its japanese counterpart, and then I control + F'd the elminage 2 ETC.BIN (contains its game script, among almost everything else) for that.

less than 10 mins and I was already translating by hand the item list, with the idea of using longsword as the reference to find where to start inside the mess of jap and garbage symbols.

 

[MrRichard999]

You should do Sorcerian Original instead - since the partial is just menus and stuff, you can probably save yourself a lot of translation work and just have to do implementation

You got an .ISO you can like to me? I cant find that one.

 

[TigerKnee]

You got an .ISO you can like to me? I cant find that one.

I have it somewhere in storage, but I don't know if I will ever get around to digging it out.

 

[spekkio]

BROS, the OP has been updated. Next regular update has been scheduled to August 2020.

New translations:

• 7th Dragon 2020 (PSP)
• Battle Storm (NES)
• Echo Night 2 (PS1)
• Galxy Robo (SNES)
• Half-Minute Hero 2 (Yuusha 30 Second) (PSP)
• Hyper Iria (SNES)
• Kishin Douji Zenki: Battle Raiden (SNES)
• Lunatic Dawn - Book of Futures (PC)
• Lunatic Dawn: Passage of the Book (PC)
• Magical Vacation (GBA)
• Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima (SNES)
• Phantasy Star Generation 2 (PS2)
• Shadow Brain (NES)
• The Nameless Game: Eye (Nanashi no Game: Me) (NDS)
• Wizardry Chronicles (PC)
• Wizardry Empire - Staff of Resurection (GBC)
• Wizardry Empire 2 Plus - Legacy of the Princess (PC)

Other stuff:

• Dragon Force 2 (SAT) updated translation
• Fire Emblem 6 (GBA) retranslation
• Romancing SaGa (SNES) updated translation

 

[AArmanFV]

Brandish 3, please

 

[Haba]

Like I've said before, fuck Sekai project.

http://tenka.seiha.org/2016/09/concerning-recent-game-translation-activities/

Fuck them.

Without lube.

With a hot iron.

 

[SerratedBiz]

There's no danger of the work done so far being lost, short of an EMP detonating over the entirety of the Northern American continent, at which point I'd postulate that there are more pressing concerns.

Arguable.

 

[Lucky]

The time and effort going into translation being underappreciated and the view of what constitutes as reasonable payment for it starting out laughably low, is fairly typical.

A company completely reliant on localising a niche product from a specific language doing so, however, is....something special. How are these people still in business?

 

[MrRichard999]

Just wanted to make an announcement for Wizardry Gaiden IV as this is big news for those who are playing or would like to play the game, major patch update release to version 1.0! Lots of major fixes have been done and all the endings are all done now. Be sure to apply the patch to a clean original Japanese ROM. Patch can be found on the first post of the thread!​

 

[MrRichard999]

JUST RELEASED A TRANSLATION FOR AN F-1 RACER FOR THE NES,F1 CIRCUS! - http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2724/

ALSO DID ANOTHER QUICK PROJECT FOR A POWER PAD NES GAME HERE, Family Trainer: Jogging Race! - http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2725/

 

[MrRichard999]

Here is another Japanese Power Pad release!

Family Trainer: Totsugeki! Fuuun Takeshi Jou

Here is a full English translation for the NES Power Pad title, Family Trainer 8 - Totsugeki! Fuuun Takeshi-jou. If you are familiar with Takeshi’s Castle or the spoof show, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC), this game is based off of this popular Japanese game show. This has been rumored to be very physically involved and is recommended to do stretches before playing. We hope you enjoy this translation!


http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2731/

 

[aweigh]

 

[aweigh]

i know. it looks like ass. it looks super unprofessional. you know what? whatevs. absolutely NO ONE else is going to ever translate any elminage game so might as well do it myself; and good or bad *any* english playable form is good.

other than the text wrapping issues and the obvious many many instances where i have to shorten/castrate an english word into almost nonsensical abbreviations because of the kanji they used and how little hex space it takes up; the game itself is 100% good to go for a translation. absolutely none of the text files or any files whatsoever are encrypted or compressed!

 

[aweigh]

hey man, could you do me a favor? i just got done translating a shit-ton of stuff inside the elminage 2 executable (all sorts of text but the brunt of the work was with the battle feedback; messages saying what each Tarot Card outcome was and what effect is now active as well as the dozens upon dozens of miscellaneous textual messeges that say what a Skill is and what it does and of course all of the spell names and the text description below each spell; in that specific instance i simply copied/pasted the spell text from Elminage: Original); and aaaanyway i wanted to play for a while with the menu textures from Elminage: Original but for whatever reason uMod won't "hook" into my PSP emulator anymore.

I am doing the exact same process as previously done:

1. start Ninja Ripper and use this to launch PSP emulator with a d3d9 hook so that it creates a .dll in the emulator's folder. (uMOD needs that DLL in order to hook the emulator/game).

2. close PSP emulator and then close ninja ripper (although i later tried it with NJ still running as well) and then launch uMOD and choose "Use uMOD to select a game and launch it..." and then i, of course, select the PSP emulator, and it launches without any problems whatsoever but uMOD never actually latches on to anything and it just stays stuck in its non-game "menu screen".

BTW, I already have all of the menu-textures ripped from Elminage: Original and put inside a .zip and I also already have all of the corresponding Elminage 2 menu-textures ripped and .zipped. Literally all I need to do is make uMOD hook PPSSPP so I can then "force" the textures from Elminage 1 .zip onto the running game of Elminage 2 and then have uMOD save the entire process/project so that it becomes permanent.

***NOTE*** IF ANYONE KNOWS A BETTER WAY TO DO THIS PLEASE, ALL HELP IS APPRECIATED.

 

[CryptRat]

Is it a typo bug? The characters never manage to remove traps in those games.

 

[aweigh]

U GOTTA use a high Luck race for the thief, mang. come on that is pizza pie 1101

(and yes, 1 single attribute point makes a world of difference. the attributes do not relate to a linear benefit or deficit in whatever matter they're tied up with; indeed going from STR 16 to STR 18 results in a Fighter-type char dealing approx. 20% more max melee dmg than his STR 16 companion who is of another race which doesn't reach 18 (i.e. the almighty racial attribute caps).

INT/PIE are craaaaazeeee in how they affect outcomes of spells bypassing enemy spell resistances and chance of inflicting the spell's status ailment AND of course, the direct damage if the spell deals that. There is absolutely no substitute for a 20 INT Elf in Wizardry and in Elminage and they completely outclass caster-characters of a Race with even 18 INT... they consider those 18 INT peasants.

 

[MrRichard999]

thats a lotta pictures!

 

[aweigh]

MrRichard999

After months of thinking Elminage 2 (and I assume 3 as well) suffered from irrevocably unfixable text issues (font wrapping problems and stuff like that) it turns out all I had to do was translate everything with painstaking attention to "lines" and "spaces" in order to place a corresponding line break which will make the text not go outside of the box!

Well, sometimes... works for most things but not always. I'm sure it's my user error. And of course the place where I find the this out? I went and extracted all of the files from the Elminage: Original (officially localized) game whihc is on PSP as well and I compared and and compared and suddenly saw: hey, what's white dot right there! that thing is all over the place! My god, it's even in-between words!

So yeah, that's the good news as far as this game is concerned. The other good news is that just like Wizardry Empire 1 and 2 this game (Elminage 2) does not, I repeat, does not utilize text compression or encryption of any kind for the game's entire script and this includes all of the character dialog and everything else. All of the game text you will see on-screen while playing the game is contained inside the EBOOT.bin (the PSP game's .executable, except it's inside a .bin); and the bulk of the NPC text is contained inside SCP.bin (which is a whopping 5 Mb).

Sooooooo.... yes, it still utilizes unfixable double-width font and it is monospaced as well which means there will be many, many instances where the translator will have to make some quality sacrifices such as shortening the katana called "KODACHI" to "KODA"; stuff like that.

The way I see it I can more than live with that caveat. Hey, Helly too, I still have Wizardry Empire ready to get finished guys.

What do you say? We should finish Wiz Empire 1 and then I will work on my own on a "menu patch" for Wiz Empire 3 (PSP) since Empire 3 utilizes text encryption for ALL of the NPC dialog. Yeah, a bummer.

The only thing left to be translated into English for Wiz Empire 1 is literally the 15 or so mini-files (it's a big number but they're all quite short) containing all of the game's NPC text/dialog and the "event text / text read on wooden boards / etc" found inside the Dungeons. Whaddaya say Helly?

And don't worry I'm not even thinking about asking you about working on Elminage 2's SCP.bin... haha. It is literally about 10x times the size and quantity of japanese text than Emp 1 and Emp 2 combined. I'll work on Elminage 2's dialog text on my spare time, should finish it in about 12 years.

 

[aweigh]

Courtier

 

[Crooked Bee]

aweigh This thread is mostly about translation announcements and discussions of completed/in-progress translations, not for actually doing the translation in the thread for multiple pages. Just create a new thread for your own project(s).