[Bregalad]

I'm making a homebrew game for the NES (well I have been making it since, like what, 2006 ? oh well). My idea was to make it as believable as a true NES game as possible and I was going to release separate (J), (U) and (E) versions to make it look like as much as possible as actual Nintendo games. I might even do a FDS version of the (J) version I'm not decided yet.

The problem is that since I don't know a tiny bit of japanese, I will need some help for the (J) version. Most of the game's text (like STAGE, SCORE, etc....) will be kept in English anyways, but I think there is several things that should be translated in japanese because that's how it would have been in a Famicom game (correct me if I'm wrong).

First the weapon selection window which will look like this in english :

Code: [Select]

==== WEAPONS ====
| DRAGON SWORD  |
|               |
| FIRE SWORD    |
|               |
| WIND BLADE    |
|               |
| STEEL SABER   |
|               |
| ICE KATANA    |
=================
note : there is only 4 different weapons, the dragon sword upgrades into fire sword during the game.

The the following message will appear on the screen when you open chests :

Code: [Select]

LUCIA OPENED THE CHEST
note : Lucia is the main protagonist's name

Code: [Select]

GOT HERB!
LIFE RESTORED!

Code: [Select]

GOT HOLY WING!
LIFE FULLY RESTORED!

Code: [Select]

GOT POWER GEM!
LIFE INCREASED!note : this means the life bar's getting longer (as opposed to the above message which means you are healed)

Code: [Select]

GOT MEAL!
ATTACK POWER INCREASED!


Code: [Select]

GOT HOLY WATER!
DEFENSE POWER INCREASED!
That's all. I said it would be short. Oh, and it will have to be displayed with 8x8 characters only, and as few as possible of them. So no kanjis or anything else particular unless they are readable in 8x8 characters. If multiple translations are possible, give me the one which minimize the amount of different kanas I'll have to use, since that will save memory for other graphics (it would have be what developers of a Famicom games would have done).
Also I don't care if the item's name translation is not very accurate (in fact it would be more believable as a true FC/NES if it is poorly translated), but I insist that the weapon's name are correctly translated.

Thanks in advance.

[Paul Jensen]

If you want to put things into Japanese, you need to decide whether you want to translate the words or just transliterate them. I've put both options wherever possible.

Weapons screen:
WEAPONS =ぶき
DRAGON SWORD = りゅうのけん or ドラゴンソード
FIRE SWORD = ほのおのけん or ファイアソード
WIND BLADE = かぜのやいば or ウィンドブレード
STEEL SABER = はがねのサーベル or スチールサーベル
ICE KATANA = こおりのかたな or アイスカタナ

Text for opening (treasure) chests should look like this:
PLAYERは たからばこを あけた。

Text for finding an item should look like this:
ITEMを てに いれた。

Item names:
HERB = くすり or ハーブ
HOLY WING = せいなるつばさ or ホーリーウイング
POWER GEM = ちからのほうせき or パワージェム
MEAL = べんとう
HOLY WATER = せいすい or ホーリーウオーター

Stat names:
LIFE = たいりょく or just LIFE
ATTACK POWER = こうげきりょく
DEFENSE POWER = ぼうぎょりょく

Item effects:
LIFE RESTORED= たいりょくが すこし かいふく した。
LIFE FULLY RESTORED = たいりょくが かんぜんに かいふく した。
STAT INCREASED = STATが じょうしょう した。

HTH

[DarknessSavior]

There's only a few things I would change with PJ's stuff.

HERB in Japanese is 薬草. And for a stat to go up is usually "STAT が　あがった"

The thing about life recovery actually says "life has recovered a tiny bit", you could take out the すこし to save space and it would still just say "life recovered".

~DS

[Bregalad]

Thank you very much.

If you want to put things into Japanese, you need to decide whether you want to translate the words or just transliterate them. I've put both options wherever possible.

Well I don't know the difference. I'll probably pick the translation that will minimize the kanas that I'll have to store in CHR-ROM.

Also I forgot :

YOU FOUND [WEAPON] - should probably be [WEAPON]を てに いれた。 but I want to make sure.

And especially, the text saying something like :
"DRAGON SWORD got it's original power is restored and it became FIRE SWORD".
I haven't made it in english yet but I'll have to eventually.

Also finally a question which is not about the language but about how it's printed on the screen (since they'll have ideally to fit into the unused Latin letters - probably they will split a bit but hopefully not too much). I think it's common for games with 8x8 kanas to have the " and ° characters on a different line, but is it okay to have them on the same line, after the body of the associated kana ? It would just make less modifications to the code but it would be possible to have them on a different line too.

I just tried in Dragon Quest 1 (which is the font I use since it's stored right at the start of its CHR-ROM, and I belive all Famicom games have almost the same kana font anyways), I can't have a main character named ぶき I'd have to name him ひ"き I don't know how weird that looks for the japanese reader.

HERB in Japanese is 薬草.

If you can point me to any way I could write this with 8x8 characters I'm open but I think I'll stick with what Paul says. I'm also pretty sure it's standard for Famicom games to not use any kanjis, although apparently Ninja Gaiden use a few 8x8 kanjis. They are probably hard to read though.

[Paul Jensen]

HERB in Japanese is 薬草. And for a stat to go up is usually "STAT が　あがった"

I thought about using 薬草 (やくそう), but I thought it was only used in the Dragon Quest series. If it's a generic term, then by all means use it.

As far as what verb to use, there are three choices that I can think of:

1) 上がった (あがった), "went up"
2) 上昇した (じょうしょうした), "rose"
3) 増えた (ふえた), "increased"

These three phrases are basically interchangeable, so any of the them should be fine, but I think DS might be right about あがった being the most common.

The thing about life recovery actually says "life has recovered a tiny bit", you could take out the すこし to save space and it would still just say "life recovered".

True. I put in すこし to clarify the fact that the item doesn't fully restore your health. Plus, I've seen it used in other games. Although, I guess the item's effects would be pretty obvious once you saw that your health hadn't been fully restored after picking one up, so it's probably OK to leave すこし out.

HTH

[Garoth Moulinoski]

I just tried in Dragon Quest 1 (which is the font I use since it's stored right at the start of its CHR-ROM, and I belive all Famicom games have almost the same kana font anyways), I can't have a main character named ぶき I'd have to name him ひ"き I don't know how weird that looks for the japanese reader.

Having the dakuten just be quotation marks (in its own separate slot) is kinda ugly. It's like trying to read

Y O U  A R E  D R A G O N '  S  C H A M P I O N !

Best I could come up with, I'm practically falling asleep here

I suggest try to fit the entirety of kana in there if you can help it. (Oh, I reread your post snippet and realized that you saw that in Dragon Quest. It's still pretty bad and they've fixed that in recent games, but I haven't really played the old MSX/Famicom games to be able to tell you when they started fixing it).

[Bregalad]

Now the question is : How to store the fact I have to put a " above a kana ? I can think of 2 ways of doing it :
Use the MSB : if set, this means a " is above a kana.
Use a " character as it and have a program that automatically move it above the previous letter (instead of having it IN FRONT of the previous letter).

True. I put in すこし to clarify the fact that the item doesn't fully restore your health. Plus, I've seen it used in other games. Although, I guess the item's effects would be pretty obvious once you saw that your health hadn't been fully restored after picking one up, so it's probably OK to leave すこし out.

If す, こ and し are all already used somewhere I'll use it otherwise I'll leave it. They are all present elsewhere, so I'll definitely be using it. By the way the balance is currently 42 characters which is not too bad.

Also if someone could translate what I said, it would be great :

Code: [Select]

DRAGON SWORD got its original power restored and became FIRE SWORD.

[DarknessSavior]

Oops. Yeah, 薬草 is やくそう.

As far as how to get the dakuten and handakuten in there, the way I've always seen it done is they'd write it in the line above the kana. They'd write a check to see if the table entry being read had dakuten/handakuten or not, and then run a separate routine if it did which would write the appropriate symbol one line above the kana.

Go check out the text routine of FFIV. They do it there.

~DS

[Bregalad]

Ok I looked at several games for the dakuten, and apprently while the majority of them use it above the text in the intra-lines, some games inline it as a " character, especially games with not too many text.
Namely, Rockman games, Kid Icarus, Castlevania II, Contra, and Battletoads inline the dakuten. I looked at Battletoads carefully because it's one of the rare NES games (if not the only one) that was developed in Europe and was later translated to japanese, which is interesting. It makes sense they didn't plan to have room for the dakuten in the original game, and had to deal with it when translating it.

In the case of my game it's weird, because in the weapon selection screen I'd have room for the dakuten between the lines, but when you equip the weapon, it's name is supposed to appear in the status bar, and here I will not have room for it because the line above is used for something else. Well so either I move the layout, either I inline the dakuten everywhere, or I do some code to inline it in the status bar, but place it in the interline on the menu screen.

And PLEASE someone translate this last sentence !!

DRAGON SWORD got its ancient power restored and became FIRE SWORD.

So I can get the total count of kana characters and begin my work.

[LostTemplar]

DRAGON SWORD got its ancient power restored and became FIRE SWORD.

ancient power:
ドラゴンソードは　いにしえのちからがもどり　ファイアソードになった！

original power:
ドラゴンソードは　ほんらいのちからがもどり　ファイアソードになった！

This is actually "the power returned". You could also say ちからがもどされ (power got returned) to imply that it's the player's accomplishment, but I don't think you have to be that verbose.

[Bregalad]

Oh thank you very very much !!

Oh and I plan to use the translation, not the transcription, so is it ok to say :

りゅうのけん いにしえのちからがもどり ほのおのけん になった !

or

りゅうのけん ほんらいのちからがもどり ほのおのけん になった !

instead ?

[Garoth Moulinoski]

That's fine. All you did was replace a couple of nouns, so it doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence.

[LostTemplar]

It's okay, but you should put the は (it's a grammatical particle): りゅうのけんは　…

[Garoth Moulinoski]

... My prospects for JET aren't looking good. I missed that little detail.

[DarknessSavior]

... My prospects for JET aren't looking good. I missed that little detail.

JET doesn't care how good your Japanese is. It helps on your application if you've TAKEN Japanese before, or have done anything regarding to Japanese, just because it shows interest in their country/culture/etc. But they don't care how good you are. In fact, they offer an over-the-mail Japanese class for people who want to get better (with a Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced level).

~DS

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Oh, I did hear about that in the presentation. But the fact that they prefer it is still something that works against me... It's a bit competitive; they choose a small fraction of the total amount of applicants, which come from all over the world and the number increases all the time.

But well, I did get the Gilman Scholarship, so maybe I don't have terrible luck (and in that case, I'll start hoping you can get into JET when you apply)

[Bregalad]

Like this ?

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Exquisitely perfect. Good job.

Well...

が and も are a bit close. Actually, a lot of other characters are bit close to each other... Hmm... Maybe another pixel seperation?

[Bregalad]

OK I shifted the も one pixel to the right and edited my picture above. (since it is the only も of the game I think it's safe to do it this way).

When it comes to other letters it's NES so chars are 8x8 and I can't do anything. This is the standard font used in Dragon Quest and a lot of games, I could change it to another font. Or I could just scrap all the code I've written yesterdays for the interline dakuten and inline dakutens so the characters would be further away, but then it would look like there is a whitespace when there is a dakuten which is (probably) not nice to the eye.

EDIT - it would look like this :



Picture of the weapon selection menu :



When you open a chest :


PS : Is it important to make the distinction between small tsus (っ) and big tsus (つ) ? Currently I have to store both and I could save a char by using only one of them.

[Ryusui]

PS : Is it important to make the distinction between small tsus (っ) and big tsus (つ) ? Currently I have to store both and I could save a char by using only one of them.

YES.

Spoiler:

Okay, let me make this post actually useful. >_>

The "small tsu" is the sokuon - the "repeated sound" symbol. It doubles the next consonant.

It's worth noting that the similarity between "tsu" and the sokuon is vital to the punnery in the Japanese names of the Pokemon Sudowoodo and Dunsparce. "Usokki" is "Usotsuki" ("liar," but the "ki" at the end can also mean "tree") with the "tsu" changed to a sokuon; similarly, Nokocchi is "tsuchinoko" (a Japanese cryptid) with its name reversed and the "tsu" changed to a sokuon.