[Bregalad]

Thank you very much. I'm not sure I'll use them but if I feel bored perhaps I will.

Since it was about equally common for Famicom games to have their title in english and in kanji, both will make a "belivable" famicom game.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

I honestly think that ドラゴンスキル could have been the name of an official Famicom game back in the day, since English is "cool" in Japan (specially the taboo words, heh). 竜技 does have a nice ring to it though and blows all of my suggestions out of the water.

[Bregalad]

In fact I think I'll stick to english name because, otherwise, because the original english logo "Dragon Skill" is much wider than taller, if I substitute it with 2 kanjis they'll look completely stretched horizontally and flattened vertically and this will be ugly.

Of course I could just change my code to display it differently, but I'm lazy and I wrote the code for the title screen 7 or 8 years ago so...

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Or you can take a third option and always display the English title in big letters with the kanji in a subtitle under it. You don't need to change anything for either version and you've got both options in one!

[Bregalad]

OK, do you guys think this is too stretched ?

[Garoth Moulinoski]

I think it kinda is stretched a bit too much... But maybe within context it can work.

[Bregalad]

I just noted that it was quite rare to have famicom games with a title in english and translated japanese. Usuallly it's one of the following :

- Title entierely in japanese
- Title in japanese, subtitled in romaji (so that non-japanese speakers can understand ?) but in japanese language (not translated)
- Title entirely in english
- Title in english and a transcription in katakana (not a translation)

The only example I found where there was a title in japanese and in english is the Double Dragon trilogy. By the way they use the second dragon kanji, not the first. Also, all versions of the games (in all countries) still have the kanjis, likely because it makes it look cool and asian to western audiance.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

- Title in english and a transcription in katakana (not a translation)

I was recommending using this option.

[Bregalad]

To each their own, but I think a transcription in katakana of english language is completely pointless since everyone can read english, even japanese people. Then I'd as well leave the title in english alone, which is what I planned in the first place.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Oh ho. A lot of Japanese people can read English, but good luck having them understand what they're reading accurately.

And hey, I'm just telling you of a trend I would see! It's been either all katakana or English with katakana on top/bottom. But it's your project so in the end, do as you wish!

[DarknessSavior]

While 竜技 does indeed read as "Dragon Skill" it doesn't sound very...natural Japanese to me. 竜の技（りゅうのわざ） still means essentially the same thing, but reads as a natural Japanese expression, whereas 竜技 is entirely made up gibberish simply taking two kanji and putting them together.

I however would also agree that having it in English with the name written in katakana below it is the best solution.

~DS

[Bregalad]

I did it with the second dragon kanji (the one which is used in double dragon) because it's more complex the fact it's stretched might be less apparent :

simply taking two kanji and putting them together

Video games names are often made by gluing 2 random words together ^^

For example does "Double Dragon" sounds like natural english to you ? I doubt...

[Garoth Moulinoski]

竜技 is entirely made up gibberish simply taking two kanji and putting them together.

Because that hasn't shown up

I did it with the second dragon kanji (the one which is used in double dragon) because it's more complex the fact it's stretched might be less apparent :

Whoa. It does look better. That's pretty interesting!

Video games names are often made by gluing 2 random words together ^^

For example does "Double Dragon" sounds like natural english to you ? I doubt...

It's alliterative, so the nonsense isn't bothersome.

[Bregalad]

I added the "no" as suggested (how could I miss that in the first place) and, great news, it makes the kanji less stretched :

It's alliterative, so the nonsense isn't bothersome.

In fact most video games are like that, at first I clearly remember I was like WTF ? Every time I heard about a video game serie's name. After a while I god used to it and I'll probably never be shocked by a strange or ridiculous name.

I mean "Mega Man" sounds dumb as hell. "Final Fantasy" ? Don't get me started, it really does not sound like a title at all. "Dragon Quest" ? You mean it's not "Dragon's Quest" ? Don't even get me started on "Kingdom Hearts". etc, etc.... Yet all of these were extremely successful.

However because it is a standard to make up trademark names like this in english language (not only in video games, I think it's really everywhere, starting from kid's toys, etc...), it does not work with any other language.
In french you could never have a title called "Dragon Quête". Everyone would piss on it, really. It would have to be "La quête du dragon / des dragons" or something like this. So I can pretty much imagine it's the same in japanese, therefore my addition of the "no".

[LostTemplar]

I should've mentioned that 竜技 isn't any actual word. But don't forget that the Japanese love to come up with thought-up words, even in their own language. So I wouldn't say it's "wrong". But 龍の技 is just as good (and, as DS said, actually "correct" Japanese) and if the の makes it look prettier, even better...er. What I personally would do is write the title in kanji in the background and "Dragon Skill" slightly below it, but still mostly overlapping. But that's just my opinion.

[Bregalad]

Done.

[Bregalad]

Sorry for the bump, but I'd like to have some feedback on the readability for the font.

In the old screenshots I used the Squaresoft font. It works well, but there is an incoherency between the alphabet font which is bold and the kana font which is thin.

So I now use a modified font from Battletoads (J), because it is the only bold hiragana font I could find. However, because hiragana is quite more "complex" than latin letters, bold doesn't work quite as well and somewhat affects readability.

Example screenshots of the font in action :

I modified the o and ya characters, because in my opinion they were hard to read. I might have been wrong though.

Old		->New
Old		->New

[Tiduas]

I've just read the whole topic and have to say that it's all very interesting to read about how such a small amount of text can become quite a hassle.

Anyway, I think the new font looks really nice, except for the に (sixth letter) which I had to stop and think for far more time than what I should have needed to do. Other than that, I don't see any problems with it.

And good luck with the project as well, I hope we'll see it released soon! ^^

[DarknessSavior]

I've just read the whole topic and have to say that it's all very interesting to read about how such a small amount of text can become quite a hassle.

Anyway, I think the new font looks really nice, except for the に (sixth letter) which I had to stop and think for far more time than what I should have needed to do. Other than that, I don't see any problems with it.

And good luck with the project as well, I hope we'll see it released soon! ^^

I agree here.

I also think that the こ isn't the same height as the rest of the characters.

~DS

[Bregalad]

Ok, I'll look into tweaking the ni and ko chars.
Do you guys think my fix for the o and ya chars was justified ? Of course it might be hard to say without seeing it in a word but I'm too lazy to reverse the change and make screenshots...

I also wondered if the su char was very readable. I think it was a bit hard to read, but couldn't manage to fix it without looking even worse.