Pokemon Yellow NES Translation Project

[Lugia2009]

Here's some comparison screens between the current and original versions of the game.


This project's goal is to translate Shenzhen Nanjing's Pokemon Yellow for the Famicom into English.


Right now, all 159 Pokemon names are completely translated.

Most of the battle dialogue is done.

The opening dialogue is finished.

All items and their descriptions are done.

All menus have been translated.

All attack names have received a partial translation.

And the PPU for the battle and menu has been reorganized to prevent any glitched graphics from the longer Pokemon names.

As of now the game is 100% translated for the main story.

Here's the latest patch: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23698591/Pokemon%20Yellow%20English%20Translated%20(08-19-2015).rar

This is a patch over the original Chinese version. The game is titled: "Lei Dian Huang Bi Ka Qiu Chuan Shuo (NJ046) (Ch) [!]"

This patch also includes the music hack.



Let me know if any bugs are found.

[betakiller]

Right now, all 159 Pokemon names are completely translated.

159? Which Pokemon are in this game, and are they all catchable?

[Lugia2009]

All 151 of the original Pokemon are in the game along with the legendary Pokemon from Gold/Silver/Crystal (Except Celebi), and Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.

From what I see, the legendary Pokemon are all catchable but you have to encounter them in random fights in certain areas. And they're at level 50 when you do encounter them.

I think Entei was in Indigo Plateau. And Suicune was right past Cinnibar island.

But I don't know where the rest are.

[MathUser2929]

Cool that there's a new Pokemon game to play. This hack is exciting. I wonder how true it is to the original pokemon yellow. It looks pretty close to me.

[Lugia2009]

It's pretty much a perfect remake and better than the original in some ways. Especially the graphics.

Pokemon stats, evolutions, moves, and Type match-ups are all accurate. The graphics are much better than the original. And the story in this version follows the story of the original very well.

[Aerezoloh]

From what I have played so far of this translation, it shows a good amount of promise.

Decided to this a whirl, and I came across a few things which might be worth your attention.

While I was browsing the Pokédex, some letters would end up sticking, and would change whenever you continued browsing up or down.



Whenever a Pokémon is about to learn a new move but cannot without deleting an older move, the top left of the screen where the opposing Pokémon's name is, ends up copying a part of the move message, as displayed here.



Some trainer battles will also show a bit of a glitch with the displays of levels, HP and moves, which is fixed just by going into the Pokémon screen or the item screen. Said trainers I have battled so far causing this would be the bug catchers in Viridian Forest and a couple of bug catchers and a female trainer with a Jigglypuff on the way to Mt. Moon. Team Rocket's Jessie and James battle also shows this.



One oddity with depositing Pokémon would be the word "Send", but has "ch" at the end of it. Regardless, Pokémon can still be sent to the PC without issue.



Oh yes, encountered this when facing an Onix while at Mt. Moon. The animation here is borked as it shows a big block with the opening wild Pokémon squence showing in grey letters.



There's a chance of getting a random item or TM after a battle, be it against a wild Pokémon or Trainer. A " sticks out when an item is obtained after trainer battles.



Whenever a Pokémon gets confused, this message shows up a bit broken as it also adds "is frozen" as well. Also shows some Chinese text here, as well.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Oh yes, encountered this when facing an Onix while at Mt. Moon. The animation here is borked as it shows a big block with the opening wild Pokémon squence showing in grey letters.

That's not Onix! That's MissingNo.!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

It'd be pretty awesome if you could actually encounter MissingNo.

[MathUser2929]

Why is the text so wavy? You should fix that if you can. Also, adding missingnow as a hidden pokemon would be epic. You should consider adding him if possible even if it ain't true to the chinese original.

[InfamousKnight]

The pokemon pirated games are pretty decent. Except for those hacks of games that have nothing to do with pokemon except for the art.

For example:
Pokemon red: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq_rElqTcis

Seems like a game that resembles somewhat well, right?

Then you look at this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cSsWy5Kj0Q

Nothing to do with pokemon at all except for the art. And I guess killing enemies too..

[Lugia2009]

 

From what I have played so far of this translation, it shows a good amount of promise.

Decided to this a whirl, and I came across a few things which might be worth your attention.

While I was browsing the Pokédex, some letters would end up sticking, and would change whenever you continued browsing up or down.



Whenever a Pokémon is about to learn a new move but cannot without deleting an older move, the top left of the screen where the opposing Pokémon's name is, ends up copying a part of the move message, as displayed here.



Some trainer battles will also show a bit of a glitch with the displays of levels, HP and moves, which is fixed just by going into the Pokémon screen or the item screen. Said trainers I have battled so far causing this would be the bug catchers in Viridian Forest and a couple of bug catchers and a female trainer with a Jigglypuff on the way to Mt. Moon. Team Rocket's Jessie and James battle also shows this.



One oddity with depositing Pokémon would be the word "Send", but has "ch" at the end of it. Regardless, Pokémon can still be sent to the PC without issue.



Oh yes, encountered this when facing an Onix while at Mt. Moon. The animation here is borked as it shows a big block with the opening wild Pokémon squence showing in grey letters.



There's a chance of getting a random item or TM after a battle, be it against a wild Pokémon or Trainer. A " sticks out when an item is obtained after trainer battles.



Whenever a Pokémon gets confused, this message shows up a bit broken as it also adds "is frozen" as well. Also shows some Chinese text here, as well.

I fixed some of the problems, but not all just yet. Here's what I got so far:



(Done)1. Enemy pokemon name is glitched when your pokemon wants to learn a new move but cannot without deleting an older move.


Solution: moved enemy pokemon name down in the PPU.




(Done)2. When browsing the Poke'dex, some letters remain on the screen and would change when you browse up or down.


Solution: Made the black box that coverrs pokemon names larger.





(Done) 3. Trainer battles show glitched numbers.

Solution: Moved the "(Trainer Name) Sent out (Pokemon Name)" text up and foward in the PPU.




(Done)4. The letters ch appear on the screen to send a pokemon into the box on the PC.

Solution: Added 2 spaces at the end of the word "Send" to cover the ch.




5. When encountering Onix at Mt. Moon, the animation shows blocks of text over Onix's sprite.

Solution: ???

Possible cause: Sprite for onix may be larger than other Pokemon sprites causing the glitch.




6. When recieving an item or TM after battle, a (") sticks on the right side of the dialogue box.

Solution: ???




7. When a pokemon gets confused, a message box shows up a bit broken as it also adds "is frozen" as well. Also shows some Chinese text as well.


Solution: forgot to put "0D" at the end of "Is Confused".


The Chinese text may be text informing the player that his/her pokemon recieved damaged due to that affliction.

That's another part that I need to translate when I have some time.




And I posted a new patch on the front page fixing some of the problems. When I have some more time, I'll fix the other glitches and post a patch that fixes the rest.

Why is the text so wavy? You should fix that if you can.

No problem, I'm going to change the text to Pokemon Yellow's original font when I'm done.

Also, adding missingnow as a hidden pokemon would be epic. You should consider adding him if possible even if it ain't true to the chinese original.

That can be done, but I would have to get rid of a Pokemon to add MissingNo.

Would anyone miss Rayquaza?

[MathUser2929]

I don't even know who Raquaza is so I wont miss him. Maybe you can make two patches, one with Rayquaza and one with Missingno so people can have a choice.

Edit: You might already know about this but here is missingnos info anyway. http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Missing_no

Hopefully you can make missing no true to his normal form on the US blue/red.

[Miksy91]

10-year-olds would probably miss Rayquaza but as this is a yellow "remake" type of a project, Rayquaza shouldn't even be there in the first place. If it's no way clear Rayquaza was originally part of the game, just take it out without commenting about changing it to Missing No.

Also I'd favour myself using the R/B one instead of the one in Yellow. That is better known and wouldn't be criticized so much.

[Zoinkity]

You know, there were actually a number of pokémon designed for the first gen games that didn't make the cut due to space.  All of them wound up in the second generation games. 
Ones that come to mind are:
Girafarig
Marill / Azumarill
Togepi / Togetic
Snubbull
Donphan

Originally 190 pokémon were drawn up for gen 1, but only 150 of these were used and the remaining 40 found their way into gen 2.  Mew was added last minute when the in-game debugger was removed.

[Garoth Moulinoski]

10-year-olds would probably miss Rayquaza but as this is a yellow "remake" type of a project, Rayquaza shouldn't even be there in the first place.

Well, the Red and Green remakes had data for all the (then) new Ruby & Sapphire Pokemon. And, well, Gold & Silver Pokemon by extension.

Girafarig
Marill / Azumarill
Togepi / Togetic
Snubbull
Donphan

Notice how all of these appeared early in the cartoon? I'm not sure if Donphan appeared early too, but I want to say it did too. I remember Kids WB making a big deal about the Pokemon Egg (a concept that was also new to Pokemon) hatching into an unknown Pokemon, and the Pokemon movie promoting not just Mew and Mewtwo, but also the first appearances of Marill, Snubbull, and Elekid. And I think, what? Bellossom?

Would anyone miss Rayquaza?

I like him, but I wouldn't miss him. Specially if I can keep my Pikachu and Charmander lines. And Squirtle. With Kamina glasses. Darn, now I feel like revisiting the cartoon. Haven't watched that in like 10 years... except for some movies here and there (where I'm all confused- "Where's Misty?" "Where's Brock?" "Who're these new jerks?")

[ChronoMoogle]

In my opinion you should delete the newer legendary Pokemon.
Make sure to put Mew into the game and use Missigno as a easter egg if you want but those other extra Pokemon just make the port kinda awkward...
Please avoid letting them stay inside the game at any costs.

[MathUser2929]

Mew isn't in this game? That's lame. And yeah, Mew would be better than including pokemon from other games.

I think Missingno should be encountered in the same place he usually is in, I think its in the wate right on the coast. Just don't require the glitch access method to make him appear.

[Lugia2009]

In my opinion you should delete the newer legendary Pokemon.
Make sure to put Mew into the game and use Missigno as a easter egg if you want but those other extra Pokemon just make the port kinda awkward...
Please avoid letting them stay inside the game at any costs.

Mew's in this game, haven't found out where exactly though.
But I can't get rid of the gen 2 and 3 legendary Pokemon (especially since Lugia's my favorite Pokemon), I think it's pretty cool how they added them in.

But I like the idea of adding MissingNo.

Haven't watched that in like 10 years... except for some movies here and there (where I'm all confused- "Where's Misty?" "Where's Brock?" "Who're these new jerks?")

Same here...

My little nephew watches the new version of the show. The show's not as good as it used to be, but then again, I guess after so many years, they start to run out of ideas for story lines.

I actually told him about how I used to watch Pokemon when I was younger and showed him episodes from the first season.
He agrees, the older episodes were much better...

Notice how all of these appeared early in the cartoon?

Plus, Ho-Oh made an appearance during the very first episode.

[IIMarckus]

Well, the Red and Green remakes had data for all the (then) new Ruby & Sapphire Pokemon. And, well, Gold & Silver Pokemon by extension.

Notice how all of these appeared early in the cartoon? I'm not sure if Donphan appeared early too, but I want to say it did too. I remember Kids WB making a big deal about the Pokemon Egg (a concept that was also new to Pokemon) hatching into an unknown Pokemon, and the Pokemon movie promoting not just Mew and Mewtwo, but also the first appearances of Marill, Snubbull, and Elekid. And I think, what? Bellossom?

Donphan showed up near the beginning of the first movie. Snubbull and Marill showed up in the first movie's Pikachu short. Elekid and Bellossom didn't show up until the second Pokémon movie's Pikachu short (which was still before G/S came out).

I remember hanging on every word of that news nearly 13 years ago...

[Aerezoloh]

Played a bit more using the latest patch and have come across some more things to bring to your attention.

Firstly, came across a few more mons in the wild that have blocks of text in their animation, with Venonat showing just one block.



Now, some rather strange things going on with some trainers. Some text would get garbled when they send out their first Pokémon. For some, it would be the text that has yet to be translated, that text being the Trainer's class, but for the others I have encountered, the text is completely garbled with graphics, even covering "sent out" and then even a majority the name of the sent out.



One more thing worth pointing out, as I was battling Lt. Surge, he used a Max potion, after the name of the item. Hyphen lines stuck out and even went beyond the text border, even sticking after the previous message.

[justin3009]

I have no clue how the NES works but it seems like all the text is being overwritten by the Pokemon's graphics which would mean that something may have to be shuffled in VRAM?  That, or there's something wrong with the routine and it's just loading bad data in general.

As for the 'Max Potion' issue, it's because the text length is too long.  Notice how it blanks out near the border?  It's because the text is actually being overwritten by blank tiles, but it doesn't reach out far enough to clear the rest, though that could result in it just having those tiles be purely text box colored as well.  You'd have to shrink down those ---- counts or just remove that in general if possible.