Thanks for letting me know. I'll have it fixed in another update. In addition, after looking at Mato's look over at Namingway Edition, I might also look at updating some lines IF they fit since the text space in the game is so tight.
Also, I've been thinking about making an option for the hidden pathways in dungeons. It was the last thing I chose not to change back from the original FFIV at some folks request. Much like how Bugfixes are optional in Woolsey Uncensored, this would be the same. Is there anything else that would be worthwhile to make a reasonable option for?
When you say text space is so tight, do you mean, not enough room on the screen given the fixed-width font, or are you talking about not enough space in the ROM to fit in more text? Anyway, I am in favor of a variable-width font, something used not just in the J2E fan translation but also in the more recent official releases on PlayStation, GameBoy Advance, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and so on.
The English version of Final Fantasy VI for SNES (called Final Fantasy III in the U.S. market originally) used a variable-width font, as does Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG, all of those Squaresoft RPGs for SNES. I am sure if the localizers had enough time and resources and expertise they would have used a variable-width font for Final Fantasy IV, too. Their use of a fixed-width font in what they called Final Fantasy II but was really Final Fantasy IV was because they did not have enough time and staff and expertise and so on to do a variable-width font.
And if you compare the Variable Width Font edition of Secret of Mana made by FuSoYa to the original Secret of Mana, it is really quite an improvement.
So I am really in favor of making the font variable-width at least for dialogue that appears at the top of the screen. In menus and screens listing equipment, spells, stats, and such, as well as battle commands and lists of enemies, I think those would stay fixed-width, the variable-width font would just be for dialogue at the top of the screen. I think that is how things were done in Final Fantasy VI (III in US), so doing the same for Final Fantasy IV (or II in US) would be what Squaresoft localizers would have done if they had enough time and resources.
I mean a variable-width font would give you a LOT more space for accurate translations by eliminating unnecessary space between letters, allowing you to add more text. Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition of Final Fantasy VI is variable-width too, I think. And the more modern official Squaresoft releases of games that use spell names like Curaga and Firaga and so on, they all use variable-width fonts, so it would be very fitting. This would make you much less constrained for space on the screen and able to fit more words into dialogue. Text space was really tight in Secret of Mana, that is why FuSoYa made it variable-width so he could fit more text, using his Lunar Magic abilities for ROM hacking.
This is just a suggestion of course but I am trying to make a strong case for why I think it is a good idea and why I think it would be authentic towards the original game. Just because the J2E translation was not very authentic (I mean come on, they inserted stuff about Backstreet Boys and William Shatner and plenty of other silly stuff not in the original game) doesn’t mean its use of a variable-width font was wrong, I think J2E got the variable-width part correct, they just went a little overboard with the way they wrote things and had a curious mix of trying to be true to the original in some ways and making stuff up that never was in the original in other ways.
Your project is obviously trying to be much more true to the original than J2E was, and not insert anything made up by you or anyone else outside Squaresoft, and I respect that vision, it is why I think your translation is the best. Well, definitely the best fan translation anyway. The best official translation is probably the one for the English PSP release, although probably not quite as good as your translation. I don’t really like the type of Shakespearean-sounding text used in the DS translation, regardless of how accurate the DS translation is, the game should sound more like normal English than like the writings of Shakespeare. I am referencing the comparisons made on this webpage:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/which-final-fantasy-iv-translation-should-you-play/ When I look at that page and look at the translations, yours clearly looks the best, at least to my taste. So I am totally 100% behind Namingway Edition as the best edition and I LOVE it. Just to make it clear how much I appreciate your work.
I just bring up the variable-width font thing because this would be a good way for you to fit in more text and not be stuck using text from Project II or that is unchanged from the official translation due to space concerns, due to an accurate translation taking up more space than can fit on the screen.
Of course if the problem is not enough space on the ROM, I guess you would have to make the ROM bigger so that it can fit more bytes of text data, as various different fan translations have done when they ran into ROM space issues. And that would mean changing addresses of things in the ROM probably and be a lot of work, and also the changing addresses part would mean it would probably not work well with other ROM hacks or patches unless you were really careful to keep all non-dialogue data in the same place and only move dialogue into the additional ROM space after expanding the ROM. Anyway great job, your translation is my favorite already, regardless of whether you improve it further or not.
Topic: Final Fantasy IV Namingway Edition (updated to Version 1.98b) (Read 238196 times)