Tengai Makyou Zero translation project

[ddstranslation]

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[magictrufflez]

Everyone who's worked on this shouldn't undersell yourselves---I was legit excited about this because I had seen some of the work you all had done before, and I don't doubt this is going to be great when it's done!

There are few threads on this board I check religiously, but this is one of them (really, the only one).

[DougRPG]

DougRPG, man, don't sell yourself short.

hehe, I'm not underestimating myself. I only said that a dream team worked in this translation more in a sense of well-known people in the romhacking scene.
Since old Dejap and other guys doing SPC7110 research (so we can play the game in emulators today), passing through Byuu and LostTemplar, and now you guys, all people that worked on several other projects in the past.
I excluded myself because I'm relatively new in the scene. But I'm doing my best.

[Hiei-]

From DDS :

Added support for converting numbers to appropriate formats. Month names, ordinal suffixes, and conversion of hours and minutes. New vs old.



Testing out some cosmetic changes, like altering the color of text.

[Tom]

Yep, Doug. You're a key player in this project; you're a part of why the game is where it is now. Maybe you're relatively new to hacking, but you're the one who got the graphics in, and had you not made that offer, this project might have only been halfway done at this point (instead of nearly done). You've certainly earned yourself some bragging rights.

A lot of people have contributed to make this game possible. Like you said, this translation also wouldn't have happened without the people who decoded the graphics for the rom... The fact is, this game will be playable because of everyone's contributions. That's why I'm glad that this is not an "official" team release. It's just a bunch of people who came together to finish a job that should have been done years ago.

FlashPV's work has been blazingly fast, too, hasn't it? Graphics are the stumbling block of many a fan-translation, and considering how many graphics are in this game, I had my concerns... But he really stepped up to the plate. He's an original thinker, and got very creative about how to express ideas graphically in a small space.

As for DDStranslation, he kinda downplays his skill too, but he's broken through every single hacking obstacle set before him, and usually on the same day that he sets out to do it. Hopefully, when the project is finished, he will play through the game and be satisfied with his work. Regardless, the menus and interface will be a testament to his skill in a way that would make any degree of modesty seem insincere.

I'm just trying to keep pace with the formatting and edits. My worry is that in the end, I myself might be the one keeping the project waiting, when both of you have finished your jobs and I'm still screwing around trying to figure where would be the best place to stick a line break in some random NPC's dialogue.

Here's a bit of good news:

The manual and packaging translation has just been completed and  it's been handed off to the image editor! (It's Cargodin, another big Tengai Makyou fan, who has also created manuals for a couple of my other projects.) The manual itself is nearly 60 pages and comes with a fold-out map and skill list... Even the survey card and contest information slip will be translated, so the package will be truly complete. I also have a special idea that I'm sure will be of interest to Cargodin.

[khalismur]

The manual and packaging translation has just been completed and  it's been handed off to the image editor! (It's Cargodin, another big Tengai Makyou fan, who has also created manuals for a couple of my other projects.) The manual itself is nearly 60 pages and comes with a fold-out map and skill list... Even the survey card and contest information slip will be translated, so the package will be truly complete. I also have a special idea that I'm sure will be of interest to Cargodin.

Ahhh awesome news. Really looking forward to the manual 

[Blackiris]

I've actually contemplated to play this game in Japanese since I've been getting better lately to the point where reading Japanese text is not too much of a hassle anymore (it sometimes still is, though), but seeing what a great job everyone involved in this project is doing really makes me want to play the finished English translation instead!

I had actually expected this to take many more months, but it's really awesome to hear that you're approaching the finishing line.

[akualung]

I've actually contemplated to play this game in Japanese since I've been getting better lately to the point where reading Japanese text is not too much of a hassle anymore (it sometimes still is, though), but seeing what a great job everyone involved in this project is doing really makes me want to play the finished English translation instead!

I had actually expected this to take many more months, but it's really awesome to hear that you're approaching the finishing line.

Why not both?

[Pennywise]

I take it the gang is also going to be the Shonen Jump version as well?

IIRC, there was a dev room where the devs all had something to say. Are there any more additions/differences compared to the regular version?

[Tom]

Pennywise, I haven't played the Shonen Jump version myself yet, but from what I've gathered online, the biggest difference is that one optional storyline building later in the game was removed and turned into the Shueisha Headquarters. (Shueisha is the company that publishes Shonen Jump.) I can't say for sure whether the characters there are developers for the game, employees of Shueisha, or both... Or neither. (Again, I haven't played it yet.)

But it makes me wonder how they would cover a somewhat important plot point that was addressed in the original building... Seems like it'd just be cut.

Blackiris, I would recommend waiting on the playthrough, yeah. It won't be too long. All of my free time is going into this project now, and then some. I believe it will be worth the wait. Then you can play the Japanese version after you've competed the English version. Having played it already in English will probably help you understand the Japanese lines even more.

If you play it in Japanese first, however, you'll miss the finer details, but still get the gist of it enough to the point where the English version isn't as surprising (and thus, not as enjoyable) as it might be otherwise.

[d557charger]

FlashPV,DougRPG, ddstranslation, and Tom: I've been following this game's translation ever since I picked it up used-in-box on a trip to South Korea in 2007. I've been checking on it at least once a month over the past decade, and I just made this account because I needed to thank you so much for your hard work on this project. Last year when the old message boards tracking it went away (as the layout on that site was updated) I braced myself that it just might not ever happen. So seeing this thread pop up late last year, a few days before my birthday, was a great gift . Really enjoying the enthusiasm on this board, and look forward to playing someday!

[Tom]

Well, I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed your early birthday present, and I'm especially grateful that you even went through the trouble of making an account just to say thanks! You know, I think, over the course of all the games I've worked on, people have only e-mailed me to thank me for my work on a project about four or five times... And I think you're the first who actually made an account to say thanks... So yeah, I really appreciate that! I'm sure the other guys do too. We'll make sure it's worth that decade long wait (without taking another decade).

[Hiei-]

From DDS :

Modified the Clock menu to show 12 hour time, and that was the last thing on my to-do list. Now it'll just be bug fixing.

[FlashPV]

I am really very touched by all theses comments but everyone should knows that DDS, Doug and Tom have done some tremendous work. They've done much more than me and I'm almost a minor actor in this translation compared to them. However I'll be glad to work again with such a team if they're planning to begin another project.
I'm sure the final result will please everyone! 

[Tom]

I am really very touched by all theses comments but everyone should knows that DDS, Doug and Tom have done some tremendous work. They've done much more than me and I'm almost a minor actor in this translation compared to them. However I'll be glad to work again with such a team if they're planning to begin another project.
I'm sure the final result will please everyone! 

Couldn't have done it without you, FlashPV. The sheer amount of graphics in this game required both time and talent.  A less dedicated graphics editor might have bailed on the project part of the way through, leaving it only partially done. Whoever took up the reigns after that would have a different stylistic sense. Would they redo the old work? Would they keep it and then work on the rest of the graphics at a different level of quality? There's a lot that could have gone wrong. This project needed one, dedicated pixel artist in order to be done well... And I'm glad that you turned out to be that artist.

There's still quite a bit left to do... But I'd better seriously crack down on the script because once Doug completes the game, it could only be a matter of weeks before he's extracted all of the PLGS event related graphics and you've edited them all... Then I'll be the one stalling the project from entering proper beta testing...  I still have SO MUCH TO DO!

There's really only one bug in the game that occurs in the game at the moment for DDS to fix. And yes, this is usually the point where I say that it looks like it'd be really tough to fix, and then DDS updates his twitter the next morning to say that it's fixed... But in order to get to that bug, DDS is going to have to actually start playing through the game proper. So it may take a while for him to at least GET to the bug before he fixes it. It occurs three or four times throughout the game. Hopefully it's a one-fix-fits-all sort of thing.

There's also a special request that I have for DDS, one little thing that I hope he can add to his to-do list, but before we can get to that, I have to actually test and format a few things.

[Hiei-]

When I said FlashPV was the man when it comes to edit graphics,  it wasn't a joke   

[Tom]

Hiei, that much is clear!

My current to do list:

1. Format more of the text that can be heard during festivals or optional scenes. (I have to see it running in the game to format it well.)

2. Add the new time tags to the script. (Easy, but still kinda time consuming.)

3. Redo acquired item lines so the "obtained item" text looks better. (The lines will have to be retested in context to make sure they don't break dialogue formatting when items are acquired during a conversation.)

4. Add color tags for red hearts and gray music notes, and reformat lines.

(I really wanted to add red hearts instead of white hearts in the text. The problem is, colors are set by tiles rather than by letters, so the wrong colors can "bleed out" into the text, or you can have a heart that's half white and half red, or something like that. Each heart has to have enough of a buffer (which is generally about four spaces) to make sure that this doesn't happen.

But the game really likes to add hearts to text, and sometimes it uses them liberally. The problem is, that's four spaces added for nearly every heart that appears. That screws up the formatting of the lines, so pretty much every line with a heart in it needs to be entirely reworked and retested in the game, often multiple times, until each window is passable.

It doesn't SOUND like much, but it's a ton of work, believe me. It's all superficial stuff, but it will make a difference in the end. It's worth the extra work.

There's only one game in the game that I'm not happy with.

The line of dialogue is spoken by a character who first says it directly after an item acquisition line, which requires new line tags to move the text down... But after that, the game uses it to start a line, so if you have new lines before it, it'll start at the bottom with a couple of blank lines above it, and then the rest of the lines will have screwed up formatting, and...

Uh oh, wait...

I thought of a solution now.

Add line breaks to every acquisition message to make them always take up the whole window, and then remove all new lines from the follow-ups! Then I don't have to use that reworded version! Why didn't I think of this before!?

The problem is... This means that even MORE formatting work will need to be done to account for the linebreaks that got cut out from every follow-up line in the game! Still, I'm glad that this solution will likely work, because that bit of dialogue sounded really robotic as I had edited it. (My original solution was to make sure that every sentence that this particular character said never needed a line break, but making her talk that way gave her a very curt, mechanical feel for that bit of speech. It contrasted with how she usually speaks.)

So, good news... All of the lines will be well done, no exceptions.

Of course, there's the bad news... It's gonna take a bit more time, and another playthrough, to identify and fix the multitude of lines that'll get screwed up in the process of fixing this one error. What's clear though, is that Doug and DDS will surely be done with their work by then, and I'll be the one stalling the project's release... Partly in spite of my hard work, and partly because of it... 

[ddstranslation]

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[Hiei-]

About the line-formatting, why not use something like that  : http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/378/ ?

I used it a few years ago for some projects and it was pretty nice to spare a lot of time.

With the right parameters, it can display the text exactly like the game and you wouldn't have to replay the game multiples times to see all the texts.

From DDS :

At Tom's request, updated a secret one-time past PLGS event so it will occur in the future.

[Lentfilms]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say thank you to Lentfilms for PM'ing me and showing me this thread. I would probably had never even seen it without you.

Kind of embarrassing to be mentioned directly but you're welcome DDS!
I really thought you would be perfect for this project after watching you complete all those long-running SNES translations over the past few years but I wasn't sure if you would have the time or interest to work on Zero. So thank you, and to the rest of the team, for volunteering and for contributing to finally seeing this translation completed!

I don't have any technical know-how or translation skills but I'd like to help in any way I can so if you need a tester I'd be happy to help. Either way, I'll be cheering you guys on the side-lines!