Translations of early Famicom games

[cccmar]

It's pretty hard to find any substantial info on that Bugutte Honey game/show, but it would seem that it was indeed localized as Honey Bee in Toycomland, since that show name translation is present on literally every major anime-related site (and not only the English ones). So, I guess that's what I'd go with.

Speaking of smaller games, maybe sth like Uchuusen Cosmo Carrier would end up being more interesting, considering that Pro Yakyuu - Family Stadium '87 has been hacked many times already; it's a bit similar situation to that with Booby Kids in a way. You may want to do that mostly as a side project, but other than that, it doesn't seem all that interesting perhaps. If you want to work on it, I'd do the original rosters, mostly to preserve it, but then again, it's all up to you.

[Psyklax]

Speaking of smaller games, maybe sth like Uchuusen Cosmo Carrier would end up being more interesting, considering that Pro Yakyuu - Family Stadium '87 has been hacked many times already; it's a bit similar situation to that with Booby Kids in a way. You may want to do that mostly as a side project, but other than that, it doesn't seem all that interesting perhaps. If you want to work on it, I'd do the original rosters, mostly to preserve it, but then again, it's all up to you.

I've removed Booby Kids from the list, as a translation would literally be removing the katakana from the title screen by painting it black. PYFS87 is different, and I actually think it's totally redundant. There is really no point in playing it now, unless you really want Japanese players from 1987 in your R.B.I. Baseball. The new hacks of that game are clearly superior to this.

I'm gonna have a look through some other games to see which ones I can pick off easily.

[EarthPainting]

So, time for something new! Looking for more easy options in 1987, I spotted Takahashi Meijin no Bugutte Honey, which has a Japanese title screen and nothing else - even the in-game messages giving you information are in English. It's based on this anime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ZkK3021K4
And I have no idea how to translate that title. Bug'tte? Bugutte? Something else? Wikipedia claims the anime is known in English as Honey Bee in Toycomland, but a Google search turns up nothing. Furthermore, I figured it'd be good to make two patches: one that is more literal and another which is more of a localisation, connecting it to the Adventure Island series.

Localising 'Takahashi Meijin no Bug-tte Honey' into "Honey Bee in Toycomland" seems fine. That's also what other sources seem to use for the show too:
https://myanimelist.net/anime/10210/Bug_tte_Honey

[moritasan2040]

So, time for something new! Looking for more easy options in 1987, I spotted Takahashi Meijin no Bugutte Honey, which has a Japanese title screen and nothing else - even the in-game messages giving you information are in English. It's based on this anime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ZkK3021K4
And I have no idea how to translate that title. Bug'tte? Bugutte? Something else? Wikipedia claims the anime is known in English as Honey Bee in Toycomland, but a Google search turns up nothing. Furthermore, I figured it'd be good to make two patches: one that is more literal and another which is more of a localisation, connecting it to the Adventure Island series.

For a localized name, changing Takahashi Meijin no to Hudson's, and Honey to Honey Girl would make it fit in with Adventure Island's localization. Bugって is a bit tricky, tho... Maybe writing it in quotation marks would work? For example: Hudson's "Bug" Honey Girl. Or maybe ignore it altogether and come up with something that works better in English like: Hudson's Bugette Honey Girl. Or just remove the Bug part?

[Psyklax]

Localising 'Takahashi Meijin no Bug-tte Honey' into "Honey Bee in Toycomland" seems fine. That's also what other sources seem to use for the show too:
https://myanimelist.net/anime/10210/Bug_tte_Honey

Perhaps a combination - Honey Bee on Adventure Island, maybe?

Anyway, I have another update! They're coming thick and fast these days, I know.

First, Dragon Warrior/Quest. It was a request rather than by my own volition, but I have tried to get the logo from the Japanese version into the US version. It's been surprisingly difficult, due to the different way the US version's title works.

First problem is the background, which is black in the US but a dark blue in Japan. There's an instruction in the ROM to set the background colour, which is constantly referred to by the game, but changing it here changes it throughout the whole game. Playing the game with a blue background is certainly not right, but making it ONLY be blue on the title screen will require extra work.

Second problem is the dragon who pokes his head out of the logo. In the US version they cut off four tiles from his neck, but the routine to add sprites has empty space right next to it, so it would be a piece of cake to add instructions for four more sprites. The reason I can't do it? The sprite bank is full! There's just no room for four more tiles, they really packed everything in. There may be four tiles free on the background bank, but unless I'm using 8x16 sprites (which I'm not) I can't access them.

I can think of only two ways of solving the second problem. One, which I don't think is even possible, is to have the four tiles in another bank, load them into RAM, then force them into the PPU RAM. I don't think the CPU can even do that, and I could be wrong but I figured that $0000 to $1FFF was read only anyway. Second option is to make four new BG tiles which mix the original background and the sprite, and stick them on screen. That's at least possible, but seems like more work than necessary just for a little bit more dragon neck.

Unless anyone's got any bright ideas, this title screen isn't going to look perfect.

Meanwhile, I've done a more successful title screen: that of Magnum Kiki Ippatsu - Empire City - 1931. Released in the arcades as simply Empire City: 1931, the Famicom release never made it to the States. No idea why, though, because a) it's in English apart from the title screen, b) is set in the US. But hey, now it's done, and I think it looks quite smart:

It's a copy-paste job from the arcade game, in case you're interested.

So what next? I've had a look at Family Trainer 5 - Meiro Daisakusen, and first I should say thank you to Pluvius for his research into many of these games: I neglected to look at it when I was doing a couple of them, but the information is very helpful. So, FT5. It looks pretty straightforward, actually. My only concern is how to actually PLAY the game! It uses the Power Pad, with 16 buttons, and I think you have to tap two (like you're running) and different buttons make you run on different parts of the screen. It's very confusing, though. Might need to find some instructions.

What else? Hmm, not sure. I've put Pro Yakyuu - Family Stadium '87 onto a pile labelled "only do when I have nothing else to do". Oh wait, now I remember: I started looking at the Famicom Disk System!

So as you probably know, it came out in 1986, a year that we've almost completed in terms of cartridge games, and I've made a list of games for that year. This list is different to my regular list: in that one, I removed games if they were released outside Japan in more or less the same way, or didn't need translation. In this list, due to there being fewer games and being disks rather than cartridges, I've included all of them, though some will say "N/A" when there's no Japanese in them. I used the information from famicomworld.com, and the names from TOSEC (No-Intro doesn't have everything, and GoodTools doesn't exist).

Code Select Expand


Name (TOSEC) Translated?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1986
Adian no Tsue No
Akumajou Dracula Localised - Castlevania
All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. No
Baseball Localised
Breeder No
Dead Zone No
Deep Dungeon Yes - KingMike
Electrician No
Family Computer Othello Localised
Gall Force - Eternal Story Yes - Gil Galad
Ginga Denshou - Galaxy Odyssey Yes - Chris M. Covell
Golf Localised
Hikari Shinwa - Palutena no Kagami No
I am a Teacher - Super Mario Seta No
I am a Teacher - Teami no Kiso No
Igo No
Kieta Princess No
Knight Lore No
Koneko Monogatari - The Adventures of Chatran No
Mahjong Yes - Psyklax
Metroid Yes - AlanMidas & Localised
Moero TwinBee - Cinnamon Hakase wo Sukue! No
Monitor Puzzle, The - Kineko - Kinetic Connection No
Namida no Soukoban Special Yes - KingMike
Nazo no Kabe - Block Kuzushi No
Nazo no Murasamejou Yes - Spinner 8
Professional Mahjong Gokuu No
Puroresu - Famicom Wrestling Association Localised - Pro Wrestling
Soccer Localised
Suishou no Ryuu Yes - Mute
Super Mario Bros. Localised
Super Mario Bros. 2 N/A
Tennis Localised
Volleyball Localised
Zanac N/A
Zelda no Densetsu - The Hyrule Fantasy Yes - Jordiway73 & Localised - Legend of Zelda, The


Regarding the hacking of these games, there's a lot of confusion out there about versions, and the reality is that CRCs are completely unreliable for this system. I studied the headers in FDS files - not the pointless emulator ones, but the ones on the original disks - and there are two reasons you could get two virtually identical files with different CRCs.

First, the date of production is included in the header. I saw Zelda in the TOSEC set and the No-Intro set had different production dates, but were otherwise identical. Thus, a patch for Zelda will work for either. The production date is obviously because disks are produced blank then written to, unlike ROMs which come out of the factory on chips.

Second, and most notoriously, save games. It seems like the ability to save was such a novel feature that almost every game I tried had it. Naturally, this means you can get two identical games which have different save games on them, or occasionally they're blank (but that seems rare). Thankfully with FDS Explorer you can look at the files on the disk - another difference with disks, having files rather than just big blocks of data on ROM - and find the last one which has save data, then figure out a way to render it blank.

I think that anyone making translations and hacks for FDS games really should include the save game blanking in their patch, so that anyone patching the game will have a nice clean disk. Sometimes it's easier said than done, but there's a forum post on nesdev.com called "Purifying FDS Disk Dumps" that goes through some of the more notable games. I'm sure it's possible to figure it out though.

Incidentally, I noticed that Mahjong was released on opening day, along with a bunch of other games previously already available on Famicom cartridge, so I decided to port my translation over. It was very easy, since the ROM version and the disk version are almost identical, with some minor byte differences here and there. I just compared the three (disk, ROM, my translation) and pasted in what was necessary, and ta da! I don't know if anyone REALLY wants a patch for Mahjong on FDS, given that they can just play the ROM version (if they want to play at all), but it was a fun experiment.

Phew, this post is way too long, but I had a lot to talk about. Any thoughts about the list? Or thoughts about anything else?

EDIT: and no sooner have I posted the list that I've noticed something. Moero TwinBee - Cinnamon Hakase wo Sukue! was eventually re-released on cartridge in 1993, and that version was translated by MrRichard999. The game was ALSO released in 1987 in the US as Stinger. So, FDS, then US cut-down version, then Famicom ROM, then English translation. I guess I should tick it off the list, unless there are real differences between the FDS and ROM versions.

[cccmar]

Hikari Shinwa - Palutena no Kagami - that's basically Kid Icarus with a fancier name. So, it's available on cartridge; I guess I'd only do this one if there were any significant differences between the versions, which I don't think is the case.

Aidan no Tsue is an odd one. I recall trying it out a couple of years back. You need to solve math problems to get through some sections, and it's pretty much just Zelda-like dungeons over and over again. It probably has the most Japanese to translate, except for...

...Dead Zone - this one is an adventure game, by Sunsoft if memory serves. I believe Stardust Crusaders are working on it, so you don't need to bother most likely.

[KingMike]

Also, the 3DS eShop port of Kid Icarus was based on the FDS version. I noticed that as soon as I booted it up and heard the unmistakable sound of the FDS FM synth title music.

Moero Twinbee was localized as Stinger. I remember the third player option was removed from the localization but I can't recall if the one screen of dialogue in the opening in the Famicom cart re-release was in the FDS original or not.

Nazo no Kabe got a PAL-only localization called Crackout.

[Psyklax]

Moero Twinbee was localized as Stinger. I remember the third player option was removed from the localization but I can't recall if the one screen of dialogue in the opening in the Famicom cart re-release was in the FDS original or not.

I mentioned this in the edit at the bottom of my post. I just did a side-by-side comparison and the FDS and ROM versions are identical except the ROM version adds a difficulty setting.

Nazo no Kabe got a PAL-only localization called Crackout.

I just checked, you're absolutely right. The ROM version replaces saves with passwords, but for a puzzle game I think passwords are much better. I'll amend the list.

[Pluvius]

Electrician was translated by KingMike.  Koneko Monogatari and The Monitor Puzzle don't need translations outside of the title screens and some other minor things.

I should be done with The Black Bass pretty soon.  I just need to make some tweaks and playtest it.

[filler]

I should be done with The Black Bass pretty soon.  I just need to make some tweaks and playtest it.

Awesome!

I'm still focusing on Maison Ikkoku and Power Dolls 3, BUT! I'm just about done translating Kyonshiizu 2. I'm going on vacation the day after tomorrow and I won't be done before then, but once I get back I'll probably post some stuff in the script help section and the script should be done.

[GarrettCRW]

Next on my radar is Pro Yakyuu - Family Stadium '87, which is rather interesting. I didn't know, but some of you may do, but Pro Yakyuu - Family Stadium was released in the US by Tengen (Atari) as R.B.I. Baseball. PYFS87 is essentially identical to the original, except there are two more teams (looking inside the ROM, there may actually be three more). Although they look identical on the surface, things have been shifted around under the hood. I'm left with a confusing situation: do I basically make this R.B.I. Baseball '87, or do I translate it properly, with the Japanese teams and players? The complicating factor about this is that R.B.I. Baseball has been hacked to high heaven by dedicated players - it's probably still being hacked now with updated rosters. So, what's the point of translating this, then? I've no idea if they fixed any bugs or whatnot. What do you guys think? Should I translate it just to tick it off the list?

[snip]

EDIT: my hunch was right. I found tecmobowl.org which has R.B.I. Baseball 2017 (not as an IPS though, naughty), which has clearly had a bit of hacking because it has all thirty teams rather than the original ten. Again, it's hard to see the purpose of translating PYFS87, since if anyone wants to play, they'd be better off playing that hack. Thoughts?

It's my understanding the the Family Stadium games at least nominally mimic the NPB rosters for each year. (The colors and team names certainly correspond to the Central League teams that existed back then, at least.) So for that reason, I'd personally prefer that the games (especially the later ones that add bells and whistles that Tengen never put into their RBI sequels) be translated.

[Psyklax]

Electrician was translated by KingMike.  Koneko Monogatari and The Monitor Puzzle don't need translations outside of the title screens and some other minor things.

I should be done with The Black Bass pretty soon.  I just need to make some tweaks and playtest it.

Damn, how did I miss Electrician? Thanks for the heads up, I've amended my list. I'll take a look at those two games also, if they just need a few minor changes. I like quick and dirty translations.

And good to hear about The Black Bass. Though, if I'm 100% honest, fishing games have never excited me... though maybe this one will change that.

Also, quick note: I'm going away for a week, so no hacking from me in that time. I've also started another thread about the Master System, so I'm kind of dividing my attention in two ways at the moment. I haven't given up on the Famicom though - just yesterday I did a bit more translation of Time Stranger. God knows how long that game will take me to translate, but hopefully I'll get it done eventually! You may have noticed I'm a much quicker hacker than translator...

[KingMike]

I'd guess All Night Nippon probably doesn't need any translation aside from the title screen as well?

[Psyklax]

I'd guess All Night Nippon probably doesn't need any translation aside from the title screen as well?

As far as I can tell, yep. Doubt there's anything else in there given it's based on SMB.

This wiki is pretty comprehensive on the differences: I thought it was just a sprite hack!
https://www.mariowiki.com/All_Night_Nippon_Super_Mario_Bros.

[moritasan2040]

Hikari Shinwa - Palutena no Kagami - that's basically Kid Icarus with a fancier name. So, it's available on cartridge; I guess I'd only do this one if there were any significant differences between the versions, which I don't think is the case.

The music and sound effects are difference thanks to the extra sound channel, and there's saving instead of a password system. I don't remember any text, tho, aside from the title screen and the file select screen.

[Eien Ni Hen]

I think it's awesome that you guys are working to translate all of these games! I finally have some free time, so I can help with translating "Time Stranger" and "Outlanders" if nobody minds. 

[Psyklax]

I think it's awesome that you guys are working to translate all of these games! I finally have some free time, so I can help with translating "Time Stranger" and "Outlanders" if nobody minds. 

I certainly don't mind. If you head over to my thread in the Script Help forum, you'll find the dump of the entire script for Time Stranger:
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=24643.0

I think I'll post what I've already translated, in case you or anyone else is interested in checking my work, and any help is welcome, of course.

EDIT: I see you already posted in the thread before, so you're aware of it. I'll say no more then.

[filler]

I think it's awesome that you guys are working to translate all of these games! I finally have some free time, so I can help with translating "Time Stranger" and "Outlanders" if nobody minds. 

Please do! Here are the two blocks of Outlanders that I dumped with the work I've done so far.

Script01.txt
Script02.txt

[FlashPV]

For a localized name, changing Takahashi Meijin no to Hudson's, and Honey to Honey Girl would make it fit in with Adventure Island's localization. Bugって is a bit tricky, tho... Maybe writing it in quotation marks would work? For example: Hudson's "Bug" Honey Girl. Or maybe ignore it altogether and come up with something that works better in English like: Hudson's Bugette Honey Girl. Or just remove the Bug part?

I'll try to make a title screen for this one. I think it will be "Hudson's Bug Honey on Adventure Island".

[filler]

FYI: I've posted the translated script for Hello Dracula 2 (a.k.a Kyonshiizu 2) for the Famicom. I made a request in "Help Wanted" for script insertion, but I've also licensed the English language translation for copy, redistribution, remix, transformation and to be built upon as long as the work is attributed and NON-COMMERCIAL.

Get the script here: Hello Dracula 2 (a.k.a Kyonshiizu 2) Script Package