Translations of early Famicom games

[goldenband]

I have a fan translation of Super Monkey Daibouken on my hard drive under the name "Super Monkey Adventure". I don't remember who did it, though I seem to recall (incorrectly?) that it was associated with some humorous site like the ROM Pit at Something Awful. Screenshot here:



There's also a second (different?) translation by Pluvius here, plus a title screen hack:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2515/

It's exciting to see how close 1983-1985 are to being fully translated. 1986 has some interesting games, like Seikima II - Akuma no Gyakushuu and Toki no Tabibito - Time Stranger.

I think the Super Xevious title screen change looks perfectly decent. AdamL's NES completion FAQ seems to indicates that's the only Japanese in the game, so...cool!

[cccmar]

Daiva 6 - Imperial of Nirsartia was actually translated. The devs used a pretty interesting gimmick here - on pretty much every platform this game was made for you would play from a different perspective, meaning a different race/alien tribe. So, each of the games was basically a presentation of the story from a unique perspective. A very unusual concept indeed! Still, you'd have to own it on quite a few platforms in order to have a "full" experience.

Toki no Tabibito is probably the most text-heavy of the bunch. It plays kinda like a VN you could say, with various scenarios that unfold depending on your decisions. I think it is based on an anime, too. Mississippi Satsujin Jiken could have more text though, I'm not 100% sure about this. The C64 version of the latter is available in English, whereas TnT appears to be a Famicom exclusive. 

Seikima II, Aiigina no Yogen and Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko have handy longplays online, if you need to check the amount of text without playing them.
I believe someone is already working on that Sherlock Holmes game, but maybe I'm mistaking it for some other project.
And yeah, as goldenband mentioned Ganso Saiyuuki is done.

Nice idea, by the way! Good luck with your projects.

[KingMike]

I had some progress on Seikima II (I'm guessing the name is some kind of joke or reference and is to be pronounced Seikimatsu, and there is no Seikima 1) and Space Hunter.
On Seikima I should probably try to make a cheat to get the instruments to test the good ending.

Also Gegege no Kitaro was officially localized as Ninja Kid, since you mentioned the other two Bandai localizations. Probably the least known, though. (if Chubby Cherub is only known for the crazy prices it sells for and of course Dragon Ball is much better known today than it was 30 years ago)

[Psyklax]

There's also a second (different?) translation by Pluvius here, plus a title screen hack:

Damn, you're right, I missed it. I thought I'd caught every translation but I think I'll have to go through them again. Oh well, that's a good thing!

I think the Super Xevious title screen change looks perfectly decent. AdamL's NES completion FAQ seems to indicates that's the only Japanese in the game, so...cool!

Well, in that case, I guess I'll upload it to the RHDN database.

Daiva 6 - Imperial of Nirsartia was actually translated.

Again, duly noted. I wasn't paying attention clearly. Another one ticked off the list!

Gegege no Kitaro was officially localized as Ninja Kid

You're right, I included its translation in my list but forgot it was localised. Added it now.

[Fredde]

I had some progress on Seikima II (I'm guessing the name is some kind of joke or reference and is to be pronounced Seikimatsu, and there is no Seikima 1)

The band that the game is based on is actually called "Seikima-II".

[Spinner 8]

Excuse my horn-tooting but I have an online spreadsheet of every Famicom game and whether or not it was released in English, and I still keep it updated. You can even sort by release date.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tvtZ5O9Uwd51GVdnMgEan-V1xBQcYj1XzTJ5tbpUl-w/

[Psyklax]

Update time again!

I've annoyingly hit a small roadblock on the Gomoku translation. Everything is done except the opening move list and the title screen. I can't think of a way to redo the title screen the way it's been done here, and still have it looking acceptable. It's painted in three blocks using very few tiles, I can't exactly think of a good way of getting "Gomoku Narabe" in that space, but I'm open to suggestions. As for the opening moves, I detailed my problem in a previous post: I need to dig further into the ASM and figure out how the game gets the magic number that decides which opening move name is displayed, and somehow recode it so that it's split by direct and indirect, not star and moon. The other option is just to ignore it entirely and put the move list into the readme file (cribbed from Wikipedia). It's open knowledge so anyone who really wants to know can find out. Unless I can figure out how to do it my way, I might be stuck with that.

In the meantime I decided to get stuck into "Aigiina no Yogen - From The Legend of Balubalouk" (henceforth referred to as Aigiina). I see there's a 'translation' in the database but apparently almost nothing has been done. This surprises me, as after a short amount of investigation I've got the intro pretty much cracked and the NPC dialogue parts too. There's not a massive amount of text and I think it shouldn't be that hard to get it done relatively quickly. I've just been messing with the ASM, trying to increase the text window size (the window is bigger but the text doesn't like being longer if it has to scroll - more work needed). Maybe the original translator didn't have such an awesome emulator like FCEUX, which makes hacking NES games SO much easier.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to at the moment. Oh, and I've looked at Mahjong for completeness sake. Not sure how much work it will be, though I don't know a lot about mahjong itself to be honest. I might get to it after Aigiina.

[goldenband]

I can't exactly think of a good way of getting "Gomoku Narabe" in that space, but I'm open to suggestions.

Would a simple text subtitle using a standard font be easy to implement? It's fine to keep the kana (especially for a game steeped in Japanese-ness) as long as there's an English translation somewhere onscreen.

In the meantime I decided to get stuck into "Aigiina no Yogen - From The Legend of Balubalouk" (henceforth referred to as Aigiina).

Awesome! One nice thing about this one is that the ending's already in English. BTW Spinner 8's list notes a C64 version in English but I have no idea how similar it is to the Famicom version, and in any event I welcome the opportunity to play it on the NES with an English localization.

[KingMike]

There supposedly is a beta official localization of Aigina but at this point the cart might as well have fallen of the face of the earth, as I don't know if the owner planned to either dump it or sell it.

[Psyklax]

Would a simple text subtitle using a standard font be easy to implement? It's fine to keep the kana (especially for a game steeped in Japanese-ness) as long as there's an English translation somewhere onscreen.

Hmm, an intriguing idea. Not sure how I'd do it in practice. Might need to use sprites for it, I could position it before the main title. There are sprites on the title screen already which I've removed, so putting in some more could be feasible.

There supposedly is a beta official localization of Aigina but at this point the cart might as well have fallen of the face of the earth, as I don't know if the owner planned to either dump it or sell it.

All the more reason for me to carry on.
June 12, 2017, 07:49:26 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Yeah, double post, but I figured it's worth it for an update!

I delved into the ASM behind the title screen for Gomoku, and after figuring it out, I made a new one at last!


I'm pretty happy with the "Gomoku Narabe" blocky look (took me a while to do it all by hand) but the "Renju" part was, obviously, a lot quicker. I'm curious for your feedback on that part, cause I think it looks a bit poor, to be honest. I just put it as a placeholder, thinking I'd probably replace it soon enough. I just didn't want to use the same style as the left part.

Incidentally, the "Renju" part isn't on the original title screen, but the cart has it written on (and GoodNES uses Renju also). And since the Wikipedia article for the board game calls it Gomoku [Narabe], and the professional rule set is known as Renju, I decided not to translate the title into English.

So with this title change, all that's left is the opening moves, which are not essential to playing the game (expert players might care). So the game is as good as done at this point, though I won't be releasing the patch quite yet, just to see if I can figure out the ASM and can actually do the change I want.

Let me know your thoughts, especially on the Renju part. That bit took a couple of minutes and I think I ought to do something else.

ps. If anyone really wants to try out the translation thus far I'll be happy to make a preliminary patch - think of it as version 0.9. I wouldn't put it on the database yet, though.

[Psyklax]

I waited my 7 days to avoid this being another doublepost - let's hope I waited long enough.

Gomoku Narabe Renju is finished (actually finished a few days ago). You can catch the translation in the database:
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/3073/

I've done a bit of tinkering with Mahjong, and I don't think it'll be such a difficult task as there obviously isn't much text to mess with. It's obviously made by the same team as Gomoku, so there are similarities inside. It's not an urgent task but eventually I think I'll manage it.

Meanwhile I've made headway on Aigiina no Yogen (I think I'll change the title to Aighina's Prophecy). I've got the intro pretty much figured out (though with a bit of messing around I'm sure I can convert it to 8x8 from 8x16 so I can squeeze more text in there). I can already do the NPC dialogue, but I'm trying to go further: I'm attempting to expand the dialogue box. So far I've stretched the box, and got the text to extend to fit it (it's originally 16x3 tiles, and I want to add an extra 4 on each line). The only problem is when another bit of dialogue appears: the way it removes the original text is proving a little tricky to fix. I'm sure I'll get it done soon enough, then I'll be wanting to implement a DTE routine if I can fit it in the ROM somewhere (not actually sure if there's space for it). If I can manage both of these, we'll be ready to go, as I've got more or less all the dialogue translated (some weird lines in there, too).

I have to mention, regarding the dialogue, that there IS an English version... for the Commodore 64. I looked inside a disk image and found plenty of text which roughly matches the Japanese version, but I still wanted to do the translation my way regardless. Still, it was quite helpful in case I got stuck (kana-only translations are the worst! ).

So, just an update for everyone. After Aighina and Mahjong I can't decide what I'd like to go for next. Better take a look at my list...

[goldenband]

Gomoku looks terrific! I overlooked your double post on June 12 so it was a nice surprise to see this update today. Very pleased to see that Aigiina is coming along nicely and Mahjong is in the queue. This will do so much to make the early Famicom library more accessible.

If KingMike is working on Seikima II and Space Hunter, and somebody else is working on Sherlock Holmes - Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken as cccmar mentioned, then I guess the remaining games from 1983-1986 (other than the partial Macross title screen hack) would be:

Hon Shougi - Naitou 9 Dan Shougi Hiden
Mississippi Satsujin Jiken
Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko - Sekai Isshuu 80 Nichi Daibouken
Toki no Tabibito - Time Stranger

Is there even any Japanese text in Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko besides the title screen and the kanji for "day" that's in the upper right corner during gameplay? That might be a quick one. Toki no Tabibito sounds intriguing but might be labor-intensive.

[KingMike]

Wasn't Nagagatsu officially localized as Puss In Boots, or is that a different/different enough game?

[Psyklax]

Is there even any Japanese text in Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko besides the title screen and the kanji for "day" that's in the upper right corner during gameplay? That might be a quick one. Toki no Tabibito sounds intriguing but might be labor-intensive.

I've just spent 10 minutes examining the CHR-ROM in Tile Molester and I can't see anything except the title and the 'day' kanji. I also found out how the title screen is done, so that'll be relatively easy to change. I might see to that myself.

Wasn't Nagagatsu officially localized as Puss In Boots, or is that a different/different enough game?

Looking at the two side-by-side, they are clearly completely different games. Same character, just different games.

EDIT: If anyone's curious what I'm up to with Aighina thus far, here's a little AVI to show you.
http://s346165667.websitehome.co.uk/psyktrans/ai.avi
The new dialogue isn't what the guy says at all, it's just nonsense I wrote to fill the new 20x3 window (instead of 16x3). It was way more of a headache to get this working than you might think!

[cccmar]

If KingMike is working on Seikima II and Space Hunter, and somebody else is working on Sherlock Holmes - Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken as cccmar mentioned, then I guess the remaining games from 1983-1986 (other than the partial Macross title screen hack) would be:

Hon Shougi - Naitou 9 Dan Shougi Hiden
Mississippi Satsujin Jiken
Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko - Sekai Isshuu 80 Nichi Daibouken
Toki no Tabibito - Time Stranger

I'm pretty sure that Murder on Mississippi was released for C-64 first, in English of course, supposedly by Activision themselves. I still have that game sitting on my shelf, as a matter of fact. The FC version came out a bit later, as a port of the original C-64 game. The game has tons of text, as you might imagine, so it will likely take the most time to finish.
Hon Shougi/Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko don't have that much text from what I played, you're right. Also, as Psyklax mentioned, Puss'n'Boots is a completely different game - I think that it was a US-only release, in fact. NwHN is a Japan-only prequel or something like that.
There seems to be a complete script for Time Traveler on GameFAQs, dunno if it helps in any other way than being additional reference, but it's there, and yeah - the script seems quite long, but also fairly linear.

[Psyklax]

Update time, everybody!

I've been hard at work on Aighina, and the NPC dialogue which represents the bulk of the translation work is DONE. I did a not insignificant amount of assembly hacking to get the window to display 20x3 instead of 16x3, as well as implementing a DTE routine, so it's as good as it's likely to get. Due to the game using hiragana only, the English script takes up significantly less room than the Japanese one.

Next up is the password screen, which is a little trickier because although the entry screen is easy enough, the past where you receive your password is currently bugged to the point of crashing. Clearly my ASM work has affected that area and I need to step through the code to see what I'm missing.

Thirdly, the intro. I'm just currently working out all the kanji (yes, it takes time for me ) but the big problem I have is that I want to hack it. Currently it displays 8x16 text by writing a row of 8x8 tiles, then another row, then it skips a row before the next one. Obviously I want to change row-row-skip into row-skip-row-skip so I can use 8x8 text and really make the most of the space I'm given. If I can figure that out, then the intro is as good as done, but currently I can't figure out how to do it.

Finally, the title screen. I figured I'd leave this for last since it really doesn't affect much, but I haven't even examined it yet. I imagine it won't be a big deal, though.

As you can see, other projects have gone to the side for this. I did have a look at the Japanese Puss In Boots game and I'm thinking of doing a title now that I've examined how the game displays it. Of course, anyone else who can do a nice title is welcome. I think I might try to recycle the US title screen somewhat.

That's about it, except for Mahjong, which I'll get back to after Aighina.

[goldenband]

Congratulations on completing Aighina! It looks great. I continue to admire and appreciate all your hard work on this worthy project.

[Psyklax]

Congratulations on completing Aighina! It looks great. I continue to admire and appreciate all your hard work on this worthy project.

Thanks! I would've posted it here already, but I was actually waiting for the 7-day double-post limit to expire.

So yes, I've finished Aighina's Prophecy, and I hope you all give it a try because I think I did a pretty good job on it. And it's a fun game, too, of course.

Meanwhile I've been busy with other projects. I tried to change the title screen on the Japanese Puss In Boots game, replacing it with the US one, but alas, there are 19 tiles too many to fit in the ROM. Now I'm not sure what to do: make a new title, or work on the US one and try to squeeze it in. Tricky.

So I then moved on to Mahjong, which seemed to be going smoothly because there isn't much text really, but then I encountered the list of winning hands. At least a couple of dozen of them, and now I think I'll need to just replace the katakana set with a Romaji set (two letter per 8x8 tile) because I don't see any other way of fitting all those names in. I suppose I could just do the ones I really need. We'll see.

If I can get both these games done, the list looks a lot nicer. I had a play of the other untranslated games on my list.
Toki no Tabibito - Time Stranger seems like just a simple choose-your-own-adventure type deal, with the only options being "yes" and "no". So it's more of a translation issue than a hack issue: I don't think there will be much hacking to do, although DTE would probably help.
Mississippi Satsujin Jiken seems a bit annoying to play, for me anyway. Of course it was released on the C64, just like Aighina. Not exactly looking forward to this one.
Hon Shougi - Naitou 9 Dan Shougi Hiden seems like it'd be relatively straightfoward, being another board game. I'll take a look after Mahjong and Puss In Boots.

I haven't had much of a look at Seikima II - Akuma no Gyakushuu, Sherlock Holmes - Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken or Space Hunter, because someone mentioned in this thread that they were being worked on. Is that still the case? Any updates?

So, in summary, things are progressing nicely, but who knows how long it'll last (I do have a tendency to go through moods of doing different things in my spare time, and right now it's ROM hacking ).

[cccmar]

Toki no Tabibito is mostly a simple adventure game, but IIRC it has multiple endings, depending on which actions you take. I think the faq on GameFAQs mentions that as well, I haven't played this one for a long time.

Mississippi Satsujin Jiken has by far the most text out of all the games on the list I'd say. The quality of the writing in the C64 version is really good, so you may want to check that one out to get some ideas.

KingMike worked on Seikima II - Akuma no Gyakushuu/Space Hunter, so you'd have to ask him I reckon. As to the Sherlock Holmes game I'm not sure, but I think it was Spinner's idea for a project. So yeah, it's up to you of course if you want to work on those, but if they're currently in a limbo, why not give it a shot.

[Psyklax]

Damn, you know you always miss something when you finish a translation... in Aighina's Prophecy, I left out an apostrophe when you buy a magic key from the merchant. Not only that, but although I replaced the Vic Tokai logo on the title screen, there's another at the ending which I didn't change. Maybe I should make v1.1? I hate making new versions, but I guess it's no big deal.

Mississippi Satsujin Jiken has by far the most text out of all the games on the list I'd say. The quality of the writing in the C64 version is really good, so you may want to check that one out to get some ideas.

I just had a look at a longplay of the C64 game on YouTube and the writing is SO nice that I wonder if it's even worth translating the game when you can play the C64 version, which seems far more complex. On the other hand, you could probably just lift the text from the C64 version without really worrying too much about translating it, provided there's enough room inside the ROM for all the text (the game uses a 1Mbit PRG-ROM, which is quite big for an early Famicom game).

[/quote]

KingMike worked on Seikima II - Akuma no Gyakushuu/Space Hunter, so you'd have to ask him I reckon. As to the Sherlock Holmes game I'm not sure, but I think it was Spinner's idea for a project. So yeah, it's up to you of course if you want to work on those, but if they're currently in a limbo, why not give it a shot.

KingMike popped up in this thread recently, maybe he can pop back in and say how he got on with those games...? Both of them look interesting to translate for me, but there's no point if he's on it already.