@ABW, I think I can almost understand those instructions.

I'm gonna come back to work on this soon with a fresh, clear head. I really appreciate you taking the time to give these details. Warning in advance, I may be coming back to you repeatedly.

I posted a link for my DW1 graphical patch on the first post on this thread. I'm going to keep all the patches on that first post up to date from now on and not post them elsewhere.
What I did for DW one includes the following:
* Fully animated four way rendition of Japanese DQ1 hero, including 4 direction frames for carrying Gwaelin/Laura. Side walking frames have been slightly tweaked since the video I posted.
*Coastline removed; coastal water tiles now look identical to the Japanese game.
* All other NPC sprites have been reverted to their original forward facing Japanese sprites. While most were fully restored, some conservative edits were necessary to work around the mirrored tile issues that have continued to plague me. Examples include having to remove swords and spears from the soldier types or making the head of the wizard symmetrical. I plan on returning to this for a 100% restoration when my hacking skills improve, but in the mean time I am pleased with the aesthetic and will personally be playing the game in this manner. I promise that all my edits fit in well with the original DQ look.
September 15, 2018, 10:36:49 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Wanted to give a quick update.
Progress has slowed down considerably because I've been spending a lot of time learning how to hex edit and deal with pointers, etc. Shoutout to Choppasmith for passing along a lot of really helpful info.
In the meantime, I've put sleepy's DW text editor to good use and worked through a major script overhaul. My initial thing was just to remove the medieval language with something simple and contemporary. As I went through it to bring certain dialogue closer to the Japanese, I spent a lot of time referencing x_loto's translation faq on gamefaqs.com, as well as fielding a few questions to a Japanese friend of mine. The theme I found was that the original Dragon Warrior translation was pretty literal in most cases, and it was kinda obvious most of the time when things were changed. In the case of most of the obviously localized names like Nester, Wynn, Howard etc I reverted back to the Japanese. If they were on the shorter side, I did a straight conversion like Nester --> Lord Kim. In a couple cases where a name seemed a little long Wynn --> Yoshiriin I just shortened it to Yoshi. I wanted to keep everything easily readable.
I have a couple questions for you guys:
I can't decide what to do with a line in Mercado/Cantlin
"Let's exchange my "Portopia" for your "Dragon Quest"
Portopia was another square enix game in Japan apparently so we've got a cultural reference most readers wouldn't understand. What do you guys think I should do with that line? I really don't want to make a cultural reference here but I could say something like "Let's exchange my copy of Final Fantasy for your Dragon Quest.
Also, as I have been pouring over the text, curiously I don't see any references to the name of the overall land in the Japanese. (Alfegard in Dragon Warrior version). Was there a name of the land? Maybe I have to dig into the Dragon Warrior 2 text to determine it but I'm curious if you guys know.
So in summary, I should have a version up with the new script once I finish editing and re-pointering (a word?) item and monster names to the degree that I need. I'm also feeling like I'll know enough after this to go back to the graphic tiles and completely restore the Japanse sprite models, doing away with my own edits except for the 4 direction hero.