[Choppasmith]

For now I'll be working on inserting the Android dialog because its all right there and it's way easier but yes, even the way it is now allows for a more faithful translation with hardly any extra work on my end (or Markus's).

On Markus's blog you can download an archive of all the extracted PSX dialog, so it should be fairly easy to get started translating.

I'm not sure if this was the intent but Markus had set up each line like so:

Code: [Select]

"",ダミー{7f0b}{0000},0x0084
The second value is the Japanese text and the third is an offset that the translator doesn't need to worry about. The first quotation marks could encompass the translated text so someone could easily go into each file and start translating away. A translated line would look like this:

Code: [Select]

"Dummy{7f0b}{0000}",ダミー{7f0b}{0000},0x0084
(the values in {} are control characters, for example {0000} is the end of a dialog and {7f1f} is the hero name. I have no idea what {7f0b} is but its everywhere)

If anyone wants to do this work, like I said before, I am more than willing to set you up. You shouldn't need any technical knowledge.

This is great! My first thought was actually a mobile rip is likely to be structured the same making that an easy thing to convert. For the record, I love the modern localizations but going back to IV, I can see why people have a problem with it. Plus Alpha really went overboard in some places while I think Schloc, the people who have done the recent DQs including Heroes, Builders, XI, and I-III, found a happy middle ground. The phonetic spelling of a lot of the Irish/Scottish NPCs really ARE frustrating to read. I think having a 1:1 (or as close as possible) port with an optional  “easy reading” patch that tones down some of those phonetics would be ideal.

Btw Spookdy, first of all, welcome  . I see you made a Square Enix spell names patch for DQ1. You know I made a complete mobile port that converted everything to the modern SE terms right? ^^;;;
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4237/ Not saying I have a monopoly on that or anything, having a patch just for spell names works just as fine too. But aside from that I wanted to point out you had two of the spells wrong. It’s Sizz and Sizzle not Frizz and Frizzle.

[spookdy]

Btw Spookdy, first of all, welcome  . I see you made a Square Enix spell names patch for DQ1. You know I made a complete mobile port that converted everything to the modern SE terms right? ^^;;;
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4237/ Not saying I have a monopoly on that or anything, having a patch just for spell names works just as fine too. But aside from that I wanted to point out you had two of the spells wrong. It’s Sizz and Sizzle not Frizz and Frizzle.

Oh that's great (way better than mine LMAO)!! Yeah I'm super new to rom hacking and felt weird starting on such a big project without even trying a small one! I was torn on which to choose and for whatever reason I chose Frizz. I'll update it when I get the chance

[nejimakipiyo]

Since I didn't get a response to my PM, I'm wondering if someone here could help me understand a few things so that I can pick at this translation in my spare time.

I opened the first file after figuring out how to get the text to display in Japanese.
The first string is
"",うちの人ったら{7f02}疲れた　疲れた　ばっかり言って{7f02}ちっとも　話を聞いてくれないのよ。{7f0b}{0000},0x0038

What are the 7F02 and 7F0B bytes?
And 0000?
I don't want to risk messing anything up with my lack of familiarity about the text in this game.

I also have other, more general questions.

Is there a character limit we should be keeping in mind for dialogue boxes? And what about a character limit for lists (i.e. item, monster, magic)? Will it be necessary to implement some kind of icons to save on character limits such as in the Dragon Warrior GBC games?

Any tips and pointers would be helpful!

[markus-projects]

Hi nejimakipiyo,

I try to answer quickly.
The files I provided are CSV files which are Comma-Separated Values files. Each file represents a level in the game (it seems) and each row in the csv file represents a text that is said by a game character in a dialog. A row in the file has many values that are comma-separated. The values are: translated text, japanese text, pointer information where the dialog is located (technical information that can be ignored by the translator). The comma-separated values can be quoted with double-quotes " to make sure that, for example, "A sentence, with a comma." the text's comma is not interpreted as a separator comma. A translator may use a tool, for instance openoffice or libreoffice to open the csv file in a spreadsheet environment. This way it is easy to just enter the translated text in a spreadsheet cell instead of writing the text between the quotes ("here"). Then you can save it again as CSV. The app usually detects that it is UTF-8 encoded, so you do not have to worry about it.

I did not have the time to find and test all control characters (these 7F** bytes). What we currently know: The 7f02 makes a new line and a two character wide insertion '  '. The ＊「 characters seems to be used everytime a text block starts. A 0x7f0a shows a blinking cursor and waits for user input. A 0000 indicates the end of the text so that the dialog routine knows that it has to stop with the decoding. 0x7f1f inserts the hero's name which was entered at the beginning in the menu.

Character limit: yes, without using, for example {7f02}, the text would be drawn over the textbox border. The limit seems to be around 23 characters if the text is indented and 25 (23 + 2) if the text is not indented. I am not sure if every character is monospaced: it seems to be not monospaced when I look at my example screenshot. If this is the case then the character limit varys.

Character limit for lists (i.e. item, monster, magic): I did not look into that yet. "Implement some kind of icons": Currently unclear.

[OldSchoolGamer86]

Hey.

As i mentioned earlier i am thrilled about this happening especially being a big fan of psx jrpgs,  dragon quest,  and the whole project in general. I was also glad to read chicken knife agreed with me when it comes to fan translations and such. 

I know you are all quite a ways off from getting to this point but im going to be following this till its done for sure. When the time comes and you need testers i would love to be considered. 

I only ever once got to help out on a project and that was on Mysterious Song a PCE/TG Super CD game by Frozen Utopia.

If your all set no worries i just wanted to throw that out there. I use real hardware as i have a chipped psx and ps2 but regardless i am glad to see the progress being made! Keep up the good work!

And to Chicken Knife...i hope to get a sharo twin or AV famicom and a everdrive sometime so once i do ill definitally try your Dragon Quest NES translations.

Thanks and my hats off to all you guys working to make DQ4 psx playable. The add on the back of the DW7 manual has definitally taunted us all for many years now. Kudos to you all!

[spookdy]

Since I didn't get a response to my PM, I'm wondering if someone here could help me understand a few things so that I can pick at this translation in my spare time.

So sorry!! I'm not sure if I got a DM. I'll get in touch with you but Markus answered your questions as well as I could. Thanks for starting this!!

I know you are all quite a ways off from getting to this point but im going to be following this till its done for sure. When the time comes and you need testers i would love to be considered. 

If I manage to make more progress you'll be the first person I reach out to

I've been really busy recently and haven't had a chance to get back into this but just as an update I ran my auto-matching script and was able to find the (Android) English matches for around 70% of the lines of dialog in the game. I still need to make sure its formatted properly for the PS1 and write the code to reinsert it but its progress!!

[Chicken Knife]

@OldSchoolGamer86, thank you for your interest and enthusiasm. Stick around, and I'm sure that there will be plenty of opportunity for testing, especially with the contemporary script insert that markus & spookdy are working on. I tend to not rely too much on testers in the early stages of nejimakipiyo & I's work, since my process for improving text relies on constantly inserting changes over the course of 3-4 consecutive plays. I can't get the text to my satisfaction just looking at script files. I need to be playing the game so I can capture the essence of the characters and bring out their unique personalities, so I end up doing a ton of my own testing along the way. But that all said, there are minor text errors I'll never see sometimes. For instance, I've done 3 consecutive revisions of a script and someone will still find a "the the" somewhere. So that's the point where I ask a few committed followers for help.

@markus / spookdy, thank you for the explanations and support. nejimakipiyo & I have been talking a lot about what our approach to this should optimally be. Several months ago, I got extremely busy and nejimakipiyo started taking the lead a lot more on our work, but now nejimakipiyo is getting more tied down and my mental bandwith and available time have been improving. I'll probably be the one who ends up working with the files and managing insertions. I'm going to start looking over everything you've made available now. If the English script and the Japanese are side by side in the data files, that would certainly make nejimakipiyo's process of auditing the translation a great deal easier. I'm very interested in when you all get to the point of having the insertion tools set up. That will allow me to do my usual trial and error process where I'll get comfortable with all the various opcodes, restrictions and other formatting requirements.

I'd imagine that there will be some challenges when it comes to text that isn't presented in text boxes. For instance, the text that appears on screen as a prologue to each new chapter. Or, I'm sure there will be some differently formatted text appearing as part of the ending sequence. Then we have the text in menus, etc. I'd imagine that all that stuff is going to require a lot of additional work.

[spookdy]

@Chicken Knife

Thinking this over.. I might be able to make a simple GUI to make life easier for you two so you don't have to bother with CSVs and so you can have a easily accessible table of the "7f**" values.

I'm not entirely convinced insertion will work 100%. Just looking at encoded text block, there's a lot of data we don't understand yet. This will definitely be a long project...

As far as things like scene change text, menu text and so on, we don't even know where that's stored yet and I haven't looked into that at all yet. It's definitely not stored in the same way as the rest of the text. I was planning on writing some code to extract all the compressed assets in the resource file but haven't got around to it yet and probably wont for a while.

[Chicken Knife]

Thank you for the consideration. We are accustomed to using the abcde software which is a refinement of Cartographer & Atlas, so that makes us familiar with using command prompt instructions and such. But we certainly wouldn't object to your ingenuity & generosity should you create a GUI for the tools. Really though, we are open to learning how to utilize any kinds of tools as long as you all have the patience to hold our hand through the process.

[OldSchoolGamer86]

@Chicken Knife- Oh yes, i was not at all referring to anything anytime soon as the project just got started and i have followed other fan translations and am well aware it takes a TON of time, and effort as well as trial and error before anything gets to a point of being playable in any regard. I was just refereing to some point in the future when you guys feel your at a point where you could use someone to play it up to a certain point or whatnot trying all kinds of different things to find and report unknown bugs/glitches etc to help you guys out so once it is ready for a release its releases as bug/glitch free as possible. I personally prefer to have fan translations take longer but get a quality release rather than release early and have problems(known or unknown). And yes there are as you mentioned MANY parts to consider as event cutscenes as well as scrolling text and other things are also a hurdle to clear as well as the general ingame story, menu, item etc text.
But thanks for taking my request into consideration. There is no rush on my end i just want to help out if at all possible.

I am a 2D "Tales of" fanas well as love games with sprites and the "16-32 bit era is my personal favorite for games especially jrpgs. I was a fan and follwed Cless/Phantasian productions work. I feel when they released a translation it was well done all the way through. I personally dont really care for menu/item only  releases as that doesnt help much as enjoying a jrpg's story is why your playing the game. I was always dissapointed ToD2 only ever got a menu/item translation as its a good entry,as well as a shame Rebirth and ToD R still remain JP exclusive.
Also "The Mystic Dragoons" is currently a psx jrpg that was released with only the opening, menu, skills, items translated. Its better than nothing yes, but without the story i feel its hardly worth playing. More a tease or "what if" than anything else.

Lastly,  Is there a place on the site to make requests for potential translations to say, garner potential  interest or something to that effect? 

Keep up the good work guys!

[Chicken Knife]

@OldSchoolGamer86
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=3282.0
This is the general repository for hack ideas. I'm not sure if there is a specific one out there for translation requests. From my experience, the most well established fan translators tend to put out a disclaimer not to message them with requests. I guess they can get a little overwhelming.
nejimakipiyo & I are kind of new to the game, but we tend to focus on projects that we both have an incredible amount of passion for. That personal passion is really the only way to justify the sheer volume of work that goes into these things for us.

**EDIT

Actually, look what I found:

http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Translations_Request_List

[OldSchoolGamer]

Would love to be part of working on an accurate and faithful translation. I'm in the end stages of another DQ related project now, and would happily work on this game next. All I would need to get started is an extracted version of the Japanese text, like Chicken Knife mentioned. My only skill is with the translating itself, but I'm sure between the lot of us here we could find a way to get this off the ground.

@OldSchoolGamer86 I echo your sentiment with regards to the flaws in modern localizations. I do also realize that a lot of people prefer them, and that's their prerogative, but I think the best solution here would be to work on both styles at once. There's no reason two translations can't coexist, other than the poor technical skill of the translators trying to push out a faithful translation for a system they've never worked on. 

First off let me state that I am OldSchoolGamer86. When I created my original account, I was only able to access the internet on my cell phone or old cheap tablet. Long story short I have many disabilities(Aspergers, "functional autism", OCD, learning disorders etc. as well as other issues that make life/living in general very difficult), and I'm considered legally disabled as well as very poor as living on disability ($900 a month) is very very hard and frustrating and next to impossible so long story short I cannot afford basic internet. However, on a random search while looking for cheap/free internet access and ways to get around the BS wireless hotspot data use limitation(im paying for unlimited internet access already and it should not matter or make a difference how I choose to use the internet access I(or anyone else for that matter) pay for), I discovered a way to share my phones 4G internet with my laptop so I am FINALLY able to use my very cheap low end laptop to access the internet and I couldn't be happier! However, I cant login with my other account for some reason as I keep getting errors I don't understand, so I simply made a new account that works and lets me login error free from my laptop. I felt it was necessary to explain this so you and anyone else reading this knows I am the same person. I do not want to loose my previously posted messages, so I am not deleting "OldSchoolGamer86" however, if a mod sees this and takes issue, feel free to merge my accounts if possible. Otherwise, this will be my main account I use and post from now as I prefer to use the internet with a laptop as opposed to a smartphone if possible. Now back on topic...

I am sorry and apologize that I wasn't able to respond to your statement sooner nejimakipiyo, but better late than never I feel. I sincerely hope you were able to work something out with Chicken Knife and the rest of the  team that started work on this large and long awaited translation project. It makes me very very happy as well as fills me with joy to see someone who(unlike me with my failed efforts and attempts both due to my disabilities as well as bad situations and lack of funds and other things)has learned/can understand, read, and comprehend Japanese have a strong urge and desire to use it to benefit the gaming community. I love it. I wish alot more people with foreign language knowledge or other skills would show/have such enthusiasm as you seem to. My desire to learn Japanese and use it to benefit the retro or JRPG/niche genre gaming community never panned out or became a reality sadly.
For years I tried to teach myself basic japanese but I never had the tools I needed and people to work with me to teach me the language sadly. I have always had a strong affinity for the japanese culture and a strong desire to understand and atleast be able to understand and read/comprehend all japanese text(katakana,hiragana,and kanji). Most all games I play or enjoy originate from japan and I have always really liked Anime be it from Manga, TV series, or as drawings/artwork. I had hopes I could someday be a fan translator but as I never was able to meet anyone willing to teach me as I need to have someone working with me 1 on 1 to learn new things. I tried on my own the best I could but I can only make out and understand most Kana and a small handful of words.

I also wanted to add that I agree with you 100% and I feel it can only be beneficial and not detrimental in any way to have multiple versions of something be it a translation or something else entirely so it can ultimately reach as many people as possible. I always try to portray and support the belief that everyone is different and has different likes/dislikes/feelings/thoughts etc and none are any more or less correct or better than another and people should respect and understand that fact as well as support it. No one way of thinking or looking at things is any more or less positive than another way. While I dont care for localizations or say the DS/Android DQ scripts they have their place and many people enjoy them which is great.

I hope this project is progressing well. Keep up all the hard work @Chicken Knife and team! Hope we can get an update soon!

[mike9k1]

Hey @markus-projects / Chicken Knife, I just wanted to say i'm really glad to see that this is a thing now! I recall when I first looked around 2019 there were no such resources on any PS1 DQ4 translation and I saw a lot of "well there's the DS and mobile ports so there's really no point" posts, which seemed to discourage a lot of interest in any fan translation being made at the time.

1. My understanding is that the PS1 port has a lot of advantages over the other 2 (the big one being the graphics)
2. I'm also a huge fan of romhack / fan translations in general, especially those more literal (closer) to the original Japanese meaning.

So you can count me as someone else who's really glad you've done some nice work on this. I've taken a look at your blog and there's some incredible resources there that i've started looking through. If I happen to have the additional time in the coming months & manage to do anything of note with it, I'll let you know. I'll also be keeping a close eye on your progress here.

You can feel free to contact myself or any of us on the Yggdrasil (Dragon Quest) Modding Community Discord. There are no doubt many others interested in this project. Keep up the great work- we really appreciate it! 

[nks]

Hey markus and Chicken Knife. I love you guys for doing this!!! My copy of dragon quest vii still has the ad for 4 in the back 😭. Just wondering if there’s any way I can help or if this is still active I’d love to help! Cheers!!

[Chicken Knife]

Hey markus and Chicken Knife. I love you guys for doing this!!! My copy of dragon quest vii still has the ad for 4 in the back 😭. Just wondering if there’s any way I can help or if this is still active I’d love to help! Cheers!!

nks, thanks for reaching out with your interest. Was just checking with spookdy. Everything remains on pause on the technical front unfortunately due to life obligations. nejimakipiyo and I haven't started work on the script yet. We want to see that this is going to get there technically before we commit and just end up frustrated.

Markus already completed the hardest work in terms of cracking the compression scheme. All his work was made public, so if anyone else wants to get involved on the technical end, I think it's an open door. 

[mike9k1]

nks, thanks for reaching out with your interest. Was just checking with spookdy. Everything remains on pause on the technical front unfortunately due to life obligations. nejimakipiyo and I haven't started work on the script yet. We want to see that this is going to get there technically before we commit and just end up frustrated.

Markus already completed the hardest work in terms of cracking the compression scheme. All his work was made public, so if anyone else wants to get involved on the technical end, I think it's an open door.

Thanks a bunch for the update -- I saw there was a Slime Time podcast with you all not too long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY2rf0aDoSw

I was tempted to look into the PSX version myself thanks to Markus's documentation, but I decided to check out the mobile version instead (for various reasons). It turned out to be a lot easier to mod: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=34365.msg426325#msg426325

Since i've spent a bit of time playing through DQ4, I'll probably be moving on to other games in the series for a bit. I'll still be watching this one closely!