Japanese personal computer aesthetic is best aesthetic

[KeighnMcDeath]

I was looking at PC-88 wiki for games and came across Crimson by XTALSOFT. Wow, they made a lot of RPGs. Well actually, it started from:


And my reason was because I was looking at PLAZMA LINE from Technosoft. Yeah, and there was a page about a lot of variant Japanese computers. There is a lot out there that I just never knew existed.

HCG101 barely covers these. This site isn't too bad but I had another that was more detailed and I lost the link damnit!

 

[Viata]

Thunder Force is the shit. 4 has the best ost. This intro is great:

In fact, the whole OST is great:

 

[samuraigaiden]

80s Japan was peak Humanity

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

80s Japan was peak Humanity

then the muricans sabotage their central bank and everything went decline after that. To a extend of course.

 

[Duraframe300]

Fan-Translation is available. See below.

 

[Viata]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

 

[Duraframe300]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

That's disappointing to hear.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish. That said, it actually was a well enough written fanfiction which is probably why it fooled so many people. Normally shit like this is laughably easy to figure out because it's crap. Wouldn't have realized it on this one. I don't regret it.
Shame the guy wasn't just upfront with it.

 

[lightbane]

The real shame is that game has a sequel but isn't translated yet.
The above youtube video is using that fake translation then, I guess, right?

 

[Viata]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

That's disappointing to hear.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish. That said, it actually was a well enough written fanfiction which is probably why it fooled so many people. Normally shit like this is laughably easy to figure out because it's crap. Wouldn't have realized it on this one. I don't regret it.
Shame the guy wasn't just upfront with it.

It's possible that he used some machine translation and those parts which the translation was weird as fuck, he had to make up dialogues. Another possibility is that he had some idea of the overall plot(not impossible to find since there are English reviews of these games on the internet) and as long as he kept it, he could make any random dialogue whenever he wanted it.
The last possibility is that the people playing it had no idea what the original was like and anything was valid as long as "it made sense".

 

[Duraframe300]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

That's disappointing to hear.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish. That said, it actually was a well enough written fanfiction which is probably why it fooled so many people. Normally shit like this is laughably easy to figure out because it's crap. Wouldn't have realized it on this one. I don't regret it.
Shame the guy wasn't just upfront with it.

It's possible that he used some machine translation and those parts which the translation was weird as fuck, he had to make up dialogues. Another possibility is that he had some idea of the overall plot(not impossible to find since there are English reviews of these games on the internet) and as long as he kept it, he could make any random dialogue whenever he wanted it.
The last possibility is that the people playing it had no idea what the original was like and anything was valid as long as "it made sense".

All 3 I assume. The *party* example given in that link you posted points also in that direction with the guy misinterpreting japanese grammar. Had info about the plot, machine translated it, rewrote and edited, made up what didn't make sense and wasn't figured out initially because people that play fan-translations usually can't read the original language and he did a decent job delivering something readable and logically consistent.

As I said he should have really just been up front with that process. There's plenty *fan-translations* that rewrite scripts (Hell, even some *official* translations). Trying to sell it as a real/accurate one was just digging your own grave.

 

[shywn]

People should've started suspecting something when he released two games (Dead of the Brain, Makyouden) within a week of each other. I figured he was probably a manic-depressive in the manic phase or something. Anyway, he kept releasing more games in rapid succession and it was only after the Eagle thing in Dragon Knight that he decided to self-immolate.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish.

Never understood why people feel the need to take an English-translated game and translate it to Spanish... Doubles the amount of errors in the text. And in current times, it's likely that the en->es translator is more competent than the ja->en translator...

There was this one SNES RPG where the translators more or less admitted in the README that they rewrote large parts of the plot, and yes, someone chose to translate their end product into French. Including the made-up parts. Such a waste. The name escapes me right now... Ah, yes. Villgust.

I assure you that there is no group named Resistance Against the God of Evil (R.A.G.E.) in the original game. I prefer to call the game "My First RPG" -- it's very basic and its plot is supposed to resonate with nine-year-old schoolboys. The Japanese version, that is.

Ah, I'll just try to go and continue play 英雄伝説III　白き魔女 instead of ranting here.

 

[Duraframe300]

There was this one SNES RPG where the translators more or less admitted in the README that they rewrote large parts of the plot, and yes, someone chose to translate their end product into French. Including the made-up parts. Such a waste. The name escapes me right now... Ah, yes. Villgust.

I'd say this is the case for most early English translations. A bit random, but in funny coincidence land the NES spin-off game of Villgust actually had a recent re-translation whose readme addresses this/a similiar point:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/3863/

I didn't play the old patch until after we'd completed our own, and, well...
where do I start? First, I really respect the effort it took to produce a fan
translation back then. The emulators were primitive, the tools were nonexistent,
and what documentation of the hardware there was was often half-wrong. I'm sure
making a full-game translation patch was a monumental effort regardless of
quality, and I probably couldn't have done much better if I'd had to work with
the resources the original group had.

On the other hand, there's no two ways about it: it's a bad translation. Really,
really bad. It's hard to tell how much was due to space restrictions, how much
was the translator and/or Babelfish not knowing what they were doing, and how
much was just somebody saying "I don't like this dialogue, let's change it" --
but however it happened, the results are pretty painful.

If you compare J2e's translation of the intro to ours, you'll see it's missing
most of the details (the "hero from another world" part got lost entirely!), with
many lines that are basically made up... and that's probably as good as their
translation gets. Before long, you run into dark sorcerers screaming "Assholes!
Who dare enters my territory?". Or Murobo musing "This rabbit is very delightful,
but it inhibits us." when he's actually supposed to be saying "This is no mere
rabbit, but a messenger of the Goddess". Or every single instance of "village
head" being mistranslated as "butterfly" (they're both "chouchou" in Japanese,
sure, but no one picked up on lines like "there's a butterfly fixing a boat"?).

After the first couple of towns, whoever was supposed to be editing the text
seems to have basically given up, and things rapidly descend into incoherent
gibberish with the occasional bout of profanity thrown in for good measure.
Seriously, compare the patches if you have time, it's pretty amazing.

Things have come a long way in twenty years, and since that level of quality is
mercifully no longer acceptable, I'm glad to have the chance to give the game
its due. No made-up dialogue, no abbreviated names, no bizarre bugs (right?)...
I hope this will give people the chance to experience the game as it was intended.

 

[Konjad]

 

[JarlFrank]

The artstyle of Digan no Maseki is awesome, dat low amount of colors + heavy dithering

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The artstyle of Digan no Maseki is awesome, dat low amount of colors + heavy dithering

Pretty sure it's scanned artwork and not 'real' pixel art. Still looks good, though.

 

[Konjad]

bonus: making of:

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

That's disappointing to hear.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish. That said, it actually was a well enough written fanfiction which is probably why it fooled so many people. Normally shit like this is laughably easy to figure out because it's crap. Wouldn't have realized it on this one. I don't regret it.
Shame the guy wasn't just upfront with it.

Does that mean the MSX version's translation is shit too? Admittedly I never looked too deeply into it, I was just shocked to hear there was both a port and translation for what was basically a better ZX Spectrum in the early '90s. Seems like its pointless to do a machine translation on a different version, even as a programming exercise.

 

[Duraframe300]

Assuming there is only one translation for Dead of the Brain:
The fan-translation of the game is wrong. As in, the translator wrote some fanfic instead of translating the game. People found out when he was translating another game which already had the script translated somewhere on the internet, they saw it was different from his translation, then someone decided to see if the Brain of the Dead was fanfic too.
Sure, you can use that translation and enjoy the game, but you might as well play the japanese version and invent your own plot, the end result is the same: you finished the game, but got a different story.
His patreon account was deleted after people learnt he was a fraud: https://www.patreon.com/retronomicon_games/creators
As for the proof, you can read it here:
https://vndb.org/t12562

That's disappointing to hear.

Doubly so, because the patch actually served as groundwork for other translations. For example into spanish. That said, it actually was a well enough written fanfiction which is probably why it fooled so many people. Normally shit like this is laughably easy to figure out because it's crap. Wouldn't have realized it on this one. I don't regret it.
Shame the guy wasn't just upfront with it.

Does that mean the MSX version's translation is shit too? Admittedly I never looked too deeply into it, I was just shocked to hear there was both a port and translation for what was basically a better ZX Spectrum in the early '90s. Seems like its pointless to do a machine translation on a different version, even as a programming exercise.

MSX2 translation is largely based on the PC-98 translation.

 

[abnaxus]

Enemy art from Zavas manual kind of reminds me of El Mercenario

Spoiler

 

[abnaxus]

 

[abnaxus]

^ It's unique élf intro of Deja 2

the windows remake manages to look even worse than Elle

 

[abnaxus]

 

[abnaxus]

 

[abnaxus]

Bible Master 1

Bible Master 2

 

[Nutmeg]

Now those are some pauldrons.

 

[Viata]

 

[abnaxus]