Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Translations of wapanese games

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,325
Location
Flowery Land
Well I did create a female (because why look at a male) Deuman (because glass cannon=faster combat=easier timed objectives=less time spent killing overl bulky enemies). Currently rocking two handed swords and just hit level 15, but I'm open to changes.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
It would be nice if someone made a revamped Shin Megami Tensei II translation. I'm playing it right now with the AGTP translation and apart from some obviously poor syntax in many parts, the biggest problem is the font, allowing very few letters, thus botching almost all item and spell descriptions. A hack showing current alignment would also be great since this game does a very poor job at signalling which options change your alignment and you can easily end up locked in an alignment without realising it. (the rotation of the player mark in world map doesn't indicate your alignment, like in SMT1)
 

kaisergeddon

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
243
Location
Texas
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
I don't know if you saw this patch, ghostdog, but it's an addendum to the AGTP patch that addresses many, if not all, of the complaints you have about his work, and fixed numerous bugs caused by his translation:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2616/

I appreciate AGTP, but a lot of his early stuff is very bad or broken (the SMT translation is a particularly egregious example), and he rarely goes back and updates except for certain titles (Live A Live, Laplace’s Demon). That's fine, but I would be embarrassed if someone else showed up to fix some work I did and I was still active in the scene like AGTP.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,784
I don't know if you saw this patch, ghostdog, but it's an addendum to the AGTP patch that addresses many, if not all, of the complaints you have about his work, and fixed numerous bugs caused by his translation:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2616/

I appreciate AGTP, but a lot of his early stuff is very bad or broken (the SMT translation is a particularly egregious example), and he rarely goes back and updates except for certain titles (Live A Live, Laplace’s Demon). That's fine, but I would be embarrassed if someone else showed up to fix some work I did and I was still active in the scene like AGTP.

It's for the first part, ghostdog needs that, but for the second

Not sure I would call AGTP still active, hasn't released in quite some while
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
I don't know if you saw this patch, ghostdog, but it's an addendum to the AGTP patch that addresses many, if not all, of the complaints you have about his work, and fixed numerous bugs caused by his translation:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2616/

I appreciate AGTP, but a lot of his early stuff is very bad or broken (the SMT translation is a particularly egregious example), and he rarely goes back and updates except for certain titles (Live A Live, Laplace’s Demon). That's fine, but I would be embarrassed if someone else showed up to fix some work I did and I was still active in the scene like AGTP.

It's for the first part, ghostdog needs that, but for the second

Not sure I would call AGTP still active, hasn't released in quite some while
Hmm, I might actually be using this one... the font is still the same crappy font that cuts names in half. (obviously inserting smaller fonts is always one of the most difficult hacks in roms as I understand it...)
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,784
DKM2_00000.png
DKM2_00002.png
DKM2_00007.png


Super Shell Monsters 2 translation released

http://www.dynamic-designs.us/shellmonsterstory2.shtml
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
That last tweet explains so much about Byuu. Shame he never found help and instead just obsession.

But, yeah. Modders and fan-translaters are riddled with insane people. Nothing new under the sun.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,784
That last tweet explains so much about Byuu. Shame he never found help and instead just obsession.

But, yeah. Modders and fan-translaters are riddled with insane people. Nothing new under the sun.

Good for us, we got a solid emulator out of it (despite the GUI crazyness he occasionally fell into) and solid drama
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
Secret of Mana got a re/*enhanced* translation

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5765/

Secret of Mana: Reborn is the first release of the Secret of Mana Script Augmentation Project. It is the first comprehensive remaster of the original game since its release in 1993. This patch features:

  • a complete retranslation of the original Japanese script, the first of its kind
  • some minor alterations that clarify vagaries and inconsistencies in the text and the plot itself
  • new events and content based on exhaustive research of authentic external materials, most of which were never translated into English
  • memorable elements of both Ted Woolsey’s script and the Japanese script
  • elements that were omitted from both the American and Japanese releases of the game
  • the original American font
As a result, this script is almost twice the size of the SNES English release.

See the included Localization Commentary document (PDF) for in-depth notes on translation choices and more.

Haven't tried it, but honestly the bolded parts sound more like a completely unfocused mess than anything. If not bordering fan-fiction.
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
From the afromentioned document

Finally, even Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana’s original Japanese name)’s script is often vague and inconsistent, due in no small part to the game’s erratic development. An opportunity has been taken not only to relocalize the script, but also to demystify these abstruse elements.

:lol:

Oh, yeah this is totally going to be fan-fiction.

Edit: FFS, they even had focus groups to decide on naming. WTF

:what:
 

Duraframe300

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2010
Messages
6,395
Autism: The endgame

Notes on Popoie’s Gender
Handling Popoie’s gender is a particularly challenging dilemma. Popoie uses おいら as a first person pronoun, itself a casual derivative of 俺 ore, which is almost always understood to be masculine. A survey of similar contemporary media shows that おいら was a popular choice for cutesy male characters like Palom from Final Fantasy IV or Gau from Final Fantasy VI. However, おいら is also a common choice for non-male characters to effect a boyish presentation. J uses gender neutral pronouns for Popoie’s third-person situations, but this does not work the same way in English. Such pronouns can be translated as “the one”, and the same or similar pronouns are used for unambiguously gendered characters like Purim and Dyluck. EW used a combination of gender neutral (it/it/its) and masculine pronouns.
The equivalent French translation exclusively used masculine pronouns for l’elfe and the German opted for feminine ones for Koboldin, or Kobold Mädchen. Nintendo Power also used “it” and the English release’s manual used the second person for all three of the main characters. Despite these variations, in the quarter century between the original release and the 2018 remake, masculine pronouns were the norm for discourses on Popoie, even in the face of uncertainty. Many American gamers expressed disbelief that Popoie was male simply based on expectations of appearance.
In 2018, the situation further evolved with EG exclusively using gender neutral pronouns (they/them/theirs) and many external references changed to align with this. However, two years later, this was upended by the English release of A, which exclusively used masculine pronouns once again when discussing the development of the character.
A complete discussion of the intricacies of gender identity and expression and how it applies to our work is not feasible in this commentary. However, we made every effort to consider all the available sources with the complexities involved.
Hiromichi Tanaka did indeed refer to Popoie as genderless in a 1993 interview with Hippon Super magazine. M also used 不明 fumei (unknown, ambiguous) as the answer to 性別 seibetsu. The latter term may indeed be translated as gender, but it can just as well mean sex or what we may interpret as sex assigned at birth. Therefore, what 不明 is likely saying here is that we can assign the male sex to Randi and the female sex to Purim, but we can’t assign a sex to Popoie because Popoie is a particular type of Mana spirit and such a designation would be irrelevant. (It’s worth noting that Popoie’s grandfather is a sprite and unambiguously male in J.) This, however, is not particularly relevant when discussing Popoie’s gender and that is where much confusion arises.
While Popoie uses おいら in the first person, Gnome uses おやぶん in the third along with the Elder who twice uses ちびスケ. おやぶん is a rather patriarchal term that we translated as, “bossman.” It is used by the Yakuza, among others, to refer to a role similar to a superior in La Cosa Nostra. ちびスケ’s ending is generally, but not always masculine; the word is used endearingly to refer to someone of short stature.
A native speaker who participated in this project had the following to say:
“Popoie’s gender self-identification is ‘male’ by our standard according to how he behaves and presents himself. The sex/biological classification is ‘unknown’ or even nonexistent because he is not necessarily an organic being. He is more of a manifestation of Mana/magic.”
This makes sense given our discussion above. Furthermore, members of the LGBTQ+ community who are familiar with the game and emerging topics of gender theory graciously gave varying perspectives. Even after their detailed input and the other discussions, we don’t want to make the dangerous suggestion that our ultimate approach is “correct,” as Popoie is not ours.
The best description we can produce is “ambiguously masculine.” Masculine and/or gender neutral pronouns could be preferred, so we decided to use both, depending on the character speaking and the context. This ends up, not surprisingly, being similar to the approach of EW.

:what::what::what::what:

:despair:
 
Last edited:

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,079
Autism: The endgame

From a user review:

This is just my opinion, but it seems like there are a number of changes to the dialogue that, while respecting both the original Japanese and Woolsey’s interpretations, come off rather unnatural-sounding and wordier rather than conversational. Just from the game’s opening moments, you’re treated to some pretty stilted dialogue from a conversation that involves kid characters–but they don’t sound like kids. I don’t think it reads very well, and I think the script they ended up with could have benefited from some editing, no matter how faithful it is to the Japanese.

They also doubled the size of the original script’s memory, so yes–you are getting more. However, I’m not sure I agree with the team’s own thoughts that this is a “remaster”–yet.

they doubled the fucking size of the script! :lol: What unbelievable inanity
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,784
Autism: The endgame

From a user review:

This is just my opinion, but it seems like there are a number of changes to the dialogue that, while respecting both the original Japanese and Woolsey’s interpretations, come off rather unnatural-sounding and wordier rather than conversational. Just from the game’s opening moments, you’re treated to some pretty stilted dialogue from a conversation that involves kid characters–but they don’t sound like kids. I don’t think it reads very well, and I think the script they ended up with could have benefited from some editing, no matter how faithful it is to the Japanese.

They also doubled the size of the original script’s memory, so yes–you are getting more. However, I’m not sure I agree with the team’s own thoughts that this is a “remaster”–yet.

they doubled the fucking size of the script! :lol: What unbelievable inanity

It's Secret of Mana: The VN edition
 

kaisergeddon

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
243
Location
Texas
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Their intepretation of Popoie is just pure navel-gazing nonsense, it's peak baizuo. There's nothing particularly "challenging" about it, they're trying to take a spiritual concept and shoehorn it into their materialist ideology revolving around modern academic jargon and joyless twitter experts. I'm not a cultural expert of Japan, but I believe Popoie was meant to be a genderless fairy spirit which is the norm in Shintoism, which the Seiken Densetsu series is strongly grounded in. The elemental spirits, the animism, summoning udine, talking with the earth critters in Legend of Mana, it's all there... ironically, the villains in SoM are techno-fascists coming from another world and draining the elements to feed their machinery. Really makes you think. Anyways, Popoie is Popoie, not some pioneering concept heralding the arrival of wokenesss and twitter profile fashion labels or whatever.

And honestly, twice the original script size?? And all those conditional terms for the retranslation, like "new content" and "memorable moments"?? Yeah, that translation is cringepilled fan fiction alright.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom