Tra$lation Compen$ation - Anearth Fantasy Stories

[SamIAm]

It seems that Anearth is on the order of 15 hours or so from start to finish, which means that the translation side is probably relatively manageable. Esperknight loves nothing more than to poke at games, so I'll ask him to take a look at this one. He's got plenty on his plate already, but he might give us an idea of whether it looks easy or difficult to hack.

EDIT:

About the Mahjong game, two things: A) You shouldn't use google because there's no kanji and lots of slang in that text file, which will drastically reduce google's already poor accuracy. B) A lot of those lines are context-specific and necessitate playing the game to properly work with. I don't know how feasible it would be, but if you could whip up a quick playthrough video and stick it on youtube (maybe edit it to keep the time short), that would make it way easier to deal with for translators who don't want to commit to learning the whole game.

[m1savage]

Well at least this thread brought Anearth some interest again. A couple of things I've noticed about it is that there is English text and alphabet in the game and not an extreme amount of text. There is also a the debug version of the game available which may or may not help out. If anyone does take it upon themselves to give it a go, I've played through it many times and would be willing to do whatever I could to help out.

Thanks for the input on the mahjong game (Mahjong Gakuen). I have ran the text through every online translator I could find and also Atlas machine translation which as you can guess gave very mixed results. I have screenshots of every "spoken" part in the game and even have them grouped together by each person speaking if that would help anyone. As for the mahong terms, I already have those done for the most part though I'm sure there are some in the other text as well. Hmmmm....just got another idea....

[Black Tiger]

It would be nice if there were some kind of "kickstarter" fund if you will for translations. I can see how money would really gum up the works though.

I'd much rather contribute to a kickstarter to translate a PCE RPG than something like Pier Solar ports. But it would need to have a translator and hacker lined up with a plan.

[BigusSchmuck]

It seems very hard to me to find anyone to do the translation part. For example, the text file in my original post isn't very large (relatively) but since it's from a mahjong game, no one is interested. I posted it on Romhacking forums and asked anyone there to give me a price on translating it but not a single person responded. Luckily, I've got the menus, locations and mahjong terms translated and (half-assed) inserted so I'll just carry on from there for now.

If its not snes/nes related, most of those guys at romhacking.net will ignore it. If its mostly spoken dialog, my brother might be able to help as he lives over there in Japan and that's what he does for a living. Finding the time for him to do it is a another thing....

[HercTNT]

It would be nice if there were some kind of "kickstarter" fund if you will for translations. I can see how money would really gum up the works though.

I'd much rather contribute to a kickstarter to translate a PCE RPG than something like Pier Solar ports. But it would need to have a translator and hacker lined up with a plan.

Completely agreed, i should have specified. Pce rpg's would be my top priority in such a scenario as well.

[ParanoiaDragon]

It would be nice if there were some kind of "kickstarter" fund if you will for translations. I can see how money would really gum up the works though.

I'd much rather contribute to a kickstarter to translate a PCE RPG than something like Pier Solar ports. But it would need to have a translator and hacker lined up with a plan.

Completely agreed, i should have specified. Pce rpg's would be my top priority in such a scenario as well.

I 3rd that motion!

[EsperKnight]

I'm jumping in late on this one but I don't think I could take money for guaranteeing that I hack/translate a project since due to real life you never know what would come up.  Donations I'm cool with (and would gladly except cause free money is good ) but with the caveat that I may never finish whatever I'm working on cause you know, real life and such   I love doing this stuff though so don't see myself stopping anytime soon

Now far as Anearth goes I did look at it a loooooooong time ago.  Here's my notes too just in case anyones curious as I don't mind who works on something as long as it gets done :

!!!!! -- Seiya Monogatari - Anearth Fantasy Stories --
Compression Text : Yes, LZSS
Example of text block : 275800 (LZSS block appears to start at 27580C, not sure about bytes before it though)
Compression Graphics :
Example of graphics block :
Notes :
*Letter loading is done at $72DC, uses 1 byte characters too that don't match up to SJIS, dictionary values as well
*Right before name entry screen shows, loads $DA000 ($6D/0000) with compressed block, after name entry its uncompressed to $F7009 (Routine around $56A6)
*Compressed block is loaded into $A000
*Buffer is 0xFFF in size, starts at 0xFEE

Now how easy it is from there to get the script, not sure as really all I did was quick looksy.  Also I looked at quite a few more too but sadly didn't write (type) them all down.  I may have them somewhere else though too... I tend to forget   (Some others: Eiyuu Densetsu II, Gulliver Boy, Mateki Densetsu Astralius, Private Eye Dol, all from the notes file I found).

Also, Xanadu 1/2 is probably one of the worst I've worked on far as extracting scripts go   Falcom in general is I think.  At least they keep the same compression scheme the same for all their games   So anything is easier then X1/2   (I throw in 1 as I believe I looked at it and it used the same stuff as X2... could be wrong though

I'll take a bit more of a look at Anearth and see what I come up with but as SamIAm said, you never know until you really start digging into it

It would be nice if there were some kind of "kickstarter" fund if you will for translations. I can see how money would really gum up the works though.

I'd much rather contribute to a kickstarter to translate a PCE RPG than something like Pier Solar ports. But it would need to have a translator and hacker lined up with a plan.

This would be awesome I think but I wonder how fast it'd get C&Ded since arguably what we do is not quite legal (depending on where you live REing something that is not yours is illegal).  Course if we could guarantee the rights for the project then that'd definitely work.  Definitely an awesome idea though

[HercTNT]

Well my theory would be to donate money in general. The idea being people donate for the sake of donating, and not expecting anything in return. The money would go to pay people for there time and not the project. I would also like to see a system set up were if the person or persons doing the project were not able to finish, would be open to passing the project on to new people willing to take up the torch. Its kinda rough ground to tread on though as people who do translations often feel like people are freeloaders. Yet also refuse compensation claiming its unethical. Makes it tough for those who do wanna help. I have often seen as well that people doing projects can allow the behavior of a mere few reflect poorly on the majority. A kickstarter in a tight knit community could go a long way to getting projects done, while minimizing the chances that a few bag eggs are gonna ruin the party for everyone else. Such a scenario could be beneficial to both parties. The translators feel appreciated and maybe even compensated, and the community hopefully eventually gets to play new games.

[EsperKnight]

Donations can help, very true.  I do think the kickstarter idea would be helpful but I just worry it also may attract the wrong crowd (those who do it just for money expecting to be compensated).  Course if we just kept it to those that are trustworthy somehow... but then again I guess those doing the work could setup a donate button on there site which would work as well.  Course this wouldn't persuade anyone to go after certain games.  Then again I'd hate for a translator to tackle something he doesn't like as that can lead to a poor translation.

Far as those people who think that people who enjoy their work are freeloaders, that's nuts to me.  Mind you I have seen it too that they think people don't appreciate what they've done due to some idiots posting bad stuff about them and their project and what not so I know what you mean.  To me though, as long as one person enjoys it other than myself, I'm happy

[HercTNT]

agreed, i'm more or less talking in general as i only know the story from my side of the fence. i have never been in your shoes or delt with the kinda stuff you guys deal with. Frankly i'm just tickled that there are people on this planet with the skills to translate. I just wish there were an easy comfortable solution for everyone to encourage more pce games to get translated. other systems have got alot of love, not so much for the pce.

[Djangoo2]

I have trouble with keeping a consistent nick for different forums, but I've done a lot of translations, mostly NES, and eventually I plan on giving the PCE some love. Unlike most translation hackers, I am/was a PCE nut and purchased a MIB Turbo Duo and a used PCFX, which I sold here years ago with somewhat shameful behavior. I already have a PCE project in the preliminary stages and I'll probably invest some time on it once I clear my plate a bit which is somewhat full at the moment.

Also, I think most translators/hackers do this for their own enjoyment, I personally treat my translations as a puzzle that needs to be solved, and to improve/maintain their language skills.

[EsperKnight]

I just wish there were an easy comfortable solution for everyone to encourage more pce games to get translated. other systems have got alot of love, not so much for the pce.

I'm not so sure that other system have gotten a lot of love.  From what I've noticed, really the SNES and NES are the ones who get the most love.  Maybe PSX next.  Otherwise sadly a lot of systems get neglected   Mind you this is just from personal observation not numbers so I could completely wrong.  (I do recall someone did look at the numbers and NES/SNES were the top two translation releases for Romhacking.net).

I think the issue is due to lack of documentation on how to hack on it, lack of tools, and the lack of nostalgia.  For me, I didn't grow up on the PCE but on the SNES and NES.  Once I saw it emulated though then I got really into it and kept coming back to it wanting to hack on it. Took me a long while to really dig into it and figure stuff out.  I'm still no where near as good as Bonknuts or others but at least I know my way around   Really though we have everything we need.  Documentation is there by Charles MacDonald and others.  Tools, you have Mednafen which is really all you need.  Nostalgia.. well...  Admittedly though the PCE is a pain to hack as there's no file system to speak so no easy extraction of files (although SNES or NES doesn't either...).  It's also hard to subtitle them too due to how VRAM is used and lack of VRAM.  Course we do have dubbing so that alleviates that or even text files which can work as well.  Possibly other options too that I may now know of.  Really though I think it comes down to nostalgia and just love of the system.  Never know though, as we get more games translated people may flock

[esteban]

I'd be willing to help out (PhotoShopping English versions of manual/maps/materials) and hosting and even $$$ within my budget. I'd be much happier supporting a good cause than, say, paying $80 now for games that I'll just buy next year.

[SamIAm]

I sat down and played about an hour each of the Saturn and PCE versions of AFS.

The PCE version has four distinct advantages:
1. AFS in general has way more charm as a quality late-era PCE game than as an otherwise unremarkable early Saturn game.
2. The music quality is better.
3. The sound effects aren't grating.
4. The character portraits are better.

However, the Saturn one has some advantages of its own:
1. Higher res, more colors, more tiles, more layering, light and water effects, etc. Side by side, it's a pretty stark difference.
2. Way, way more voice acting. All the music is chip-generated, so there's space on the CD.
3. Extra areas and content.
4. The text doesn't display in-sync with the voices. This makes things easier to work with for a translation.
5. The game is apparently a little better balanced, but I've only read that, not seen it. AFS sure takes its sweet time getting to an actual fight!

So there's that.

By the way, what about Cosmic Fantasy 4 part 2? That's supposed to be pretty good, and I read in another post by Tom that the text is uncompressed, which makes things a hell of a lot easier to hack.

EDIT: God, I can't freaking count.

[m1savage]

Having played through both versions now more times than a sane person should (would?) I'd say your points about The PCE version are pretty much spot on. The Saturn version does a couple of things different though I would say it's seems a bit easier rather than better balanced. Either way they're both fun.

I wish someone could tell me the whole story behind the demo version -



Who is TWI Soft? What were they planning on doing with this game in 1995?  It's fun to play around with as there are some very interesting screens -




Hope to hear the story on this someday.