What PCE games would you like to see translated?

[Arjak]

It's been about a month since this thread has been posted in, so I must ask: Has any progress been made on either the Ziria or Fighting Street II projects? I'm really excited about Ziria in particular, and I know there are some who are excited about the FS2 translation/upgrade.

Also, this just popped into my mind: Does anyone know anything about what's going on with the Dead of the Brain 1 & 2 translation? This is a project that I've been quite excited about for a while, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

Sorry to bug; I tend to get in an "Any progress? Any progress? Any progress?" mode when I'm excited about something...

[hcf]

<DREAM MODE>
I know that this is almost impossible, but let's dream: I would LOVE to see a version of the Sherlock Holmes games with translated audios or at least with English subtitles 

Why? Because in the Sherlock Holmes games (like in the Sherlock Holmes books) it is very important to catch every fineness of every sentence, and people who don't speak English (like me) have a very hard time trying to understand the dialogs.

So, I would love a translation of the audios... or a version of the games with English subtitles (many people have problems when listening, but no problem when reading English). Well, now let's wake up.
</END DREAM MODE>

[shubibiman]

Also, this just popped into my mind: Does anyone know anything about what's going on with the Dead of the Brain 1 & 2 translation? This is a project that I've been quite excited about for a while, but I haven't heard anything about it in a long time.

Hi, glad to read that someone's still waiting for the Dead of The Brain & translation. Actually, I think I'll finally be finished with typing in the script of DOTB 2 this week end. Yes, you are not misreading. It will certainly be complete tomorrow or on sunday. After, it will be up to Dave and Tom as I don't know how long it's gonna take to insert the text (I knwo that they finished inserting the script for Dea of the Brain 1).

I have to remind you that I'm talking about the French translation as I know that Dave is currently translating the game in English.

I could have done that long ago but I was working on a shitty computer, the program I'm working on crashed quite often and of course, I was quite busy in my personnal life.

Still, as I got a new computer and a very confortable desk and as I see that many of you would like a translated version of Gulliver Boy -a game that I really like and that I played through recently- I'd like to work on this one, hoping I will work faster than on the DOTB translation.

[Necromancer]

<DREAM MODE>
I know that this is almost impossible, but let's dream: I would LOVE to see a version of the Sherlock Holmes games with translated audios or at least with English subtitles 

Why? Because in the Sherlock Holmes games (like in the Sherlock Holmes books) it is very important to catch every fineness of every sentence, and people who don't speak English (like me) have a very hard time trying to understand the dialogs.

So, I would love a translation of the audios... or a version of the games with English subtitles (many people have problems when listening, but no problem when reading English). Well, now let's wake up.
</END DREAM MODE>

Surely you jest - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vols. I and II are in English.  In fact, they appeared on the TG-16 before they were released on the PCE.

[EsperKnight]

Just to give some updates, Ziria is still in progress, although it may be a bit slow for a bit.  Right now the translator is moving to Japan and will have some connection issues for a while but he'll still be working on the Ziria scripts.  I did dump everything out (I believe) or at least 95% of everything.  The bad thing is, it's well over 500+ files.  The good thing is, each file does not have a lot of text usually (maybe a paragraph or two).

Also, interesting about Gulliver Boy, as I recently looked at that and determined it's uncompressed.  I haven't dumped out any text or anything but I can do that for you shubibiman (I still need to look at the pointer system, but I don't think it'll be too bad, or at least as bad as Snatcher's, now that's an evil game).

Also, if anyone is interesting in translating any games but needs help with the hacking side of it, feel free to hit me up as I would love to see more games translated on the PCE.

[shubibiman]

It would be great if you could do that!

[nat]

Couldn't someone, after dumping the uncompressed Japanese text from a given game, just feed it through Babelfish or an equivalent software-based translator to get the general gist of the dialog, then tweak the English output by hand to flow more smoothly? It seems to me like you could do an entire game this way in less than a week.

[termis]

The babelfish idea isn't bad, but you'd still need a decent working knowledge of Japanese to really get the job done, sorting out all the weird results that it would spit out.

I can help a bit out a bit with translations during my break times.  My Japanese isn't super, but I can give it a shot to see if it's doable...  (I'd actually use a Japanese <-> Korean translator software to clear up the bits I don't understand directly -- the two languages are similar enough to get pretty accurate translations).  PM me if you have any text dump you want to pass on to me.

[Tom]

Couldn't someone, after dumping the uncompressed Japanese text from a given game, just feed it through Babelfish or an equivalent software-based translator to get the general gist of the dialog, then tweak the English output by hand to flow more smoothly? It seems to me like you could do an entire game this way in less than a week.

Not a good idea for so many reasons 

[nat]

For example? Really, one good reason is all I'm looking for, but I'd be interested in hearing about all of them.

The reason termis (and I) mentioned is really the only argument I can think of against it, and even that factor could be pretty much nullified by having a real human edit for proper grammar. Even in those extreme "weird results" cases, you can still comprehend the meaning behind the original text 95% of the time.

[shubibiman]

When I started translating DOTB 1&2, I had a try with Babelfish and it took me longer to try and connect what was supposed to be said than translating directly by myself. Notwithstanding that it wouldn't have helped me to improve in japanese, which also was one of the main reasons why I wanted to translate that game.

[Arkhan]

One other direct translation problem is something Ill always remember from the making of Lunar disc for PSX in which the guy says they have to rework some things that make no sense during translation, like rhymie words in Japanese that turn into something like

PICKLE!? I THOUGHT YOU SAID BASEBALL!

[termis]

Translating to get the gist of the meaning isn't too difficult.  On the other hand, accurate & smooth-flowing translations need to take the context & culture into consideration, and that's a helluva a lot more time consuming.  Basically, I can't imagine translating a text-heavy RPG in a short time span unless the translator already knows the storyline inside and out, and don't need to refer back to anything by having to play the game himself in the first place.

Of course, software translators don't take any of the above into account.  It'll also easily break when you start using slang, idioms, different dialect, etc.  Or worse yet, it can spit out results that are completely incoherent and confusing -- and as shubibiman said, may take more time to fix rather than doing it from scratch (at least for anyone that has enough knowledge to even attempt translating in the first place).

[Tom]

For example? Really, one good reason is all I'm looking for, but I'd be interested in hearing about all of them.

The reason termis (and I) mentioned is really the only argument I can think of against it, and even that factor could be pretty much nullified by having a real human edit for proper grammar. Even in those extreme "weird results" cases, you can still comprehend the meaning behind the original text 95% of the time.

 One really great reason is that babelfish isn't great at Japanese translating. You have to translate what it translates, but not understanding the source - you can't really reliably do that. And for the bits and pieces that you *might* get correct, without knowing the original language - you're not going to get the different level of complexities of the sentences/conversation/dialog. Stuff that's part of character development and story building. After all, an RPG/adventure's strong point is the dialog. The closest analogy I can give is; someone trying to translate Shakespeare to modern English but never had experience with old English (let alone his poetic writing/dialog style) or manuals or guides or anything. You might get the gist of it sometimes, but you lose sooo much in the hackjob process. Not only that, but the Japanese language is itself heavily compressed by reference and especially implied meaning (not to mention common phrases compressed down to single words like "here/there" instead of "here/there, take/catch/put/etc this"). More so than English. Add this on top the fact that most scripts are stored in strings or blocks and majority of the time - not in order. That makes it really hard to understand specific things being talked about, and easy to misinterpret - even for skilled translators because you don't have the context which the dialog is referring to (this is more of a problem in Japanese than in English). Playing through FF7 (PC version) currently, I can see lots of translation mistakes in the small dialog parts. And that's a professional translation. Stuff that often shows up in patch/block translations - like "here" instead of "there" and other incorrect or awkward referencing. I even had this problem in a few areas in my first script of Spriggan Mark 2 couple of years back. And the translator knew Japanese. He even played the learn to see the script in order of appearance.

 There's a reason why good translators are sought after for ROM/game translation. Game/rom translators often play through the game in Japanese and English (their translated work), to capture the correct meaning of the dialog. Babelfish projects are the laughing stock of romhacking scenes. You'll receive nothing but scorn for doing such a project with babelfish and for good reason that I mentioned above. Babelfish is for websites and a lesser extent simple manuals.

[shubibiman]

Tom said it all.