Legend of Xanadu II Translation Patch announced!

[SamIAm]

Anearth Fantasy Stories is one of those PCE games people talk about a lot as being prime for translation. Is there anything that makes this version better than the Saturn one? Is it just 16-bit charm? I prefer the Sega CD Lunars for that reason, so it's a good one.

I loved ToP, so maybe I'll check this out.

[m1savage]

The two versions of Anearth are very similar. The Saturn one has a couple of small scenes added in, but I prefer the music in the PCE version. If you have the ability to play either one then the Saturn version has the advantage of being much cheaper to buy.

I've got $20 that says you can't translate PCE Anearth next! 

[Black Tiger]

Anearth Fantasy Stories is one of those PCE games people talk about a lot as being prime for translation. Is there anything that makes this version better than the Saturn one? Is it just 16-bit charm? I prefer the Sega CD Lunars for that reason, so it's a good one.

I loved ToP, so maybe I'll check this out.

Unfortunately (for me), I have yet to play through both versions of Anearth Fantasy Stories, even though I own them and m1savage has made the greatest walkthrough possible for the PCE version.

From what I've seen, the Saturn version has replaced at least some of the cinemas with real-time SNES-style sequences. The Saturn version also has more 32-bit aesthetics for the battles and I believe poorer character art. I'd rather play a fully 16-bit version of a game than a mixed bag, but I'm glad that both exist.

The game most deserving of a translation because its worthy and would benefit the most gameplay-wise because of the ridiculous quest chains... Is Legend of Xanadu.

The game most deserving of a translation because of quality and the deep language language barrier/cultural subtleties/humor/etc is TM Fuun Kabuki Den. Kabukiden is also one of the best candidates for a translation because every single piece of dialogue is subtitled and a full translation would require zero voice dubbing.

Of course, I know that programmers are more concerned with how easy it would be to extract and reinsert any game's text.

[SamIAm]

Cool, thanks for the info.

Certainly, hacking is a big issue to overcome. Getting the script back into Xanadu II is going to be one of the most challenging hurdles in the project, given how strangely it's stored. On the other hand, apparently the first Xanadu game uses similar storage methods, so Esperknight might be able to crack it really quickly if the need arises.

Legend of Xanadu...right off the bat, there appears to be WAY more voice acting. What's more, a lot of it is stored as ADPCM, so it would potentially be much harder to work with for a dub. However, I do agree that it would be a totally great game for a translation.

Tengai Makyo Manji Maru and Kabukiden could really surprise people with how deep and characterized their worlds are. I don't know about Kabukiden, but Manji Maru has three problems: 1) The script must be effin' huge. 2) The game itself is so long that it would be really hard to get totally familiar with it and play-test it. 3) The language is psudo-old style/dialectic Japanese, with tons of culture references that you pretty much need to be Japanese to get. For that last point, I bet a native Japanese writing somewhat funky English would make a better translation just because he'll really understand everything.

It's exciting to talk about this stuff, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. For now, I need to finish Xanadu II. On that note: I finished first drafts of all the latest materials! There's only about 25% of the script left to pull out. The dub is almost ready to come together as well. I hope we kick some butt this month and start play-testing in early June. That's just my hope, though.

[ParanoiaDragon]

For Manji Maru, just talk to ....Konami I guess   I'm sure they have an unfinished(maybe finished) translation for either the Turbo version or the DS version, as both were in the works at some time, so, just contact them, I'm sure they'll fork over anything you need

[SamIAm]

For Manji Maru, just talk to ....Konami I guess   I'm sure they have an unfinished(maybe finished) translation for either the Turbo version or the DS version, as both were in the works at some time, so, just contact them, I'm sure they'll fork over anything you need

Was Konami handling the port? Anyway, Manji Maru is so huge and complicated that it's the kind of thing you'd pay a staff of professionals to translate/reprogram full-time for a while. I guess it wouldn't be too bad if we could get a nice, orderly script dump and the coding turned out to be easy.

I may have said this before, but Manji Maru seems to be by far the most well-regarded PCE-CD RPG in Japan. If you search the Japanese internet, you immediately see people gushing over it like it's Chrono Trigger, even over Ys. It's be fantastic to get the original PCE version in English, but holy hell, what an undertaking it would be.

[Black Tiger]

Was Konami handling the port? Anyway, Manji Maru is so huge and complicated that it's the kind of thing you'd pay a staff of professionals to translate/reprogram full-time for a while. I guess it wouldn't be too bad if we could get a nice, orderly script dump and the coding turned out to be easy.

I may have said this before, but Manji Maru seems to be by far the most well-regarded PCE-CD RPG in Japan. If you search the Japanese internet, you immediately see people gushing over it like it's Chrono Trigger, even over Ys. It's be fantastic to get the original PCE version in English, but holy hell, what an undertaking it would be.

TMII has been the most popular/highest regarded PCE game in general since it was released. Well, by PCE fans at least. I'm sure that there are many Castlevania fans who don't know what a PCE is who think that Drac X is amazing, even if they have never played it.

TMII has most of its voice work subtitled too, so that should be a big incentive to anyone interested in translating it. I think that only major cinemas lack subtitles. Kabukiden is every bit as good of a game, with much higher production values and a lot less length (and is fully subtitled, short of the opening cinemas). So it may be more attractive.

[SamIAm]

Hmm. What's the clear-time for Kabukiden like? When I read about Manji Maru taking 70+ hours for typical players, I thought it was a bit much for me personally.

I've been reading about it a bit, and one of the biggest criticisms is that you kind of need to know the first two games to fully enjoy Kabukiden's story. Everyone says it's basically entertaining, though. What did you think?

Pardon me while I burn myself a little sample.

[SamIAm]

Jeez...as usual, Tengai Makyo is Japanese as hell. Writing Kabukiden in a coherent, accurate, and entertaining English style would be a huge challenge.

Kabuki himself is pretty loud and over-the-top. I was a little stunned when he made a joke in the first five minutes of the game after reading a letter from Manji Maru, the lead character of TMII: "That little brat! He hasn't changed at all! I mean, is the guy still sucking on his mom's tits, or what?"

Stuff like that raises certain translation dilemmas that I haven't really had to deal with so far.  

And by the way, the big cutscenes look like they don't have any subtitles.  
edit: Oh, it's just the opening scenes?

[ParanoiaDragon]

I think Hudon was still in control when they were "talking" about bringing over the DS version(which is basically the PCE version, with some updated tunes where the PSG was IIRC), but, legally, I'd say it's all in Konami's hands now.  Who knows how far....if at all, TTI got with the Turbo version or Hudson got with the DS version.

[termis]

...Kabukiden is also one of the best candidates for a translation because every single piece of dialogue is subtitled and a full translation would require zero voice dubbing.

Jeez...as usual, Tengai Makyo is Japanese as hell...

...the big cutscenes look like they don't have any subtitles. 

As far as I know, the only PCE CD RPG I've personally played to date where ALL voices, from intro to ending, were accompanied with text is Dragon Knight III (maybe the prequels as well, but I've yet to play those).  That would actually be a pretty awesome project if it ever panned out (I actually mentioned that in my review of the game too).  The game is short & sweet, and gamers would get sooooo much more out of the game if they could understand all the jokes the game dishes out.

[SamIAm]

Dragon Knight III

Well, why don't you put up a want-ad on romhacking.net and see if someone will dump the script for you to translate? If you really love the game, it's easy to work on.

[termis]

Hm...  I've never visited, but I'll give it a go.  Just registered.

[Bonknuts]

Hm...  I've never visited, but I'll give it a go.  Just registered.

 If you do and you put a team together, I can help out. Console code print routines and string read routines are my specialty for PCE (for making the inserted script actually look good and not have poor "tracking" you normally get if you don't change the print routine).

[ParanoiaDragon]

It's probably very remote, but I wonder if there's even a slight possibility that the English version of Dragon Knight 3 on PC(Knights of Xentar or somethign like that?) uses the same routines or whatever, & the script could be dumped from that & inserted into the PCE version   I'll assume it can't happen, but, figured I'd throw it out there just incase.