Author
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Topic: Article on translation hacking (Read 2333 times)
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Szczepaniak
Newbie
Posts: 25
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Hi all
I've been working on this a fair bit, and also have a proper deadline now: 20th April. 
Just a quick question, mainly for curiosity.
Why
do people change the Japanese fonts into English ones? Don't most
(all?) Japanese games come with a Romaji font anyway, as standard, for
some words? I had always thought that the majority of Japanese games
contained both fonts. At the very least, I've seen oiginal Japanese
games containing a full Romaji alphabet (such as at naming screens).
As everyone knows, when you change the font but not the used text, you end up with "cavespeak".
Wouldn't
it be possible to translate a Japanese game using the pre-existing
Romaji font? Thereby having pieces in English, and others in their
original Japanese?
I may be horribly wrong with this assumption, so apologies in advance.
As
an interesting side note, I've found that in the early days of the MSX
scene they'd sometimes change the tile graphics for the Japanese Kana
symbols into their phonetic equivalent.
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Shih Tzu
Jr. Member
Posts: 51
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Why
do people change the Japanese fonts into English ones? Don't most
(all?) Japanese games come with a Romaji font anyway, as standard, for
some words? I had always thought that the majority of Japanese games
contained both fonts.
My understanding is that most don't,
actually, especially the older games. With the newer ones (like
some of the late-gen SFC titles), yes, there are occasionally English
fonts included, but often it's only capital letters, or the font is
fixed-width and looks horrible, or it's only available for some
routines (dialogue but not menus, say), or it's just simply not a good
font for an English version of the game. I'm sure people who have
more hacking experience can elaborate. |
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Szczepaniak
Newbie
Posts: 25
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Ahh, all very good explanations.
Many thanks for giving some "official" reasons.
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KaioShin
Romhacking.net Staff
Sr. Member
Gender: 
Posts: 460
Location: Germany
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Here is a screenshot of how crappy a latin font included in a japanese game looks, when you try to use it 
Yes, there are no lower case chars available 
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Ryusui
Full Member
Posts: 162
Huzzah!
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Sylvanian Families 5 does that, unfortunately, which makes my life a lot harder. >_>
Once
upon a time, I sincerely wondered how games like Harvest Moon: Friends
of Mineral Town for GBA and the translation patch for Front Mission 1
could display English and Japanese text (both games, when I played
them, had inexplicable untranslated text blocks in the script). My VWF
routine in SF1 can do just that, albeit that's much to do with how the
game has a piece of the ASCII charset, lowercase, punctuation and all,
before the Japanese text.
Look at some of the old screenshots on
my blog for proof. The old English font is ugly as hell (possibly
because it was originally used almost exclusively for error messages),
but it was indeed in there. |
Kodoku no mune ni hi wo tomoshi, migotoba ni waga misomeru...
Eccentric fan extraordinaire. I'm all over the place if you look.
YOU WON'T SEE ME COMING...TILL I STRIKE!
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KingMike
Sr. Member
Posts: 288
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Also, a good example why resizing is necessary:
Yume Meikyuu - Kigurumi no Daibouken for the Super Famicom/Nintendo.
Replacing text with English, using the uppercase font in the game, and the original font routine.
And
how it appears in the translation patch "Dream Maze - The Kigurumi
Adventure". After resizing the font. and making the letters VWF,
meaning they only take up the amount of screen space necessary.
Notice how less than half of the text fits in the second screenshot.
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Szczepaniak
Newbie
Posts: 25
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Almost finished with this, and I'll think you will all be pleased. Hope to hand it in by the end of the week.
Btw,
if you guys have any specific screens you think would go well with it,
post em up, otherwise I'll nab a few from around the site, and take a
couple of screengrabs (a massive thanks to whoever took those humorous
ToP images!). If I need specifics at the 11th hour, I'll also drop by.
Also, I describe you all as lexical guerrillas at one point. 
Special
thanks to everyone who helped, answered questions, and provided
screens. This is the most fun I've had with work in ages. And even if I
didn't respond directly to you or take up offers to email (like the
Gyakuten Saiban guy who posted, hi!), or even use the info you
specifically gave, it all proved a fascinating read.
Finally,
just to warn you, I'm going to delete this topic once I'm finished, so
you better archive it on your home PCs if you want it. I've got an
archive myself, but I don't want it publicly visible once I hand the
feature in. (can regular people even delete their own topics? If not,
I'll PM one of the admin when the time comes)
EDIT:
Actually, if you guys have the following screens close to hand, that would be awesome:
*
Assault Suits Valken with English subtitles, an action scene with those
little dialogue boxes and faces (or maybe the infamous ending, but
anything will do).
* A really good example of cavespeak, maybe a
dialogue box with both translated English AND cavespeak. I've got one
of FF1, but it's not the best.
* A screenshot of a previously
English-only game, that's been translated into Japanese. For example
the SMB example mentioned previously (I'm guessing that would be the
princess text?), or anything else really. I've run out of space, so am
trying to squeeze these tidbits of info into the screen caps.
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Gideon Zhi
Sr. Member
Gender:
Posts: 296
Ruins Chaser
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Here are a few favorites from games I've worked on. Pick and choose Full credits for the projects can be found in their respective readmes, of course.
Assault
Suits Valken: a stellar example of a game that truly deserved a
retranslation. The text events that display in these screenshots were
not in the US version at all. (Text translation by Ian Kelley.)
 
Gunman's
Proof: A quaint little Zelda clone. The emphasis is heavily on action
and Earthbound-style humor. (Text translation by Shih Tzu.)
 
Shin Megami Tensei 2: Possibly controversial, in that you kill the Christian god. Whoops. (Text translation by Ian Kelley.)
 
Shiren the Wanderer: Great if you like roguelikes. (Text translation by Ian Kelley.)
 
Starfox 2: Relevant because the game was never officially released. (Text translation by satsu.)
 
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Szczepaniak
Newbie
Posts: 25
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You even provided captions, thanks, that's very kind of you. I'll make sure at least one of those gets in.
Btw, I edited my original post slightly.
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Gideon Zhi
Sr. Member
Gender:
Posts: 296
Ruins Chaser
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I'll browse through agtp's ftp to see what I can find for cavespeak. One moment...
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Szczepaniak
Newbie
Posts: 25
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No problem. I'm working late tonight anyway.
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