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Post subject: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:58 pm 
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Has anyone here ever checked out this site before? It talks about various translations in video games and the changes that were made when localized and brought overseas in English. Often times, there will also be articles that point out mistakes that were made, especially in low budget translation efforts. For example, here is how "Ragnarok" became "Kangaroo" in the GBA port of Tales of Phantasia:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/how-did-a-kangaroo-sneak-into-tales-of-phantasia/

Which just goes to show that you shouldn't always rely on auto-correct without checking the spelling yourself as well. There's a lot of good articles to read, even some that aren't about games. And as most retro gamers would know, Breath of Fire II is quite infamous for its terrible translation. This site actually has multiple articles dedicated to it, here's the one that I would recommend the most:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/this-be-bad-translation-12-breath-of-fire-ii/

The best part is that the the owner of the site is none other than Clyde Mandelin himself, who is better known as "Tomato" in the fan translation community. He's the one that worked on the Bahamut Lagoon and Star Ocean translations along with the well known group Dejap back in the early 2000s. Be sure to check out this site if there's ever something you were curious about how your favorite games were translated or are just looking for a funny or interesting article to read.
https://legendsoflocalization.com/about/


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 7:26 am 
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I've definitely read a few articles on there, I think about Mother 3 and one of the Final Fantasy games, but this is a reminder to dig around there more.

This one alone has already sold me on playing DeJap's translation of Phantasia. :lol:


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2021 7:43 am 
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Yup, that certainly was an eye catching line when I first played Dejap's Tales of Phantasia translation back in 2001, when it was first released. Bahamut Lagoon and Star Ocean were also some excellent translations, along with LNF's translation of Seiken Densetsu 3.

Speaking of which, it looks like D-D's Daikaijuu Monogatari translation is mentioned at this site too, and not in the best light it seems:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/game-translations-that-turned-surprisingly-political/

And of course, the various snowflakes on the web couldn't help but complain as well. Here's two examples of what I mean:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/9j6zr7/dynamic_designs_just_dropped_another_new_snes/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/jsujgi/snes_rpg_super_shell_monsters_story_ii/


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2021 3:20 pm 
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Recca wrote:
Yup, that certainly was an eye catching line when I first played Dejap's Tales of Phantasia translation back in 2001, when it was first released. Bahamut Lagoon and Star Ocean were also some excellent translations, along with LNF's translation of Seiken Densetsu 3.

Speaking of which, it looks like D-D's Daikaijuu Monogatari translation is mentioned at this site too, and not in the best light it seems:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/game-translations-that-turned-surprisingly-political/

And of course, the various snowflakes on the web couldn't help but complain as well. Here's two examples of what I mean:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/9j6zr7/dynamic_designs_just_dropped_another_new_snes/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/jsujgi/snes_rpg_super_shell_monsters_story_ii/


Hey, isn't that first reddit comment mine? :D My purpose with that comment was exactly the opposite, I was actually defending DD. If anything of what I said in that comment was misunderstood, I apologize and assure you it wasn't my intention, remember I'm not a native speaker. That said, I hope you're all doing well ;)


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2021 9:52 pm 
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Talk about misunderstandings, I wasn't actually trying to blame you. You were indeed defending our group which was a very nice gesture on your part. I was referring to some of the comments made by the other users there that were jumping to conclusions by assuming that all our translations have "political rants" in them as one user stated. Besides the first Daikaijuu Monogatari game, I don't recall other such "rants" appearing in any other D-D project that I'm aware of. Regardless, there were only a few such lines anyway, which I thought were kind of funny. I really don't know why it caused such a negative reaction in so many people. It looks like we reached a point of intolerance in this world where no amount of political humor in games is acceptable anymore it seems.

From what I recall reading, most of the original Japanese lines were pretty bland and typical. Wildbill tried to spice up the dialogue a bit which didn't resonate well with quite a few people apparently. Having an opinion is one thing, but to attack people online such as Wildbill and Tom and to tell others not to play their translations for such trivial reasons is beyond foolish. I honestly don't know what's going on with the people in this world anymore...

Anyway, thanks for your support as always. And don't worry, your English is perfect. It's actually my second language as well (playing RPGs at a young age actually helped me to become fluent all those years ago). :)

By the way, are you the same person as "aqualung" on RHDN? If so, good luck on your Jungle Wars 2 translation effort! If you like, perhaps we could help you out if possible. Sadly though, it seems that we now lack both a dedicated romhacker and translator (Bongo` has retired and Filler is usually busy with his own projects). I only know a bit of Japanese, so I doubt that I could be of much help, but perhaps someone else here could help you out somehow if possible.


"Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind."
- Edward D. Morrison (Tales of Phantasia)


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Tue May 18, 2021 11:06 pm 
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akualung wrote:
Recca wrote:
Yup, that certainly was an eye catching line when I first played Dejap's Tales of Phantasia translation back in 2001, when it was first released. Bahamut Lagoon and Star Ocean were also some excellent translations, along with LNF's translation of Seiken Densetsu 3.

Speaking of which, it looks like D-D's Daikaijuu Monogatari translation is mentioned at this site too, and not in the best light it seems:
https://legendsoflocalization.com/game-translations-that-turned-surprisingly-political/

And of course, the various snowflakes on the web couldn't help but complain as well. Here's two examples of what I mean:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/9j6zr7/dynamic_designs_just_dropped_another_new_snes/
https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/jsujgi/snes_rpg_super_shell_monsters_story_ii/


Hey, isn't that first reddit comment mine? :D My purpose with that comment was exactly the opposite, I was actually defending DD. If anything of what I said in that comment was misunderstood, I apologize and assure you it wasn't my intention, remember I'm not a native speaker. That said, I hope you're all doing well ;)
I read your reddit comment a while back and understood your supporting tone clearly, and we all appreciate it. Our advice to those who prefer a different style of storytelling than ours is always the same. "Toss our work aside and go play something else." We also appreciate all of your help with past testing. Hope you're doing okay, too.


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Wed May 19, 2021 11:43 pm 
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Recca wrote:
Talk about misunderstandings, I wasn't actually trying to blame you. You were indeed defending our group which was a very nice gesture on your part. I was referring to some of the comments made by the other users there that were jumping to conclusions by assuming that all our translations have "political rants" in them as one user stated. Besides the first Daikaijuu Monogatari game, I don't recall other such "rants" appearing in any other D-D project that I'm aware of. Regardless, there were only a few such lines anyway, which I thought were kind of funny. I really don't know why it caused such a negative reaction in so many people. It looks like we reached a point of intolerance in this world where no amount of political humor in games is acceptable anymore it seems.

From what I recall reading, most of the original Japanese lines were pretty bland and typical. Wildbill tried to spice up the dialogue a bit which didn't resonate well with quite a few people apparently. Having an opinion is one thing, but to attack people online such as Wildbill and Tom and to tell others not to play their translations for such trivial reasons is beyond foolish. I honestly don't know what's going on with the people in this world anymore...

Anyway, thanks for your support as always. And don't worry, your English is perfect. It's actually my second language as well (playing RPGs at a young age actually helped me to become fluent all those years ago). :)

By the way, are you the same person as "aqualung" on RHDN? If so, good luck on your Jungle Wars 2 translation effort! If you like, perhaps we could help you out if possible. Sadly though, it seems that we now lack both a dedicated romhacker and translator (Bongo` has retired and Filler is usually busy with his own projects). I only know a bit of Japanese, so I doubt that I could be of much help, but perhaps someone else here could help you out somehow if possible.



Yeah, I imagined you weren't referring to my post but to other ones in those reddit threads, but as I'm always so insecure about myself, I wanted to clarify in case I phrased something poorly and was misunderstood, or whatever, hehehe.

It's really sad what the translation scene has become nowadays, but it can be helped. I've had fun with lots of games which had ideologies injected into them, both left and right-wing. I never cared too much about that as long as the game is good. Frankly, I think these people who shut the door to any audiovisual content if it doesn't abide 100% with their own idological beliefs, should grow up a little.

As for Aqualung in rhdn, yes, it's me as well. I started that Jungle Wars 2 translation by using a modified snes emulator called Wanderbar. But when the Goemon 3 incident happened, I lost a little my will to continue. As I was translating it mostly for personal use anyways, I ended up playing JW2 on my cellphone, directly in Japanese and assuming I wouldn't catch the plot 100%, so I could cross it off from my list of untranslated games I wanted to try someday.

Recently, I've changed my approach and, while still using Wanderbar, I've focused on creating routines to directly extract the dialogs from the game in real-time during playtime, as I show in this video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HcvRj1cL39M&t=230s

So, rather than directly translating them, I just try to make it easier for others to copy the dialogs and use an AI translator to translate them themselves, (or save it to a file, etc). I'm in fact playing Madara 2 (other game I had in my pending list) using DeepL and it's really playable. Not as polished as a real fantranslation nor as comfortable, but beatable if you know at least enough Japanese to navigate through the items and skills/equipment menus. This approach can be useful as some kind of last resort when a game has no translation of any kind planned.

I intend to keep making text hooks (if I have the skills and I'm not just been lucky so far) for other untranslated snes rpgs like Shin Momotarou, Verne World, Kabuki Rocks, etc.

Wildbill wrote:
I read your reddit comment a while back and understood your supporting tone clearly, and we all appreciate it. Our advice to those who prefer a different style of storytelling than ours is always the same. "Toss our work aside and go play something else." We also appreciate all of your help with past testing. Hope you're doing okay, too.


My pleasure! :) I look forward to Oni 2 and the first Odysselya game, both look really good! You're technically the only translation group now still actively dedicated to snes rpgs (AGTP too, supposedly, but as their news updates are so scarce, I have practically ruled them out... Last I knew, they had picked up Gokinjo Boukentai and Grandhistoria).


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Thu May 20, 2021 4:50 am 
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akualung wrote:
My pleasure! :) I look forward to Oni 2 and the first Odysselya game, both look really good! You're technically the only translation group now still actively dedicated to snes rpgs.
So, if we can iron out the crash bugs on Oni-II and Ody-I, I would appreciate you joining Recca and the rest of us testing those. Both are dialogue intensive with convoluted story lines and several twists. Extra eyes and all of that, you know!

As for Madara-2, I don't know if someone already has it on their 20-year "gonna do it someday" list, but it's mixed Kanji/Kana, and if I had Japanese dumps and and an insertion framework, I could use my newly-developed but laborious techniques to translate it and do at least and alpha build English patch. It has 4-line support with full-width dialogue boxes. VWF would be super, and Taskforce would need to design a font. The multi-colored script reminds me of the Aretha series, and it appears to use up to a four-line scrolling config with [key] stops for absorbing the information before continuing.

When I viewed a Japanese video of Madara-2, I must admit when I saw a modern town with automobiles, I was a bit put off, but I watched one man battle snake and spider monsters inside a temple of some sort and thought, "Okay, it still looks like a traditional turn-based RPG." We would just need everything I outlined above, along with assembly support for me to coordinate this project. Sadly, I believe we've just about run out our string, as people back in cowboy country where I came from like to say.

As for the negative nabobs, it's mentally healthier just to avoid the venues they frequent. You can be yourself around here. Never feel like you must walk on eggshells here. Happy gaming!


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2021 12:34 am 
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Wildbill wrote:
akualung wrote:
My pleasure! :) I look forward to Oni 2 and the first Odysselya game, both look really good! You're technically the only translation group now still actively dedicated to snes rpgs.
So, if we can iron out the crash bugs on Oni-II and Ody-I, I would appreciate you joining Recca and the rest of us testing those. Both are dialogue intensive with convoluted story lines and several twists. Extra eyes and all of that, you know!

As for Madara-2, I don't know if someone already has it on their 20-year "gonna do it someday" list, but it's mixed Kanji/Kana, and if I had Japanese dumps and and an insertion framework, I could use my newly-developed but laborious techniques to translate it and do at least and alpha build English patch. It has 4-line support with full-width dialogue boxes. VWF would be super, and Taskforce would need to design a font. The multi-colored script reminds me of the Aretha series, and it appears to use up to a four-line scrolling config with [key] stops for absorbing the information before continuing.

When I viewed a Japanese video of Madara-2, I must admit when I saw a modern town with automobiles, I was a bit put off, but I watched one man battle snake and spider monsters inside a temple of some sort and thought, "Okay, it still looks like a traditional turn-based RPG." We would just need everything I outlined above, along with assembly support for me to coordinate this project. Sadly, I believe we've just about run out our string, as people back in cowboy country where I came from like to say.

As for the negative nabobs, it's mentally healthier just to avoid the venues they frequent. You can be yourself around here. Never feel like you must walk on eggshells here. Happy gaming!


I'll gladly take part in the betatesting if I'm giving the chance again. In fact, if you guys want, you could divide the testing process into several passes so as not all the testers are playing at the same time and thus "butting their heads" reporting the same bugs. But it's only a suggestion :)

Yeah, Madara 2 ends being a medieval/eastern mixed setting rpg after the first two hours or so. The game is enjoyable, though not a masterpiece. Very similar in style to Tenshi no Uta, a game I enjoyed but let me expecting a little more out of it.

I remember reading something back at Agtp's site about the text from Madara 2 being compressed, but I don't understand very much about what that means (with Wanderbar, I grab the text directly from RAM before it's printed at the screen, so I don't have to deal with any of the romhacking mumbo jumbo).

One game with a modern era setting I played last year that happened to have a well developed story (at least to my eyes) was Idea no Hi. I played it to test the results of using OCR soft and AI translation, and in the meantime I took the chance to translate as much as I could of the main plot's dialogs and left it available at rhdn in text files. It's a pity the graphics look dated and the inventory management is convoluted, but it compensates all that by having an interesting and relatively mature story, with characters that have development (you play each one's backstory before they join your party).


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Post subject: Re: Legends of Localization
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2021 12:30 pm 
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tcaud wrote:
Hate to break it to you but the SNES masterpieces are already accounted for. The remaining games are interesting but are nothing close to "masterpiece" level. SuperFamicom RPG blog has covered a bunch of 'em and well he don't have glowing reviews for many. Most translators have moved on to PSX where there really are a lot of interesting and perhaps even spectacular games remaining to be translated. Most remaining games are just that though: interesting but not something you'd really want to spend 20 hours playing through. Something you might be willing to watch someone else play though if they translated as they played.


Masterpiece is a relative term to whomever views a product as such. I'll give you a great example. Most people think Chrono Trigger was a masterpiece. I think it was mediocre at best. I'd have given it 4 out of 10 stars if I were to review it. Many people think Villgust was a terrible game. That doesn't mean I haven't talked to people that enjoyed playing it. And I certainly don't consider it a waste of time that I worked on the translation for it because the general consensus is it was. Just because there are mostly what many would consider mediocre RPG's left on SNES at this point doesn't mean they aren't worthy of someone translating them. One man's trash is another man's treasure as they say. And I actually disagree that there is only mediocre games left anyway. There are still quite a few great games that need to be released. I'm not saying someone might or might not be working on them but they can't be played in English at this point so they count. Either way, I'll form my own opinion on if I find the time worth while to work on a game, not some random person, group or news site on the internet and I would hope all translation hobbyists do the same. Just because you don't want to invest 20 hours into a game doesn't mean someone else doesn't nor does it mean I or others shouldn't want to invest hundreds or thousands of hours working on the translation of it if we find it worth while.


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