Phantasy Star Generation:1 English translation project

[Zucca]

[LegoMuskCat]

Would it be worth delaying the text encoding for a few months until I develop a main font with wider lowercase letters? Since lower-case letters have a separate hex code,it would be prudent to wait if lowercase was decided upon. Since this is a translation meant for all of us,I'd like to know what you guys think.

My vote is yes. Personally, I feel that lowercase font would make it look nicer overall. However, I'm just one person. =p I dunno how everyone else feels, but since no one else is voicing any concern, maybe it's not that big of a deal.

Would orakio_rob's team happen to have some font already made for this purpose? If so, it'd be a time saver.

[spookeydonkey]

if it's possible i say rip a font from an existing game that is compatible for use.

[spookeydonkey]

oh, right if you need i can possibly translate monster names/item names, MAYBE some short passages. however, i won't be able to do anything until i get a new pc, (hopefully this month) and i'm currently moving to a nicer, bigger place (this week).

[Kyence]

Hello,it's been a while. I've been working with orakio_rob,but the project has stalled a bit. The decompression algorithm ignitz found for the text doesn't quite work completely with the images. Transferring the hex code into a PPM image using GIMP, I can generally visualize the data in triplicate (my guess for three color channels). I have had fun playing with different compressions including LZO and RLE, but none of them seem to work well enough for the game to recognize. Placing the decompressed images is possible,but they are image maps, and tons of nested pointers in the game that I can't find. Until a better understanding of the image decompression is learned, I am going to put that aside for now and focus on the text. Otherwise I'll provide some translated screenshots of some menu buttons to help along.


Based on feedback from last time, the bulk of my efforts was to avoid using the in-game lowercase text while finding a way to insert a new font set. I haven't got anything to work yet, so here's an example of a previous screenshot with the in-game lowercase letters instead. Note that I had to change "Will" to "being" since their is no lowercase "w" in the game maps.

Is this font decent enough and more comfortable to read than the all capital letters? I'll probably leave most save and game messages in capitals; the items/spells and item/spell descriptions I'm not sure yet. What do you all think?

[Black Sword]

I honestly like the new font. It looks perfect to me. I think items and spells can be capitals, while their descriptions can be lowercase, but that's just me.

[mikepjr]

Personally i prefer the name Palma to Parma.. and Dezoris to Dezolis.
By the way, i have bot games in ISO format on my computer, been playing them.. but part 1 has been changed in ways that are confusing me, i dunno how to get the roadpass now lol.

I hope this translation goes through.

[Kyence]

I am just about done with the Camineet text. I am not sure how to go with the planet names.
I am happy with Motavia, it is the way I have always seen it spelled. Parma/Palma and Dezoris/Dezolis...I've seen them both ways and can't remember which spellings are preferred. It would be better to get that straightened out now, haha.

I can already see that this game definitely has more character development. The NPCs have lots more to say and the main characters reply to them. Myau is quite the talky, snarky muskcat in this one. A fun little treat is when you get each party member aand take them to Alis's home, there is a new dialogue.
There are some mini-quests in the game. I won't spoil them, but you have to talk to people several times throughout the game. Camineet has many examples of this.
Due to the amount of text this will take a while, but I have figured out the text insertion and will pass it along to orakiorob. I sent him my findings a while ago, but only this past week did I fully figure it out.

[Black Sword]

In PSI, it's Palma, Motavia, and Dezolis.

Kyence, when you finish, why don't you also publish the scripts and have them put on PS Cave? It'd be a handy resource!

[BenoitRen]

Actually, it's Dezoris in Phantasy Star. You really need to start playing that game, Black Sword.

[mikepjr]

I always thought of it like this. Palma is a tropical planet.. hence.. Palma.. like.. Palm tree... Dezoris.. something about saying it with an R rather than an L.. always sounded better.. but for some reason.. by the time part 4 came out.. they ended up switching the L and R in the names Palma and Dezoris.. i always thought it was an error, and that it was always Palma and Dezoris....

Anyone know where i can DL a walkthrough for generation 1 and 2? lol

[Missagh]

Anyone know where i can DL a walkthrough for generation 1 and 2? lol

There is one being released for Generation 1 here on the PS Cave. You can preview it here.

[Kyence]

That is a nice walkthrough!

I've been busy this past week figuring out more of the translation. I've located where the consult conversations are stored and will translate them bit by bit as I will eventually start playing the game and translating as I go along.

I've finished Camineet's text entry, and have finished translating Parolit and Scion's text.

I made some cool breakthroughs with text pointers. It irked me to no end that the game as-is only allowed three letter spaces for the character's names in the status screen for Alis, Myau and Lutz (Odin is okay); adding an additional letter would cause these names to merge (uggh!) Luckily,I figured out the offset and pointer locations,and moved things around so we get their names showing up properly.

This can trickle down to spells and monster names, too. I don't think I'll change the item names I've translated since they are only allowed 7-8 letters max within the game menu layout.

The monster names were tricky. There is a feature in the game that allows you to see the monster's name displayed below it on the battle screen that changes color based on its relative difficulty to your current strength. Green is easy, yellow/orange is caution, and red is gtfo of here! Sounds great, right? Well, they never put a complete A-Z alphabet font for this part of the game,only letters A-D. The monster names you enter for the rest of the game get used here, so you'd end up with nothing but blank spaces. Rather than lose the whole functionality of the difficulty rating, I picked a few kana that resembled A-Z and changed the pointers. I apologize to Japan, but give me this bit of leeway just this once
So now there is a very "stylish" display of the English Monster names.

The translated monster names will occupy more than 7 spaces for many of them, so rather than abbreviate,I will play with the pointers as needed. There were also some translations I have for some monsters that differ from those I've seen:

"Dispair" --> I read it as Death Bearer, it's a "be" katakana there,not a "pe"

"Captogani" --> Literally it's spelled Cabutogani. Wondering WTF that was,I entered it in Google Translate and got "Crab." With "Maimai" I got Snail. Looking at the character designs I can see the mutated resemblance.

Crayon--> This one threw me for a loop. Considering it is the reimagined "Vampire" bat from the original and no other names sounded goofy, I played with Google for quite trying to figure out this one. The usual katakana for crayon is different than the one used here; the literal spelling translation is more like "Cryon." Well, it's not a cold monster, what gives?! Then, in desperation,I searched Cryon and bat. There is a prominent bat researcher by the name of Paul Cryan. Since katakana is a phonetic representation of foreign words, I've a feeling this is it. To be sure, I found an old Japanese monster list for the PS and it's not called Cryan/Crayon. I think they named it in honor of him; he's been publishing since 1995 and is recently studying bat deaths around wind turbines and white nose syndrome.

If this sounds fishy, this is actually a reoccuring theme in the remake. In each town I've translated so far, there are at least two NPCs named after American musicians. For example, Sharissa, Ja Rule, Wiz, Selena, and Lil Mo are the names I've encountered. All of these people were around at the time of the remake and there's far too many to dismiss it. Orakio_rob has also translated these names similarly, too.

That's it for now! I'll try to check in weekly to show that I am working on this game,no matter how slow I'll be at it
Thanks for all of the feedback!

[Kyence]

Hi, just checking in! I am still translating the text into English. Not surprisingly,the text "events" in the game are not listed chronologically; they are grouped into events happening on Palma, then Motavia, then Dezoris.I am currently on Event 24 out of 54. All of Palma's towns have been translated. At this point, I think I am going to translate all of it into fluent English and then start encoding it into the game. That way I have it fresh in my mind for better flow of dialogue. This game gave the characters a lot of story, especially the NPC's. That was always the fun for me playing old RPG's: just talking to everyone and everything.It helped immerse me into the story and keep me going when I'd had enough of grinding. This game delivers on that. The city of Drasgo (Drasgow, but I can't use lowercase "w" so Drasgo it must be-sorry) has a bittersweet tale of the gasmen. I won't spoil it, but I never gave the town a second thought in the original, but with the G1 version, here I am all "awww"....

It kinda stinks that PS3 was never re-made; it could have really benefited from this kind of treatment...

Take care!

[Missagh]

Thanks for bringing the updates to us! Keep up the great work!