Phantasy Star Generation:1 English translation project

[Zucca]

So shall I BUMP this too for locating any resources of recent updates!

[Kyence]

Happy Holidays everyone!

I am currently translating the "consult" conversations. I am about halfway through.Once that is complete, I can start encoding the game text into English . I figured out how to insert it uncompressed a while ago; this means once I finish, it can be easier to translate into other languages as well!

I also decided to make one change from the Japanese version. They have a few portrait pictures for each of the main characters. Unlike PSIV, where it was always used when they spoke at any time in the game, G1 doesn't. The Japanese version always prints out their names. It is easy for me to simply always use the portraits and not print their names, which actually gives me some extra spots for English characters (yay!). After all, I think we can all tell by the pictures who is who.

So, that's it for now!
Take care, everyone!

[Missagh]

Great solution! Thank you for keeping us updated on this... I keep receiving emails about when this game will be translated and this gives me something to respond with.

Happy holidays!

[Black Sword]

Three cheers for Kyence!

[Bad Hair Man]

That's super!

[myau56]

Take care you too and many greetings for your patience and hard work, which are really amazing !:)

[Kyence]

Thanks,everyone! I have some quick updates!

1.I have finished translating the consult text into English. Now, I can start encoding the game script into English! Huzzah!

2.I have completed encoding the monster names,item names, spell names, descriptions, and all system message text into English! This was in a separate file from the game script. It didn't use compression, but it had tons of pointers I had to adjust to allow for more space for names.Item names were limited to 9 spaces, spell names to 4 or 5 spaces tops due to display menu constraints.This was quite fun,especially the spell names compared to Phantasy Star IV:

Example 1: Remember "Tandle" the spell that looked like lightning? The katakana was misread: it actually reads as "Thunder."
Example 2: "Flaeli" is actually supposed to be "Flare," and Hewn was actually correct (and is a word in English).

This has been fun to do; I've never translated or hacked a game before,and I have learned a lot about compiled code. The encoding of the game script will take months to complete, but I'll just take it one day at a time!

Thanks again for all of your support and encouragement!

[myau56]

Great ! What a fantastic work ! I have learnt a little bit of japanese but it's very far away (but some notions arev still here !) and I understand all the work it represents...
Keep up the good work and..ganbatte ne !

[BenoitRen]

Example 1: Remember "Tandle" the spell that looked like lightning? The katakana was misread: it actually reads as "Thunder."
Example 2: "Flaeli" is actually supposed to be "Flare," and Hewn was actually correct (and is a word in English).

Indeed! I've been saying that for years. The only surprise is "Hewn" being correct. I just looked it up. The English word doesn't seem to match what it means in the games.

[Black Sword]

It's transcended correctness and become canon now. *shrug* Now a big deal.

Thank you for your hard work, Kyence! You know we're all rooting you on and eager to play the game!

[Kyence]

Thanks everyone! I have some great news I found out that I would like to share.

Orakio_rob and his team have overcome some technical issues in their Portuguese translation of PSG1. Namely, changing the menus from Japanese and having access to font letter widths! We keep in touch once in a while and have shared info back and forth; his team has a great deal of technical expertise. I think everyone should take a look at his blog and salute their efforts. I have a link here with Google Translate on it!

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=ja&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=pt&tl=en&u=http://gazetadealgol.com.br/blog/%3Fp%3D1640&usg=ALkJrhjkVrACoFIp890mmjvaPJs8pnx0NQ

[theAlien]

having access to font letter widths!

Any chance you could share how they were able to access the letter widths? I haven't actually attempted to find this in PSG2 yet, but it would save me the effort I guess.

[myau56]

Ah Orakio_Rob and his team are so great ! And all the persons who work on these translations, codings and others things...Truly impressive !

[Kyence]

I have made some good progress. I have finished editing out any Japanese images from the status and battle graphics. It was quite painful, with all due honesty. I have not been able to obtain the GIMP plug-in from Orakio_Rob, so I did it using hex editing and Adobe Photoshop to do what I could. You will notice that the ATT, DEF, etc. are customized: due to a 4x4 limit and the game graphics chip hating any shrinking or ant-aliasing, coupled with a strange use of three de-interlaced channels with varying RGB/luminosity and bit shifting...this was the best my non-programming self could come up with.

I decided to insert all the decompressed Japanese dialog in before translating through the game. The reason is that I want to play through the game and change things as I progress. Since the dialog is non-linear within the data file, encoding this way will help ensure continuity and if I miss anything along the way.

I finally decided to make a Youtube video explaining and showing what I've done so far. I muted the game music in it, but I will not be talking in any future videos I put up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5mJDcw2-Bg

So, spread the word to any other PS-related sites or communities around if you like.

Thanks again for all the well-wishes!

[Daren]

Just finished viewing the video and I must say that I'm very impressed with your progress. Keep it up Kyence as I'm sure any PS fan has ever wanted to play this game in English and you're making lots of dreams come through.
So thank you very much for all the effort.