Translation Ni no Kuni Translation [ENG]

[HighMans]

Oh god... Okay, please try to restrain yourself to a small amount, or at worst a medium amount of hype until we release. *nervous laughter* This is going to be great, but there are some things that we know people are going to complain about so... Yeah. We had some tough choices to make. Here's a simple example... (please don't tell me about naming or image issues with these screenshots, we have a list of bugs and these pages have things that aren't fixed yet):

The description of some items show up in multiple places. When I did my string wrapping fixes, I checked two screens - the Item Screen (far left) and the Synthesis Screen (middle). Things fit perfectly, as the screens are roughly the same size. Then, after spending more than 30 hours fixing all of the string wrapping issues with the items (including weapons, key items, etc, not just the synthesis stuff) someone else noticed that the item descriptions also show up in the Imagen Raising Cage (far right) and that the screen size there is way smaller and that lots of descriptions don't fit nicely. We tried changing the size of the box behind the text on that screen, but the game crashes with an image bigger than what it expects in some places, and this fun screen was one of those places. SO. Option 1 is to re-do all of the string wrapping work which is frustrating and tedious and annoying, OR Option 2 is to just not care about that one screen for now, and maybe we can fix it in some future release. You can see the text well enough, and honestly I just can't bring myself to re-do all of that string wrapping any time soon just for one screen that isn't used very much.

There are other things about the game that we are leaving, too. In some places the game does have auto-text wrapping, but it is only a couple of places and it acts on text that *does* get wrapped in one place but *doesn't* get wrapped in another, meaning that it looks dumb in one place and not in the other because the wrapping was designed for Japanese text and we can't (within all reasonable definitions of *can't*) fix that part of the code.

You get the idea. SO. We know that some people won't see this fun, informative post explaining why that text looks like crap on the Imagen Raising Cage screen. And there are other places where we made similar mistakes, or made choices that bought us extra lines of text for dialog which is very helpful, but cause a number of places to have text that looks like it is shifted up a few pixels from center because it is shifted up (as mentioned in a previous post).

Hopefully these examples show you a few things:
(a) Look how pretty things are! Wow!
(b) Look at those few bugs that are probably obvious to you! (But don't tell me here, seriously, I know. Or, if you must, send me a PM about it)
(c) There are things that aren't so pretty and are not going to be fixed, or can't be fixed because we sacrificed pretty in some places for functional in others.
(d) That hype is all fine and good, but don't get carried away with it. This is not an official release of a game by a developer with the source code and people who are getting paid to work on it. This is a volunteer project with people blasting bits at a binary ROM and making magic happen, but magic with limitations.

Thanks for your excitement, encouragement, and support! We do appreciate it! Just don't send us hate mail about the choices we have made, please, because trust me they were all made after lots of experimentation with alternate solutions and debates about which approach would be best for the whole game as opposed to one underused screen (or hours of work forgetting about one stupid screen. ugh.)

In general, I'm really happy with how all the riddles are shaping up (especially the ones that rely on the Astram language, aka Nazcaan in PS3 lingo), and while some might be too easy and some might be too hard, I'm hoping you'll at least appreciate being able to track them down in the PDF pages that we will release alongside the patch at some point before 2020.

That looks great so far! There's some obvious issues, but nothing that detracts from both the work y'all have done and the playability (that's definitely not a word...) of the game. One question I do have though... What does "imagen" mean?

 

[samcambolt270]

That looks great so far! There's some obvious issues, but nothing that detracts from both the work y'all have done and the playability (that's definitely not a word...) of the game. One question I do have though... What does "imagen" mean?

I'd guess imagen is the translation of what were called familiars in the ps3 version? Im just guessing from the words "raising cage" since in the ps3 version, the place where you fed familiars to "raise" them was a cage.

 

[Phearoz]

Hurry up why dontcha!

Haha jk. Keep on trucking, can't wait to see the final result. Love following exciting fan translations of modern-esque games. This and The Great Ace Attorney are currently the biggest on-going translations. Love it!

 

[mimshipio]

Okay... I will go out on a crazy limb here and promise that it will definitely be out before 2020.

Honestly, we're just being extra picky about some editing and extra ambitious with some of the other remaining things. Picky as in checking term consistency when it is probably fine if it isn't fixed everywhere because it is obvious that X also means Y.

We aren't finding any new bugs anymore, so we just have to wrap up what we know needs to be fixed (I think around 40 bugs of varying difficulty and skill levels to fix).

It is looking better and better every day.

I was mainly just saying that as a joke, 笑．I've already started playing it, i'm just following this forum out of habit more than anything else. keep it up though. this is definitely one of the more ambitious translation efforts i've seen

 

[Anjiera]

this post has only succeeded in raising my hype

AH crap. Haha. Well, no more updates until we release then. Haha.
... I'm joking.

What does "imagen" mean?

I'd guess imagen is the translation of what were called familiars in the ps3 version?

It is what the JP game called familiars, yeah. For a while there we were trying to stay as close to the original JP as possible, but the more we learned about common terms between White Witch and Revenant Kingdom, the more we realized we should try to use the official terms. That said, we haven't gone back and changed everything... just the ones that were in only a handful of files. As you can imagine, words like "familiar" show up a lot in this game, so it is stuck as Imagen because this project needs to end eventually.

Hurry up why dontcha!

You literally sound exactly like my husband. He hasn't quite given me an ultimatum, but he has more and more started expressing his preference for me to be done with this project. So... ANYWAY... Yeah. I have pressure on the home front now too, people. Don't worry, the end date is very much on my mind.

Haha jk. Keep on trucking, can't wait to see the final result. Love following exciting fan translations of modern-esque games. This and The Great Ace Attorney are currently the biggest on-going translations. Love it!

Yeah, there are some pretty amazing teams out there. I am getting the impression that this might end up being my first and last ROM translation, at least for the foreseeable future. There are so many amazing projects like that which are either in progress or others that are not yet started but which would be amazing to volunteer on... BUT. I definitely will be taking a hiatus after this wraps up.

I was mainly just saying that as a joke, 笑．I've already started playing it, i'm just following this forum out of habit more than anything else. keep it up though. this is definitely one of the more ambitious translation efforts i've seen

You've already started playing... what now?

Also... I can totally tell what is a joke or not on the internet. TOTALLY... Yeah... I actually have a terrible track record with that... hahaha.

Thanks for all the encouragement, really! And the jokes, too! At least the ones that I recognize as jokes.

 

[masterzed]

great work, thanks for all. Any milestone for release the english version?

 

[Cyan]

@Anjiera :
I think it doesn't look that bad with the text going outside of the frame on the imagen screenshot.

you said you tried to make the frame bigger, and it crashes the game.
just an idea : Is the background 3D or 2D?
if it's 2D, can't you fake the Frame size by drawing it on the background instead?
make the foreground frame "open on the right" and on the background complete the frame's right side.

I don't know if I make any sense.
Maybe it's not possible either.

 

[Anjiera]

great work, thanks for all. Any milestone for release the english version?

Nope, please see above. It will release when it is done, and we're getting closer all the time, and not finding any new bugs, but we're not quite there yet. We're still fixing the bugs that we know about, and editing for consistency.

@Anjiera :
I think it doesn't look that bad with the text going outside of the frame on the imagen screenshot.
...
Maybe it's not possible either.

I haven't done any of the image manipulation or the ROM tweaks, I've just been doing project planning, playtesting, and translation. I have no idea if it is 2D or 3D in a way that would matter (this is a DS game, so I would have thought the whole thing is 2D, but...) From what I understand, though, every option was explored. I'll mention it just in case, though. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[kosterix]

If you're ever interested in including a German translation, just say the word. I'd be happy to translate all of the text.
I'm German and an English teacher and tutor, so I'm extremely thorough when it comes to translations.

On the one side 100+ million people know German language, so that would potentially make 100+M people happy!
On the other side Japanese and English don't match well, a lot is lost in translation, so it would be best to go directly from Japanese to German.

 

[Anjiera]

On the other side Japanese and English don't match well, a lot is lost in translation, so it would be best to go directly from Japanese to German.

I'm not trying to tell other teams how to run their translation project. I'm just saying I feel like there are more people who would be comfortable doing a translation from an English source, and that I am willing to facilitate that.

Every team has to choose what approach will work best for them given the people they are able to wrangle for the project.

I really like your optimism that most German speakers would be interested in playing the game, or even know what it is. Haha.

 

[kosterix]

....

 

[Anjiera]

7zip these and you have the NNK DS english translation.

Actually, the PS3 book is quite different than the DS book by about 115 pages, as I have mentioned before. We are working on the DS-exclusive pages required to play the game, but will most likely only have the minimum required pages ready with the patch, rather than the entire book.

Also, FYI you posted this message on the public forum, not in a private message which may not be what you intended.

 

[kosterix]

Actually, the PS3 book is quite different than the DS book by about 115 pages, as I have mentioned before. We are working on the DS-exclusive pages required to play the game, but will most likely only have the minimum required pages ready with the patch, rather than the entire book.

Also, FYI you posted this message on the public forum, not in a private message which may not be what you intended.

silly me

 

[takechiyo]

any updates?

 

[Anjiera]

We are aiming to wrap up known bugs in the next couple of weeks depending on people's availability, then more tests just to make sure we hadn't missed anything in our previous bug checks or in our fixes.

Everything depends on the availability of our volunteers. Things are looking pretty solid, though.

 

[Arcomador]

We are aiming to wrap up known bugs in the next couple of weeks depending on people's availability, then more tests just to make sure we hadn't missed anything in our previous bug checks or in our fixes.

Everything depends on the availability of our volunteers. Things are looking pretty solid, though.

Glad to hear, been following this for a couple years now and I'm excited to see how close we are.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[hmsong]

Okay, I can't help but be amazed the way this is going. I've seen so many projects that started, but somewhere along the line, they get dropped. Honestly, I did not expect people to release NDS (not 3DS) games with translation. Well, I suppose I can't say this is the case yet, since the patch is still not out to public. However, I cannot help but anticipate great things from this project. Seriously, this'll be the biggest and most impactful translation project for the entire NDS games. In fact, this impact will be on the equal level (or greater) of Tales of Phantasia translation when it was first released.

 

[Anjiera]

Okay, I can't help but be amazed the way this is going.

Thanks, we're proud of our progress, too! As for other projects getting dropped, I totally understand how it happens. In fact, since the start of this project I think we've had over 100 people offer to help to the point where we had added them to our project coordination messages and emails.

But, most people don't last more than three months. Some people only respond for about a week or two, which is usually when they realize what a giant effort this would be to take it to completion. All volunteer-run projects are full of people who get in over their heads and have the sense to get out before it takes over their lives.

Then there are other people, like the people that have been with the project from the start, that somehow never drift away forever. Maybe for a month or five, when life demands full attention, but we always get drawn back to the project one way or another.

In fact, this impact will be on the equal level (or greater) of Tales of Phantasia translation when it was first released.

As I mentioned, above, I totally understand why people come and go from these sorts of volunteer projects. It is also why I don't think that hyperbole about a project, or even comparison of two very different projects, is a great idea. Every project is unique, as is the team working on it.

We are volunteers, and for the most part we are not professionals that do this sort of thing for a living. Even pros make mistakes, and even pros make choices that they would undo if they had a second chance.

We won't be delivering a perfect, flawless translation. But we will be letting you play a game that we all love, and we hope you enjoy it. I'll honestly be overjoyed if the ROM gets played by as many people as have put time into the project. I'd like to say it would be nice to have people play the game for as many hours as we've put into it, but we have no idea how many hours we've collectively spent, and really don't want to estimate it because it would be a horrifyingly large number... Haha. (P.S. I keep mentioning how much work it is so that you'll all understand why we didn't make time to do multiple editing passes. )

Anyway, thanks for the support, folks! Go play Ni No Kuni 2 while you wait - I'll be playing the hell out of it as soon as I'm done the patch.

 

[DmitriyRUS]

Thanks, we're proud of our progress, too! As for other projects getting dropped, I totally understand how it happens. In fact, since the start of this project I think we've had over 100 people offer to help to the point where we had added them to our project coordination messages and emails.
But, most people don't last more than three months. Some people only respond for about a week or two, which is usually when they realize what a giant effort this would be to take it to completion. All volunteer-run projects are full of people who get in over their heads and have the sense to get out before it takes over their lives.
Then there are other people, like the people that have been with the project from the start, that somehow never drift away forever. Maybe for a month or five, when life demands full attention, but we always get drawn back to the project one way or another.
As I mentioned, above, I totally understand why people come and go from these sorts of volunteer projects. It is also why I don't think that hyperbole about a project, or even comparison of two very different projects, is a great idea. Every project is unique, as is the team working on it.
We are volunteers, and for the most part we are not professionals that do this sort of thing for a living. Even pros make mistakes, and even pros make choices that they would undo if they had a second chance.
We won't be delivering a perfect, flawless translation. But we will be letting you play a game that we all love, and we hope you enjoy it. I'll honestly be overjoyed if the ROM gets played by as many people as have put time into the project. I'd like to say it would be nice to have people play the game for as many hours as we've put into it, but we have no idea how many hours we've collectively spent, and really don't want to estimate it because it would be a horrifyingly large number... Haha. (P.S. I keep mentioning how much work it is so that you'll all understand why we didn't make time to do multiple editing passes. )

I support you, it's all right. The situation with us is the same.

 

[Anjiera]

Quick update on a Monday morning:

We had a very productive weekend, with people from graphics / ROM hacks / editing teams all making big strides on the bug list. We're not totally done all the bugs, but we're down to a little under 20. Once they're fixed, we'll need to do a new build and re-test some areas to make sure all the edited strings fit, and that the graphics all imported correctly. We'll also be getting eyes on as many of the game's screens as possible just to make sure we haven't overlooked any long-standing bugs because we're so used to them.

Not quite at the finish line, but certainly getting closer.