Translation Ni no Kuni Translation [ENG]

[Fortune090]

Thanks for the update Anjiera! Hard at work as usual it seems. Definitely appreciate all the work you and your team have been doing on this and the willpower to hold off from playing NNK2 in the meantime!

 

[hmsong]

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.

Okay, if you put it that way, I guess I was being rude to compare one project to another. I just wanted something to compare in terms of magnitude. My apologies.

I have a question, I'm sure you've asked this yourself: If you were to get a message/letter from Nintendo (or whichever official is responsible for these legal things) that demands you to cease your project, I'm sure you will stop your project... but would you release what you have so far to the public?

 

[Anjiera]

Okay, if you put it that way, I guess I was being rude to compare one project to another. I just wanted something to compare in terms of magnitude. My apologies.

No need to apologize, I'm not saying we are bigger or smaller, better or worse, than any other project. What I meant to say is that every project is unique and I don't think very many projects can easily be compared, unless we were talking about games built on the same platform within the same series - like if two teams were separately translating two paired pokemon games at the same time (like, X and Y or whatever). Even with that, the size, availability and skillset of the team would make a huge difference.

Again, no need to apologize. But try not to compare two projects from a 30,000 foot view, because up close they will be very different.

I'm sure you will stop your project... but would you release what you have so far to the public?

The President of Level-5 has strongly implied that they will never release this game outside of Japan given the required book, and the fact that the ps3 version exists.

We have been running under the assumption that we would not get a C&D, and would have to have long team conversations about this if we did receive one.

We will share our files with any other projects that are interested in doing a translation from English, rather than from the Japanese original.

 

[mimshipio]

We will share our files with any other projects that are interested in doing a translation from English, rather than from the Japanese original.

I wish there was more demand for games being translated into Irish so i could get a team together to translate this. Unfortunately it's just me and i don't know anything about romhacking...

 

[sarkwalvein]

I wish there was more demand for games being translated into Irish so i could get a team together to translate this. Unfortunately it's just me and i don't know anything about romhacking...

Ask for a fund from the government!
They should provide rom hackers, translators and beta testers!
It is to preserve culture and the language!!!

 

[Anjiera]

I wish there was more demand for games being translated into Irish so i could get a team together to translate this. Unfortunately it's just me and i don't know anything about romhacking...

As a blanket statement for everyone thinking it would be great if a game was in their language, and that they are committed to helping get it there: Put up a post on the main GBATemp forum, or on the "everything Ni No Kuni DS" one, and see if you get any interested help. You're probably not the only one that would like to see it in your language!

(1) Main GBATemp forum is a great place to ask (with a very direct subject line including the game & language)
(2) You could add on to this multi-project post about Ni No Kuni DS: https://gbatemp.net/threads/ninokuni-shikkoku-no-madoushi-translation-project.310214/

Also, @sarkwalvein ... I feel your countdown clock so hard... and the worst part is that I've been feeling that way for at least a year. Haha. *cry* Anyway, it feels like the soon I feel *now* is much more real than the soon I felt a year ago. That's as much of a release date commitment as I guess I can offer.

A few more longstanding bugs have been fixed in the past few days, as people are putting in hours after work when their families are asleep / otherwise occupied. We definitely have some collective momentum pushing towards the end.

 

[Anjiera]

Hey, we had another productive weekend, and the graphics / ROM hacks folks are starting to get extra perfectionist-y for things, shifting text by 1 or 2 pixels in some cases just to make things look even more crisp.

I've been sitting on some work that I wasn't sure we were going to do for the initial release, but we've hit an awesome milestone and I can't wait to show you...

We originally said we wouldn't deliver the PDF of the Magic Master book with the first patch version, and that is still true. BUT... *drum roll* We have managed to pull together all of the pages needed to allow players to solve all the DS-unique riddles and puzzles. So, now players will be able to use the PS3 PDF to learn how to draw spell runes and for most Imagen information (for the ones that are in the PS3 at least) but with the ~23 unique pages that we have managed to translate from the JP book you will be able to experience all of the riddles and fun Astram (ps3 Nazcaan) content (not the in-game backgrounds with Astram, we know better than to try to mess with the game backgrounds b/c they are trickier than just straight images).

We got a couple of new graphics team members for the full book translation project, and we prioritized the unique pages that deal with in game riddles. They have blown me away with their productivity and their awesome skills, and I'm very pleased that you all will able to have a more full experience.

The pages that aren't done from the full book things like item and equipment lists and the Imagen pages. There is a lot of fiddly text on those pages, so it'll be a while before those are done I think.

I don't want to give too much away about what we'll have ready for the patch release, but I will share our English version of the Astram alphabet, as that is fairly benign.

I haven't been this excited to post an update in a long time. I hope you're excited by the news, too!

(*** Yes, yes, I know I said I was trying to lower the epic hype levels... I just couldn't keep this a secret any longer. )

 

[Mrdx]

Awesome work! Can't wait any longer for the release!!

 

[Anjiera]

Awesome work! Can't wait any longer for the release!!

Lol. My husband literally tells me that at least once a week. He is patiently waiting for me to finish spending all of my time on this, just as you are. Different reasons, of course, but... Haha.

Yeah, the book pages all look gorgeous so far, I am incredibly impressed with the graphics team talent. I know I shared the most boring image-less page, but... Trust me. All the pages we have look fabulous.

 

[Mrdx]

Everything looks so professional and heart-crafted. This is, by far, the best fan-translation project I've ever seen

 

[Anjiera]

Everything looks so professional and heart-crafted. This is, by far, the best fan-translation project I've ever seen

Yes, the whole team really loves this game.

The crazy part is that there are a number of people working on the project that haven't ever played the patch yet. Not even once. They are contributing great work, and are also waiting to play it until it is done, just as you are. Haha.

They've played the PS3 one, of course, which is why they love the series so much. I think it is crazy awesome to be volunteering tons of your time to a project because you want to play it - but to also have the patience and strength of will to wait to play the final product. Truly, this team is constantly amazing me with their passion and professionalism.

I'm glad people are still interested in hearing about our progress. Thanks for replying!

 

[tiencoi1988]

Yes, the whole team really loves this game.

The crazy part is that there are a number of people working on the project that haven't ever played the patch yet. Not even once. They are contributing great work, and are also waiting to play it until it is done, just as you are. Haha.

They've played the PS3 one, of course, which is why they love the series so much. I think it is crazy awesome to be volunteering tons of your time to a project because you want to play it - but to also have the patience and strength of will to wait to play the final product. Truly, this team is constantly amazing me with their passion and professionalism.

I'm glad people are still interested in hearing about our progress. Thanks for replying!

YES, YESS. FINALY. I'M WAIT SO SO LONG
THANKS MANY THANKS TO U Anjiera

 

[hmsong]

Aye, this is gonna be one grand-leveled project. Really looking forward to it. My apologies for the previous comment. Won't happen again.

I know that some people change bits of mechanics in the original game to better the game (this happens a lot to games with few shortcomings). I see that you're doing that too. Hopefully, things will work out. Really looking forward to it.

 

[Anjiera]

YES, YESS. FINALY. I'M WAIT SO SO LONG
THANKS MANY THANKS

I've passed on a summary of all of the recent positive comments to the team. Thanks for all of your support, folks! We're not quite done yet, but hopefully you're all too distracted with Ni No Kuni 2 at the moment to be bothered that we are still working on minor fixes. Haha.

I know that some people change bits of mechanics in the original game to better the game (this happens a lot to games with few shortcomings). I see that you're doing that too.

We aren't changing any of the mechanics, actually. There was one fix for the game clock, which in the official release maxxed out at 99h:59m. We've made that have three digits of hour precision, so the max game clock is now 999h:59m.

Other than that, I think that most of the fixes are purely cosmetic. The ROM hacks I have mentioned are to shift image offsets on the screen, or to make centered text left-justified to make more room for English. The centering was done by having the original JP text start at, for example, 16 pixels from the left side of the screen. So by moving the text start back to the left we get a few more characters in on screen, which is crucial to making a coherent translation. Japanese just takes up way less space. I don't envy anyone who does ROM hacks of JP->German. I hear that is even more challenging.

Oh, one other awesome improvement that @pleonex made was to allow 7 characters for the Imagen names (ps3 familiars / pokemon). The original JP game only allowed 4 letters, and even Japanese let's play videos show players griping about how that is too few characters.

We haven't changed anything that affects the gameplay, which is what I would call changes to the mechanics. We all want you to be able to play the game as it was designed by Level5 and Studio Ghibli, because it is great as it is!

For anyone interested in watching an interesting live-translated Let's Play of the JP game, here is a series recently posted to YouTube that I'm enjoying watching. It is a really nicely done live translation into English by a lovely French man:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqqvrCga5kEc2bGkeA7m6Eo_tt2fy18JB

FWIW, I often either listen to the NNK soundtrack or have Let's Play videos (usually in Japanese, but the above is a nice alternative) while I'm translating, fixing bugs, or editing things. If you are interested in JP Let's Play videos of NNK DS, I can post some of them here, too.

 

[FireHeart7]

I've been meaning to make an account here for ages just to thank you guys for all the hard and time-consuming work that's gone into this project. I can't remember a day for the last 2-3 years when I haven't checked this thread for new developments.

I'm also curious of one thing. Does the DS version use the same animated sequences as the PS3 version? If so, have you ever thought of ripping the English audio from the PS3 version's cinematics and combining it with the DS video streams? Maybe not as part of the initial release, but maybe something for a later revision? Just a thought.

 

[Anjiera]

I've been meaning to make an account here for ages just to thank you guys for all the hard and time-consuming work that's gone into this project. I can't remember a day for the last 2-3 years when I haven't checked this thread for new developments.

Thanks for the kind words! No need to check everyday, once a week is probably good enough.

ProTip: You can also subscribe to the thread, now that you have an account, and you will get emails when people post things.

I'm also curious of one thing. Does the DS version use the same animated sequences as the PS3 version? If so, have you ever thought of ripping the English audio from the PS3 version's cinematics and combining it with the DS video streams? Maybe not as part of the initial release, but maybe something for a later revision? Just a thought.

TL;DR: It won't work, we've investigated it. Details below.

First, there really isn't any room left on the rom to put extra files. If there was, we could try to re-enable the in-game book code that was there in the Tokyo Game Show demo (all that code is in the final game, btw) but was disabled and removed for the final game. We would prioritize the book vs new cutscenes if either was possible.

Second, the mobiclip video codec used for the cutscenes on the DS were devekeopd by Nintendo and were not used on the PS3 so it wouldn't be straightforward to grab the cutscenes and shove them into the DS in a way that the game could play.

Third, the cutscenes are different in places from the JP ones. Not only that, but we didn't force our translators to use the PS3 translated names for every person, item, or place. We had discussions about most terms and names, but we liked the flavor of the JP game names in some places. We left Mr. Drippy's name as a transliterated version of the JP name Shizuku. It means that the cutscenes and voiced in-game animations on the DS will have people saying "Shizuku blah blah" and so on. So, because of the choices we made, and the differences between the games, it would be even more difficult to just reuse the ps3 cutscenes.

The only reason to have the cutscenes from the PS3 is for the voices, but there are so many places with voices that it would be much more than just the cutscenes.

So, after coming to terms with all of the above, we just accepted that this would be a patch with excellent subtitles, rather than trying to force a square peg in a round hole to get the voiced bits in a few places.

I hope that helps you understand why we won't be doing that. I'm sure if we had all of the original assets (code, animations, etc) then so many things would be easier, even this. But, since we are just bit-blasting new data into the existing ROM, it isn't possible to do everything we would love to do. Can you imagine having the in-game book as well as the printed one? It would be just as cool as the PS3 game.

Thanks for the enthusiasm and ideas! Trust me, we've been having loads of discussions about these sorts of things ever since we started on the project 8 billion years ago. (^_-)-☆

 

[FireHeart7]

TL;DR: It won't work, we've investigated it. Details below.

Hmm, I see what you mean. I thought maybe the ROM could be expanded a bit like EarthBound with JHack if needed, but I guess having voiced dialogue in other places than the cinematics kinda ruins the idea.

Oddly, it never occurred to me that the names might be different, but then I have a habit of coming up with ideas and not thinking out all the details. ^^;

Thanks for explaining everything.

 

[Anjiera]

We would toyallt do it if it was feasible, but it really seems not worth it when you o ow you won't be able to get all of the voice-acted dialogue in English just due to the game differences. Can you imagine the let-down of playing most of the game with English voices, but having the end-game exposition animation just with subtitles? Haha.

It would be a lot of work (even if possible somehow) for something that would end up feeling half-baked no matter how much you could pull from the PS3, just due to the differences.

You'll have subtitles everywhere there is voiced JP segments, so have no fear - it will still be good.

 

[hmsong]

I may be in the minority, but I honestly prefer Japanese voice (sub preferred) over English dub. Generally speaking. In way too many games, English is so butchered that it makes my ears bleed (metaphorically). And while they get the translation and pronunciation right, they almost never get the tones right. Yeah, I prefer Japanese voice.

 

[Anjiera]

I may be in the minority, but I honestly prefer Japanese voice (sub preferred) over English dub. Generally speaking.

Agreed. I assumed my preference was because I understand Japanese and am therefore biased... Ha.

I have friends who are voice actors, and I volunteer at an Anime convention and often am assigned to be the guest handler for voice actors... And it is so hard to pretend that I know their work when they are famous and expect everyone at the con to know them and their popular character's catch phrases. I smile along, but I'm always secretly thinking... "Subs not dubs!!" Lol.