ROM Hack Rhythm Tengoku Translation - Rhythm Heaven Silver

[Domino054]

Rhythm Tweezers is a terrible name. The original Japanese supposedly translates to "Rhythm Epilation", but Vegeta-Pull is super clever and I love that name.
Sick Beats is great. I think the original name translates to Dr. Bacteria. That also ties into the original message for the game, which has a "memo from assistant".
Marching Orders I could take or leave. Same as Marcher, I'm not too attached to either.
Same for Bouncy Road.

I'm not personally interested in making these name changes. I'm proud of what the hack is already. You'd have to ask the hackers and graphics artists what they think, but I can't imagine they want to redraw graphics to meet a fresh localization.

I would not be opposed with releasing a tool or something to dump the audio from RHM and import it into RHS for games like Marcher and

Spoiler: game title

Space Dance

.

Don't worry. I'm sure the hackers would know what to do.

 

[Deleted User]

While I think having the English audio cues for Marcher would make it easier to play, I thought the translation in it and Space Dance sounded really distracting and out of place in RHM (and in Space Dance's case, kind of unnecessary). As for the titles, I wouldn't mind pretty basic names being changed into some of the ones from Megamix, like Dr. Bacteria to Sick Beats and Cheese Heist to Rat Race. Then there are some debatable ones that add a single word to the title (Marching Orders, Ninja Bodyguard, and Quiz Show, the third being the most fitting change in my opinion), and minor ones like Bouncy Road, The Snappy Trio, and Cosmic Dance. There's also Spaceball Game being Spaceball, which would be an easy fix because the title card already says just that. I can totally understand why the artists wouldn't want to remake the graphics, though.

 

[W hat]

While I think having the English audio cues for Marcher would make it easier to play, I thought the translation in it and Space Dance sounded really distracting and out of place in RHM (and in Space Dance's case, kind of unnecessary). As for the titles, I wouldn't mind pretty basic names being changed into some of the ones from Megamix, like Dr. Bacteria to Sick Beats and Cheese Heist to Rat Race. I can totally understand why the artists wouldn't want to remake the graphics, though.

IMO, that would drive home a sense of unprofessionalism, having text titles that don't match their graphics. It only happened one time with "Spaceball Game" because of graphical limitations of that title card. The Spaceball logo looks killer, I'm really happy with what Greiga Master / RockmanEXE / SirNiko did with that one. (Sorry you three, I can't remember if it was all of you or just some of you.)

I encourage any interested fan to download the source code to the patch and compare the literal Japanese to our localization and the Nintendo localization. From my memory, I don't think many of the Nintendo translations are straight from the Japanese, making them no more or less legitimate than our interpretation. I would lean heavily if not entirely on using existing localizations if they were available when we started (as I did with the bonus games in Rhythm Heaven Fever), but since we already did the work and the translations aren't better than ours, I'll let it ride.

The source is all in the archive I posted, if anyone is interested in making changes to the graphics or text.

Cheese Heist is a better name than Rat Race. Cheese Heist actually fits the game. Rat Race only fits the stoplight motif in the training and Remix 2. The rats aren't racing; they're trying to steal the cheese and escape!

Quiz Show makes perfect sense in retrospect. We were probably thinking too literally. Our text says the literal translation is just "Quiz".

 

[AdaMario]

how come i can't play it on the Virtual Boy Advance?

 

[W hat]

how come i can't play it on the Virtual Boy Advance?

1. Back up your Rhythm Tengoku cartridge.
2. Patch the Rhythm Tengoku.gba ROM file with the included IPS patch and Lunar IPS.
3. Load it with VisualBoyAdvance or mGBA or similar.

During development, I used VBA-rr and VBA-M.

 

[Strawzzboy64]

Hey guys, fellow huge rhythm heaven fan here. I love this translation and I appreciate all the work you guys have done. I've certainly played the heck out of this translation. Don't think I ever got all perfects yet though. (It's hard on an emulator!) Anyway, I have some questions.

So I saw it was mentioned in the original post that the vocals of Bon Odori, and remixes 3 and 5 wouldn't be translated due to concerns in the quality of a fan version. Does that mean it's actually possible to do? I don't know if the hack is still being worked on or not, but, if somehow, high quality english versions of the vocals existed, do you guys think the team would reconsider adding them?

 

[W hat]

Hey guys, fellow huge rhythm heaven fan here. I love this translation and I appreciate all the work you guys have done. I've certainly played the heck out of this translation. Don't think I ever got all perfects yet though. (It's hard on an emulator!) Anyway, I have some questions.

So I saw it was mentioned in the original post that the vocals of Bon Odori, and remixes 3 and 5 wouldn't be translated due to concerns in the quality of a fan version. Does that mean it's actually possible to do? I don't know if the hack is still being worked on or not, but, if somehow, high quality english versions of the vocals existed, do you guys think the team would reconsider adding them?

First off, although I'm semi-active in checking GBAtemp, the project itself has stalled. I want to see it through but have nothing to commit to at this time.

I think it is possible. The game stores voice stuff as samples and repeats the same sample to save space. Like the "haaa" in The Bon Odori. If you read through this thread (last 3 pages or so) I think you will find someone who has had luck replacing the samples in Remix 2. I *think* the vocals are stored separately from the instruments. If so, that would mean they could be swapped out.

I don't see how it's possible to make a good English version of those songs. We all know how the English dub of Rhythm Heaven DS turned out. RH Megamix on 3DS just opted for Japanese vocals and no vocals in the English mode, if I recall correctly. Not only would someone be translating a Japanese song (thus having requirements for rhyming and needing a decent voice actor / actress), it also needs to fit with the rhythm of the original rhythm games, for gameplay reasons.

 

[Strawzzboy64]

First off, although I'm semi-active in checking GBAtemp, the project itself has stalled. I want to see it through but have nothing to commit to at this time.

I think it is possible. The game stores voice stuff as samples and repeats the same sample to save space. Like the "haaa" in The Bon Odori. If you read through this thread (last 3 pages or so) I think you will find someone who has had luck replacing the samples in Remix 2. I *think* the vocals are stored separately from the instruments. If so, that would mean they could be swapped out.

I don't see how it's possible to make a good English version of those songs. We all know how the English dub of Rhythm Heaven DS turned out. RH Megamix on 3DS just opted for Japanese vocals and no vocals in the English mode, if I recall correctly. Not only would someone be translating a Japanese song (thus having requirements for rhyming and needing a decent voice actor / actress), it also needs to fit with the rhythm of the original rhythm games, for gameplay reasons.

Thank you for the reply and the information, and I hope the project gets completed someday. I was actually unaware that the game reused samples. I did kinda have the suspicion with Bon Odori at least, but I wasn't sure about the others.

If it is indeed possible, I was thinking of taking a crack at creating english lyrics for the songs and trying to find singers. I understand the concerns of quality. FYI, I've gotten perfects on all minigames on Gold and Fever, (and most of Silver) and although I don't have Megamix, I have spoiled all the minigames and songs for myself. I love the series, but am well aware of DS's vocals. Personally, I like fan club in a so bad its good way, and only think The Dazzles is actually somewhat unenjoyable, I found the other songs to be pretty close stylistically, and think that Frog Hop is genuinely pretty good. I would also like to point out Fever's vocals as being a step up from DS's vocals, though I know a lot of people prefer the japanese versions still.

Anyway, what I want to do is have a process where lyrics are made first and solidified to be as best as they can be, so fitting to the game but also to the song itself as much as possible. After the lyrics are then set, I would go out and try to find someone to sing it, preferably a fan of the series. I have some experience directing musicians/singers. (I was the bass section leader in my college's choir, and put small groups together to perform my own arrangements). I love Rhythm Heaven songs because of their style and energy and what I would do in my direction is try to capture that as much as possible.

Right now, I have written english version lyrics for remix 3's song, "Honey Sweet Angel." I found a couple rough translations (one in this thread) and tried to base the new lyrics off of that. However, there's a lot of things I don't know, like what the exact significance of Honey Sweet Angel's lyrics are or if there's any cultural or lyrical subtleties with the japanese language (I wouldn't be able to pick up on them). What I ended up doing was trying to come up with an "original story" for the song, but tried my best to keep the spirit of the song intact. I also tried to make it so its subject matter fits with other songs in the series (most of them are love songs, I think).

Aanyway, I don't expect this work to get into the project, I know work is stalled right now, but I would love to try. Perhaps if some singers end up being found, the recordings could be posted and the community could vote on their quality, or even offer feedback? Then we could go for the perfects, as it were.

 

[raulpica]

Just wanted to thank you guys for the excellent work you put in Rhythm Tengoku Silver. I love playing this on my GBA! (yes, I came here because I read the entire credits email)

 

[Magniv]

First of all, the translation you made for the is great, I am glad you made some of your own jokes and not just directly translated everything. I would love to see the project be completed.

Did making english voices actually go somewhere? It seems there talks about it for a while. I would like to see it in there, possibly even the songs, if you find good singers. As one of the weirdos who thinks that the ds dub was fantastic, I would to see an attempt to do that, though getting the non song voice acting is more important.

Perssonally, I would like all the names to be changed to be like megamix, i feel like it would be weird to translate some but not all, even though i agree that some names such as cheese hiest are better than the new ones.

Edit:I downloaded the source code to mess around a bit but for some reason the text is much bigger than its supposed to be.

 

[W hat]

You know what kept me up last night? Finding out that a kiosk demo for Rhythm Heaven GBA has made its way into the wild. There's videos of it online.

Demoban’s very first ever cartridge dump is here and it’s a bit of a doozy: a retail demo for the very first Rhythm Heaven game on the GBA! In terms of content, there’s not a whole lot to it. You can play three minigames from the first tier, the karate punch one, the onion hair pulling one, and the monkey clapping one, as well as an abridged version of the rhythm test you normally have to take when starting up the game for the first time. As a cartridge used to let the Japanese public get a taste for the game about a month before its release, there’s therefore not a whole lot in the way of differences from the final version, save for one notable thing: reminders strewn in every minigame about the budget price point of 3800 yen, as pictured above. It’s charming in its brazenness, really.

That being said, this demo was, I believe, one of the very last official GBA cartridges that went undumped long after the DS had taken the spotlight. Information even in Japanese is so hard to come by, in fact, that when I first came across it, I was skeptical about its legitimacy, but bought it just in case since it seemed to be extremely rare, even on Yahoo Japan. And luckily for us all, it seems to be the real deal! I have no idea how many other cartridges still exist out there in the wild, as this is the only one I’ve ever come across myself, so suffice it to say I’m glad I could grab this and make it happen while I could. Here’s hoping I keep having good luck in the future!

It looks like the full game, or almost all of it, is on the cart! Here's a comparison between our script and what's on the ROM. Note that the Cafe isn't accessible in the demo at all (from the YouTube videos, at least.)

// 0x8050304
//[l
//でも　もし、ドラムで　選挙演説とか[l
//ボンゴで　夫婦ゲンカとかあったら[l
//やかましそうですネ。ははは。[;
// --- Literal
//But then, if we made election speeches with drums[l
//or had couple-fights with bongos and such[l
//it would be noisy, don't you think? Ha ha ha![;
// --- Edited
Then again, if we gave speeches[l
with bongos or the neighbors[l
argued with trumpets, it'd get[l
noisy, don't you think? Ha ha ha.[l
[;

A search for the JPN text for Remix 5 (リミックス ５) also returns a result. There's no reason for Remix 5 to be in the demo, so this cart should have most of the same data as the final game. Want to win my heart? Compare the demo ROM with the final game, and note all the differences. Bonus points for using our tools and ripping out all the graphics you can that are different in some way. Seriously, I'm gonna look at this ROM when I have time.

I don't know why I didn't respond to any of these, perhaps being busy (especially in late August). Here we go.

I would also like to point out Fever's vocals as being a step up from DS's vocals, though I know a lot of people prefer the japanese versions still.

Agreed on that. I've actually never finished RH DS, only got about 2 columns in. (See my signature for my unfinished attempt to add controller support to emulators for the game.) If I ever revisit the RH DS no touching project, I'd probably use Lua scripts to reduce lag, jank, and increase cross-platform compatibility and combustibility. Right now it emulates the mouse pointer in Windows and sends those commands naively to the emulator.

Anyway, what I want to do is have a process where lyrics are made first and solidified to be as best as they can be, so fitting to the game but also to the song itself as much as possible. After the lyrics are then set, I would go out and try to find someone to sing it, preferably a fan of the series.

Aanyway, I don't expect this work to get into the project, I know work is stalled right now, but I would love to try.

I'm all for it. Keep in mind the vocals are sampled, and look through the thread and source code for guidance. I don't know how complicated it will be taking the vocals and putting them into the game as samples. The basic voice command games (for example, Marcher) are pretty simple - you just drop in your samples for "left", "right", and so on. I'm not committing to doing any more work on this project, but if you give me a ready-made patch I'd link it from the OP and even the Twitter page (if I remember the log in, I think I do).

Just wanted to thank you guys for the excellent work you put in Rhythm Tengoku Silver. I love playing this on my GBA! (yes, I came here because I read the entire credits email)

I could never figure out how obvious it was that there was more text after the second page of the Welcome email. I didn't want to make it too obvious (too self-important, IMO), but I also didn't want it to be a total secret easter egg. Nice of Nintendo and JP Room to include a good text viewer in their game, though manually formatting the text for it was a pain.

First of all, the translation you made for the is great, I am glad you made some of your own jokes and not just directly translated everything. I would love to see the project be completed.

Thanks! Making my own jokes that I felt fit the Rhythm Heaven style was the most fun part. I think SirNiko enjoyed the joke-writing as well.

Did making english voices actually go somewhere? It seems there talks about it for a while. I would like to see it in there, possibly even the songs, if you find good singers. As one of the weirdos who thinks that the ds dub was fantastic, I would to see an attempt to do that, though getting the non song voice acting is more important.

See above. It's pretty much my fault. Of all my fan projects, this one is one I really value, so I do want to revisit it, but who knows when that will be.

Perssonally, I would like all the names to be changed to be like megamix, i feel like it would be weird to translate some but not all, even though i agree that some names such as cheese hiest are better than the new ones.

Nothing stopping you from changing the text yourself, but then you have to redo the graphics.

Edit:I downloaded the source code to mess around a bit but for some reason the text is much bigger than its supposed to be.

You need to use the font patch on the Rhythm Tengoku (J) ROM. The font patch v4.ips should be included with the source code. The patcher program works on ROMs that already have the font patch. The font you're seeing on your unpatched rom uses "fullwidth" text, straight from the JPN game.

 

[PikaMasterJesi]

I'm having issues loading this game on Visual Boy Advance on Mac. Whenever I try to load it (with both an original and a patched ROM), VBA just crashes on me. I've been able to make it work on my phone, so it is possible to use it (although there's some big lag on button presses and I hate it), but I'm just having issues with VBA and I need some help. Is it a ROM issue, or an emulator issue?

 

[W hat]

I'm having issues loading this game on Visual Boy Advance on Mac. Whenever I try to load it (with both an original and a patched ROM), VBA just crashes on me. I've been able to make it work on my phone, so it is possible to use it (although there's some big lag on button presses and I hate it), but I'm just having issues with VBA and I need some help. Is it a ROM issue, or an emulator issue?

Emulator issue. It should run fine on a Mac. I would look into RetroArch or one of the VBA forks. On Windows there are a few (VBA-M, VBA-rr) but I don't know about Mac.

 

[PikaMasterJesi]

Thank you! I'm playing it using the mGBA core on Retroarch. I'm really glad you've translated this for all the Rhythm Heaven fans out there, so thank you for making this happen! ^v^

Time to get a Superb on most things now.

 

[Magniv]

You need to use the font patch on the Rhythm Tengoku (J) ROM. The font patch v4.ips should be included with the source code. The patcher program works on ROMs that already have the font patch. The font you're seeing on your unpatched rom uses "fullwidth" text, straight from the JPN game.

Thanks, that fixed it. Now I need help because I don't know how to edit the intro images.

 

[paranormalCrystal]

So here's a question, is this still a thing?

 

[Pablitox]

It has been translated already, What else do you want?

 

[W hat]

I'm still here, I'm still really bad about finishing projects. Rhythm Heaven is one of my favorite franchises and I want to see voice acting for the simple voice commands (mentioned several times), but I'm not actively working on that.

 

[UnobtaniumGamer]

Hey, could anyone help me? I want to mess around with Tengoku and maybe make a joke hack with some friends, but I have no idea how to do anything with it. I tried downloading the source, but that just confused me more. Anyone?

 

[W hat]

Hey, could anyone help me? I want to mess around with Tengoku and maybe make a joke hack with some friends, but I have no idea how to do anything with it. I tried downloading the source, but that just confused me more. Anyone?

From the download page in this thread:

To use the source code to compile your own graphical edits, put these programs into the same folder as compile.bat and everything else. Put an unmodified Rhythm Tengoku ROM named rh-jpn.gba into the Game folder and run compile.bat.

• armips.exe
• Atlas.exe (by Klarth)
• DSDecmp.exe

I think rh-jpn.gba actually goes into /build/game, but I'm not sure. To just do text edits, find script_fix.txt and edit it, then re-run compile.bat.