My PC-98 translation projects

[BabaJeanmel]

No more surprises for now, I'm afraid. I've run out of quick and dirty projects to do!

As for new full TLs, I can confirm there WILL be a Lakers 3 translation, but not before 2024.

I have some other candidates, but I want to take some time to improve my Japanese fluency so I don't have to rely so much on Kanji dictionnaries. The full TLs I've done (IE not script ports) all had a pretty easy language level, but if I want to tackle some more "serious" stuff, I still have a lot to learn.

I'd like to do a full Dante translation, maybe a big RPG like Amaranth IV or something really cinematic such as Elm Knight, if nobody ends up doing them before me of course. But I can't just jump in and deliver something half-assed with my current language level. Translating some goofy h-games is something, tackling some more well-written stuff is another...

I'm not saying I won't do anything in 2023, though. But nothing on the scale of Lakers (3 months of work) or Lakers 2 (6 months). Script ports or short/text-light games are not completely excluded... depends on the technical side being handled or not, basically.

 

[Nikokaro]

@jackdbs , regarding Love Potion, after the autoerotic scene of the student in the nurse's office, as soon as you get to the gym for the first time, you get stuck with the two options (as pictured below) and cannot continue further.
Can anyone else confirm this fact?

 

[jackdbs]

@jackdbs , regarding Love Potion, after the autoerotic scene of the student in the nurse's office, as soon as you get to the gym for the first time, you get stuck with the two options (as pictured below) and cannot continue further.
Can anyone else confirm this fact?

View attachment 342725

View attachment 342721

It seems this is a recurring problem. Baba told me about this a day ago. Looking into it.

 

[jackdbs]

ok this bug is extremely interesting and annoying. i have no idea how to fix it but I think I know what's causing it. this character called "DC2" is an ASCII thing and it's some software flow control thing (which i have no idea how that relates to the game scripts). i've spent the past 5 or so hours trying to fix this and nothing works (besides maybe hex editing but thats a really bad idea that will not work out for readability). there's 3 more of these DC2 characters in later scripts. releasing the patch without any sort of testing to make sure everything was ok in these scripts was quite possibly the dumbest move ive made and I'm so fucking sorry that this could've happened.

Edit: nvm I think I figured it out

@jackdbs , regarding Love Potion, after the autoerotic scene of the student in the nurse's office, as soon as you get to the gym for the first time, you get stuck with the two options (as pictured below) and cannot continue further.
Can anyone else confirm this fact?

View attachment 342725

View attachment 342721

 

[Nikokaro]

...there's 3 more of these DC2 characters in later scrip...

Until you find a better solution, why don't you leave the original Japanese text in these cases? Would that be possible?

...I'm so fucking sorry that this could've happened.

There is no problem, lad; these are things that can happen. Rather, we are grateful for your generous efforts devoted to this old adv game.

 

[jackdbs]

Until you find a better solution, why don't you leave the original Japanese text in these cases? Would that be possible?


There is no problem, lad; these are things that can happen. Rather, we are grateful for your generous efforts devoted to this old adv game.

It turns out Baba ran into the same bug while hacking Amy's and told me how to fix it up. I've fixed all the game breaking and softlocking bugs that were around. Love Potion is now 100% playable front to back. Also Baba helped out with making some much better looking main menu images (although one of them is still my original but i decided to release this patch now so that no one else can download the 1.1 and get softlocked).

 

[ecto]

@jackdbs , thank you too for this nice unexpected surprise, and welcome to join us. 















I take this opportunity to mention May Club (V.R. Date): has anyone looked at it yet? Is the translation difficult to port to pc-98? It is a fun non-linear, multi-branches, multi-endings dating sim. 































Note to Love Potion: Using NP2 you must set GDC to 2.5MHz, to avoid an initial error message. To do this you must "reset with help Key", set













at my GDC setting Was always 2.5MHz. If this a

@jackdbs , thank you too for this nice unexpected surprise, and welcome to join us.
I take this opportunity to mention May Club (V.R. Date): has anyone looked at it yet? Is the translation difficult to port to pc-98? It is a fun non-linear, multi-branches, multi-endings dating sim.

Note to Love Potion: Using NP2 you must set GDC to 2.5MHz, to avoid an initial error message. To do this you must "reset with help Key", set the value as pictured below, and then exit the japanese menu (last option).

View attachment 342518

I just tried setting the GDC clock and found out, that I had it on 2.5 MHz the whole time. As I never had any issues (but indeed Love Potion doesn't boot with 5 MHz), I'm wondering if I should just leave it on 2.5 MHz.
What does it do anyways? Could anyone explain that to me? ;

 

[Nikokaro]

I'm wondering if I should just leave it on 2.5 MHz.
What does it do anyways?

Hello. I honestly don't have the slightest idea... I tried leaving it 2.5Mhz while playing Yu-No, and the transitions from one image to another are slower, so I recommend leaving it at 5Mhz when possible.

 

[ecto]

Hello. I honestly don't have the slightest idea... I tried leaving it 2.5Mhz while playing Yu-No, and the transitions from one image to another are slower, so I recommend leaving it at 5Mhz when possible.

Ah, good point! Faster transitions are always good! I'll see if I can automate the switch to 2,5 MHz for incompatible games.

 

[Nikokaro]

@jackdbs , where can we download the latest patch? Is it the same link as the first one? I tried to patch the jap hdi version of the Neo Kobe collection with the 1.02 patch using Android Unipatcher but it gives me an unknown error, how come? Previously it always worked! Even using the online Web Patcher gives me the same error:
https://hack64.net/tools/patcher.php
It doesn't work with this online patcher either:
https://kotcrab.github.io/xdelta-wasm/
Are you sure the Japanese hdi version should be used and not the previously pre-patched one?
Has anyone else been able to patch the hdi using version 1.02?

 

[ecto]

@jackdbs , where can we download the latest patch? Is it the same link as the first one? I tried to patch the jap hdi version of the Neo Kobe collection with the 1.02 patch using Android Unipatcher but it gives me an unknown error, how come? Previously it always worked! Even using the online Web Patcher gives me the same error:
https://hack64.net/tools/patcher.php
It doesn't work with this online patcher either:
https://kotcrab.github.io/xdelta-wasm/
Are you sure the Japanese hdi version should be used and not the previously pre-patched one?
Has anyone else been able to patch the hdi using version 1.02?

I did it with XDeltaUI under windows. Yesterday I had problems with the prior (1.01) Version so I downloaded the latest xdelta3 version. I worked then and today with patch version 1.02, too.

 

[Nikokaro]

I somehow managed to get the hdi patched with the recent version, and after copying the save.dat files from the old one I was able to continue reading this visual novel without any problems. For those who don't know, to extract and copy files from an hdi format you have to use EditDisk, a free pc software:

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Ah, good point! Faster transitions are always good! I'll see if I can automate the switch to 2,5 MHz for incompatible games.

Changing the GDC clock can be done with editing In np21x.ini, inside the [NekoProject21] section, change the DIPswtch value to 3e e3 7b for 2.5 mhz, and 3e 63 7b for 5 mhz.

To automate the process would require using something like ahk3. I use a rocketlauncher script myself, but I know it's not very much used because of its complexity and lack of recent support.

 

[Jarly]

Hello again, friends. Question to all who finished Amy. Could you provide the credits screen with "Director" and "Scenario" positions? It would be useful for vn database completion.

 

[AhkritheKilljoy]

Hello there! Thank you for the translations. I was wondering what the process was for translating these games. I found one I really want to play called Virgin Angel, a PC-98 game (it's on VNDB, but won't let me post a link). Although, I don't know Japanese and would want to do a MTL. Thank you again for the translations and I appreciate all the work that you've done.

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Hi, glad you enjoyed my stuff.

If you want to read a VN with help from MTL, you can use a text hooker. NP21Win supports direct hooking with Textractor. I don't really know the details as I don't use it myself, but it's the easiest way to do so.

As for making a permanent TL patch... let's say it's not that different from ordinary romhacking. You need some ASM knowledge, a debug-enabled build of NP21, and lots of patience and dedication. I'm not really a tech guy myself, so my projects are either based on existing tools or use custom one made by skilled hackers (ie Kirinn B and Alpharobo)

 

[AhkritheKilljoy]

Hi, glad you enjoyed my stuff.

If you want to read a VN with help from MTL, you can use a text hooker. NP21Win supports direct hooking with Textractor. I don't really know the details as I don't use it myself, but it's the easiest way to do so.

As for making a permanent TL patch... let's say it's not that different from ordinary romhacking. You need some ASM knowledge, a debug-enabled build of NP21, and lots of patience and dedication. I'm not really a tech guy myself, so my projects are either based on existing tools or use custom one made by skilled hackers (ie Kirinn B and Alpharobo)

Ahh, alrighty! Thank you for the help!

 

[BabaJeanmel]

I'm doing a little something this year after all. Just keep in mind it will be MUCH slower than my previous projects.

Introducing... Jewel Bem Hunter Lime, by Silence. A mostly SFW game (except for the occasional shower scenes), for a change!

It's a pretty linear ADV game by Silence, which is more or less proto-Sogna. But unlike the Viper games, this one isn't porn. It's more focused on comedy, with gorgeous artstyle and animations.

The game is divided in 12 episodes which can all be completed in something like 15-20 minutes each. While I was reading them and mining vocabulary, it seemed like a natural step to actually translate them. The engine was an evolution of the one used in Guynarock, so Alpharobo managed to quickly pull together some nice tools to edit the data files. Graphics format still needs to be figured out, but 99% of the game text can now be edited pretty easily.

I'll release the patch when all episodes are done. No episode-by-episode release, sorry. You'll have to be patient, but it'll be worth it !

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Lime heartbeat: about 3% done (one third of first episode). Here are a couple screenshots. (And yes, I'm aware of the typo in the third one, it's been corrected since ^^)

 

[johnny-sasaki]

don't know if it's relevant to you guys,but the original Windows port of Yu-No is getting a re-release for Windows 10 in a few days:
https://dlsoft.dmm.co.jp/detail/fanzagames_0054

I wonder if the TLWiki's patch will be compatible right out of the box. It mentions additional censorship,but it may be just the same censorship added to the old Windows release