Translation Riivolution patch: Takt of Magic English translation for Wii

[Brand Newman]

11.14.2020 : V01.00 released !

11.15.2020 : V01.01 (very small update with line breaks added to the "Wifi" awards description, didn't realize there were shorter than the other descriptions of the game, making it possible that some would get out of border... sorry about that !)

Good news, everyone !


« Takt of Magic » English translation patch for Wii is officially published, and available for download at the following address:

Romhacking.net (V.01.01 - reviews are welcomed):

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/5756/


Google drive (V01.01) - alternate download link if Romhacking has issues :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h6cgaPoK82rOgraeQ7T5nBEWlmEaeaOw/view?usp=sharing


V01.00 to 01.01 update (only needed if you installed 01.00 before) :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cFbcpoEkB48Z7rscgZIkn2pgNzx6TEdu/view?usp=sharing




I also published a little promotional video you can watch on Youtube, and even put some unapologetic advertisement for my previous translation patches!





I’d really like to thank everybody on this thread for being so supportive.


However, if I may repeat what I wrote in the “readme” file, the people enlisted below deserve a particular praise for helping me at various step, making this patch possible:

• @Lazlo52, for finding out how to extract the files, and making this whole translation feasible,
• @MaeseJesus, for his personal involvement in beta testing, and huge support overall,
• @Draxikor, for running the “quality tests”,
• @Plstic, for his suggestions on how to make online mode run,
• @barronwaffles, for his fantastic job AltWFC / WFZwei server, and for providing an easy-to-use online compatibility patch.

I hope you’ll enjoy playing the game as much as I enjoyed translating it, and don’t forget to check on me from time to time on Twitter, for we shall meet again in 2021!


Yours trully.

---- previous message-----

Hello everybody !

My name is Brand Newman, and some of you might know me from the two previous English translation I did for the Wii, Earth Seeker (downloadable at https://gbatemp.net/threads/riivolution-patch-earth-seeker-english-translation-for-wii-100.555772/) and Ikeni No Yoru (AKA "Night of the Sacrifice, downloadable at https://gbatemp.net/threads/riivolution-patch-ikenie-no-yoru-english-translation-for-wii-100.561324/)

Now that I have introduced myself in such a "Troy McLure" way, welcome to the "Takt of Magic" English translation progress forum.

"Takt" is another Japanese exclusive title for the Wii, which had the particularity of using the Wiimote to draw "runes", that would function like incantations to summon spells in some sort of "Fire Emblem" tactical RPG.

The game is kind of hard to translate because it uses compression, and usually doesn't leave any extra space for the script, which means the translator has to decode the files, then strictly follow the length of sentences in order to make dialogs that are both short and understandable.

Luckily most of the text is contained within two files which can be roughly be described as "menus" on one hand, and "story" on the other hand.

Now, although the project is not quite finished yet, the menus are all complete and I have already started to translate the first chapters : so I'm planning on releasing the patch by the end of the year, but please don't take my words if it takes longer ! (beta test is always a long phase, especially with RPG.)

Anyway, here's some pictures of my work-in-progress, as well as a video of the first 8 minutes of the game.

Hope you'll enjoy them, and I'm looking forward to releasing the patch, whether beta or final, within the next months.

Yours truly.

General progression :
Pictures and fonts : 100 % (should be)
Menus : 100 %
Story : 100 %

Screenshots :

 

[Shadow#1]

Hello everybody !

My name is Brand Newman, and some of you might know me from the two previous English translation I did for the Wii, Earth Seeker (downloadable at https://gbatemp.net/threads/riivolution-patch-earth-seeker-english-translation-for-wii-100.555772/) and Ikeni No Yoru (AKA "Night of the Sacrifice, downloadable at https://gbatemp.net/threads/riivolution-patch-ikenie-no-yoru-english-translation-for-wii-100.561324/)

Now that I have introduced myself in such a "Troy McLure" way, welcome to the "Takt of Magic" English translation progress forum.

"Takt" is another Japanese exclusive title for the Wii, which had the particularity of using the Wiimote to draw "runes", that would function like incantations to summon spells in some sort of "Fire Emblem" tactical RPG.

The game is kind of hard to translate because it uses compression, and usually doesn't leave any extra space for the script, which means the translator has to decode the files, then strictly follow the length of sentences in order to make dialogs that are both short and understandable.

Luckily most of the text is contained within two files which can be roughly be described as "menus" on one hand, and "story" on the other hand.

Now, although the project is not quite finished yet, the menus are all complete and I have already started to translate the first chapters : so I'm planning on releasing the patch by the end of the year, but please don't take my words if it takes longer ! (beta test is always a long phase, especially with RPG.)

Anyway, here's some pictures of my work-in-progress, as well as a video of the first 8 minutes of the game.

Hope you'll enjoy them, and I'm looking forward to releasing the patch, whether beta or final, within the next months.

Yours truly.

General progression :
Pictures and fonts : 100 % (should be)
Menus : 100 %
Story : 10 %

Screenshots :

Video :

Very nice job keep up the good work man

 

[Brand Newman]

08/02/2020 : A little "work-in-progress" of my translation for the game, for me to keep you informed.

After 2 weeks of holidays and a lot of hours, I'm done with all the battle dialogs and advice, which were quite a few !

Now getting the job done on the story, which is already 'round 30% translated. Too bad I have to go back to work as well !

 

[Nomado]

Wonderful, Brand Newman. After enjoying two of your previous translation projects, been wondering what your next game was when you mentioned. Never heard of this game probably because it was in japanese.
Thanks for your awesome works.

 

[Brand Newman]

Wonderful, Brand Newman. After enjoying two of your previous translation projects, been wondering what your next game was when you mentioned. Never heard of this game probably because it was in japanese.
Thanks for your awesome works.

Thank you dear "customer "

I must say I don't understand why this one was never localized because it's a lot of fun so far. Motion control seems accurate yet not over sensitive, and it's a thrill to cast spells!

There even was an online community in Japan! I'll probably contact the people behind wimmfi when I'm done, in case there is any possibilities we can play online. I mean... there were so much lines to translate regarding this mode, it would be a shame !

Thanks again for your message, I'll keep everyone informed.

Cheers!

 

[Plstic]

Thank you dear "customer "

I must say I don't understand why this one was never localized because it's a lot of fun so far. Motion control seems accurate yet not over sensitive, and it's a thrill to cast spells!

There even was an online community in Japan! I'll probably contact the people behind wimmfi when I'm done, in case there is any possibilities we can play online. I mean... there were so much lines to translate regarding this mode, it would be a shame !

Thanks again for your message, I'll keep everyone informed.

Cheers!

Chances are that it works fine on zwei.moe.

 

[Brand Newman]

Chances are that it works fine on zwei.moe.

Thanks for the the info, I'll have a look at that !

 

[TigerTiger]

Thank you for being like one of the only people working on Wii games!

This looks like fun, I can't wait to try it! Best wishes (o^▽^o)

 

[Maeson]

I do not know how did I manage to not find out about this thread sooner. What the heck.
It's surreal to see this game in a language I understand after so many years.

Keep the good work, and it's true, your efforts translating Wii games are truly appreciated!

 

[Brand Newman]

I do not know how did I manage to not find out about this thread sooner. What the heck.
It's surreal to see this game in a language I understand after so many years.

Keep the good work, and it's true, your efforts translating Wii games are truly appreciated!

Well this thread is not that old anyway.

I hesitated because I usually prefer to communicate about my work when it's published. But after my two first projects went out, I realized I could have used some previous "publicity", so I started putting some screenshots online.

I only have one (big) file left to translate, and it's more than 50% done. When I'm done I'll probably put the beta online for people to help me polish it, maybe I could count on you?

Thank you for your message anyway, I'll provably put more stuff online by the end of the week, but maybe they'll be more of "behind the scene" (how you have to modify resources, this kind of things... don't know if people fancy that, but I do a lot)

 

[Maeson]

I modify games myself too, so that sort of stuff interests me at least, although I do not mess around with games this "new" often, though, in fact the only Wii games I edited around were Opoona, a charming and unique RPG (to clean text around, as the translation is too literal and sometimes it the point of its own sentences), and Monster Hunter Tri to create custom quests.

I should finish the Opoona one, I left it half way...

I also wanted to note that you work really fast. I hope you're not spending all your time on this, it's not good for you (I know!).

 

[Brand Newman]

Good evening everyone.

Following my promise, I'm putting some "technical" stuff online for you to judge of the general progression of my work.

So first of all, here's a screenshot of the last file I have to translate (which basically contains all the dialogs for the game, minor those happening during battles, which are already done).

As you can see, I've gone past the middle of it, which means I have translated more than 50%.

Now about the technical difficulties (which I've overcome at this point, the publication is just a matter of time) : I thought people among you who are throwing themselves into game translation (fooooools !!!) might be interested in the following topics.

Words (and sentences) replacement :

It's actually very rare that you can just replace Japanese with English without altering or simplifying it. The worst being with single words and / or names, that have to fit in the same number of letters their Japanese counteparts did.

On the following screenshots, you'll see the necessary adaptations I had to make, so that the characters and spells names would both stay cohesive and faithful, while matching the letters number limit.

Characters' names:

Spells:

As you can see, while I can't pretend to be a professional, organization in translation is the key.

Font modification:

This part is both very frustrating and satisfying. It is very usual for translators to modify the Japanese font of their games, moreover when translating into languages like French, Spanish, etc., which all require accents.

In the particular case of "Takt", I had to alter many unused characters to replace them with symbol (Fire, Water, Wiimote, etc.), because the words simply wouldn't fit into the 3 letters limitation the game was giving me. I even had to "recreate" entire words for the same reason, but these will only be used on battles and maps, not dialogs.

You can see on the picture below the modification I had to make (yellow marked), which might not all be final (I like my witch hat a lot)!

I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of my work, and promise to come back soon with fresh news, please stay tuned and have a nice evening!

(PS: I've updated my profile picture as well. I thought since the first game I translated had almost only female characters, it would make sense to "pay tribute" to the women in "my" games with a drawing )

 

[Maeson]

Yes, you need to get quite creative about fonts, you're usually fighting against lack of space every time. Switching words for Icons is a clever way to get around space, you may even get a few extra tiles free. That's what certain games of old did too, like certain Final Fantasy titles having a Sword, Armor or Staff Icon instead of having to devote several tiles to write the words, although the reasons as of why are different.

I did not know the Wii cursor was part of the font... Or is that specifically for text?

 

[Brand Newman]

I did not know the Wii cursor was part of the font... Or is that specifically for text?

It is part of this font, at least (only added the mote and nunchuk). But from my experience fonts can be very different depending on the game, and can even greatly differ within the same game.

For example, "Takt" has another font for spells, enemies, etc.... symbols, which contains NO unused tiles, and can't even be modified (I tried, but got an error every time I put the slightest modification).

So I consider myself lucky that the other font had so many unused symbols, and even luckier that the "default" font used for dialogs (which was not the same as the one used for story telling and menu) is organized the same way. This way I can "merge" the two for the final release (which means the screenshots are outdated from that point of view).

 

[Brand Newman]

Fun fact : in the game there's a bad guy named Neil (member of the Wolf Tribe, or like I translated it, "the Horde") who keeps calling your characters "chickie mage".

I know it's meant to make the player understand how evil he is, but I'm having trouble finding the balance between fair translation and something that would be a little too much offensive.

I do think Neil should remain misogynistic and homophobic though, considering it plays a big part in his personality (he's also a big coward), but I "toned it down" a little by making him call the team "girls", or "ladies", instead of using words like "sissy" or even "f**g".

I'd be curious about your opinion, considering the backslash someone experienced last year by translating a 25-year-old Japanese game with maybe too much fidelity...?

The last thing I'd want in this world would be to cause controversy with a fan translation. I thought it was very unfair for the translator I mentioned above, as I believe you can use offensive words as long as it is motivated by the context (bad guy obviously wouldn't have that kind of consideration, and most often it shows a despicable part of their personality).

But maybe that's just the French in me speaking (we don't have the reputation of being easily offended)...

Looking forward to reading from your opinions !

Have a nice afternoon.

 

[Draxikor]

@Brand Newman For me i prefer you use the same words he uses in the jap game, you dont make the game you translate it for us to enjoy it, and if that translation is perfectly accurate to the japanese version even better.

 

[Brand Newman]

@Brand Newman For me i prefer you use the same words he uses in the jap game, you dont make the game you translate it for us to enjoy it, and if that translation is perfectly accurate to the japanese version even better.

Thanks for your feedback. I still think it's better to tone it down a bit : calling the heroes "girls" feels insulting enough in that context, and as I just re-read some comments that were made during the "tr*nny gate"... Oh my... kudos to the victim for not giving up on fan translation completely after that...

I'm taking the opportunity to say that nobody here has ever told me anything but nice, and I'm very thankful for that.

 

[Maeson]

That's quite the can of worms to open.

The core of the problem, whenever this matter appears, is that the people who usually jump at the outrage have an outstanding lack of knowledge in simple concepts such as context inside a story or how characters can be written to produce a reaction from the viewer... Like if everything contained inside a creative product such as these are the real, unfiltered opinions and views of the people working on them (It's still hard for me to believe there's people that think this way, but alas...) and not a fictional scenario to play through.

When you combine that with the sad reality that some people just want to be mad at things, well...

Now I'm of the opinion that we don't need hateful intents behind our media. We shouldn't let people spew hate through books, movies, games or whatever have you. We have more than enough with social networks...

But that's one thing, and a completely different one is framing characters in one way, in this case to make paint a villainous character as disgusting scum by, well, being disgusting scum. That's what makes the player want to kick his ass, to make the bad guy's fall more satisfying. It's writing basics that have existed for who knows how long.

Heck, certain game stories center around the bad guy being a complete ass, like your "best friend" in Tony Hawk's Underground, Luca Blight from Suikoden 2, or Gary Smith in Bully. And we can't forget Kefka.

"Bad guy does bad things" It's extremely simple stuff to understand, but In all honestly I would not judge you if you want to change the words (for others with the same level of hostility) or not. As far as localization I do not think everything is sacred. There's stuff that just doesn't work in other languages, and sometimes certain content is just easier to clean up or change.

Personally I would refrain from using slurs, for one I think using them doesn't fit too much a fantastical setting compared to a "realistic" modern day one, but even then, I always found using such words pretty low-level writing, like a teenager writing fanfiction (although seeing how some "adults" write today, maybe the teenager remark is obsolete!). Like edgy, wanna-be cool sounding, which mind you, might be what the character wants to sound like, but the words still have some baggage.

If you don't feel comfortable using literal translations for the words used, go with what you feel is best. Just like I find people raging over the use of a word without thinking of context ridiculous, I also find the people that scream "censorship" at the top of their lungs without giving a thought to the content that's in question pretty stupid too.

In the end I think the majority of people will just be glad of being able to play the game on a language they understand.


And I know what game are you talking about. It was embarrassing to say the least, specially when the instigator of such disgusting behavior checked the original text, found that it said exactly what was translated, yet still went on saying "it's still shitty". And all that happened after the translator and some non-hostile people talked it out and all agreed to change that solitary word to something better. Truly embarrassing, but that's par for the course with that sort of people (which by the way have no issues to spew racial slurs at people that don't agree with them like it's nothing).

I don't like the line myself, don't find it funny, but not in a million years would I even start to think that someone is a horrible person just for translating what's already there and was open to improve it in the first place.

 

[TigerTiger]

I don't really like it when people use gendered terms like "man up" or "don't be such a girl". Like, girls can be strong and men can be fragile and there's nothing wrong with that

But I guess if it's a bad guy and you're supposed to be hate it whatever he says then it's fine. I noticed that using strong curse words like "f*ck" or whatever is really associated more with fan translations and seems to be avoided in official translations unless it's a 16+ game, so I think that you can still confer all the evilness of the original without stepping on territory that feels maybe uncomfortable. Oops, guess I got ninja'd there

But yeah, you could go for something like "kids" or "brats" for the sense of young an inexperienced chicks. n̶0̶0̶b̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶l̶ or just stick with what you've already got!

 

[Brand Newman]

Thank you for your replies.

I agree that official translations usually don't rely on slur, even when the Japanese games do, and I'm not fond on rudeness overall myself.

Someone on the Internet talked about "localization" instead of translation, like you do Maesejesus, and I think that's more of what I try to do.

That being said, I used slur ONCE before, in the "Ikenie" translation : at the end of the game, if you complete all the chapters with the additional difficulty, you unlock the "Eroge" chapter, which is kind of a semi-erotic story with an eerie atmosphere taking place in the house.

At some point in the story, a female character is faced with two men who used to be her friends and find herself naked in front of them (it's not really clear wether it's a dream, a phantasmagoria, especially since she can't be in the house, because in the story she arrived by train later, and the events look like they tool place before the curse began).

Despite being her friends, they act and speak rather aggressively, one of them calling her a "slut" : considering the man is more of an evil manifestation than his real character, and the fact that the game is adult rating anyway, I found it appropriate to keep the word.

So I agree with what you say : if it's meant to make you "hate" the bad guy and/or his actions, it should be OK, especially if already "toned down" a bit.

As a matter of fact, I find what TigerTiger wrote about the stereotypes of women being weak relevant : the main characteristic of Neil is his cowardice, and yet he keeps calling his opponents to "chicks", implying they have, one way or another, what he believes are "feminine traits".

So I think this paradoxical situation is a good reason to keep a little bit of the "girl" reference. Don't worry, there are some girls in the team who'll kick his ass !