Translation Unfinished Translation Projects That Could Be Revived!

[PhantomGhost]

Decided to bundle together a list of orphaned projects that made a release which could be picked up again, if anyone happened to be so inclined! I’m also providing a mirror download link for these on my GDrive, to prevent them from becoming lost in a sea of dead links many have unfortunately ended up. Note that dates are in the European format dd/mm/yyyy

Feel free to let me know if there’s anything you’d like adding to this list! Help wanted ads for active projects that have hit a road block are also welcome, BUT there must be either a tool or text dump freely available. (Not PM for download links!)

Also, please refrain from making translation requests on this thread. There is one already dedicated to that which I also maintain, so your message will be noticed without the need to make multiple posts. Thank you!


Fushigi Yuugi: Suzaku Ibun (ふしぎ遊戯 朱雀異聞)

Language: JPN > ENG

Note: This game was originally made for the PS2, then ported for the DS, bundled together with Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden: Kagami no Miko. This translation project is for the DS version.

Tool: None. Hacking info from jjjewel

Translation: No dump, partial translation

Last Update: Originally hosted on livejournal, the translations were being reformatted and shared on the above blogspot, circa May 2014. The original translator has since moved blogs to joseinextdoor and is still active on twitter as of December 2023, but no longer working on this project.



Iron Master: The Legendary Blacksmith (アイアンマスター)

Language: JPN > ENG

Note: This game has a cancelled English version, hence why you might see some English screenshots around, although no translation has been released.

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tools: Gryphon93's tools (Unfinished)

De1ta0ne's tools + Google translated text dump (Unfinished) GDrive Mirror

Short description - edit three machine translated text files and start 'make.bat', as output you get 4272.nds with translation ..

SETUP
1. Download 32bit or 64 bit ruby installation from dropbox > software > rubyinstaller
2. Install ruby to c:\Ruby21-x64 (patches in batfiles are hardcoded)
3. Unpack 2014.11.08.zip from dropbox to work folder
4. Rename Iron Master ROM to 4272.nds and place to work folder
5. Run tools\unpack.bat from work folder

WORKFLOW
1. Edit dlgcmd.txt / ItemClassDB.txt / locstr.txt in work folder
2. Start validator.exe from work folder (may be skipped)
3. Start make.bat from work folder
4. Run 4272.nds

TECHNICAL DETAIL
1. Fixed incorrect file open mode in LocStrFile.rb on build locstr.bin
2. Sources for all tools - work folder / source
3. Work folder / source / ItemClassDB.idf.bt - file format for ItemClassDB.idf (using hex 010 Editor)
4. In ItemClassDB.exe realized two methods to inject English translation. First - fix offsets in ItemClassDB.idf to use build-in English translation (only for item names), second - append strings to end ItemClassDB.idd and correct offsets in ItemClassDB.idf
5. Work folder / originals contain all unmodified materials
6. Work folder / errors contain error screen shot, how to fix it - i don't known :L

Translation: Partial Translation by Regin, GDrive Mirror

Last Update: In September 2020, the translator Ladios started working on a new translation, however the project was dropped.



Kasutamu Bīto Batoru Doragureido 2 (カスタムビートバトル ドラグレイド 2 )
Alt Title: Custom Beat Battle Draglade 2

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tool: Untitled (Broken) GDrive Mirror

When unpacking, select the file you want to unpack. Then a directory with the same file name in the same directory will be created containing the unpacked files.

When repacking, select the base file you unpacked, NOT the files in the created folder.

Translation: A patch version 0.1 was released by Kosheh in 2009. GDrive Mirror (Rename your ROM to "cvn-dg2.nds" to get the patcher to work.)

How to use: Unzip into folder with Draglade 2 and click on patcher.bat.

What's translated:

Battle Mode (renamed VS Mode...I think I'll probably name it back) pause menu

Main Menu, VS Mode submenus and Information submenu headers. I didn't translate one menu because I wasn't sure what it did. It's "Clear Save Data" but since I said I'd have the patch posted by sunday, yeah. :<

Dragon Sequencer 2.0 main screen is translated.
Known bugs:
"Deck Maker" and "Grap 101" in main menu sometimes have random symbols around them. When replacing the tiles...somehow, those appear

Last Update: In September 2021, Zerokij launched a reboot of the project, and is in need of a hacker.


Ketsui: Death Label Kizuna Jigoku Tachi (ケツイ デスレーベル 絆地獄たち)
Alt Title: Determination: Hellbound Bonds, Death Label

Language: JPN > ENG

Original Thread: Link

Tool: None publicly available.

Translation: A partial translation patch v0.2 was released by z3tzilla, circa 2010. Text dumps are available on the above thread.

Last Update: Z3tzilla was last seen on GBAtemp in July 2022, recruiting translators.



Kimi no Yusha (キミの勇者)
Alt Title: Your Hero

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tool: YushaTrans 0.6 (Unfinished) GDrive Mirror

Translation: A partial translation patch was released by Valyr in Jul 2009. GDrive Mirror

Last Update: A new project was started by the AGT Team in December 2021, but is currently on hiatus. You can follow the team's work on their Discord server or blog.


Kurayami no Hate de Kimi o Matsu (暗闇の果てで君を待つ)
Alt Title: KuraKimi

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tool: No tool was created, however some hacking notes and a table file can be found in the linked thread.

Translation: A translation of the game's prologue and intro can be found in the first post of the linked thread. A partial Italian translation is also reported to exist, however I was unable to find it.


Londonian Gothics - Meikyuu no Lolita (Londonian Gothics -迷宮のロリィタ- )

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: n/a

Note: Not to be confused with Lolita of Labyrinth for the Xbox 360 which is a spin-off set in the same universe.

Tool: None, no patch project ever started

Translation: No dump, full translation(?)


Ōran Kōkō Hosuto Kurabu (桜蘭高校ホスト部DS)
Alt Title: Ouran High School Host Club DS

Language: JPN > ENG

Note: This game was originally made for the PS2, then ported for the DS with added content. This translation project is for the DS version.

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tool: OuranExtractionTool built on the original tool by azerty1, Ouran tool v1-0 (broken)

Translation: Full dump, partial translation

Last Update: An updated version of the original tool was created by hackers leo_v & jaga8285 in January 2021. The project has since been undertaken by OHSHC- The Manga Dub. The project was still ongoing as of December 2023.


Puyopuyo Fībā Chū! (ぷよぷよフィーバーチュー!)
Alt Title: Puyo Puyo Fever 2

Language: JPN > ENG

Note: This game was also released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. All file dumps/translations come from an unfinished translation of the version from PS2. Other than the NDS supporting up to 8 players rather than 4, the exact differences between them is unknown.

Original Thread: Link Browsing the project's sub-forum is also recommended.

Tool: Tools for the PS2 version were publicly released. Whilst it's unlikely that any of these will be cross compatible with the DS, they may be useful to mine the translations from the partial patch.

Translation: As mentioned above, there exists a full text & image dump from the PS2 game, as well as a partial patch (GDrive Mirror) and additional museum library book translations.



Sora no Otoshimono Forute Dorīmī Shīzun (そらのおとしもの フォルテ ドリーミーシーズン)
Alt Title: Sora no Otoshimono Forte: Dreamy Season

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Tool: Untitled (Untested) GDrive Mirror

Written for Python 2.0, usage is "strings.py <file>.dat -e" to extract a .strings file, and then "strings.py <file>.strings -c" to re-compile it back into a .new. It handles the text length so you can make your lines as long as you want.

Translation: Script dump, GDrive Mirror

Last Update: No translation progress ever released.

Patch only releases
These games have a partial translation patch, with little to no documentation. In other words, attempts to pick them up will have to start from square one again (unless you're able to get a hold of the original authors.) However as well as knowing that hacks are doable, there's the added bonus of being able to pick up from someone else's hard work! In cases where it's dubious whether or not the original authors would be okay with someone picking up where they left off, please proceed with sensitivity! (i.e. Where they haven't been heard from in years, and offer no alternative contact method to try.)

Be advised; this is not an exhaustive list, and games that are already fully playable are not included.

Chi's Sweet Home: Chi ga Ouchi ni Yatte Kita (チーズスイートホーム チーがおうちにやってきた)
Alt Title: Chi's Sweet Home: New Address

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Partial Patch: V1 was released by Suruz in May 2010, originally lost, a backup was provided by jonothan.stevens. GDrive Mirror

The majority of the text has been translated, with some awkward English due to limitations of space. A few images were translated on the thread which have since been lost, nothing in-game.

Additional Info: A text inserter called "ChiTrans" was created by DarthNemesis and given to suruz for use in this project, who was providing it to people on a PM-only basis.


Cid to Chocobo no Fushigi na Dungeon: Toki Wasure no Meikyū DS+ (シドとチョコボの不思議なダンジョン 時忘れの迷宮DS+)
Alt Title: Cid and Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: the Labyrinth of Forgotten Time DS+

Language: JPN > ENG

Note: This game has received several iterations. The original on the Wii, received an English release. The DS version is an enhanced port of that game, which never received a translation, and was followed by a remaster named 'Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: Every Buddy!' which released in English for the Switch and PS4.

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Additional Info: Information about getting started with the files can be found here.

Partial Patch: V4 was released by GrayFox2510 in June 2010. GDrive Mirror


Code Geass: Hangyaku no Lelouch (コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ)
Alt Title: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Partial Patch: A partial translation patch v04 was released by BlueFlame90 in July 2009. Unfortunately the original download link has gone dead, however it can be found as a pre-patched ROM on sites that will not be linked here.

What is done:
Items and Item descriptions = 100%
Character Names = 100%
Knigtmare Frame Names = 100%
Location Names = 100%
Mission Names = 100%
Character Database = 5%

Game Script:
Almost nothing

Last Update: Any translators interested in restarting the project from scratch should contact the AGT Team at their Discord server who can provide a full script dump as well as support.

Cross Treasures (クロストレジャーズ)

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link, was superceded by a later thread.

Tool: None. *Download links for the original tool by Takashio (last seen in 2011) are down, despite attempts from several people to restore it.*

Partial Patch: A partial translation patch v02c was released by Fluffybutt, last updated Apr 2014. GDrive Mirror

Left unfinished...
Story dialogue & in-game images
Remaining NPC dialogue (Quests, Skill givers, Class upgrades, Hot Spring/Ramen, Tailor, etc.)
Character descriptions (Quest givers)
Monster names

Last Update: A revival was started by AZealousIndividual. Looking for help/information about inserting the images which are in .ncl, .ncg, .nsc formats. (See this thread for details.)

Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butouden (ドラゴンボール改　アルティメット武闘伝)

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link, was superceded by a later thread.

Tool: None.

Notes: A translation project for the game was started by Elza/Nobunaga. A few months later, Kosheh began their own project. While the two worked together at one stage, this partnership was broken off, with both releasing their own patches at different percentage completions. The majority of these links have gone dead, however versions of their work can be found as pre-patched ROMs on sites that will not be linked here.

Last Update: A revival was started by irvgotti452 who was last active in 2022, status unknown (possibly dropped).

Puzzle Series Vol. 5: Slitherlink

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Partial Patch: A partial translation patch v.0.7 was released by T-Tudor in Sep 2014. GDrive Mirror

Additional Info: The remaining untranslated text is from the tutorial, and some messages that may not actually be used. No tool was made for the above patch. All the text in the game can be found within the graphics, making it possible to translate using pre-existing tools (T-Tudor used TileMolester). Hacking may however be desirable to improve text alignment in some places.

Tomodachi Collection (トモダチコレクション)​

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Partial Patch: A partial translation patch v.0.8 was released by jjjewel in Nov 2013. Dropbox Mirror.

Translation Status:

- Most of the important stuff that you need to play the game are translated.

What are NOT fully translated:

- Job descriptions. I just blanked them out.

- Mii News. Only about half of them were translated but that should cover all the important news.

- Songs. Some translated text in the lyric might be cut off in the middle but it will show up in full when you select it.

Additional Info: No tools were made for the above patch, it was edited using pre-existing tools.

Zombie Daisuki (ぞんびだいすき)

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Partial Patch: A partial menu translation patch v.0.7 was released by T-Tudor in Oct 2009. GDrive Mirror

There are still some grammar and spelling mistakes.

Things that are not translated:
Multiplayer minigames;
Items, Stages and Characters' description(a lot of text that is not crucial for game completion);
Zombies' profile description;
Sub-Quests' description(I've translated some, but then gave up on them, as I hadn't much free time);
Same menues (I couldn't get my hands on graphics files).

Additional Info: No tools were made for the above patch, it was edited using pre-existing tools.

Beta Projects
Translations left in the early stages.

Wizardry 生命の楔 (Wizardry: Seimei no Kusabi Alt Title: Wizardry- Wedge of Life (Note: The title is sometimes incorrectly romanized as 'Inochi no Kusabi')
不思議のダンジョン 風来のシレンDS2 〜砂漠の魔城〜 (Fushigi no Dungeon: Fūrai no Shiren DS2: Sabaku no Majō) Alt Title: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer DS2: Magic Castle of the Desert (Not to be confused with Shiren the Wanderer 2 on N64, this is a sequel to Shiren the Wanderer GB/DS.)
恋するプリン! ~恋は大冒険! Dr.カンミの野望!?~ (Koisuru Purin! Koi wa Daibouken! Dr. Kanmi no Yabou!?) Alt Title: Pudding In Love! Love Is A Great Adventure! Dr. Sweet's Ambition!

Actively Recruiting Projects
This is an incomplete list of translation projects led by members who are still active on GBAtemp (as of December 2020), but are currently unable to progress any further and so are seeking help.

Shining Force Feather (シャイニング・フォース フェザー )

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Project Lead: luckymouse0

Translation: The latest partial translation patch v0.8 was released in July 2016. GDrive Mirror

Tool: No tool was made for the above patch, it was made using previously existing programs. More documentation can be found in the first post of the original thread.

Help Wanted: ROM Hacker- Allow half width characters to be used. Locate Free Battle Objectives.
Translators- Translate the Story, Lounge facility, Library facility


FabStyle (ファブスタイル)

Language: JPN > ENG

Original GBAtemp Thread: Link

Project Lead: Rocket Robz

Translation: The latest partial translation patch v2.0 was released in January 7th, 2020.

Tool: See thread link

Help Wanted: Translators- Translate the Story, and some other Japanese text

Last Update: As of Janurary 2021, MooshyPon has been working on the translation! (See the original thread for details.) You can keep up to date with the project by joining the FabStyle Translation Discord server.

​

Thanks for checking out this thread! If you are interested in picking up any of these projects, do let me know so I can update it!

 

[Fel]

That's a great topic, thanks for the list! Hopefully someone will pick up some of these. I'd help but I don't speak Japanese almost at all.

Here are abandonded projects I remember seeing:

There was an effort to translate Iron Master: The Legendary Blacksmith, but it seems like it's not being worked on anymore.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/delving-into-iron-master-the-legendary-blacksmith.338058/

Cross Treasures had a basic patch.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/cross-treasures-branch-translation.231245/page-6
https://gbatemp.net/threads/cross-treasures-open-translation.195053/

I'll update the rest with links later, but there was also an effort to translate Wizardry here on GBAtemp, or at least make a menu patch.

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/2679/

 

[PhantomGhost]

@Fel Thanks for the info!

 

[duwen]

Kudos for putting this thread together. Hopefully your efforts will result in some progress on at least a couple of these.
Of the titles listed I'm probably most interested in seeing a playable translation for Ore ga Omae wo Mamoru, so I wish you luck in getting that up and running again.

 

[AZealousIndividual]

I absolutely adore Cross Treasures (to the point that I finally made an account here to post this) and have wanted to start a project for it for years now but I'm far too shy to do that myself. ^^;

I've been a small part of some bigger collaborative projects but like
yeah

I have a master's in linguistics and Japanese but have yet to take the JLPT, for what that's worth.

How much documentation is there from the menu translation stuff?

 

[PhantomGhost]

Hey, kudos to you for working up the nerve to post this!

There's not much in the way of documentation unfortunately. I think half of the work with be pulling apart the resources from fluffybutt's patch, finding what's translated and what's not, and figuring out how it all works.

In other words, its kind of like starting the project from fresh. Kind of a shame when you think about the work that's been lost, but pretty much inevitable when picking up an unfinished project, and is exactly what @Fluffybutt did when updating Zarcon's patch. It's all going to be new to YOU, so there will always be a learning curve as you try to navigate it. But personally, I think that's half the fun!

There is some good news though; most of files are in plain text format, which dramatically lowers the bar to entry to being able to get to and view the text that needs translating. You can view a list of them on the old wiki archive as a guide.

The lost tools by Takashio seem to be solely for editing the item and weapon parameter .bat files, which might cause some issues since the item descriptions still need to be translated, although given how popular this game seems to be, I think if a committed revival project gets started, they'll have no trouble getting the hacking help needed.

And on that topic, @Auryn would be a good person to ask about the uncommon image types, as they're still active. Although, having been let down by translators who've been interested in helping and then disappeared before, my advice to you would be to dig into the game yourself, and see if you think it's feasible for you first, before involving other people.

Spoiler: In which Phantom prattles...

Through my brief time in the community, I've learnt that you shouldn't try to rely on others too much, at least until you've proved that you yourself are reliable. In other words, if this is something you're serious about, don't sit around hoping someone else will come and organise a translation project for you, start your own.

The first game I ever worked on was a multi-translator project that I led. (Talk about jumping in at the deep end!) It was rather out of my comfort zone for someone who can't say boo to a goose in real life, but you learn to overcome that shyness (and actually, become quite shameless when it came to advertising or asking for help, as it so happened )

But the team got it done, and I couldn't have been prouder of all of us. So, what I'm trying to say in this roundabout way is, if you think you can, you can! Just make sure you can put your money where your mouth is before you put yourself out there, and you will do fine.

I haven't looked into it intensely, but I have seen that there are standard NCGR, NCLR, NSCR, NANR, NCER and NARC (pack) image types in there, which should be fairly easy to edit using Tinke or Crystal Tile 2. Even I might be able to make those work, so there, you could have your first image editor on board already if needed!

 

[Fel]

Thanks for adding the projects, PhantomErin! By they way, I didn't have the time to add them last time, but could you also please add Chocobo Dungeon and Tales of Hearts? I'm not sure if Kajitani-Eizan is still working no ToH or not (officially he only announced he was dropping the project back when Tales of Hearts R was going to be released, and I'm not sure whether his joke posts about ToH are a roundabout way of saying he's working on it still or not), but there was at least an effort to start it again here.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/tales-of-hearts-translation-project.520707/

Chocobo Dungeon got a menu patch but no quest/story, very little dialogue, so I'm posting it here in case somebody wants to pick up cool dungeon crawling in FF world with chocobos!

https://gbatemp.net/threads/cid-to-chocobo-no-fushigi-na-dungeon-twnmds-translation.231032/

AZealousIndividul: Cross Treasures looks like a totally awesome RPG, I was looking forward to trying it out but unfortunately it never got finished. If you do pick it up, that'd be so cool!

 

[AZealousIndividual]

In regards to the existing Cross Treasures patch, did it use a bad dump as a base or something? xdelta is giving an error with my dump.

EDIT: Looking into it further (probably should have done that before asking ^^; ), yeah, it looks like it used a 2chan release with an underdumped header. Got it.
also there's probably a better place I could be asking this sort of stuff than here, isn't there

 

[Mirby]

Thanks for adding the projects, PhantomErin! By they way, I didn't have the time to add them last time, but could you also please add Chocobo Dungeon and Tales of Hearts? I'm not sure if Kajitani-Eizan is still working no ToH or not (officially he only announced he was dropping the project back when Tales of Hearts R was going to be released, and I'm not sure whether his joke posts about ToH are a roundabout way of saying he's working on it still or not), but there was at least an effort to start it again here.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/tales-of-hearts-translation-project.520707/

Chocobo Dungeon got a menu patch but no quest/story, very little dialogue, so I'm posting it here in case somebody wants to pick up cool dungeon crawling in FF world with chocobos!

https://gbatemp.net/threads/cid-to-chocobo-no-fushigi-na-dungeon-twnmds-translation.231032/

AZealousIndividul: Cross Treasures looks like a totally awesome RPG, I was looking forward to trying it out but unfortunately it never got finished. If you do pick it up, that'd be so cool!

To be fair, the new content in Chocobo's Dungeon was eventually localized as part of Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon Everybuddy! (along with even more content)

but a translation of the DS version would still be neat.

 

[Fel]

To be fair, the new content in Chocobo's Dungeon was eventually localized as part of Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon Everybuddy! (along with even more content)

but a translation of the DS version would still be neat.

That's cool! The new content (in the NDS version) is being able to play as Cid?

 

[PhantomGhost]

I must admit that I was in two minds about some of these (namely, the games that just have a partial translation patch.) Whilst yes, that is technically a release, without any documentation or such, anyone wishing to work on these would pretty much have to start at ground one as though they were working on an game that had never been touched, with the main real advantage being that they might not have as much translation to do.

(The advantage in the other projects I saw was that with the releases, there was something the hacker/translator could get started with straight away, mostly for people who want to work on a project but don't necessarily have all the skills required to finish it.) But, I realised that there's something noble in being able to take someone's hard work and see it through to the end. So, whilst I won't be going out to find and add all the partial patches available for DS, I am happy to list any ones people think are significant enough and send to me!

@Fel With regards to Kajitani-Eizan's patch for Tales Of Hearts, I noted this comment from his blog.

To recap, I translated the first demo, and a certain unnamed translator helped edit it. After that, he took on the role of main translator. Recently, he has decided to delete his fantranslation presence from the internet. I don’t think it would be beneficial to attempt in vain to undo what has already been released, and so the demo links stay up. But I also don’t think it would make sense to release something new against his wishes.

Which does seem to confirm that he will be making no further releases for the game. Out of respect, I think that any projects for this should start from scratch, instead a 'revival' using content from the demo patch, and I didn't find that the partial dump on lost_fencer's thread constituted enough to really be called a 'release' to build upon, hence why this game hasn't been added to the list. I have however sent a message to Kajitani-Eizan to inquire and ask whether there are any surviving tools/documentation from that project which he'd be willing to share.

From IGN, the additional content added to the DS version of Chocobo's Dungeon is an added storyline in which you play as Cid instead of Chocobo, as well as an additional job class and some minor changes. If you're interested in further changes made to the latest release, this article features a translation of an interview with the developers.

@AZealousIndividual If you're just having a poke through files at the minute, I would consider posting in the branch translation project thread where you might be able to catch the attention of anyone still following it, but no one will chastise you for starting a new thread even if it doesn't go much further.

 

[AZealousIndividual]

I'll wait on making a thread until I actually have some stuff with any substance to show. ^^;

Spoiler: The tiny things I've done so far

• I've removed a pixel from the space between the letters in the font to give myself more room to write (though I'm not exactly completely satisfied with the kerning as a result of this especially on l, t, j, and J since it was very much a rush-job to give me more of an idea of what I'm working with; I might completely change things in the future)

• I repointed some stuff on the character creation screen to make longer options fit (the previous patch abbreviated 'ponytail' as 'Pony', for instance; now that isn't a concern)

Image:
imgur A6CHm8W (apparently can't embed/link because this is a new account)
[also please don't take the text as final it was very rushed for the sake of testing that these changes were working properly]

But for now, I'm really just replaying the game and taking notes on which files go with which scenes and so forth.

 

[Null720]

Hey I was wondering I want to start translation hacking for ds back But I dont know what tools to use could anyone point me in the right direction

 

[PhantomGhost]

@Null720 Here are some good resources to take a look at;

ROM hacking in general;
https://www.romhacking.net/start

DS Specific;
https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-new-2016-edition-out.73394/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-ultimate-nintendo-ds-rom-hacking-guide.291274/

And be sure to search around these forums for the specific games you're looking at to see if anyone's shared anything that could come in handy!

Best of luck

 

[Fel]

Hi! I just found two interesting things that I tought would be worth mentioning, Minecrafter is actively looking for translators for Luminous Arc 3 and luckymouse0 is open to collaboration with his Shining Force Feather Translation patch, right now it's a finished menu patch that's missing "lounge" and "story" (as he said he doesn't want to do all of it alone).

https://gbatemp.net/threads/rom-hackers-editors-needed-for-luminous-arc-3-translation.425475

https://gbatemp.net/threads/shining-force-feather-translation-patch.430236/page-2

 

[PhantomGhost]

Thanks again! I’ve added Shining Force Feather, but not Luminous Arc 3 as it didn’t meet the requirement of having something publicly available to view. (The translation LuminousCat made using machine translators seems to be separate to The Minecrafter’s patch project.)
That might be a nit-picky, but I wasn’t *quite* planning to commit to creating an updated version of the Translation Index Thread at this point in time, which is the territory we're heading into if starting to delve into all unfinished projects headed by someone who is still active on the forums.
You do seem to be incredibly knowledgeable about projects though, so maybe that is something that would be of interest? By speaking to a mod, you could get permission to edit the original thread. I’m sure people would appreciate a more up-to-date version, and I could try to lend a hand with the research if you did fancy it

 

[Auryn]

I absolutely adore Cross Treasures (to the point that I finally made an account here to post this) and have wanted to start a project for it for years now but I'm far too shy to do that myself. ^^;

No need to be shy. Just learn and do it.

I have a master's in linguistics and Japanese

Well, here is your chance....go crazy!
https://www.dropbox.com/home/Cross Treasures Text

• Try to move things around as less as possible and don't touch/change example the *number between the lines
  
• Text is all in SJIS
• <cNumber< is the command that change the text color (the number define what color)
• </c< reset the text color to standart
• >pn> command that insert the player name in the text
  
• save the files always as plain txt

And on that topic, @Auryn would be a good person to ask about the uncommon image types, as they're still active. Although, having been let down by translators who've been interested in helping and then disappeared before, my advice to you would be to dig into the game yourself, and see if you think it's feasible for you first, before involving other people.

Well, Auryn is jobless at the moment and has other worries apart that he forgot about those files but if something comes out from those files, we can see if i can do something about them.
By the way, those files are on that dropbox since 5 years ... nobody touched them.

I have to make a little correction for Sora no Otoshimono: somebody made progress (as you see in my video on that thread) but not the person working on that game
He could not get the names to work because they got truncked most of the time. Well, the problem was (if my memory isn't wrong) that just in front of each name, there was a value that told the game how many bytes the name was....correct that number and you got working names. For that i knew that the translation was doomed from the beginning.

About Chocobo: at the time i played the game a while and told GrayFox about errors or missing things. Sadly he didn't really care about it so i decided to not work on that part of the game but on the card game instead. I started translating the cards when i noticed that the 3 Chocobo games have many cards in common and the same format in the game. I could probably just import the cards from the other game already translated. Sadly i would need to find where the cards are not the same and i would need a parser to compare the cards. I am not so good in programming on PC so i never did it

 

[Fel]

Hi! Thanks for the post. I hope it's gonna get better for you! I understand the feeling. It's a pity GreyFox didn't care about those issues. I'm not a hacker, however if you're interested in the card game, I scoured some sites and found out this:

According to the FF Fandom Wikia the Gilgamesh cards and Typhon - World Destroyer are Chocobo Dungeon exclusives. The wiki lists the Gilgamesh cards as Chocobo Dungeon 2 exclusives because a note below the Gilgamesh category says they're from the second NDS game, CD2, yet they're marked with a *, denoting they belong to NDS CD1 according to its own addendum at the bottom of the list. But they're present in the card list from Wii's version of CD, so I'm guessing they're most likely in the NDS game as well. I guess you could look at a Japanese guide for the game and cross check the card list, but I don't speak Japanese, so I can't help with that. You can always try comparing the list from Chocobo Tales with Wii's Chocobo Dungeon?

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_pop-up_duel_cards?diff=1885731&oldid=1885640

I'm not listing the newest page as the formatting edits broke the asterisks, so they no longer display which cards are version exlusives. This is the latest revision that worked.

Links to the Wii cards lists and what I had planned on posting before comparing the lists above:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/wii/939442-final-fantasy-fables-chocobos-dungeon/faqs/56722

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/wii/9...chocobos-dungeon/faqs/67330/pop-up-duel-cards

The Wii game has a list of "All 122 cards from Chocobo Tales [are included unchanged]. Also included are 5 cards only available from DS Download Stations (or through cheats) and 6brand new cards for this game."

I'm guessing that the Wii and NDS version might have the same amount cards? If yes, there are only 6 new cards and potentially 5 that are either in both CTales, or only in CDungeon. So theoretically you could use this list in conjuction with the CTales card list and compare the cards there. You could also try grabbing the card descriptions from the Wii version for the brand new cards, if you want to reuse the official translations.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/934650-final-fantasy-fables-chocobo-tales/faqs/47799

https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Pop-up_Duel#Pop-up_Cards

PS. It seems like when you've quoted AZealousIndividual about Cross Treasures, GBATemp did something with the formatting if you check the quote box (it shows the URL), so it's possible they didn't get alerted to your message.

 

[PhantomGhost]

@Auryn Thanks for your input on Cross Treasures! I'm sure @AZealousIndividual will really appreciate that!

In your video, it seems that it's just the names which have been translated? As the series received a licensed English translation, I figured that those could be copied over. From browsing the archives, it didn't look like Nijohc ever released anything on their site, and Crucilia plainly stated that they'd used a machine translation in their files, which are of low quality, hence I didn't count them ^^'

Hang in there!

@Fel Awesome work digging that up! You'd made a great detective

 

[Auryn]

Thanks both for the support.
I am trying to clean up my old HDD and i have a lot of translation things around. Sadly they are not really well organized because at the time i knew what backup come from what HDD or machine but I don't know that anymore. I was actually looking at the forum yesterday because finding old images of wip AAI2 project, made me think i would like to share them with the community.
Sadly the backup forum of Court records where we used to talk about everything AAI2 connected and especially the whole technical aspect of the game, is lost forever and i would like to "restore" as much as possible before my things are lost forever or completely forgot what they mean. Many new people have absolutly no idea on what difficulty / challange games translation brings and i would like to give a little idea with the progress we had with AAI2 as reference.
Apart that, somebody send me a PM a while ago (yes, i didn't forget about you )about the tools and info about AAI2 and I am trying to find the latest things for him as well.

The files in my dropbox are files you can find in CT as you see them (i didn't change anything on them) making this game looking very easy to translate but I am not sure what will happen when we put english on them. From what i see at the moment, from what i remember about it, CT should be easy to translate if there is a translator.


@Fel: yes, from my memory it's about 5 cards difference between the 2 NDS games (the one in english and the DS+) but you need to parse them all in the data because they don't have a distinct name in the files that let you know what card you are dealing with in the data and they are not in the same sequence in the data between the 2 games.
It's not something difficult to do, just tedious and need longtime. A parser would take only seconds.
On my backups, i found this image called "cards missing" but i don't remember for which game
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c0ecdwa57ii45tq/Cards missing.PNG?dl=0


Sadly the fact that i have many folders called choco or similar and the fact that i opened the other games to compare them, make it difficult to organize the data especially because in between those, there are things like this one
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l7tq9wlkhv47ckw/1.png?dl=0
Yes, before you ask, it's Chocobo Dungeon 1 for the PSX



@PhantomGhost: yes, i only inserted the names because that was another person project. You have to think like this: translations take a lot of time and endurance and this is something that most people that try to do translations REALLY under estimate. Every game is different, every time you start a new translation, you start from the beginning and the only thing that can help you, is your experience. To make it easy to understand, i take the example of those images you was talking about. The NDS has a standart image format (NCGR) with their palette, screen info and animations. Those files have an header where it usually state what of those format are (example RGCN and yes, in an hex editor it's backwards). The images in CT are not standart, they have extra info and other headers. Why did i know how to edit them anyway?? Simple: it was my experience that told me to reconize a pattern of bytes that could make up an image or a palette and in fact parts of those files are just a normal NCGR just without header. Now i remember talking with somebody about those files and we had a different idea: I was for do it like i did and we forget about the extra data until it will pose a problem and then we can look into it. The other person was more the kind of "i need to know the exact format of this image before i can do something with it". We are both right.
If you take a look at the image "Cards missing" and you see it with the eyes of somebody without experience, it seems only like a list of files. If you look at it with experience, you see it's a list in the folder "card" in a game with card game, you see a big NCGR in each file name indicating every file is at least 1 image and the ".z" indicates that it's compressed (i don't remember if winrar actually can extract those files or not...maybe it's a wrong file assotiation).
What this all means for me and doing only the names in Sora?? Well, there are many posts around that tell you that the first step to become a translator is to ask questions the right way. That guy didn't. I am always ready to give an hand if i can but if I have the feeling that the person asking for help has no clue about what he is doing or that he ist not even really trying, then i spend so little time as possible because it's useless. If I remember well, the broken images was something i did on the title screen and maybe the first lines of text. It seems i don't have a copy of them on the HDD where i am collecting the backups but they are not all here yet. Apart that, at that time, i didn't see the animation yet and i had little interest on working on Sora. I could be more motivated today because i loved the animations.