Gaming Is it possible to convert the english translation of YU-NO (visual novel) from Win95 to PC-98?

[Nikokaro]

Does anyone know if and how it's possible to transfer the english translation patch of this wonderful VN from the Win95 version to the PC-98 version (.hdi format)? Or maybe it has already been adapted, without my knowledge. Apparently the game is identical in both versions. This way it could be read and enjoyed, via NP2 emulator (Neko Project 2) on Android tablet/phone, on PSP/PSVITA, 3DS and other portable devices. Would anyone be able to give me some information on this topic?
Thank you.

 

[Scarlet]

Is this the same YU-NO? https://store.steampowered.com/app/912450/YUNO_A_girl_who_chants_love_at_the_bound_of_this_world/

If so it's already on Vita and Switch, unless the original has unique things the remake doesn't.

 

[Nikokaro]

It may be that the plot is similar, but both the author and the anime design style are completely different. The recent one features childish and ridiculous artwork (like anime of the last few decades). The one I'm talking about dates back to the nineties and, as I said, is available for Win95 and PC-98, originally in floppy disks, now in .fdi/.HDi format.
Thanks anyway for your reply, which however is totally outside the scope of my question.

 

[Nikokaro]

Folks, it is incredible to say but, by a strange coincidence, I managed to find, through a completely unexpected way, what I was looking for, without expecting anything.

Thanks to the discovery, completely accidental, of the conversion project of the english translation of this VN from PC to PSVita made by our resourceful @Spazzery, I also came to know, thanks to his kind suggestion, the existence of an adaptation of the same translation for Neko Project 2 (PC-98 emu); adaptation almost complete and ready to go ( https://mega.nz/folder/rPwDkSLa#3oUvDA_SkbXiB8KlpVQpRg ), and that I immediately started testing on my PSP.

Those interested can use it conveniently on Android, PSP, 3DS and any portable device emulating PC-98 through NP2.
Don't miss this opportunity; this is a unique piece of history of the adv./VN genre and one of the most appreciated titles ever.

 

[dub_the_old]

Nice. I'll get my PSP to install Neko. I have always want to play this novel when I was younger. But never can cause of the language. This kind of game deserve having a right psp version.

 

[Nikokaro]

I am pleased to inform you all that the author has completed the conversion of the English translation from PC (Win) to PC-98 (emu) format (.hdi).
Truly a commendable and noteworthy, titanic undertaking :
https://mega.nz/folder/rPwDkSLa#3oUvDA_SkbXiB8KlpVQpRg

 

[igaul401]

I am pleased to inform you all that the author has completed the conversion of the English translation from PC (Win) to PC-98 (emu) format (.hdi).
Truly a commendable and noteworthy, titanic undertaking :

have you tried this on retroarch, can't make it work using nekoproject2 or kai cores in retroarch
np2 boots then closes.
already have all the np2kai fonts & roms.

 

[Nikokaro]

tried this on retroarch, can't make it work using nekoproject2

You don't have to use Retroarch! There, I think Yu-No launched with NP2 core works just as well but it's too slow and unplayable.
Instead you have to use NP2 for PSP which you can find here (the pc-9801 version, not pc-9821 which is too slow):
https://archive.org/details/np-2-for-psp-v-0.39.7z
You say that this emulator does not work on your PSP. How come?
Here (PSP 3004 cfw 6.61 pro-C F3) Yu-No works perfectly. You have to load the file.hdi from the slot provided (HDD) and then reset the emulator to restart it. It takes a while to load it, but then it works great: only the character transitions are a bit slow. Leave frameskip on auto, put low audio quality 11khz, and leave the processor as default (X4 if I'm not mistaken).

P.S. Let me also recommend "Dead of the Brain", an old horror VN masterpiece, recently translated into english (in .fdi format, to be loaded in the FDD slot).
https://archive.org/details/nec-pc-9801-translations
Edit: Now this is also in .HDi format.

 

[igaul401]

many thanks. made it work now. had to reinstall np2 for pc-9801 , then it worked. installed the wrong version

 

[ecto]

I am pleased to inform you all that the author has completed the conversion of the English translation from PC (Win) to PC-98 (emu) format (.hdi).
Truly a commendable and noteworthy, titanic undertaking :
https://mega.nz/folder/rPwDkSLa#3oUvDA_SkbXiB8KlpVQpRg

I'm looking for a way to play Yo-No on Retropie for a loong time. Thanks for finding that pc98 translation, much appreciated!
Is the patch in the archive.org folder the one you're talking about (beta7, unfinished)? Or is there another translation? I'm asking because the Mega link doesn't work anymore...

 

[Nikokaro]

Is the patch in the archive.org folder the one you're talking about...

Unfortunately, I noted with regret that the author has recently removed the file from that link, and it is no longer available from archive.org either. I'm guessing someone has warned (threatened) to have it removed (since the more modern remake of the same is recently available on the market).
Sadly, I can't upload it here for obvious reasons.

Edit: Upon closer inspection, on archive.org the 95% translated version is still available within the "incomplete" folder.
https://archive.org/details/nec-pc-9801-translations

 

[ecto]

Oh no! 😞 I'm waiting years for this to happen an then I'm only days late...
Anyways 95% is still very good. I didn't know about this translation as well.
Do you have any contact to the author maybe?

Edit
maybe he can upload an ips patch. That should be OK, right?

Edit 2
This seems to be the right patch:
https://archive.org/details/yu-no-pc-98-english-rc-1

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Hello, I'm the Yu-No PC-98 patch author.

The hdi builds that were shared on discord and hosted on mega were for testing purposes only (some updates literaly broke the game engine). After the patch completion, the link was removed because there was no purpose in keeping it. I was never threatened by anyone, don't worry about me

However, yes, it's now complete. The archive link ecto posted just above is the official one.

It's labeled as RC2 because the epilogue hasn't been fully proofred yet and may have the occasional typo here and there. I'll release an incremental update with all remaining typos corrected after my proofreader completes the game. I'll let you know there when it's done (or otherwise I regulary post updates about y pc-98 related projects on Twitter). You can however begin a game, the update will be incremental and won't touch your saves.

I'm sorry for the circonvulted patching method, but the game structure itself was preventing me to use a more streamlined way. If you have any trouble applying it, just let me know and I'll help the best I can.

Anyway, thanks for the interest. Hope you'll enjoy the game !

 

[Nikokaro]

Hello @BabaJeanmel , Welcome among all of us.
Thank you for bothering to post on this humble thread of mine, and even more for allowing us to enjoy this jewel, old masterpiece and milestone in the history of Japanese Visual Novels, that we can now use on all our portable devices.

May I suggest you to port on PC-98 also, if it will be to your liking, the english translations of old ms-dos games that have the corresponding, identical title on PC-98? For example SEASON OF THE SAKURA, RUNAWAY CITY, PARADISE HEIGHTS, KNIGHTS OF XENTAR, COBRA MISSION, THREE SISTERS' STORY, POWER DOLLS, and maybe others.
Be sure to keep us informed of your projects and initiatives on this site as well. You will be welcome to do so.

Best Regards.

Edit: To tell the truth the translation of Season of Sakura had already been ported to PC-98 by a user of Tokugawa Corp Forums, but as many already know, that legendary site, after many years, has been sadly closed and the files uploaded there are no longer available (as far as I know).

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Hi, thanks for your kind words! It was a first for me to do a project on this kind of scope, and I'm glad it turned out well.

As for new translations, I would gladly, but it's not as easy as that... I was able to port the translation of Yu-No thanks to the amazing work of reverse engineering done by tomyun, that provided me (and a few other fellow PC-98 translators) some very advanced tool designed to hack elf games. The games you suggest use some totally different engines, most of whom have not been figured out yet by experienced hackers.

I was thinking giving Xentar/Dragon Knight III a go, but the english script is basically a spoof and totally mangles the original intent. Well, it's a series know for its tongue-in-cheek humor in the first place, but references to Donald Trump and Culture Club were definitly not present. Neither were the "YOUR AD HERE" below a H-scene or the rants about legal issues the american publisher encountered while trying to scure the "Dragon Knight" name rights. Not to mention Queen Neina becoming Princess Diana (among others)... It would definitly need a complete retranslation, and my Japanese is currently too weak to do so.

Same goes for Words Worth. It HAS an english fan translation, but a very approximate one. Porting it would be trivial, but I'm not sure it would be a very good idea.

I'm currently working on an earlier Elf game, "Foxy", as a small project to work a bit on my language skills. I'll let you know when it's released.

 

[Nikokaro]

...Words Worth. It HAS an english fan translation, but a very approximate one. Porting it would be trivial, but I'm not sure it would be a very good idea

Words Worth, especially the PC-98 version, is an excellent dungeon crawling RPG, and if you consider it so trivial (simple) to port it from Windows (I suppose) to PC-98, why not do it?
Even if the translation is vague, the important thing is to understand the plot, even if it doesn't perfectly match the original.

The games you suggest use some totally different engines...

Strange... I don't know much about programming, but those are english language titles for ms-dos, and also the corresponding ones on PC-98 are for Japanese ms-dos, and I believe that the structure of the files/folders of the single games is identical in both. In this case, wouldn't a simple copy and paste of the files containing the text, or almost, be enough?

I'm currently working on an earlier Elf game, "Foxy"

Well, ELF never disappoints; for connoisseurs it is certainly a guarantee of quality...

Good luck, and we look forward to your new works.

 

[BabaJeanmel]

Words Worth, especially the PC-98 version, is an excellent dungeon crawling RPG, and if you consider it so trivial (simple) to port it from Windows (I suppose) to PC-98, why not do it?
Even if the translation is vague, the important thing is to understand the plot, even if it doesn't perfectly match the original.

The reason is simple : doing a script port to a different engine is quite time consuming. So porting a script that's been cut out, with errors and grammar mistakes everywhere during several dozen hours is not something I find really interesting tbh.
I think neko project win + textractor will give some better results. Seriously. At last the script would be uncut.

Strange... I don't know much about programming, but those are english language titles for ms-dos, and also the corresponding ones on PC-98 are for Japanese ms-dos, and I believe that the structure of the files/folders of the single games is identical in both. In this case, wouldn't a simple copy and paste of the files containing the text, or almost, be enough?

It's not that simple. Sometimes the engines are updated/modified for the DOS/Windows version. It was the case for Yu-No for instance. Porting scripts back often require to change font encoding (a lot of pc-98 games can't output ASCII text natively), find a way around memory limits (translated scripts take more space, and some memory overflow errors can occur)...

However, some games have compatible engines. That's the case for Mad Paradox. There's a FM-Towns translated version that uses the DOS files with a few fixes. Too bad it's such a bad game ^^

I'll take a look at the games you mention. Who knows, we might get lucky ?

Well, ELF never disappoints; for connoisseurs it is certainly a guarantee of quality...

They're by far my favourite eroge publishers. The Dokyuusei/Dragon Knight/Shangrlia series are all awesome games.

Good luck, and we look forward to your new works.

Thanks !

 

[Nikokaro]

However, some games have compatible engines. That's the case for Mad Paradox. There's a FM-Towns translated version that uses the DOS files with a few fixes. Too bad it's such a bad game

Wow, Mad Paradox, I had forgotten about that one...so many memories....
As gameplay was not so bad! I remember unfortunately that in the DOS version was used a low resolution graphics, with horrible scanlines, who knows why ...
And someone had created a patch to get rid of them. If also this one was available for pc-98 in english, I would not be so picky and I would be able to enjoy this title too in my psp...

A suggestion: If you decide to port other translations on pc-98 maybe you could open a special thread here dedicated to this topic, specifying it in the title.

 

[BabaJeanmel]

I don't think it's worth a new thread ATM. But just to let you know, I've taken a look at the games you mentioned.

The three Jast games (Seasons of Sakura, Runaway City, Three Sisters Story) are indeed very similar to the DOS releases. I managed to inject the english text files into the pc-98 versions and edit a few strings (such as the main character's name) quite easily. But they will need some additional hacking because they natively can't display any ASCII punctuation at all.

Mad Paradox has a file structure preventing me to do any modifications without some serious hacking. The FM-Towns version is a better option if you really want to play a JPC version.

As for the remaining games (Cobra Mission, Paradise Heights, Power Dolls, and even True Love) they use a totally different way to pack data. So does Knights of Xentar, but I managed to dump the script with some old DOS tool I found some time ago. Even if I don't think I'll make any use of it...

 

[Nikokaro]

The three Jast games (Seasons of Sakura, Runaway City, Three Sisters Story) are indeed very similar to the DOS releases...

I'm glad that some translations can be ported from one format to another fairly easily. Let's hope so.
I almost forgot about NOCTURNAL ILLUSION, a VN/Adventure game with a beautiful and touching storyline, and unforgettable background music (especially the opening one). Had you ever considered this title?