Translating Ys 1 v0.763

[Murzik]

Greetings to all Saturn fans and Segaxtreme members and just readers!

Recently, i started to play Grandia with great translation by TrekkiesUnite118 and this (and also, many other truly great translation projects that out in past years) motivated me to start translation project. Also, I wanted to replay Ys 1 at some day, but with all of this translation boom, i decided, why not to replay Ys 1 on Saturn! It is not my first Saturn translation project, as in early 200x i did partial translation for one game.

To make story short. English language is not my native, same for Japanese language. So, if i will do script translation myself, it will be machine translation - which is not good (you may see it on included picture). Also, i have somewhat high lazyness stat, and i am not sure that i will finish this project alone. Thus, i see this project to became open community.

What is known now and what is done so far:
4bpp linear fixed width font
Game uses unencrypted uncompressed texts encoded by 2 bytes, custom codepage (code table 100% complete, parsing function hacked to work with 1 byte encoding)
Script blocks separated by location basis (Mine town full extraction complete)
Script blocks consists of pointers block (to dialogues configs), dialogue configs blocks (bytecode, which is interpreted by game code to setup and call text dialogues), and texts block itself.

So, as i said earlier, i want this project to became open community translation project. I will be glad to hear your opinions on how to bring this project to official start.

Thank you all for reading!

 

[privateye]

Welcome! It's cool that you want to translate Ys 1 but, why do a machine translation when English translations already exist?

It is not my first Saturn translation project, as in early 200x i did partial translation for one game.

Nice, what game was that?

 

[BlueMoon95]

This is hella cool, I always wanted to play the Falcom Classics version of Ys I in English. Thank you for all the work you've done so far. I want to say that most of the script from the Chronicles version of Ys I could possibly work with this or be helpful in some way.

 

[Mr Conan]

For collaboration (or sharing), I would recommend you put everything down in detail -- files of interest on the disc, original file formats (including offsets), your updated file formats, altered ASM listings that you have created, where text data is stored in Hi-RAM, Lo-RAM, VDP1 RAM, VDP2 RAM etc. That will help people pick up where you left off.

Ms. Tea put together a fairly good GitHub for her work on Lunar (I still need to update with all my notes someday).

GitHub - studio-lucia/lunardata: Lunar: Silver Star Story data format notes

Lunar: Silver Star Story data format notes. Contribute to studio-lucia/lunardata development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

I think yabause has some game info pages buried on it, but there isnt much content there on a per game basis

Yabause

wiki.yabause.org

For translation ive seen people put up shared google spreadsheets, maybe that would be useful.

 

[Murzik]

Thank you!

I proud to release test version 0.1 of translation, codenamed AYBABTU edition!

Included are two patches: one for SSP V1.3(V1.3fix), second for SSP V1.91. (they both are the same edition, just in case, someone prefer specific SSP version)

Quick notes directly from Readme:
It is not supposed to waste burnable media for it, because it is just a test. So, if you want to try it, better use emulator or ODE.

Features:
All scripts is machine translated, not edited and checked at all
Only Minea town location translated (dialogs, shops, etc.)
If you will leave Minea town, any dialogue, any text, any conversation with NPC will cause errors of any sort (because translation used 1 byte encoding with patched routines for script parsing, while rest of game is still untraslated and encoded in 2 byte)
No good aligning of messageboxes and its sizes to displayed texts - only quick and dirty resizing and playing with available fonts, just to mockup V0.1 quick.
And again, it is machine translated, not edited and checked at all

I will be glad to share any details on translation. But just some thoughts right now. The game features few fonts (i used in translation two of them - one 4bpp and 3bpp linears ones). You may select font and do positioning and sizing of messageboxes in dialog config "block", also you may edit texts itself, to beautify it not only with literature translation but with appropriate line breaks to make good alignment and readablity. So, for release V0.1 i didnt wasted many time on beautifying, just quickly edited it to be it somewhat testable.

 

[dibz]

Looking good! I recommend creating a resource for this in the resources section and uploading it there, then we can link this as the discussion thread for it.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Thank you!

I proud to release test version 0.1 of translation, codenamed AYBABTU edition!

Included are two patches: one for SSP V1.3(V1.3fix), second for SSP V1.91. (they both are the same edition, just in case, someone prefer specific SSP version)

Quick notes directly from Readme:
It is not supposed to waste burnable media for it, because it is just a test. So, if you want to try it, better use emulator or ODE.

Features:
All scripts is machine translated, not edited and checked at all
Only Minea town location translated (dialogs, shops, etc.)
If you will leave Minea town, any dialogue, any text, any conversation with NPC will cause errors of any sort (because translation used 1 byte encoding with patched routines for script parsing, while rest of game is still untraslated and encoded in 2 byte)
No good aligning of messageboxes and its sizes to displayed texts - only quick and dirty resizing and playing with available fonts, just to mockup V0.1 quick.
And again, it is machine translated, not edited and checked at all

I will be glad to share any details on translation. But just some thoughts right now. The game features few fonts (i used in translation two of them - one 4bpp and 3bpp linears ones). You may select font and do positioning and sizing of messageboxes in dialog config "block", also you may edit texts itself, to beautify it not only with literature translation but with appropriate line breaks to make good alignment and readablity. So, for release V0.1 i didnt wasted many time on beautifying, just quickly edited it to be it somewhat testable.


View attachment 7105View attachment 7106View attachment 7107

The SSPs are all backwards compatible (At least should be, not really tested by the masses), so if you were successfully able to make a patch in 1.31 I would just use that one to get more people access.

Once we hit 2.0, we should have a set standard. Since you are new to the scene I would love to get your feedback on what I can improve before we roll out 2.0. Please join us in the discord for some good friendly conversation with some Saturn loving folks.

 

[Murzik]

Since you are new to the scene I would love to get your feedback on what I can improve before we roll out 2.0.

I would be very glad to give useful feedback, but, sadly, i didnt use it too much to have any requests for improvements and features - but for all my user cases it was fine tool.

And thanks for invitation!

Looking good! I recommend creating a resource for this in the resources section and uploading it there, then we can link this as the discussion thread for it.

Thank you! And thank for recommendation, i think, i need to do few more updates to make this project really worth it (and i have some plans on those updates).

Mr Conan, thank you for suggestions, i think those are good ones to begin with to make this project open community.

privateye, BlueMoon95, thank you! Really, i checked Chronicles translation project scripts with quick glance, but i suppose they are not 1:1 identical to Ys 1 Saturn version. Of course, possible to use it as a base (and of course, i suppose, it require permission from Chronicles translation project group), but it will still require additional text editorials. And I am not sure which will be more time consuming - this (someone without Japanese speaking/reading will try to compilate/split/mix not 1:1 equal texts, not mentioning, identifying them at first as script orders may be fully different) or just if someone Japanese speaking/reading will translate Saturn sripts as is.
So, now i think, the only proper way, to make project open and place scripts in online spreadsheet, for some community translation volunteers to tranalate it.

I have few ideas for next steps for project, and if it will be combined with placing scripts online, there may be next version with good quality Minea part.

 

[Murzik]

Small update. Played with fonts and msgbox resizing for font, and i think, found good combination. So no more need to spam button too much to read texts in so tiny portions. Just example, but it will work same for other dialogues. And same tech will be good for indoor dialogs/menus. Only with exception, that sometimes original indoors dialogs menu msgboxes may have too small dimensions for direct translation to fit. And here will be few options: resizing msgbox to fit direct translation, or use literature adaptation to find synonyms or shortening translation by any mean, to keep original msgbox sizes. Or maybe just doubling the dimensions of all indoor names/menus msgboxes. The idea, to have all indoor msgboxes in one size/style as in original.

So, the main stopping factor - normal text translation, the project needs a japanese translator volunteer(s). Scripts are collecting dust awaiting for someone to begin translation.

 

[Murzik]

Maybe someone want to became curator of translation for this project (organizational matters, like placing scripts to some online spreadsheet service, desicions with write access rights, maybe some "HR" for translators, you may guess anything what will help to start it).

Or maybe someone want to try adapting of already existing translations (like mentioned Ys 1 Complete), only in this case, as i said, i think need to get permission from translation group.

So, i am open for any ideas.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Did the game make it easy to switch to an 8x8 font?

Funny enough, I mentioned you should do this exact thing when we were doing the Shiro! Show last night.

 

[LTH]

The PSP / TG-16 scripts could be used as a base I suppose

 

[Murzik]

Did the game make it easy to switch to an 8x8 font?

Yes, the game engine supports it is natively, via "dialogue config" block. This game is really translation friendly, everything is awaiting just for the script translation itself.

Funny enough, I mentioned you should do this exact thing when we were doing the Shiro! Show last night.

"Murzik translations" - all your requests come true!
Just imagine today, tommorow it will be reality. "Murzik translation"

LTH, thank you. Btw, do you want to particiapte, and begin adaptation of scripts or maybe take a role of translation curator? Project need any help to jump start text translation.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Yes, the game engine supports it is natively, via "dialogue config" block. This game is really translation friendly, everything is awaiting just for the script translation itself.


"Murzik translations" - all your requests come true!
Just imagine today, tommorow it will be reality. "Murzik translation"

LTH, thank you. Btw, do you want to particiapte, and begin adaptation of scripts or maybe take a role of translation curator? Project need any help to jump start text translation.

I am a very very busy person, and you have already handled all the work somebody like me would have done in this project. If you are looking for recruits, join the discords. The forums are nice for archival and informative purposes, but conversations are no longer happening on them. You may have better luck in the Sega Saturn Shiro! Discord, since that is more tailored to die hard fans who want to help but are not technical.

 

[Mr Conan]

You may want to post elsewhere for translation assistance. Like KoD mentioned, most of us here are more knowledgeable on the technical side, not so much the language. You can give Romhacking.net a try Romhacking.net - Index Either post in the Help Wanted or Script/Language Discussion board. Ys is popular enough you might get some volunteers.

 

[Murzik]

I have good news. CrawdKenny joined to project as translator! Thanks to him, Minea script now fully translated. I prepared new patch version 0.19 for release.

Patch notes of v0.19:
No more machine translation. All Minea script translated by CrawdKenny
Used 8x8 font with resized dialogue boxes/menus indoor/outdoor (still, not all dialogues resized yet)

It is still in early stages of work. Just to show concept of this project.

​

 

[Amiceli1983]

Awesome work! Looking good, I like the font being use.. nice and clean looking

 

[Benjamin Siskoo]

Thanks for the work. I'm a big fan of the master system version, I'm happy with the saturn one now. There is a missing string in the pause menu

And thesave menu

 

[Murzik]

There was few reports of wrong soundtracks played at main title (at this stage ys1 binaries even didnt loaded at all, so no patch data in ram) and in first wilderness area outside Minea. Confirmed it now. (didnt notice it before as dev pc not connected to receiver)

Seems, that we hit here a bug in SSP, as direct patching do not show this bug. Knight0fDragon, i would be glad to give any information if you will like to check this issue.

 

[privateye]

There was few reports of wrong soundtracks played at main title (at this stage ys1 binaries even didnt loaded at all, so no patch data in ram) and in first wilderness area outside Minea. Confirmed it now. (didnt notice it before as dev pc not connected to receiver)

Redbook audio tracks can get jumbled up when patching with Sega Saturn Patcher v1.91. This was fixed in v1.95 which is included with the Wachenröder entry in the Sega Saturn 27th Anniversary Game Competition: SEGA Saturn 27th Anniversary Game Competition