Fire Emblem 1 NES Translation Project

[Rai]

Hi, I'm Rai and for years, I've been trying to get this game translated. And now that I have more ASM hacking experience, I've been able to overcome this game's space limits. See, recently I added dictionary compression into the game. With this compression, I can add 3 times as more text, than the original game would allow. Now, you may disagree with this, but for my translation hack, I'm using the Nintendo DS script. What's my reason for this? Because the Japanese Shadow Dragon uses the exact same text as the original game. I want to do something similar with my hack.

So yes, with the dictionary compression I added, I've been able to cram the huge DS script, into the NES game.

Screenshots:

Here's a video as well......

[Ike-Mike]

But there is a FE1 translation already done!

I guess your hacking experience could be helpful for every other incomplete translation patch though.

[VincentASM]

Well, it wouldn't do people too much harm to have multiple choices for their translation patches. You could also consider forming a collaboration if you feel like saving some work.

Of course, I'm not really one to talk, since I more or less ignored a prospective translation to complete mine (although I didn't think the author would take it so badly...).

Although something that caught me eye:

Because the Japanese Shadow Dragon uses the exact same text as the original game. I want to do something similar with my hack.

I haven't read both scripts in depth, but I'm convinced that there are *some* substantial differences between the two game's scripts. It has been 15+ years since FE1 came out, I'm sure they must have made some changes to Shadow Dragon's script.

Besides, I'm sure Shadow Dragon borrows more from FE3's script, which is very slightly different from FE1's (I know because I worked on the FE3 translation).

I can't recall if you posted on romhacking.net, but I mentioned one or two script differences in a FE1 translation topic there. The most notable being Malledus's dialogue about the Manaketes in one of the chapter endings.

Edited February 5, 2011 by VincentASM

[Rai]

Well, it wouldn't do people too much harm to have multiple choices for their translation patches. You could also consider forming a collaboration if you feel like saving some work.

Of course, I'm not really one to talk, since I more or less ignored a prospective translation to complete mine (although I didn't think the author would take it so badly...).

Although something that caught me eye:

I haven't read both scripts in depth, but I'm convinced that there are *some* substantial differences between the two game's scripts. It has been 15+ years since FE1 came out, I'm sure they must have made some changes to Shadow Dragon's script.

Besides, I'm sure Shadow Dragon borrows more from FE3's script, which is very slightly different from FE1's (I know because I worked on the FE3 translation).

I can't recall if you posted on romhacking.net, but I mentioned one or two script differences in a FE1 translation topic there. The most notable being Malledus's dialogue about the Manaketes in one of the chapter endings.

You're right about that and I'll make sure to check those differences. But as far as the prologue goes, it's exactly the same, just with Kanji instead of katakana.

[Gaggle of Geese]

Have you had any problems with the Shop screen?

[Celice]

The only reason Gideon doesn't care about Vince's translation is because his will pretty much be better in most ways :P

I remember seeing this project over at romhacking dot net a while ago. Good to see more progress on it! Though, in terms of romhacking ethics (surprisingly respectable), I'd say a copy/paste, not your own translation, is pretty meh for my attention. But most people don't care if they can play the game anyways. The actual additional code is more noteworthy :P

[Quirino]

Great to see one's working on a translation which has some more text included. Thanks to me having no ASM knowledge I can't fit in that many text... However, what's it with those strange characters in the video? Why are they flickering?

Edit: and besides, why would you use the Shadow Dragon script, if you do that, I don't see a reason why one would play this game, if the story is basically the same but with worse graphics and music...

Edited February 6, 2011 by Quirino

[Tetragrammaton]

And i wonder why Rai didn't help Quirino when he asked for help ?

That could make a good combination from both patches and for everyone.

Edited February 6, 2011 by hanhnn

[VincentASM]

The only reason Gideon doesn't care about Vince's translation is because his will pretty much be better in most ways :P

Is that what he thinks now? If so, that's good I suppose. The last and only time and I saw him comment about my translation was on the very first page of that topic on romhacking.net, where he didn't seem very pleased.

Anyway, I can see he's still been progressing well on his other translations, so I'm assuming he wasn't that affected.

[Celice]

FE3's been, like, iced for years now. He keeps mentioning it now and then, but it's probably never going to come out. Most people interested probably heard about your release and played that. Gideon's release will probably just come late to the party and not really recieve any welcome, other than "oh look a translation for x random game."

(now, if someone wanted to be really cool, they'd find a way of emulating that cellphone game which was a lot like Fire Emblem, and translate that--someone mentioned it years ago on FESS I think... )

[Quirino]

I also read that on romhacking, it was just deeply sad that he posted the first comment, which made everyone not like your translation. I felt so sorry for RPGuy and you...

@hanhnn: actually Rai offered to help me with implementing DTE, but after I sent him the patch he got banned from romhacking, I couldn't see that he was banned and I could just keep on sending him messages, so I thought he just wouldn't send me the patch. Then I decided to just do this project without ASM hacking :P

But if Rai finishes this, his translation will be better, so I might stop working on it now, it's close to fully translated anyway. I'll make some final adjustments and then post this version and wait until Rai finishes it.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Quirino

[Rai]

Here's a new video showing off expanded text box menu's...

Even with the dictionary compression, I think I'll still try to expand the rom. The original game gives you almost no space.

As for fitting in weapon names, I might try a double line hack.

But yeah, unless I want to like compress every word, I'll need to expand the rom.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Rai

[VincentASM]

FE3's been, like, iced for years now. He keeps mentioning it now and then, but it's probably never going to come out. Most people interested probably heard about your release and played that. Gideon's release will probably just come late to the party and not really recieve any welcome, other than "oh look a translation for x random game."

(now, if someone wanted to be really cool, they'd find a way of emulating that cellphone game which was a lot like Fire Emblem, and translate that--someone mentioned it years ago on FESS I think... )

Ah, that's a shame. That's what I figured originally, but your earlier comment made me think the situation may have changed.

In terms of the FE fandom, if Gideon ever releases the translation, I wouldn't have a problem advertising it and dropping support for my own translation. I don't think many people outside the fandom are going to playing FE3 anyway and in Japanese as well.

Cellphone game, it was the Chinese one right...? The last time I checked, which was probably more than a year ago, it must have been on the 3rd or 4th iteration (yes, it became a series). Unfortunately, anything to do with phones isn't really my speciality and neither is translating fan games ^^;;;

I also read that on romhacking, it was just deeply sad that he posted the first comment, which made everyone not like your translation. I felt so sorry for RPGuy and you...

@hanhnn: actually Rai offered to help me with implementing DTE, but after I sent him the patch he got banned from romhacking, I couldn't see that he was banned and I could just keep on sending him messages, so I thought he just wouldn't send me the patch. Then I decided to just do this project without ASM hacking :P

But if Rai finishes this, his translation will be better, so I might stop working on it now, it's close to fully translated anyway. I'll make some final adjustments and then post this version and wait until Rai finishes it.

Oh well, I think the whole sitation back then was very circumstantial.

[spoiler=A little story about the FE3 translation]RPGuy's patch started off life as a "better than nothing" patch. I believe all the menus were translated, but of the story, only Book 1 was translated and (trying not to be too offensive) sort of poorly (I can't remember the actual quality, but there were translation mistakes everywhere, obviously it wasn't meant to be inserted into a patch). However it was still a pretty good proof of concept.

At the time, I thought I would be doing RPGuy and the fandom a favour by helping him finish it. I also knew Gideon was working on his patch, but I figured a famous hacker like him wouldn't mind terribly if I helped RPGuy create a kind of stopgap translation, since it was evident Gideon's translation was going to take a while. Meanwhile I could help RPGuy finish his within a week's time (stuff like proof-readong prolonged this naturally).

I also guessed Gideon must have known that RPGuy's patch existed as he was creating his (he did post his patch on FESS, which RPGuy did as well, but I didn't check if he noticed it). With those assumptions in place, I decided I wouldn't bother contacting Gideon, and also because I was already determined to see RPGuy's patch to the end. In hindsight, it was a pretty terrible decision, but we're only human.

In the end, there were a lot of victims at play, and now that I think about it, I do wonder what RPGuy felt about it. It's kind of unfortunate that I cannot contact him anymore, if I ever wanted to update the patch, but I doubt the two events are connected.

Something that I wanted to ask about, hopefully this isn't straying even more off-topic than the OP wishes, but can you tell me some details about HHHIII's script translation? For instance, was it the FE1 script that they were translating?

In any case, trying to stay on-topic, I think it's good that the two authors of the FE1 patch have gotten back in contact again. Lack of communication can be a really bad thing sometimes ^^

Edited February 6, 2011 by VincentASM

[Rai]

Good news, I've found that I can use the unused ppu space, for dictionary values! I may not have to expand the rom.

[Quirino]

[spoiler=A little story about the FE3 translation]RPGuy's patch started off life as a "better than nothing" patch. I believe all the menus were translated, but of the story, only Book 1 was translated and (trying not to be too offensive) sort of poorly (I can't remember the actual quality, but there were translation mistakes everywhere, obviously it wasn't meant to be inserted into a patch). However it was still a pretty good proof of concept.

At the time, I thought I would be doing RPGuy and the fandom a favour by helping him finish it. I also knew Gideon was working on his patch, but I figured a famous hacker like him wouldn't mind terribly if I helped RPGuy create a kind of stopgap translation, since it was evident Gideon's translation was going to take a while. Meanwhile I could help RPGuy finish his within a week's time (stuff like proof-readong prolonged this naturally).

I also guessed Gideon must have known that RPGuy's patch existed as he was creating his (he did post his patch on FESS, which RPGuy did as well, but I didn't check if he noticed it). With those assumptions in place, I decided I wouldn't bother contacting Gideon, and also because I was already determined to see RPGuy's patch to the end. In hindsight, it was a pretty terrible decision, but we're only human.

In the end, there were a lot of victims at play, and now that I think about it, I do wonder what RPGuy felt about it. It's kind of unfortunate that I cannot contact him anymore, if I ever wanted to update the patch, but I doubt the two events are connected.

Something that I wanted to ask about, hopefully this isn't straying even more off-topic than the OP wishes, but can you tell me some details about HHHIII's script translation? For instance, was it the FE1 script that they were translating?

In any case, trying to stay on-topic, I think it's good that the two authors of the FE1 patch have gotten back in contact again. Lack of communication can be a really bad thing sometimes ^^

HHHIII did translate the real FE1 script. It was found here.

Also, my patch was originally meant to be a 'better-than-nothing' patch. I was aware of Rai's and DarknessSavior's translations. I originally intended to only translate menus, items, weapons and character names. However, as I worked on it I really enjoyed working on it and decided to go on.

Nice video Rai! It looks really well. Can't wait to see it in action!

[Celice]

NES expansion can always be a bugger to get working properly. At least, if your mapper's a bitch :P

Cellphone game, it was the Chinese one right...? The last time I checked, which was probably more than a year ago, it must have been on the 3rd or 4th iteration (yes, it became a series). Unfortunately, anything to do with phones isn't really my speciality and neither is translating fan games ^^;;;

What was the name of the series? I've been wanting to look it up for like two years, but all I remember is seeing their website once and being so jealous XD

[Rai]

Here's a new screen, showing off a new control code I added...

This control code, allows me to change the first letter of a dictionary entry, into a capital letter on the fly. This increases the compression ratio because I no longer need 2 entries for "Come" and "come". So it greatly increases the compression ratio.

But yeah, I don't think I'll need rom expansion anymore. I have a good 100 bytes or so for dictionary entries now.