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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Dec 20, 2015 9:51:24 GMT -5
Right?! I was super impressed with that review by Psxphile on Neogaf (a random stumble based on a Google search for my own hack) so I figured I'd share it here. (Without double-posting.) As for the new translation; I've been waiting patiently for the new translation to be done. No poking, no prodding, just waiting. I told our mystery translator "Whenever you're comfortable. Preferably this year, but no rush.  " -- and I'm sticking to that. I don't know what the future holds for the project. For now, we wait patiently.  As for goodies; Restoration+ and Literal are on hold. I also do not think I will restore all of the dummied items; for instance, the Lamp would be impractical. (Buying a lamp and a key for every dungeon? That's a waste of inventory.) So I'm going to only offer a practical experience. |
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Post by SkyeWelse on Dec 21, 2015 0:17:58 GMT -5
Glad to hear that progress is being made. Looking forward to trying it out. I'll continue to be in "Please, be waiting" mode. -Thomas |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Dec 21, 2015 8:05:02 GMT -5
I'll admit that it's hard to wait and harder not to poke/prod/speculate when I'm in the dark. I'm being good about it. |
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Post by goutetsu on Dec 31, 2015 9:19:30 GMT -5
Hello everyone and nice work on the patch. I was comparing the English and Japanese text dumps of Faxanadu and got an irresistible urge to translate it myself, so I spent the last night doing just that. I had toyed with the idea of translating it some years ago, but never finished it.
I'd hate to steal your current translator's thunder, so if you want to just use my translation as a second opinion, that's completely fine by me. Otherwise I'll add it on my own website in some form. At the very least I'm going to write a blog post explaining the translation errors in the official translation.
I didn't notice any contact information on your Faxanadu Restoration website so I posted this here.
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 1, 2016 9:32:35 GMT -5
That is severely awesome! I'd certainly like to take a look at it, feel free to send me a PM. I'll ask my translator what they think about this. // Goutetsu's site is here. His work is very impressive! |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 2, 2016 8:56:15 GMT -5
As promised, I've written some comments about the translation of the game at my blog. There wasn't that much to comment on, although I may have overlooked some things. |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 3, 2016 10:34:09 GMT -5
Goutetsu has made some great discoveries!  This is an amazing development. 2 play styles, puzzles, at least 1 confirmed additional weapon, as well as the mystery weapons (the other play style), and (open to interpret) holding shields. Now all we need is that prototype. As far as I can tell, this weapon and graphic data is completely gone; not just dummied out. We have (in the final version) unused dialogue, items, villagers, portraits, and monsters that are left over in the code, complete with graphics. I've even restored some of the unused graphics (pieces of the rosary, etc.) in my patch. It looks like there was also another hat portrait graphic, possibly for the nurse. It looks weird and it could be 2 hats, due to the use of graphical mirroring. Some programming is missing, with little to no knowledge of the assets intended use and placement. We do know that a lot of these are parallel with Xanadu assets. This was a great find! |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 3, 2016 13:27:35 GMT -5
I meant to say "early 1987", not "yearly 1987". D'oh. Anyway, the flier talks about games coming out "this summer".
The Japanese Wikipedia page for Faxanadu actually talks about this. It says:
"Was originally a port of the PC game Xanadu by Nihon Falcom and appeared with the title Xanadu (temporary) in an advertisement. Afterwards, taking into consideration the Famicom userbase among other things, the puzzle-solving elements of the PC version were removed and it was reconstructed purely as an action RPG, turning it into a different game with a different story."
Also, the word 謎 (nazo) in the ad can mean either a puzzle/riddle or a mystery. The game manual also says that Faxanadu is filled with puzzles/mysteries. The English version translates it into: "Faxanadu is a mystery-packed game."
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Post by SkyeWelse on Jan 4, 2016 0:32:52 GMT -5
This is fascinating news. Thank you for finding and translating that flyer goutetsu. It's also great to see this project picking back up again. I'm really looking forward to it. By the way, I don't know how far you would like to go with translating resources for Faxanadu but I have the guidebook for it, a promotional leaflet, original Japanese and English games complete as well as a Choose Your Own Adventure style novel for Faxanadu if you ever wanted to go that far with it. Just wasn't sure how much you "loved" Faxanadu like Unsavory and I do.  Also, something I should mention. Unsavory's project is an affiliate with our Romhacking community, Heroes of Legend and while we've started working on a handful of titles, we have more programmers and romhackers available than we do translators, so if there was ever anything you might be interested in working on or possibly helping out with, I know your skills would be appreciated. Also, the main reason I bring this up is that I'm not sure if you've heard of a project called Love Xanadu before, but it was a fan-game made in the spirit of the original Xanadu games, but for a modern age. Love Xanadu is as much a tribute to Xanadu as it is to other Falcom games and series, as one of the Xanadu locations you can travel to is Faxanadu. Anyhow, I've been in contact with the developer behind Love Xanadu, which had 2 versions released so far, version 2.04 being the last one released. He continues to work on the game, overhauling it with new graphics and features and the latest incarnation is something called Sanxen Xanadu or 3000 Xanadu which is a play on it being 3.0 or the 30th Anniversary of Xanadu. In this new version, I believe the player will have the choice in creating their own Xanadu labyrinths. Anyhow, Show Zama, the creator is happy to let our team have the script of the game when it's ready to translate it into English, and he'll plug in back into the game once it's ready for an English version. We could certainly use some more interested translators that like Xanadu to help out with that effort if you are interested. I'm planning on meeting with him in Japan when I visit later this year and as a gift from America I'll be giving him my American copy of Faxanadu. He has expressed interest as well in creating a Faxanadu style game, Gyaxanadu or Galaxy Xanadu, perhaps for an anniversary of Faxanadu as well so that's something I'll ask him about again when I meet with him.  Nice to meet you by the way! : ) -Thomas |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 4, 2016 8:52:39 GMT -5
Goutetsu expressed interest in correcting our bestiary, which is pretty cool. After seeing his translation, I've come to understand things better as well; for instance, Eolis is the capital of the Elves. That guy in Victim talks about the door to the capital being open, and also says (after you level up) that it was just a rumor. Since this was clearly on purpose, I don't think I'll be doing anything with that door in any future hack. There are confirmed anomalies between the script and the game itself, which I will be looking into for other hacks. The oil making you "invulnerable" (shields still take magic damage.), magic being "ineffective" (...but still effective...) against the "Evil One" (localization/censorship -- see Goutetsu's translation for the big reveal), and the "Battle Shield" (which is just a script error). Speaking of Show Zama, it looks like his site has been down. In an unrelated note, I'd really like to write with Faxanadu designer Hitoshi Okuno someday. |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 4, 2016 11:41:30 GMT -5
This is fascinating news. Thank you for finding and translating that flyer goutetsu. It's also great to see this project picking back up again. I'm really looking forward to it. By the way, I don't know how far you would like to go with translating resources for Faxanadu but I have the guidebook for it, a promotional leaflet, original Japanese and English games complete as well as a Choose Your Own Adventure style novel for Faxanadu if you ever wanted to go that far with it. Just wasn't sure how much you "loved" Faxanadu like Unsavory and I do. Also, something I should mention. Unsavory's project is an affiliate with our Romhacking community, Heroes of Legend and while we've started working on a handful of titles, we have more programmers and romhackers available than we do translators, so if there was ever anything you might be interested in working on or possibly helping out with, I know your skills would be appreciated. Also, the main reason I bring this up is that I'm not sure if you've heard of a project called Love Xanadu before, but it was a fan-game made in the spirit of the original Xanadu games, but for a modern age. [...] Nice to meet you by the way! : ) -Thomas Nice to meet you too. Translating the whole guide book would be too much work and most of the information is probably out there already. I skimmed through the scans and found some things inconsistent with the game and its manual, so I could focus on those. For example the Ruby Ring: The game and its manual simply say that with it you can move rocks. The guide however says that "it has the power to protect you from the mysterious infectious disease that is spreading in the world of mist". I've never played any of the games listed on the Heroes of Legend forums or any other games of the Xanadu or Dragon Slayer series. Likewise, I hadn't heard of Love Xanadu either. I know Faxanadu because it happened to be one of the games we had (and still have) for the NES. I've been looking into it and will send you my notes soon. The relevant lines are (my translation): "I heard that the door to the capital at the base has opened. You should go check it out." "Looks like it was only a rumor. I'm sorry about that. Someone paid for their drink with this armor, you can have it if you like." I got the impression that you were supposed to go all the way back to the door to the first town(!), find it still closed, then return to talk to the barkeeper and he would give you the Full Plate armor to apologize. In an old Nintendo magazine it said that you had to talk to him with the right title (Soldier). My brother tested it with a password generator and apparently, at least in the English version, he will give you the armor if you have the title Soldier or better and do not have the armor already. In the Japanese guide book it says that he will give it to you after you find an item (the Black Onyx) in the Tower of Mist and return to talk to him. |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 4, 2016 14:38:39 GMT -5
That would be diabolical.  This theory is supported by the fact that there is a Mattock for sale, in the very same town. Perhaps this could be done in the Literary Restoration. (Yep, changed the name. Basically the idea is that the game will match the literature.) Aha! That would certainly explain why (Hero) isn't affected by the meteorite, although this is not mentioned anywhere else. Is the guide canon? |
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Post by SkyeWelse on Jan 4, 2016 20:17:28 GMT -5
Great! I'll look forward to seeing the updated Bestiary notes as well. Perhaps Unsavory and I can make the updates to that soon. I understand that you might not be all that interested in working on some other Xanadu related projects if you've never gotten into the other games. They are quite good though and worth playing. Xanadu Next is also fantastic, and it's an Action-RPG like Faxanadu. While the only real evidence we have of there being any actual connection of Faxanadu and the other Xanadu games being the opening scene of the game where the adventurer has come home from a journey, Unsavory and I believe it to be the same character from Xanadu, Fieg, named in the Xanadu comic. But who knows if that could be considered true or not. The Guidebook is part of a series. In particular it is Family Computer Perfect Capture Series #37 and was a small handbook for many Famicom games at the time. It is also copyrighted 1987 by Hudson Soft. While it's hard to know just how official these guidebooks really are, as it is a publishing entity other than the original development house that has put it together, but it stands a good chance of being canon, unless perhaps that item was simply a misprint of information that was meant for a different item. Unsavory, the site in question that went offline was different from the Love Xanadu page that Show Zama has up. Unfortunately the site of DraSleLabs (Dragon Slayer Laboratories) went down some time ago and we're not sure why. It's definitely a huge loss of information that used to be there about Falcom games. I keep hoping it will come back up one day. I do know that the creator of the site is doing okay, but no new information outside of that. -Thomas |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 5, 2016 6:13:20 GMT -5
It occurred to me that the mostly pointless magic and martial arts "gymnasiums" at the beginning of the game could be remnants of that planned choice between two weapons. Maybe it was a choice between magic and melee? I understand that in Xanadu you could focus on either one or level up them both?
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 5, 2016 8:26:49 GMT -5
I had thought of that as well, and it sounds like we've come to similar conclusions. This is supported by the instruction manual, page 19. Keys were also (according to unused dialogue) just simply unnamed keys that would work on any door. "Do I need a key to open a door?" as opposed to "There is the mark of "Jack" by the keyhole!" -- just like in Xanadu. Obviously reverting this change would break the game, so I don't think I'll restore the original keys. The unused items may also have been planned to work exactly the same as their Xanadu counterparts. We're looking at something that was once a mirror, 1:1. // Speaking of improvements, I would like to move the Hour Glass warning to the first dialogue. The fact that they wait until after you've made progress (and probably aren't returning to that town afterward) has led many to believe at first that the HP depletion was a bug. I was thinking for "Restoration+" we could change the status display based on the situation. Change screen / enter door / gain EXP / gain ducats > display ducats and EXP. Attack enemy > display enemy name and HP. Restoration Vanilla:
- Done!
Retranslation:
- A new translation.
Restoration+:
- Remove king bug (Get 1500 golds again if you empty your wallet.)
- Upgraded status display
- Item duration up on level up (Instead of down)
- Hour Glass duration to match Wing Boots (Item duration up)
- Drop items
- Drop from ladders
- Shop expansion
- Fire Crystal
- Brown Potion
Literary Restoration:
- Weapon/Armor/Magic stats in game to match instruction manual Pg 13-16.
- Manual, Pg 8: "The strength of the Hero after he comes back to life is related to the Hero's rank at the time he heard the Mantra."
- Dialogue: "Do not rely on magic during the final fight with the dwarves." (Magic should be ineffective against the Evil One.)
- Ointment effect w/shield (Without a shield, you take *no* magic damage. Manual, Pg 24: "Hero will be protected from any enemy attack")
- Manual, Pg 19: "It will teach the hero about to set out on his journey how to use weapons" (...as opposed to healing?)
- Manual, Pg 19: "It will teach the hero about to set out on his journey how to use magic" (...as opposed to restoring MP?)
- Manual, Pg 26: "If you don't listen to the Mantra you will be in big trouble if the hero loses his life" (That makes it sound like the consequences were far worse?) Speaking of Restoration+, I think the Lamp would be too much. I wouldn't want to make people buy keys *and* lamps for every dungeon, that's an inefficient use of inventory space. I also haven't quite figured out how the (regular) Crystal or the Book (Bible) would've been used. That's classic Xanadu data, and a lot of what applies in Xanadu does not quite apply in Faxanadu. I wonder if there is any data that differs between the translated and untranslated instruction manual. |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 5, 2016 10:14:01 GMT -5
I agree about the Hour Glass dialogue. It would have made more sense if they had combined it into a single line, something like: "I've heard that there is this thing called Hour Glass that lets you move around as if the time had stopped. It uses up your energy though, so be careful when you use it." I'll check... (I didn't find scans of the Japanese manual, but there is a transcript here) As far as items go: Giant Blade JP: Twice as powerful as the long sword. ENG: 50% more power than the long sword. Studded Mail JP: Reduces damage by about 10% ENG: Reduces damage by 5% Full Plate JP: Reduces damage to 3/4. (i.e. reduces damage by 25%) ENG: Reduces damage by 10% Battle Suit JP: Halves damage. ENG: Will greatly reduce damage. Magical Rod JP: Makes your magic 1.5 times more powerful. ENG: Will increase the power of your magic. EDIT: I realized why the strength of the Giant Blade was translated like that. Confusingly, Long Sword is described as having ２倍の (nibai no) power of the Hand Dagger and Giant Blade as having 倍の (bai no) power of the Long Sword. "Nibai no" and "bai no" are actually two ways of saying the same thing (that something is twice/double as something else). EDIT 2: There aren't that many other differences worth mentioning. "Eolis, the capital at the base" becomes "The Elf town, Eolis" and the Japanese manual calls the last boss 悪の魔王 (aku no maou), the evil devil, or however you want to translate it, maou is a common title(?) for last bosses, like Bowser, Ganon, Dracula, etc. Bizarrely, the Japanese manual calls the buildings in the game shops and the English manual does the same. "There are 10 types of shops." |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 8, 2016 3:19:30 GMT -5
Here are my notes on the bestiary. The whole thing is quite confusing, but luckily, we have the Internet. Particularly this impressive site was a big help while figuring things out. It details how many of the enemies in Xanadu were lifted straight from AD&D and due to the lack of reference materials back then, the developers didn't know the correct way spell their names in katakana, which resulted into some of the weird (wrong) spellings we also see in the guide book for Faxanadu. The structure of my notes is this: First line: The Japanese name as it appears in the guide book. An asterisk means that there is an error on the bestiary site. Second line: Translated name copied from the bestiary site. Followed by my comments. WS is short for "weird spelling". —————————————————————————————— 1. Suggested fixes/changes: *タマヅツ (tamazutsu) *TAMAJISHI Appears as ケマゾツ (kemazotsu) CAMAZOTZ in Xanadu. It is possible that someone messed up and mistyped kemazotsu as tamazutsu. Otherwise, Tamazutsu: possibly from tama (ball, as in eyeball) + tsutsu (cylinder)? *ジャイアント・スレイダー (jaianto sureidaa) It is "jaianto. sureida" on the bestiary site. *GIANT SHREDDER What it translates to: Giant Slader. What it should be: Giant Strider. Appears as ジャイアントストライダー (jaianto sutoraidaa) Giant Strider in Xanadu It is strange that they have changed it into something that does not mean anything, or maybe someone really messed it up. Regular spelling for shredder would be シュレッダー (shureddaa). *ジャイアント・ファイア (jaianto faia) The dot in the middle is wrong on the bestiary site. FIRE GIANT フッド (fuddo) *EXECUTIONER'S FOOD Executioner's Hood. *ビージャイアント (bii jaianto) It is "bii jainto" on the bestiary site. GIANT BEE パクーカメ (pakuukame) *PAKUUKAN Pakuukame or Pakukame. No idea. Paku can be an onomatopoeic word for opening one's mouth wide and biting into something. The most common meaning of kame is turtle. By the way, there is only 1 result on Google for パクーカメ, neat. リリティ (ririti) LILIT What it translates to: Lility. What it was supposed to be: Lilith. WS: Correct spelling would be リリス (ririsu) ボラボーラ (boraboora) *PORAPOURA Bora Bohra? ロクスターン (rokusutaan) ROCK STAND Cannot but guess. Rocsterne? Locstern? Roxtern? Makes me think of rock star ロックスター (rokku sutaa) and lobster ロブスター (robusutaa). Stand would be スタンド (sutando). シャドウエウラー (shadou euraa) SHADOW AURA Shadow Euler? The correct spelling for Euler is オイラー (oiraa), and the spelling for aura would be オーラ (oora). —————————————————————————————— 2. Up to your preference: ゾスラ (zosura) ZOSURA Alternatives: Zosra or Zothra, like Mothra (モスラ). ナッシュ (nasshu) NASSHYU Alternatives: Nash, Nashe, or even Gnash ゾルゲリル (zorugeriru) ZORUGERIRU Cannot but guess. Zolgeril? Zorgeril? Zorgelil? Sol-Geril?? リパーシェイク (ripaasheiku) REAPERSHIEK Riper Sheik? Shake?? WS: Supposed to be either ripper リッパー (rippaa) or reaper リーパー (riipaa)? ゾラドーナ (zoradoona) ZORADOUNA Zoradona? Like Maradona マラドーナ (maradoona)? —————————————————————————————— 3. Correct, with some comments: モノドロン (monodoron) MONODRONE Alternative: Monodron. Regural spelling for drone is ドローン (doroon). チャロン (charon) CHARON WS: The Charon from Greek mythology would be spelled カロン (karon) or カローン (karoon). サーグェイン (saa guein) SIR GAWAINE What it translates to: Sir Gwein. What it was supposed to be: Sir Gawaine. WS: Regular spelling ガウェイン (gauein) or ガーウェイン (gaauein) ヤリーカ (yariika) YARIYKA Clearly comes from ヤリイカ (yari ika), so you could add "spear squid" in parentheses if you want. イシイス (ishiisu) ISIS WS: Correct spelling would be イシス (ishisu). ゲーリプター (geeriputaa) is likely a typo in the guide book, should be ゲーリブター (geeributaa) GALEBDUHR What it translates to: Galybtar or Galybter What it was supposed to be: Galeb duhr WS: Spelled ガレブ・ドゥール (garebu duuru) in Sorcerian. ネクロンアイデス (nekuron aidesu) NECRO PHIDIUS What it translates to: Necron Ides. What it was supposed to be: Necro Phidius. WS: Correct spelling would be ネクロフィディアス (nekuro fidiasu). —————————————————————————————— 4. Correct, no comments: マイコニッド (maikoniddo) MYCONID ゾンビ (zonbi) ZOMBIE スノーマン (sunooman) SNOW MAN ユイナル (yuinaru) UINAL ビーホルダー (biihorudaa) BEHOLDER ホーネット (hoonetto) HORNET スガタ (sugata) SUGATA ナーガ (naaga) NAGA ライデン (raiden) RAIDEN イケダ (ikeda) IKEDA ランプリー (ranpurii) LAMPREY マスクマン (masukuman) MASKED MAN ウルフマン (urufuman) WOLF MAN マッドマン (maddoman) MUD MAN グリムロック (gurimurokku) GRIMLOCK キンググリーブ (kingu guriibu) KING GRIEVE |
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Post by Ascended Mermaid on Jan 8, 2016 9:28:47 GMT -5
Great work as always! I'll get to work reordering these (according to ID) and implement them as soon as I can. Thank you! As far as the hour glass goes, I'll probably combine the lines and repeat the text (not unlike elsewhere in the dialogue) . The oddest thing about Xanadu is that just about everything is in English anyway; so it's like they translated it to katakana, and then back to English. |
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Post by SkyeWelse on Jan 8, 2016 12:57:49 GMT -5
Thanks for the help and recommendations Gotestu. I've gone ahead and made most of the corrections that you mentioned in your above post. There were some that I'm still not sure on, like ReaperSheik, so I left that and Shadow Aura, I just changed it to EURA. I left change Porapoura to Pora Poura. I noticed you had ボラボーラ but I think in the image it is ポラポーラ。 By the way, this is a エウラー apprarently. Looks ALMOST like his mugshot in the Faxanadu Bestiary, only without legs.  Also, I didn't remove the period in between Giant Fire. While it may not need to be used here, the kana that you are actually looking at here is a straight-up image scan from the manual, so if it's wrong, it's wrong in the original manual since it's a direct image from it. Only the English names were text. Unsavory, I've updated the original Bestiary home from the dead Adventym website which is just a folder now. So I've added this now to your site. I just dropped the entire folder inside your directly. You can create a direct link to it if you'd like. It makes more sense for it to be under your site and project I think. heroesoflegend.org/affiliate-projects/faxanadu/bestiary/-Thomas |
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Post by goutetsu on Jan 8, 2016 15:43:44 GMT -5
Now I'm even more confused. What manual are you talking about? I used the guide book, so apparently they differ. In the guide book it is unquestionably ボラボーラ (boraboora). The site where that fish picture comes from actually talks about エウラー船長 (captain Euraa), so I'm pretty sure that the エウラー in the picture is the human, not the fish. Most of the google results for エウラー seem to be Euler misspelled. You will also find a site that says (in Japanese of course) "Note that Euler is not pronounced エウラー, but オイラー". That period in the name makes zero sense, since it has the grammatical purpose of a full stop. Would you put a monster called "Fire. Giant" into an English game? |
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" -- and I'm sticking to that. I don't know what the future holds for the project. For now, we wait patiently. 
This theory is supported by the fact that there is a Mattock for sale, in the very same town. Perhaps this could be done in the Literary Restoration. (Yep, changed the name. Basically the idea is that the game will match the literature.)
