Community translation update and information thread -- READ IF YOU WANT TO HELP

[Cless]

tammaiya has finished the translation. The community translation effort is closed, but I will be leaving this board open for community support on editing issues.


File Progress (out of date)
File progress uses a five-level system:

Level 1: Untouched / Completely untranslated
Level 2: Partially translated
Level 3: Mostly translated
Level 4: Fully translated, may have rough spots that really need some editing to naturalize the writing
Level 5: Fully translated, editing seems satisfactory

Don't completely ignore level 5 files if you're working as either an editor and/or support translator! It's very possible you may still yet find a mistake or find something you think can be further improved. Likewise, support translators should not ignore Level 4 files either.

File Progress Table:

Filename	Description	Status
0018.1.txt	Battle text	Level 2
0018.3.txt	World map zones	Level 1
6818.txt	Artes menu	Level 5
6819.txt	Items menu	Level 5
6820.txt	Equipment menu	Level 4
6821.txt	Strategy menu	Level 5
6822.txt	Refine menu	Level 5
6823.txt	Shop menu	Level 5
6824.txt	Enchant menu	Level 5
6825.txt	Save/Load menu	Level 4
6826.txt	Sound Test menu	Level 3
6827.txt	Cooking menu	Level 4
6828.txt	Customize menu	Level 4
6829.txt	Status menu	Level 5
6830.txt	Name Entry menu	Level 5
6831.txt	Battle Items menu	Level 5
6832.txt	World Map menu	Level 5
6833.txt	Monster Book menu	Level 5
6834.txt	Collector's Book	Level 5
6835.txt	Startup text	Level 5
6836.txt	Grade Shop menu	Level 4
monsterlist-e.txt	Monster name list	Level 5
mysticarte.txt	Mystic Arte / Hiougi list	Level 1
ToD2Block00.txt	Clear Data text	Level 4
ToD2Block01.txt	Unknown / Weird / Probably unused	Level 1
ToD2Block02.txt	Huge block containing most generics	Level 3*
ToD2Block03.txt	Unknown / "TIME LIMIT" text	Level 5
ToD2Block04.txt	"NOTICE" text	Level 5
ToD2Block05.txt	Skit titles	Level 4
ToD2Block06.txt	Location names	Level 3**
ToD2Block07.txt	Misc. Enchant-related text	Level 4
ToD2Block08.txt	Misc. Cooking-related text	Level 4
ToD2Block09.txt	Equip stat names, and other misc.	Level 5
ToD2Block10.txt	"Level-up bonus" text	Level 5
ToD2Block11.txt	Artes/Enchant menu generics	Level 5
ToD2Block12.txt	"Exit the menu?" prompt	Level 5
ToD2Block13.txt	Main menu text labels	Level 5
ToD2Block14.txt	Scroll arrows and a message	Level 4
ToD2BlockSCED.txt	Generic map messages	Level 3

*ToD2Block02.txt is larger than all the other files combined. It has numerous sections of text dedicated to different things. Check the file itself for the Status Level of individual sections contained within.

**ToD2Block06.txt contains a list of locations names I've never seen used in-game. I want to know if any experienced players have ever seen them or not. If not, it may be debug text, or not used at all. The English text requires more space than the original Japanese, and we need to be sure this text isn't required anywhere. The space it occupies will be very useful for fitting the overflow.

[Cless]

I am very seriously considering to release pre-alpha patches. Largely as a motivator to help accelerate this project, and also for testing and seeing things in context. I can't imagine anybody not liking this idea.

[me_001]

I am very seriously considering to release pre-alpha patches. Largely as a motivator to help accelerate this project, and also for testing and seeing things in context. I can't imagine anybody not liking this idea.

That would be the best thing ever!!

BTW.. your link is broken. I assume it was supposed to be http://www.tales-cless.org/ToD2menu6-6-08.rar

[Cless]

I may release one in a day or two. I want to revise some stuff and do more font size hacking.

[Cless]

**ToD2Block06.txt contains a list of locations names I've never seen used in-game. I would be interested in knowing if any experienced players have ever seen them or not. If not, it may be debug text. The space it occupies could be useful in the event we overrun the original text boundaries for the translation. It is NOT used for the location text at the bottom of the screen in the menu.

After my latest round editing, I can now say that we HAVE overrun the original boundary for the massive text block. I really need to know if this list is used anywhere outside of debug! ToD2's executable is very tight on space. I do know of a last-resort work-around, but that will require me to write another tool. I want to avoid writing programs where possible.

Edit: Eh, well, I'm using the space for now. I'm not convinced it'll be enough in the end because there's still a lot of untranslated descriptions.  I just trimmed the fat on the font (which is stored compressed) and that freed up about 11KB. That's quite a bit more space than what's in the location text area, but it's yet to be seen if even that will be adequate enough.

[Jotaro]

What about text compression?

[Cless]

A simple text compression would go a long way, but there's no way we can implement one right now.

[Aikoto]

First time poster here. I finally got the flip mod for my PS2 this weekend and I can now play the ToD2 my brother bought me for Christmas!

I tried it last night and though I can understand most of what they say, reading it is more challenging since I have to look up the Kanji. The hard part is that my kids keep making noise making it hard for me to hear them so I was thrilled to find your project!

I can't wait to try it out and see how much is translated. If I run into Japanese that hasn't been translated yet and I translate it, should I just submit it to you somehow?

And last point, can you ban anyone who asks for English dubs? Seriously. People actually ASK for that? That's like saying "hey, you know what would be really cool right now? A ROOT CANAL! But only if they use a rusty drill. Man... that would be sweet"

Ugh.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

seriously?? i love english dubs. good english dubs > japanese audio any day of the week. final fantasy xii and tales of the abyss being the more obvious recent favorites i can think of.

emphasis on good. which, unfortunately, isn't as commonplace as i'd like, yet.

[Aikoto]

i love english dubs. good english dubs > japanese audio any day of the week.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Of course, I realized you didn't mean for everything and are talking about games which ~generally~ have decent dubs compared to Anime.

I agree that FF12 was good and so was X (my favorite game of all the series), but the Japanese is still better. They emote with more force and devotion. The dubbers always sound like they're afraid to be too loud indoors and hold back. It's embarassing.

For a comparison, just check out youtube for various scenese in both english and then Japanese.

[Cless]

A number of regulars on this forum prefer or are at least indifferent to English dubbing and complete localization. Myself included. I wish I could provide at least a half-decent dub option for my projects, but if you have that kind of money, you might as well try to bribe the official companies with it.

What I don't want here is the tired, never-ending sub vs. dub argument.

[Aikoto]

A number of regulars on this forum prefer or are at least indifferent to English dubbing and complete localization. Myself included. I wish I could provide at least a half-decent dub option for my projects, but if you have that kind of money, you might as well try to bribe the official companies with it.

What I don't want here is the tired, never-ending sub vs. dub argument.

No argument intended. Either way, I'm just as happy with the original Japanese so great job I can't try the mod out yet, but I look forward to doing so.

[Kooper]

Sadly, I don't known Japanese, but I have a mastery of the English language if I do say so myself! I just wanted to say that when I get the chance, I'd love to look over all those level 4, 5, and maybe some level 3 files. As for my background, I've been working as an English tutor at my local university for about two years now. The majority of my time is spent with proofreading and grammar issues, which I hope will be helpful to this project. Although with the current school year starting up I may have less time, but I still would like to try and contribute. Of course the context may be an issue, in which case I really should try out that patch, but I need to mod my new slim PS2 before I can try it out.

Well, just wanted to introduce myself for the most part. Hopefully I'll be able to make some sort of contribution~

[KBTKaiser]

You must have read something incredibly old or misunderstood something because we have released patches for, and ARE supporting both the original and reprint versions of ToD2. What we aren't supporting are versions that aren't in Japanese.

Speaking of versions, Cless, I just checked my copy of ToD2 and it's an original print "copy" since I picked it up in taiwan, but it's an original since it has the venus and braves preview.  I suppose I can be guinea pig for something?

[Cless]

Speaking of versions, Cless, I just checked my copy of ToD2 and it's an original print "copy" since I picked it up in taiwan, but it's an original since it has the venus and braves preview.  I suppose I can be guinea pig for something?

I don't think so. The current patch is slightly outdated, that's about it.

Sadly, I don't known Japanese, but I have a mastery of the English language if I do say so myself! I just wanted to say that when I get the chance, I'd love to look over all those level 4, 5, and maybe some level 3 files. As for my background, I've been working as an English tutor at my local university for about two years now. The majority of my time is spent with proofreading and grammar issues, which I hope will be helpful to this project. Although with the current school year starting up I may have less time, but I still would like to try and contribute. Of course the context may be an issue, in which case I really should try out that patch, but I need to mod my new slim PS2 before I can try it out.

Well, just wanted to introduce myself for the most part. Hopefully I'll be able to make some sort of contribution~

That would be awesome to the max if you can get around to it. We've not had many editors try to find issues to clean up. There's still a number of them. If you've also got some creativity, that would be another big plus. Some of the descriptions could probably use a creative rewrite to sound better, too.

[Fujibayashi_Lord]

mind if i jump in and help if its not too late?