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Final Fantasy III English Translation for NES

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by Chaos Rush, Sep 3, 2016.

  1. Chaos Rush

    Chaos Rush

    AKA J.Matz Member
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    This is a project that I worked on over this summer. Earlier this year I had made a new translation patch for Final Fantasy II that used modern Square Enix terminology, and I decided to do the same for Final Fantasy III. Like with my FFII patch, I detailed the progress over at RHDN, so I'm just gonna copy+paste the first post of my thread that I have from over there:



    I have decided to take it upon myself to make a new English translation of Final Fantasy III for the NES, in what I hope becomes the definitive version of Final Fantasy III. Now, what is the point of doing this? Well, there was never any official English translation of the original Final Fantasy III for the NES, only its DS remake and subsequent ports were localized. While there are a couple existing fan translations, I have heard of problems with both, with one's script suffering from a severe lack of free space, and another using 1mb ROM space on a mapper that doesn't actually support it.

    FFIII Refurbished will feature:
    * Usage of Kea's MMC5 mapper patch, which gives me 1 whole megabyte of total space to work with (meaning an extra 512kb that weren't there originally, which is more than enough for English text)

    * A new English script based heavily off of the DS translation. How I will approach this is that I will compare the scripts between the original Japanese Famicom version and the official DS remake. The text from the DS version will be used ONLY IF THE LINE WAS FROM THE ORIGINAL FAMICOM VERSION, and if not, then the lines will be retranslated myself. However, in instances where I use the DS remake's line, if the line features censorship (such as small references to religion that were removed from the DS localization), then I will uncensor those lines. Ultimately, the new script will be an accurate translation of the original Final Fantasy III for the Famicom/NES, and since I'm using Kea's MMC5 mapper patch, I won't have to worry about free space at all, so I can make the text as wordy and meaningful as possible.

    * Likewise, all character names, item names, enemy names, terminology, etc., will be as they are in the DS remake. So you won't see stuff like "Fire1", "Fire2" or "Fire3", instead it will be, "Fire", "Fira, "Firaga", etc.

    * 10-character item names. Item names will be as close to the DS remake as possible.

    * 12-character job titles. Job titles will be named exactly as they are in the DS remake, except for the "Magic Knight" job because the DS remake changed it to "Dark Knight" while in the original they were called "Magic Knights" (Dark Knights weren't actually introduced in the series until Final Fantasy IV)

    * 11-character enemy names. Enemy names will be as close to the DS remake as possible.

    * 6-character spell names. Spell names will be as close to the DS remake as possible (squish tiles will be used)

    I have also written a new text editing tool in Java that allows me to view the original Japanese script while I work on the new English script, and allows mass recompiling of the text, so I don't have to do any repointing myself. It is called, "Onion Text". I have not yet publicly released Onion Text, and I don't expect I will for a while. The reason why is because as I work on FFIII:R, I will also continue to make small adjustments to Onion Text. When this project nears completion, I will then release Onion Text, with the hope that other people use it to make their own translations of FFIII into other languages.

    Screenshots:
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Overall progress:
    * Menu size adjustments: 100% done
    * Enemy names: 100% done
    * Item names: 100% done
    * Dialogue: 100% done

    Tools used:
    * GoldFinger - hex editor
    * FCEUX - debugger & PPU viewer
    * ASM6 - ASM compiler
    * OnionText - text compiler that I made specifically for this project (coded in Java)

    Credits:
    * Me - project leader and translation of lines that aren't in the DS remake
    * Kea - MMC5 mapper patch
    * Square Enix - for making this game and remaking this game and localizing the remake
    * whoever made TileMolester (God, that's a horrible name)
    * whoever made TileMolester Alternate
    * whoever made GoldFinger
    * whoever made HxD
    * whoever made FCEUX
    * whoever made ASM6

    The patch can be downloaded here:
    http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2701/
     
  2. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Wow, great work! Any plans on revising the first one, now that the NES sequels are done?
     
  3. Chaos Rush

    Chaos Rush

    AKA J.Matz Member
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    There's a hack of FF1 called, "Final Fantasy Restored" by a user named AstralEsper, which contains a revised script influenced by the GBA remake. It's billed as a hack rather than a "translation patch" though because it also fixes a bunch of bugs and contains new boss music (since FF1 didn't have any). It's what influenced me to make new translation patches for FF2 and FF3 since the existing translation patches of those were outdated in the terminology they used (and the Demiforce FF2 translation in particular had a lot of inaccuracies and made-up sentences).
     
  4. Dream come true! Thank you so much, Chaos Rush! I'm gonna download both patches right away. I always felt bad about not having played the original versions of the first three games. I just found the translations to be too wonky to enjoy. That and FF1 (and I think FFII) had the old fashioned battle-design of the characters not auto-targeting to a different enemy when their initial target was defeated before their tuen.