Xanadu II Translation Development Blog

[SamIAm]

So, for the in-game palette, all I did was to change ...

What you've done seems very reasonable. I'm sure it will look good.

I'm just happy that this can work at all. Thanks so much for looking into it!

This is seriously going to be one of those things where once you try it, you won't be able to go back.

Xanadu 1 looks great in RGB, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Xanadu 2 might be better overall in composite, at least on a CRT. I think the artists made a lot of decisions both to accommodate and to take advantage of the PCE's composite signal quirks. I haven't honestly seen that much of it in RGB, though, so I'll wait to pass full judgement.

Thanks for the screenshots, CrackTiger.

[elmer]

There's not been anything interesting to "blog" about on the Xanadu translations for a while, but SamIAm finally reported a problem that needed to be fixed.

The problem was in Xanadu 2 when you get a message box that prompts you to make a choice ... the highlighting was totally messed up.

Figuring out what was going on showed that Falcom are doing something really quite cunning to get those options dialogs to work.


Here's what was going wrong ...




The game wasn't crashing, so it obviously wasn't anything going too horribly wrong ... but WTF???

This is the piece of script that SamIAm has translated into English ...

[tt].scriptA6BA:
  _enable_8x12_font()
  _set_pen_then_call_then_eol( orange, .scriptB4BE )
  _disable_8x12_font()
  [Lord Areios, I can send you to anywhere from the Prologue to Chapter Three.]
  _wait_for_keypress_then_clear()

  [What will you do?]*
  _choose_option_then_clear( $01, $01 )
  [ Continue]
  _next_option()
  [ Never mind]
  _end_of_options()
  _conditional_jump( $c9, $f0, $02, $9c63, .scriptA8BB )
  _conditional_jump( $c9, $f0, $01, $9c63, .scriptA72C )[/tt]


Well, that looks simple, and there's nothing obviously wrong with it, so it was time to actually take a look at the code that process those options boxes.

That's something that I'd been hoping that I wouldn't ever need to do, because I just figured out that the code was doing some smart stuff behind-the-scenes to remember where each string in the options was, and to just redraw each string when the highlight changes.

Once I found the code (which just took setting a VRAM-write breakpoint in Mednafen), it looked a bit simpler that I expected.

But it was quickly obvious that is was using some hard-coded coordinates, and that it was yet-another thing that my shift to using a VWF had broken. 


Changing the coordinates from the original 4-pixel increments to 1-pixel increments resulted in ...




Definitely better ... but WTF is going on with all of those little dots?

Looking deeper into the code, it turns out that Falcom aren't redrawing the text at all to change the highlighted option, they are just doing a bunch of simple writes to VRAM.

Now the entire message box is made up of a bunch of 32x64 pixel sprites, and they call these routines to change 2 sprite-lines at-a-time of the whole 224x14-pixel block of a text line.

[tt]Y = vram-addr-lo
A = vram-addr-hi

set_hilite_2lines: tya
                  clc
                  adc  #$10
                  sta  self_modify+1
                  sei
                  st0  #VDC_MAWR
                  sty  video_data_l
                  sta  video_data_h
                  st0  #VDC_MARR
self_modify:      st1  #$nn
                  sta  video_data_h
                  cli
                  st0  #VDC_DATA
                  cla
                  tsb  video_data_l
                  tsb  video_data_h
                  tsb  video_data_l
                  tsb  video_data_h
                  rts


Y = vram-addr-lo
A = vram-addr-hi

set_normal_2lines: lda  $3e
                  sei
                  st0  #VDC_MAWR
                  sty  video_data_l
                  sta  video_data_h
                  cli
                  st0  #VDC_DATA
                  st1  #$00
                  st2  #$00
                  st1  #$00
                  st2  #$00
                  tya
                  clc
                  adc  #$10
                  tay
                  rts[/tt]


Looking at that left me totally shocked ... I couldn't see how-on-Earth that code could change the text from cyan to white, and then change it back again?

So I had to seriously think about what that code was doing.

When highlighting an option, it's doing a really neat trick with the VRAM and the TSB instruction to copy the 2nd bitplane of the sprite data into the 1st bitplane of the sprite data.


Now saying that is one thing ... but it makes no real sense until you actually look at the colors that everything is drawn in ...

[tt]Color: 6 -> 7 (0110 -> 0111)  Effect: ------  Usage: text cyan
Color: 7 -> 7 (0111 -> 0111)  Effect: hilite  Usage: text white
Color: 8 -> 8 (1000 -> 1000)  Effect: hilite  Usage: background pattern 1
Color: 9 -> 9 (1001 -> 1000)  Effect: -LOST-  Usage: box border lite color
Color: A -> B (1010 -> 1011)  Effect: ------  Usage: background pattern 2
Color: B -> B (1011 -> 1011)  Effect: hilite  Usage: background pattern 2
Color: C -> C (1100 -> 1100)  Effect: hilite  Usage: background pattern 3
Color: D -> D (1101 -> 1100)  Effect: -LOST-  Usage: box border dark color
Color: E -> F (1110 -> 1111)  Effect: ------  Usage: background pattern 4
Color: F -> F (1111 -> 1111)  Effect: hilite  Usage: background pattern 4[/tt]

When you look at it that way, you can see that copying bit-1 to bit-0 changes the text from cyan to white, and it changes the background colors, too ... but since some of the background colors are duplicated in the palette, you don't actually see the background change on the screen.


When setting an option back to normal, it's just setting the 1st bitplane of the sprite data to zero.

Huh??? How can that work if it's so different to what it does to set the highlight in the first place???


Once again, it makes no real sense until you actually look at the colors that everything is drawn in ...

[tt]Color: 6 -> 6 (0110 -> 0110)  Effect: normal  Usage: text cyan
Color: 7 -> 6 (0111 -> 0110)  Effect: ------  Usage: text white
Color: 8 -> 8 (1000 -> 1000)  Effect: normal  Usage: background pattern 1
Color: 9 -> 8 (1001 -> 1000)  Effect: -LOST-  Usage: box border lite color
Color: A -> A (1010 -> 1010)  Effect: normal  Usage: background pattern 2
Color: B -> A (1011 -> 1010)  Effect: ------  Usage: background pattern 2
Color: C -> C (1100 -> 1100)  Effect: normal  Usage: background pattern 3
Color: D -> C (1101 -> 1100)  Effect: -LOST-  Usage: box border dark color
Color: E -> E (1110 -> 1110)  Effect: normal  Usage: background pattern 4
Color: F -> E (1111 -> 1110)  Effect: ------  Usage: background pattern 4[/tt]

When you look at it that way, you can see that clearing bit-0 changes the text from white to cyan, and it changes the background colors, too ... but, again, since some of the background colors are duplicated in the palette, you don't actually see the background change on the screen.

Now that's really, really cunning! 

A clever organization of the color palette and the colors that are used in the message box allows Falcom to change the highlight in the options dialog without caring what the text actually says.

But wait ... why does that mean that those dots appear?

Well, that's because we changed the background colors to make them darker so that the text stands out more.

But I didn't realize that those "duplicate" colors needed to be changed, too, so I left them at their original colors, and that's what those dots are. 


Once I figured that out, I just set the "duplicate" colors in the palette to our new darker colors, and ...




The problem is fixed, but there's one more question ... if you look at the two color tables, then you can see that changing to hilite or a normal both change the colors that the border of the message box is drawn in.

So the question is, why don't they?

The screen is 256-pixels wide, and the message box is 248-pixels wide, and the code that's shown above changes the background in 16-pixel wide strips. That should guarantee that the right-hand-edge of the message box is overwritten, just like the left-hand-edge was in SamIAm's original report of the bug.

But in reality, the last screenshot shows that it doesn't get destroyed.

Well, it turns out that Falcom must have had the same problem, and that they came up with another cunning solution.

They shifted the entire message box graphics over by a few pixels in VRAM, and so the right-hand-edge of the visible message box is actually at the left-hand-edge of a mostly-blank and off-screen sprite.

That means that the highlighting code doesn't actually overwrite that sprite at all ... just everything right up to the edge of it.

Once more, that's a really cunning solution to the problem.

Those Falcom guys really deserve a few beers, I wonder if they celebrate Cinco De Mayo? 


Anyway, here's one last screenshot of the everything working properly ...

[CrackTiger]

As much as it sucks that more language heavy games didn't make it over here bitd, I really am thankful that the LoX games didn't. Just so that things have played out the way they have and these guys are delivering a localization far beyond the quality of anything else at the time they came out.

Even if you gave me the choice back then, if I'd been informed of difference in quality, I'd have been happy to wait 20 years.

I'd of course still have had as much fun as I have with the Japanese versions in the meantime.

[elmer]

Latest update : I've started extracting the graphics that we need to change, and converting them into editable PNG files.

[SamIAm]

Yay! Nice work! 

[elmer]

And here are the first of the English graphics for Xanadu 1 actually working in the game ...





I'm sure that things will get tweaked a bit more before we're ready to release everything, but I think that it's looking pretty decent.

Figuring out how to fix the centering of the options on the Main Menu took almost as long figuring out which of the 5000+ data chunks actually contained the graphics themselves! 

<EDIT>

I couldn't resist a bit more tweaking!

[SignOfZeta]

Man this is AWESOME!!!

[Phase]

Looking good, can't wait to play these. 

[Johnpv]

Looking great!

[LentFilms]

Really amazing to see all those graphics in sexy English! Keep up the awesome work guys!

[elmer]

I updated my previous post with some new screengrabs.

CrackTiger's excellent English logo is now recolored for Xanadu 1 and has been inserted into the game's Opening Visual.

I've also tweaked the other graphics a bit ... pure upper case just looks too much like "shouting". 

Apart from the Credits Roll, I think that's all of the text-in-graphics for Xanadu 1 ... and the credits can wait for a while.

So on to Xanadu 2. 

[esteban]

Fantastic progress.

[seieienbu]

I always found the game's title a bit funny.  It is clearly titled "The Legend of Xanadu" in English.  However, right below that on the cover and next to it on the spine is Japanese text reading "Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu" or something like "The Winds of Legend of Xanadu," "The Wind's Legend Xanadu," or maybe even "The Legendary Winds of Xanadu."

Maybe SamIAm can tell me what's actually going on there?

...seriously though, this is looking great.

[ccovell]

"Kaze no Densetsu" actually means "Legend of the Wind" (literally), not "wind of legend" or "legendary".  It's a point I've seen translators mess up a few times.

"Densetsu no..." means "legendary...".  Word order is important, otherwise the possessor becomes the possessed.

[SamIAm]

This is one of those things that elmer and I have talked about briefly but never come to any decision on because it's going to be a pain in the butt.

[seieienbu]

"Kaze no Densetsu" actually means "Legend of the Wind" (literally), not "wind of legend" or "legendary".  It's a point I've seen translators mess up a few times.

"Densetsu no..." means "legendary...".  Word order is important, otherwise the possessor becomes the possessed.

It's been a while since college so I'm a bit rusty on my Japanese, but didn't the 'no' particle essentially mean the same as a possessive apostroph followed by an 's'?  For example, "Fred の本" would mean "Fred's Book."

That being the case, doesn't the legend now belong to the wind?

[ccovell]

Yes, so "Wind's Legend" is technically correct... but totally nonstandard in English.  That's why most titles are written "(The) Legend of...".

Alternately, since from my experience Japanese titles (sentences, even) can be a nonsensical word salad and nobody bats an eye:

The 'kaze no' in "Kaze no Densetsu" could even be interpreted as an adjective, something like "Windy Legend".  Because after all, the main title and subtitle of the games are conflicting: which is it, the Legend of Xanadu, or the Legend of the Wind?  Or is it the Windy Legend of Xanadu?  Or is it the Legend of the Wind, named Xanadu?  You can see how wishy-washy dreamy titles written only for aesthetic purposes throws more logical-minded English people for a loop.

[SamIAm]

ccovell is right. 風の伝説 is "Legend of the Wind" and 伝説の風 is "Legendary Winds".

Both appear in this game, by the way.

As for the possessive bit, you're just overthinking that a little, I think. "Of" is possessive, e.g. the flag of America is America's flag.

Is "The Legend of Paul Bunyan" the same as "Paul Bunyan's Legend"? Well, you could nitpick and say that the former is a legend about Paul Bunyan, while the latter might be construed as being a legend that Paul is literally carrying in his hands. But as far as の is concerned, it definitely has that "of" capacity. 風の谷のナウシカ is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

の is possessive, but it's flexible in ways you wouldn't think based on English grammar.
サムのバカ！means Sam, you're an idiot!  私の行った所 is "The place I went to" (My went-there place).

[esteban]

I always found the game's title a bit funny.  It is clearly titled "The Legend of Xanadu" in English.  However, right below that on the cover and next to it on the spine is Japanese text reading "Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu" or something like "The Winds of Legend of Xanadu," "The Wind's Legend Xanadu," or maybe even "The Legendary Winds of Xanadu."

Maybe SamIAm can tell me what's actually going on there?

...seriously though, this is looking great.

Not that I can add anything to this discussion, but this might be interesting.


My commentary on PCE advertisement:

POETIC & PROPHETIC, IF CLICHÉD: The text, in English, below the portrait of characters reads, "The wind of fate has blown, that same wind from a thousand years ago, and it has raised the veil of mystery."
Free of any grammatical errors, this prose adds an extra touch of elegance to the overall presentation. Yes, elegant—despite how hackneyed "the wind of fate" and the rest of it sounds, especially for an ARPG/RPG. When the overall presentation of an advertisement is exquisite, down to the finest details, I can forgive a cliché, or two. Or three.

You can see the ad here:

https://archives.tg-16.com/Gekkan_PC_Engine_1994_01.htm

There are other ads available, too, for the curious.

[seieienbu]

Thanks for the lesson gentlemen.  May the wind of fate aid this translation!

[spenoza]

の is possessive, but it's flexible in ways you wouldn't think based on English grammar.
サムのバカ！means Sam, you're an idiot!  私の行った所 is "The place I went to" (My went-there place).

In the former case, though, it could be argued that the more literal "Sam's idiocy" also technically works, and that "Sam, you're an idiot!" is simply a typical case of recognizing that "Sam's idiocy" is not something someone would ever say in English.

[SamIAm]

In the former case, though, it could be argued that the more literal "Sam's idiocy" also technically works, and that "Sam, you're an idiot!" is simply a typical case of recognizing that "Sam's idiocy" is not something someone would ever say in English.

Deep analysis of の when used in this sort of grammatical capacity (as a so-called particle) will always take you back to the possessive. The main point is, you shouldn't think of it purely in terms of equaling an apostrophy-s even if that does seem like the simplest approach, because eventually you will be doing more complicated mental gymnastics to understand it that way, not to mention to translate it.

Also, I think "Sam's idiocy!" is maybe going down the wrong path for that particular pattern. The noun following　の pretty much always feels concrete ("idiot") not conceptual ("idiocy"). For example, how else could it be the subject of the sentence "Sam the idiot/That idiot Sam forgot his umbrella." (サムのバカが傘を忘れた。）? Saying that my idiocy forgot the umbrella doesn't really work, does it? The person saying it certainly isn't talking about my idiocy, per se. He's talking about me.

As another example, to pick on a childhood friend of mine, ピーターのやつ or ピーターのやろう means "That guy Peter" or even "That bastard Peter". Again, it's quite the contortion to put it into "Peter's bastardliness", right? Especially if it's going to be the subject of a sentence, right?

One way to think about this might be that it's adding a degree of clarity to the statements あのバカ or あのやろう - that idiot and that guy, respectively.

As a final example of の's flexibility, if you put the name on the end, you can do things like 料理人のマーク (Mark the chef) or 大工のジャック　(Jack the carpenter), too.

In the end, while you can force yourself to interpret these through apostrophe-s, I don't know why you would want to. It's best to understand what "possessive" means in general, then take の as its own thing, IMHO.

[elmer]

I always found the game's title a bit funny.  It is clearly titled "The Legend of Xanadu" in English.

Well ... you see ... err ... Houston, we've got a problem!



There's a 224-pixel width limit on the logo in Xanadu 1.

We're going to need Black Tiger to ride to the rescue if we want to fit "The" in as well! 

[TurboXray]

Do you guys have an official announcement page yet?

[elmer]

Do you guys have an official announcement page yet?

I don't think that we've even talked about it!

I certainly don't want to run a website.

[CrackTiger]

Although it was already impossible to pull of that English logo in the amount of space there is (it literally fills the width of the screen), while remaining extremely faithful to the style of the original, the way I looked at it when designing it is that this is not the official golden cursive title which already exists within the game. This logo is supposed to be different and LEGEND OF XANADU balances out the differences between the two and visually, the OF is already enough of a compromise to the style of the logo it's actually replacing. Just the same, the OF instills the same sense of symmetry you get from the Kanji/Katakana split of the original. But any use of THE would break the overall style in general.

It's supposed to be simpler and bolder, because of its specific uses in these games. Plus, this kind of variation is common in localizations of the time (It's simply ZELDA II for just one game because it works better in-game). Trying to shoehorn in THE just for the sake of technicality is only going to further compromise the style of the original logo as well as the English version.

I think that if a majority of people care more about the technicality of one of the game's Japanese names, the best way to do it would be to just use the existing Kaze no Densetsu logo as-is and add a single-pixel-width for underneath which plainly says, KAZE NO DENSETSU or THE LEGEND OF XANADU, or if most people are dying for a proper translation, then WINDY LEGEND or whichever is the most popular interpretation.

[ccovell]

As another example, to pick on a childhood friend of mine, ピーターのやつ or ピーターのやろう means "That guy Peter" or even "That bastard Peter". Again, it's quite the contortion to put it into "Peter's bastardliness", right? Especially if it's going to be the subject of a sentence, right?

This is right.  Also more examples in Japanese: "Hitsuji no Shaun" and "Kuma no Pooh-san" is how Shaun the Sheep and Pooh-bear (Winnie the Pooh) are written.  So, the person/animal's name can be on the left or right side of the の and it seems to make no difference, really.  It's like "の" is used just as the BE verb is in English.  I bring up these examples everytime my students think の is a simple possessive when put into English.

[Dicer]

I always found the game's title a bit funny.  It is clearly titled "The Legend of Xanadu" in English.

Well ... you see ... err ... Houston, we've got a problem!



There's a 224-pixel width limit on the logo in Xanadu 1.

We're going to need Black Tiger to ride to the rescue if we want to fit "The" in as well! 

Made the big font smaller and place the "the" over the top...if such a thing is doable

[spenoza]

Also, if you could fit Olivia Newton John in the background there that'd be swell.

[elmer]

Made the big font smaller and place the "the" over the top...if such a thing is doable

The English glyphs in Black Tiger's logo are 14-17 pixels wide ... so it might be possible to make them 1 or 2 pixels narrower without totally screwing up the look of the logo ... but I'm speaking as a "programmer" there, and not an "artist".

There are very good reasons that you don't see programmer-art in games anymore ... we're generally pretty bad at it (I know that I am).

The problem is also a question of "what on Earth should the logo say?".

I've spent months hearing the game referred to as Legend of Xanadu, and I thought that was its name.

I only just got real physical copies of the game from SamIAm last week.

And it was a couple of days ago that we've really started talking about this whole "Kaze no Densetsu" being "The Legend of the Wind", and how that actually ties into the game itself.

I can put any logo in the game, as long as it fits in the physical space ... 224x32 pixels for Xanadu 1 and 256x32 pixels for Xanadu 2.

Falcom are doing a lot of "clever" stuff with hardcoded sprites to display those logos and to fade them in and out with the sparkly effect.

Trying to change the size of the logos, or to display a subtitle, would be an absolute nightmare.

This logo is supposed to be different and LEGEND OF XANADU balances out the differences between the two and visually, the OF is already enough of a compromise to the style of the logo it's actually replacing. Just the same, the OF instills the same sense of symmetry you get from the Kanji/Katakana split of the original. But any use of THE would break the overall style in general.

And this is the classic problem ... how to make the logo actually look good artistically while conveying the information that needs to be conveyed.

I like the way the the logo is balanced now, and it really does show that symmetry that Black Tiger is talking about.

But the question is, now that I have a better idea of how Falcom actually named the game ... is it "right"?

If I'm understanding things ... "Xanadu" and "The Legend of Xanadu" are basically just saying the the game is a part of the Xanadu/Dragon Slayer series.

The game's individual title is "Kaze no Densetsu", i.e. "The Legend of the Wind", and according to SamIAm, that's the name that it is primarily known by to Japanese gamers.

I suspect that this issue will be a topic of discussion for a while. 

[SamIAm]

I've spent months hearing the game referred to as Legend of Xanadu, and I thought that was its name.

This is my bad, and I really am sorry. I should have caught this at an earlier stage. 

If I'm understanding things ... "Xanadu" and "The Legend of Xanadu" are basically just saying the the game is a part of the Xanadu/Dragon Slayer series.

That's probably the best way to interpret it. The word "Xanadu" does not appear in the game script once.

As a whole, the Xanadu/Dragon Slayer series is/are the most disjointed I've ever seen.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/dragonslayer/dragonslayer.htm
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/xanadu/xanadu.htm

So, the original Xanadu is the second game in the loosely-connected Dragon Slayer series, and every main entry in the Dragon Slayer series got its own loosely-connected spin-offs. The Legend of Xanadu on PCE is supposed to be connected to the original Xanadu and yet also be Dragon Slayer VIII somehow...and it also doesn't have any characters or locations in common with the other games; only the sword with the name "Dragon Slayer".

It's a mess.

The game's individual title is "Kaze no Densetsu", i.e. "The Legend of the Wind", and according to SamIAm, that's the name that it is primarily known by to Japanese gamers.

I suspect that this issue will be a topic of discussion for a while. 

There are lots of good reasons to go with "Legend of the Wind", and lots of good reasons not to.

First, I'm curious to see whether "Xanadu - Legend of the Wind" can be made to fit in that space somehow, because if it can't, then that pretty much answers that.

[seieienbu]

Having bigger "Xanadu" then "Legend of the Wind" as a subtitle might work well in this case imo

[SamIAm]

I think so, too. Depending on palette limitations, there might be potential to having "Xanadu" be in a darker shade, then having "Legend of the Wind" partially overlapping it in a lighter shade. You could put one in cursive script and the other in a more ordinary font, too.

----------------------------

By the way, about project pages: it's very generous of folks to offer hosting. Right now, though, I think I would be spreading myself thin trying to get an attractive looking page launched and updated.

My plan is to do a second play-test-edit of both games, get the dub out of the way, and then ask for volunteers to test/offer feedback for both games. While they are doing that, I think the time would be ripe to start spreading the word a bit.

[LentFilms]

Just throwing my two cents in about the game's name: the English text on the box says "The Legend of Xanadu" and that is the title the game is known by for most English fans, so I think that would be the best name to use. But I also don't see a problem with just having it say "Legend of Xanadu" on the title screen.

As a side note, I don't think you really need to spread the word about the project while it is being tested. Once the patches are released, word will get around. A lot of websites even covered your guys' Zeroigar patch and I don't think most people outside of this forum even knew about the project as it was being made. So I think having a fancy project page or trying to "spread the word" before everything is done and out is unnecessary. But do whatever you want to do. 

Keep up the awesome work!

[SamIAm]

If it turns out that there's just no way to get "The Legend Of Xanadu" into one line without having the whole thing look like crap, then we can consider going back to just "Legend of Xanadu".

From a language perspective, there are only two really good candidates for the title: "The Legend of Xanadu", which is exactly what Falcom wrote on all the materials, or "Xanadu - Legend of the Wind", which in my judgement is the best translation of the Japanese title.

Reasons for going with "The Legend of Xanadu" include that it's a name that Falcom themselves gave it, that it's what most people are going to expect, and that it's very likely going to be the only one that we can cram into that space and still have it look good.

Meanwhile, reasons for going with "Xanadu - Legend of the Wind" include that it appears to be the primary title of the game (in Japan, nobody writes "The Legend of Xanadu" in katakana or romaji, ever), that "The Legend of Xanadu" could be nothing more than a touch of foreign-looking/sounding flair that Falcom stuck on the packaging, and that "Wind" is actually a pretty important thing in the first game. I mean, it's not the "Chrono" in Chrono Trigger, but it's definitely part of the story.

But "Legend of Xanadu" in-game when the printed materials all include a "The" on them? It reminds me of shoddy NES shovelware. You know, one of the primary things that has kept me going during this whole project is that it's a chance to try to do something as well as I can do it, and to do a better job than is usually done. I want this to be a Grade-A fan-translation, and for it to stand up next to any decent professional localization. Thus, if we're going to go with sub-optimal language for the title, there had better be a damned good reason for it.

Like I said, if the art-perspective is that only "Legend of Xanadu" is short enough to look good at all, then we can make the hard decision and go with it. However, if "The" can fit somehow, even if it takes some serious reworking, then I really strongly feel that that's what we need to have.

[CrackTiger]

If the size/palette restrictions can't be expanded and the current pixelart were to be used as a "compromise", the logo in TLoX could probably gain a tiny horizontal or vertical "THE".

The logo in TLoXII is already touching the sides of the screen and it took a miracle to make something half-decent looking. Something to keep in mind is that the logo in TLoXII is also used on the title screen. So even if the sprite block can be expanded in size and variation in English, retaining the art style of the original or even just in a comparable sized font, will require a 2-row title.

The other thing to remember, is that in the actual existing game, Falcom themselves thought that compromising their official title was worth it to achieve the composition and artwork they preferred for the title screen.





This shows that Falcom didn't think that a two row title sitting higher or any other variation on the screen was worth the trade-off.

But if the size, palette and positioning can be changed, an extra row can just be positioned above the current position of the single-row logo. Or the 2-row logo can be lowered a bit for composition. Or it can be moved further up and the full title can be used, since the upper part of the background that Falcom decided wasn't worth covering is getting covered anyway.





There is literally only one pixel of unused space at the top and bottom of the TLoXII logo, so if the English logo is scrapped and subtitles are used and the size/palette cannot be expanded, this is how it would work (current English logo for comparison):





If the sprite size/palette/positioning can be altered, I could also do all kinds of different things with the menu and copyright text as well. I could also add more shading to the outline of the title logo or even have a gradient cutting through the inner font. I was shooting for extreme authenticity when pulling out all the stops for the current logo and I know that no one will compare the original to mine pixel-by-pixel to appreciate how faithful it is. But if we're going in a radical new direction, pretty much anything could be done, like the golden cursive logo from the cover. Depends on how far you want to tinker with things. I know it's already been a lot of work.

[elmer]

Oh,c**p! Now we've got a problem with the current Xanadu 2 logo.

This is the Japanese logo in the Xanadu 2 Opening Visual ...



The highlight is a high-priority sprite that moves behind a background layer (which has a cutout for the logo), and above the logo sprites.

Apart from all the messing around that that's going to mean for mean for me when converting the new English logo into cutouts, it also means that the English logo can only be a maximum of 240 pixels wide in order to avoid sprite-dropout and cutoff during the visual sequence.

The current logo is 244 pixels wide ... and that's just not going to work.

But if the size, palette and positioning can be changed, an extra row can just be positioned above the current position of the single-row logo. Or the 2-row logo can be lowered a bit for composition. Or it can be moved further up and the full title can be used, since the upper part of the background that Falcom decided wasn't worth covering is getting covered anyway.

I may be able to find some unused colors in the palette that can be used ... but I can't change the overall size of the logo.

Falcom are doing way too much dynamic messing around with the sprites/backgrounds for that to work without rewriting the code for the entire intro sequence ... which just isn't practical.

There is literally only one pixel of unused space at the top and bottom of the TLoXII logo, so if the English logo is scrapped and subtitles are used and the size/palette cannot be expanded, this is how it would work:

If that kind of arrangement is the best alternative, then I could certainly live with it (preferably in some other color).

But I'd really love to see if we can keep the idea of what you've done, but just make the English letters a bit narrower ... if it can be done.

[SamIAm]

"The Last Of Dragon Slayer" is something I think we can say is not really part of the title. It doesn't appear once in either the manual or in any of the game's articles or advertisements in PCE Fan magazine between the time it was announced and the time it was released and after. Yes, I have all of them, and yes, I just checked.

Also, that should probably be changed to something like "The Last Dragon Slayer" or "The Final Dragon Slayer". I think what they want to say is that this is going to be the final game in the Dragon Slayer series.

Two little side notes: first, the magazine refers to both games strictly as kaze no densetsu, with "The Legend of Xanadu" appearing only as the golden cursive graphic in advertisements. Second,  it's interesting to note that the oft-repeated tagline for Xanadu 2, which is even on the back of the case, is 伝説の風再び..., which means literally "The Legendary Wind Once More..." and is really something like "The Legendary Wind Returns/Rises Again".

Even though it may still be impossible, this tilts me a little further toward preferring "Xanadu - Legend of the Wind".

Anyway...

There is literally only one pixel of unused space at the top and bottom of the TLoXII logo, so if the English logo is scrapped and subtitles are used and the size/palette cannot be expanded, this is how it would work:

I could definitely live with this. Maybe it's because the Japanese is easy on my eyes anyway, but this looks like a very tasteful compromise.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this, Black Tiger. I'm very grateful for your help, and again, I'm sorry that I didn't pick up on this issue earlier. 

[seieienbu]

There is literally only one pixel of unused space at the top and bottom of the TLoXII logo, so if the English logo is scrapped and subtitles are used and the size/palette cannot be expanded, this is how it would work:

I think this is a pretty classy looking logo.  If you can't make it work well from a technical and aesthetic standpoint at the same time, I'd rather you went with something like this.

[Vimtoman]

Thumbs up from me.

Maybe lose the II on the English text.

[CrackTiger]

If people like 1 pixel text overlapping, I'll try add a THE to the English logo when I have a chance to work at my computer.

Adding a horizontal THE which doesn't overlap would rrquire as much extra space on the opposite end to be centered.

A Zelda style logo could be dobe, with tony text above Xanadu, but it would look like it's a Xabadu game.

[elmer]

Also, that should probably be changed to something like "The Last Dragon Slayer" or "The Final Dragon Slayer". I think what they want to say is that this is going to be the final game in the Dragon Slayer series.

I thought that "The Last of Dragon Slayer" sounded hokey until it was explained to me that "Dragon Slayer" is the name of the sword, and that the continuity in the rather-disjointed series is proved by the sword itself.

As such ... "The Last of Dragon Slayer" actually seems quite appropriate to me, now.

If I'm understanding it right, the series of games is named after the sword itself, and "Xanadu" is the name of the planet/world where Falcom set this series of games.

I could definitely live with this. Maybe it's because the Japanese is easy on my eyes anyway, but this looks like a very tasteful compromise.

As Vimtoman said "Maybe lose the II on the English text.".

But still ... something doesn't seem right.

If we were just doing subtitles on the voice-overs and leaving other Japanese text in the game, then I could understand going with the subtitled logo.

But if we're going to the trouble of trying to do an English dub, and we're doing a lot of work to replace every other piece of Japanese text within the game, then leaving this one seems ... a little lazy of us.

IMHO, it's definitely not what would have happened if the game had been professionally localized back-in-the-day.

**************

Moving forward, I've figured out how all the character's names in the Xanadu 2 Opening Visual actually work, and they can now be replaced.




They're all stored in a black-and-white (1bpp) image that should be easy to change into English (but there are some size restrictions).

[SamIAm]

I thought that "The Last of Dragon Slayer" sounded hokey until it was explained to me that "Dragon Slayer" is the name of the sword, and that the continuity in the rather-disjointed series is proved by the sword itself.

As such ... "The Last of Dragon Slayer" actually seems quite appropriate to me, now.

If I'm understanding it right, the series of games is named after the sword itself, and "Xanadu" is the name of the planet/world where Falcom set this series of games.

If the meaning is more along the lines of "the sword's last outing" than "the final game in the series", then there is certainly no problem story-wise. However...and I'm open to discussion on this...I think you would need to say "The Last of the Dragon Slayer". If you leave out "the", then Dragon Slayer becomes a more directly addressed entity like Peter or Mark, and I have to leave out "the" everywhere just as I would never say "The Peter" or "The Mark".

"Hand over Dragon Slayer!"

"We better find Dragon Slayer."

"Only Dragon Slayer can defeat him."

It kind of reminds me of the way Tolkien had weapons with real names in The Lord of the Rings, like Glamdring, and treated them almost like living beings. Here, though, I have to say that I still prefer the sound of the Dragon Slayer. Like I said, I'm open to discussion on this.

However, do we have the space to insert a "the" there?

Japanese people have a terrible time grasping the proper use of "a" and "the" since they don't exist in the Japanese language, by the way.

Also, for what it's worth, I've never read any explanation for why "Xanadu" is in the title. It might be out there somewhere. I assume it's the name of the world, but I wouldn't say I'm confident about that.

As Vimtoman said "Maybe lose the II on the English text.".

But still ... something doesn't seem right.

If we were just doing subtitles on the voice-overs and leaving other Japanese text in the game, then I could understand going with the subtitled logo.

But if we're going to the trouble of trying to do an English dub, and we're doing a lot of work to replace every other piece of Japanese text within the game, then leaving this one seems ... lazy.

IMHO, it's definitely not what would have happened if the game had been professionally localized back-in-the-day.

I agree.

I'm really curious to see what it looks like when "The" gets put in there and the letters get squished some more or done in a different style entirely.

Moving forward, I've figured out how all the character's names in the Xanadu 2 Opening Visual actually work, and they can now be replaced.

They're all stored in a black-and-white (1bpp) image that should be easy to change into English (but there are some size restrictions).

Nice work. 

I'll PM you. Those are the names of each character with the name of the actor who provided the voice.

If people like 1 pixel text overlapping, I'll try add a THE to the English logo when I have a chance to work at my computer.

Adding a horizontal THE which doesn't overlap would rrquire as much extra space on the opposite end to be centered.

A Zelda style logo could be dobe, with tony text above Xanadu, but it would look like it's a Xabadu game.

I'm thinking a vertical "The" probably wouldn't look so hot, so let's stick with horizontal

I'm no artist, but for these longer titles, I would be fine with basically tossing the style of the original altogether. It's all right if it doesn't look as much like a proper logo, per se, as long as it looks pretty and appropriate as a title.

I'd start experimenting with thin cursive if I knew where to begin.

[ccovell]

By the way, "The Last of..." is often (from my experience) a poor Japanese mistranslation for what really should be "The End of..."  (...末 / ...の最後 / ...の終わり)

It does sound hokey because it's unnatural.

The Last of... usually means the final one in a series of the same things.  The End of... means the last period in a single one's life.

[SamIAm]

Yeah, that's the feeling I had, too. My gut tells me that "The Last of Dragon Slayer" is still referring to the series, but for all I know, they might have meant it to mean both the series and the sword.

[NightWolve]

Apart from the Credits Roll, I think that's all of the text-in-graphics for Xanadu 1 ... and the credits can wait for a while.

Yeah, we never did get the Ys IV credits roll translated actually. No motivation as nobody cared and it would be the most difficult task remaining as compressed graphics blocks never needed to be dealt with for anything else.

[spenoza]

The Final Dragon Slayer would take up a little less space, and convey the same meaning without the confusion over naming.

[elmer]

Yeah, we never did get the Ys IV credits roll translated actually. No motivation as nobody cared and it would be the most difficult task remaining as compressed graphics blocks never needed to be dealt with for anything else.

Hahaha ... that makes so much sense! 

But in this case, the Xanadu 1 Credits are already in English ... but there are some spelling mistakes, and we're changing a couple of Falcom's Engrish names.

My terrible programmer-OCD is going to make me figure it out and fix it, and nobody, absolutely nobody, is going to notice or care.

I've had to keep the lunacy in check for years of commercial development ... but this is where I get to do things to my (totally excessive) standards of "right".

That's why I love working with SamIAm ... he's wonderfully obsessed with all of the little (absolutely crucial) details that make something "AAA". That's a rare find.

[NightWolve]

My terrible programmer-OCD is going to make me figure it out and fix it, and nobody, absolutely nobody, is going to notice or care. I've had to keep the lunacy in check for years of commercial development ... but this is where I get to do things to my (totally excessive) standards of "right".

That's cool, the projects are very lucky to have found you. If I was as good as you, I would too.

[CrackTiger]

Here is a version of the logo with THE that is 1 pixel narrower than the original.






Here's a version with the darker outline coloring all of the THE (no longer faithful to the overall coloring scheme):