Xanadu I and II - General Translation Project(s) Thread

[elmer]

If my dumb ass could make it through with zero moon rune skillz, you should cruise right through soon enough.

It ain't easy and it's definitely daunting to say the least. I felt so damn accomplished when I beat it.

Thanks guys!

I have absolutely zero moon-rune skills ... but luckily, the final level doesn't seem to require them ... just major mapping skills.

If it wasn't for the printed map in the game CD package that I scanned, I would have given up by now!   

As it is ... I can see (and mark) exactly where I've been on the scanned map, and see exactly what the "hidden" bits are that I've missed.

After a number of "marathon" sessions, I'm at the start of the 23rd floor, with all other floors completely finished (including all the "hidden" treasures that only a lunatic would normally find!).

I'd like to say that SamIAm's translation has been flawless on this level ... but there's really no speech at all except for on the bottom "basement" level, and it's hard to comment on things that hardly exist. 

I'm looking forward to getting to the top level(s) of the tower and seeing the final scenes of the game in their English glory!

I'm really missing all the story-telling from the previous levels.

[SamIAm]

I'm looking forward to getting to the top level(s) of the tower and seeing the final scenes of the game in their English glory!

I'm really missing all the story-telling from the previous levels.

Uh-oh. The stuff at the top is all done in voice-overs. You're going to have to wait until the dub is finished!

(Or I could PM you that section of the script) 

[elmer]

Uh-oh. The stuff at the top is all done in voice-overs. You're going to have to wait until the dub is finished!

(Or I could PM you that section of the script) 

After many, many, many hours, I've finally finished it ... and with 23 Elixirs, so by the time that I got to the end of the 31st floor of the tower, all that I had to do was button-mash and wait for the bad guys to die. 

And the payoff is a darned cutscene with a Japanese voice-over that I can't understand!!! 

We either need to get that dub done, or I've got to figure out how to implement subtitles ... or else people that play the game are going to be roaming the streets with firearms and a crazed-look in their eyes! 

But apart from that ... It's one heck of an epic game, and I'm glad to have had the chance to play it in English and understand what the gameplay and story is basically all about. 

Now I just want to see those cutscenes and see how they fill out the blanks in the story, and end it off.

But even with the missing bits, it's the most interesting story and characters that I've seen in a game for years.

[SamIAm]

After many, many, many hours, I've finally finished it ... and with 23 Elixirs, so by the time that I got to the end of the 31st floor of the tower, all that I had to do was button-mash and wait for the bad guys to die. 

And the payoff is a darned cutscene with a Japanese voice-over that I can't understand!!! 

We either need to get that dub done, or I've got to figure out how to implement subtitles ... or else people that play the game are going to be roaming the streets with firearms and a crazed-look in their eyes! 

But apart from that ... It's one heck of an epic game, and I'm glad to have had the chance to play it in English and understand what the gameplay and story is basically all about. 

Now I just want to see those cutscenes and see how they fill out the blanks in the story, and end it off.

But even with the missing bits, it's the most interesting story and characters that I've seen in a game for years.

Congratulations! Completing Xanadu 1, final dungeon and all, truly puts a feather in the cap of any PCE player.

Also, 23 elixers? Holy crap. I think you only arrive at the last chapter with about 10 if you picked up every one along the way. Did you buy some of those, or did you find all of them?

Sorry about that last language barrier. We'll get it down soon enough. 

I'm glad you liked the characters. I really don't want to spoil anything for people, but I think that the complete cast of characters in this game, both playable and non-playable, is probably its most charming feature.

Now it's on to Xanadu 2! Being able to talk to you (and eventually everyone else!) about the differences between the two games is one of the things I'm looking forward to most about completing this project. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but I think you'll be surprised at just how deep the differences run. It makes complete sense that they were directed by different people.

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

By the way, general news update time: I have finished the second pass of Xanadu 2 up to the start of Chapter 3, aka the fourth chapter.

Except for one five-day period that I have off, I'm going to continue to be busy as hell at work until the end of the month. I still think I can finish Xanadu 2 by that time, but making whatever progress I can on that is going to consume all of the free time I have.

Anyway, it's coming right along.

[Vimtoman]

Subs sounds great.

It's easy to mishear what being said.

[SamIAm]

Subs would be nice...they're certainly easier for me, and the fact of the matter is, we're just not going to get top acting talent with top recording equipment for every part for a dub...but there just don't seem to be resources for a subtitle system.

Elmer and I once talked about setting up subs to work on a SuperGrafx/CD combo, because the extra video processor and RAM should make it much easier, but even then, it might turn out to be a total pain.

Chances are, the only way this is going to be fully experience-able in English on a Duo is with a dub.

[NightWolve]

Chances are, the only way this is going to be fully experience-able in English on a Duo is with a dub.

Yeah, that's pretty much the most feasible way given the technical issues. 1:1 byte replacement of audio streams is easiest if you can get it all recorded. But then recruitment/management of voice actors is the grunt work that presents another type of obstacle/challenge.

[spenoza]

I was tapped to be the narrator on a short documentary about pulp magazines recently. Eventually it will make it to YouTube, and I'll share so you can decide if I have a voice for video games (but maybe not a face for radio?)

[elmer]

Also, 23 elixers? Holy crap. I think you only arrive at the last chapter with about 10 if you picked up every one along the way. Did you buy some of those, or did you find all of them?

I think that I found 1 or 2, but the rest were purchases.

I was frugal throughout the game and still had lots of Wings and all-but-one Elixir.

So all my money went into buying more Elixirs when I had some ... I didn't need to buy anything else in the last level.

Because I was trying to visit every single treasure-chest, I ended up doing a lot more back-and-forth than an experienced player-wth-a-map might have done.

Don't tell anyone ... but I *might* admit to doing a bit of grinding on the 23rd floor since it had a couple of spots that were perfect for that (if you have the Bell). 

Subs would be nice...they're certainly easier for me, and the fact of the matter is, we're just not going to get top acting talent with top recording equipment for every part for a dub...but there just don't seem to be resources for a subtitle system.

Elmer and I once talked about setting up subs to work on a SuperGrafx/CD combo, because the extra video processor and RAM should make it much easier, but even then, it might turn out to be a total pain.

Yeah, that's pretty much the most feasible way given the technical issues. 1:1 byte replacement of audio streams is easiest if you can get it all recorded. But then recruitment/management of voice actors is the grunt work that presents another type of obstacle/challenge.

While *technically* I'd like to see if it's possible to get SuperGrafx subtitles working ... it would be one heck of a lot of work to try it, and it might not work anyway.

The dub is by-far the safest solution.

[elmer]

I guess that most people already know this, but some guy has been uploading a ton of Falcom's music CDs onto YouTube under Falcom's "fair use" policy. 

It was fun to compare the game's final version of the Xanadu 1 theme ...

The Legend of Xanadu OST - Legend of the Wind

With what was probably the composer's original PC-98 version before it got recorded by the full live band ...

The Legend of Xanadu J.D.K. Special - Legend of the Wind

And then the crazy "extended" rock version ...

The Legend of Xanadu Super Arrange Version - Legend of the Wind

[Vimtoman]

Subs would be nice...they're certainly easier for me, and the fact of the matter is, we're just not going to get top acting talent with top recording equipment for every part for a dub...but there just don't seem to be resources for a subtitle system.

Elmer and I once talked about setting up subs to work on a SuperGrafx/CD combo, because the extra video processor and RAM should make it much easier, but even then, it might turn out to be a total pain.

Chances are, the only way this is going to be fully experience-able in English on a Duo is with a dub.

Maybe you should ask all applicants to say " 1 2 3" . Would be an easy quick test

[NightWolve]

I guess that most people already know this, but some guy has been uploading a ton of Falcom's music CDs onto YouTube under Falcom's "fair use" policy. 

Yeah, that's Josep ( https://twitter.com/jdkluv ), I uploaded audio rips from my Ys IV CD to help him some months back. He's been a Falcom fanboy machine, on track to damn near uploading everything Falcom ever made on there... Somehow I don't think "fair use" technically covers full rips of CDs, but whatevers, you say legal, others say illegal, much like the raging tomato versus tamoto debate, who's to say who's wrong or right these days, ya know ? 

[A Black Falcon]

A voiced translation would be great, but I'm sure it'd also be hard to make happen, particularly for two games at the same time.  The absolute minimum would be to have a text file script saying what they're saying in all the cutscenes, so at least you can follow along with what's going on in that part.  It'd spoil the game of course, but that's better than not knowing what's being said at all...

On a related note, is there any such file for Xak III?  It'd be nice to know what they're saying in the cutscenes in that game...

[NecroPhile]

Somehow I don't think "fair use" technically covers full rips of CDs...

Falcom is a bit different than other companies, as they specifically allow their music to be freely used in all sorts of usually protected ways.  About the only thing they don't allow is its use in other games or to charge money for it.

[NightWolve]

Somehow I don't think "fair use" technically covers full rips of CDs...

Falcom is a bit different than other companies, as they specifically allow their music to be freely used in all sorts of usually protected ways.  About the only thing they don't allow is its use in other games or to charge money for it.

That would be interesting if they really do allow full rips to be shared everywhere but then I could swear they joined some iTunes thingy (or itself) to sell tracks at .99 cents a pop some time back.

[SamIAm]

Small update:

After a month of hell at work, I had a full week off, which I used mostly to relax and play around with my new baby. Now I've got another 10 days of rough seas to get through, including a literal trip on an overnight ferry (long story). After that, things will settle down again.

I did manage to get through Chapter 3 and make a dent in Chapter 4 of Xanadu 2. Once that's finished, the rest will be a breeze.

Elmer is going to busy until the end of the month anyway, so I'm not in a rush.

[escarioth]

i didnt know a translation was into work.
it just made my day. 

[SamIAm]

Update:

I'm basically back now. My job's crazy-busy period has passed.

The second play-test-edit of Xanadu 2 is done, and the translation is waiting for elmer to give it a go. This project is truly at a very advanced stage, and is approaching completion.

From here on, I'm going to be focusing exclusively on the dub stuff until it's done. When I left off before, I had recorded myself reading every line, but hadn't mixed anything yet. Happily, the Audacity project files I had set up before made dropping in the recordings super-easy, which is what I did today. Now I just have to listen to everything and tweak the script until I'm really ready to call it final and get auditions rolling.

[Johnpv]

That is an awesome update!  You guys rock!

[EmperorIng]

Why even involve other people in the dub? You already voiced all the characters; that sounds authentically Turbo/TTI to me!

Xanadu 2: SamIAm Edition

[johnnykonami]

Update:

I'm basically back now. My job's crazy-busy period has passed.

The second play-test-edit of Xanadu 2 is done, and the translation is waiting for elmer to give it a go. This project is truly at a very advanced stage, and is approaching completion.

From here on, I'm going to be focusing exclusively on the dub stuff until it's done. When I left off before, I had recorded myself reading every line, but hadn't mixed anything yet. Happily, the Audacity project files I had set up before made dropping in the recordings super-easy, which is what I did today. Now I just have to listen to everything and tweak the script until I'm really ready to call it final and get auditions rolling.

I hope you do any female voices in a falsetto!  You should leave those in the final product!

[SamIAm]

Today I got things set up to easily export the audio and play it in-game with Mednafen.

Even with headphones on, I am frequently looking around to make no one else is listening to how much I suck.

The good news is, this test-dub phase is paying off. I'm quickly noticing little problems that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

If I were doing all of this from square-one again, I think it might be best to prepare all of the audio-project files and the whole testing system before doing any translation, and speak-test every line while writing the first draft. It would take more time to write it, for sure, but it would be a much better first draft.

[NightWolve]

Why even involve other people in the dub? You already voiced all the characters; that sounds authentically Turbo/TTI to me!

Xanadu 2: SamIAm Edition

The South Park guys use sound software to voice everything themselves, no ? We live in a time where it could be voiced competently enough by one or two dudes, but I'm guessing said software is expensive.

[SamIAm]

We're almost there with the dub scripts.

In Xanadu 1, a lot of the lip-movement in cutscenes isn't really synchronized at all. It's animated with a constant-interval cycle that has no relation to what the characters are actually saying, and continues even if they're momentarily saying nothing. In a situation like that, I think it's best not to try too hard to have the English dub match the lip movements, so I'm not going to worry about it.

However, in Xanadu 2, they made a lot more effort in this area. It's not perfectly matched, but at least the characters' mouths stop moving if they pause between sentences. Making it so that there will be no English-speaking during these pauses is the last major round of tweaking I have to do, and I've about finished it.

[Vimtoman]

How many characters are there?

And sticking with American tradition in the movies are you making the baddie English ;)

[SamIAm]

How many characters are there?

There are about 50, but only 20 or so of them have more than just one or two lines.

And sticking with American tradition in the movies are you making the baddie English ;)

I think antagonizing the British might not sit well with the other half of the translation team. ;)

But it doesn't really matter, because I don't think the bad-guys really call for unique accents.

Probably just due to availability of actors, I think American English will wind up being the "base" for the dub, but I have no objection to mixing in other accents as long as they're not too extreme. Whether a person can act is much more important than what their accent is.

[Nighttrate]

And sticking with American tradition in the movies are you making the baddie English ;)

I think antagonizing the British might not sit well with the other half of the translation team. ;)

But it doesn't really matter, because I don't think the bad-guys really call for unique accents.

Probably just due to availability of actors, I think American English will wind up being the "base" for the dub, but I have no objection to mixing in other accents as long as they're not too extreme. Whether a person can act is much more important than what their accent is.[/quote]
I'm british & do a lot of radio, so wouldn't mind giving the bad guy part a shot (if it not already taken) as we british do make a good bad guys.

[elmer]

I'm british & do a lot of radio, so wouldn't mind giving the bad guy part a shot (if it not already taken) as we british do make a good bad guys.

Yes, we do! 

[SamIAm]

Lol. 

Nighttrate, I'd love to have you. Please check back soon, because I really am going to post a list of roles and open up auditions soon.

[Arjak]

After sitting and waiting for five years, am I going to have to re-audition for Nuse? I hope not...

[Nighttrate]

Lol. 

Nighttrate, I'd love to have you. Please check back soon, because I really am going to post a list of roles and open up auditions soon.

will do mate

[Vimtoman]

I'm British but I think it's got to be a well spoken for the baddie I'm from north London so the accent wont do..

[elmer]

I'm British but I think it's got to be a well spoken for the baddie

Haha ... good point! 

For some reason, the bad guy always has the classic public-school/Oxford/BBC accent. 

I can do "supercilious" really well, but I'm a lousy actor (I always preferred to work back-of-house or lighting).

While Xanadu 2 seems like it might be a bit more homogeneous (to me), Xanadu 1 covers a really wide geographical area, and a huge cast, where a North London accent might not seem out-of-place ... if you're interested in auditioning when SamIAm opens up the casting-call. 

[Vimtoman]

Only fools and horse's just dont think that fits somehow.
God I would be redoing the voice over too many times.

Looking forward to seeing this finished.

I will have two SNES2PCE V2 adaptors ready as a thank you for your hard work.

Will PM you two .

[Arjak]

How goes preparation for the dub, Sam? Are we getting close to auditions?

[SamIAm]

It's definitely coming. Hours are being put in on a daily basis.

[SamIAm]

I now have a working insertion tool that quickly and easily gets all of the ADPCM clips into Xanadu 1, and was just able to listen to my test-dub running in the game via Mednafen.

The audio quality is distinctly better than the original!

Thanks to the high quality background music provided by the official soundtrack, and thanks to elmer and SOX, our converted tracks are squeaky-clean.

Whatever tool Falcom was using in 1993 was simply not up to this standard.

I've got web pages for casting and recording made up. I just need to make all final adjustments to the script, and tweak the mixing here and there.

[elmer]

The audio quality is distinctly better than the original!

Thanks to the high quality background music provided by the official soundtrack, and thanks to elmer and SOX, our converted tracks are squeaky-clean.

Whatever tool Falcom was using in 1993 was simply not up to this standard.

That's great to hear (pun intended)! 

I can't imagine that my ADPCM conversion is really doing anything that's noticeably better than Hudson's, even though I handle clipping and rounding a little bit differently to the official OKI algorithm for the chip. 

Falcom's original audio didn't even come close to maxing-out the signal level, which probably hurt the amount of noise that you hear in the originals. So, if your new audio is set to a similar low volume level, then my changes to the clipping would never be activated.

I suspect that the real winner here is using SOX for the conversion from 44100Hz to 16044Hz.

The technology for doing that cleanly, with all of the necessary pre-filtering, has improved by leaps-and-bounds since the 1990s.

You just can't use SOX for the conversion from uncompressed-WAV to ADPCM for the PCE/PC-FX, because their algorithm is broken.

[varikares]

I signed up just so I could keep an eye on this project

I love falcom, and this looks really wonderful, I'm really grateful this project exists and excited to play it when it's finished

[elmer]

I signed up just so I could keep an eye on this project

I love falcom, and this looks really wonderful, I'm really grateful this project exists and excited to play it when it's finished

Welcome!

I'm curious ... where did you hear about the translation?

[roflmao]

So exciting to read about all the progress being made!

[SamIAm]

My parents are here to spend time with their first baby grandson, so things have been busy. Four more days to go...


This morning, I finally got around to burning a CD and trying the ADPCM cutscenes on real hardware.

Everything works really well! Again, the quality is much better than the original game's.


Welcome, varikares! Thanks to you (and everyone) for the kind words. 

[ParanoiaDragon]

Maybe I missed it, but where do I sign up to try out for the voice acting?  I might actually have time (for a change) to do this, if there's any roles that I would work well with.

[Totallydrew]

Hey all,

Heard about this Project from someone while talking about my love of Falcom, just signed up to check out this project and say thanks in advance for the hard work you guys put in!

[elmer]

My parents are here to spend time with their first baby grandson, so things have been busy. Four more days to go...

Be strong, Sam, you can get through it! 

I suspect that when you recover from the disruption and stress, you'll look back on this visit with great fondness in future years. 

Maybe I missed it, but where do I sign up to try out for the voice acting?  I might actually have time (for a change) to do this, if there's any roles that I would work well with.

See above ...SamIAm is a little preoccupied at the moment. 

The official casting-call and sign-up hasn't been started, yet.

I signed up just so I could keep an eye on this project

Heard about this Project from someone while talking about my love of Falcom, just signed up to check out this project and say thanks in advance for the hard work you guys put in!

Wow, 2 new people in 2 days ... was someone talking about the project in a bar at the Portland Retro Gaming Convention? 

Welcome!

[varikares]

I'm curious ... where did you hear about the translation?

I saw a thread about it on romhacking.net while I was looking around for Falcom games to play

[SamIAm]

Maybe I missed it, but where do I sign up to try out for the voice acting?  I might actually have time (for a change) to do this, if there's any roles that I would work well with.

As elmer said, I am a little busy at the moment. 

With 58 parts and well over an hour of solid talking, I really need to get every single duck in line before I open the doors for people to audition and start recording. I'm expecting nothing less than a tornado of takes and emails for a good month or so.

Be strong, Sam, you can get through it! 

I suspect that when you recover from the disruption and stress, you'll look back on this visit with great fondness in future years. 

The day I look back on most fondly from my father's last visit is the day he left. 

Maybe it just needs a few more years. 

[ParanoiaDragon]

Ok, cool.  My schedule is starting to loosen up a bit, so I figured it would be a good time to audition, keep up the good work, ridiculously looking forward to this!

[elmer]

We've been quiet for a while now, so I thought that I'd let folks know that we're working on polishing up the script for the dub and trying to iron out any inconsistencies between the two games before SamIAm opens up the audition process.

As you can imagine ... it may prove difficult/impossible to ask people to do lots of changes/retakes after we've got their recordings, so it's super-important to try to massage things as-much-as-possible now.

The whole process has been a bit delayed because of my strange fascination with actually playing with the HuC codebase rather than getting on with the things that I'm supposed to be doing. 

But we're still moving forward! 

[varikares]

take all the time you need, better to get it perfect the first time around

I'm really looking forward to playing it when it comes out