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Thread 12091190

113 posts 76 images /vr/
Anonymous No.12091190 [Report] >>12091195 >>12091683 >>12092092 >>12092181 >>12092835 >>12092851 >>12092905 >>12096501 >>12099036 >>12110978
Any PC-98 games in English you'd recommend? No wrong answers.
Anonymous No.12091193 [Report] >>12091207 >>12091238 >>12096728
win98?
Anonymous No.12091195 [Report] >>12091216 >>12091221 >>12091269 >>12101001
>>12091190 (OP)
Does thar thing has anything other than Touhou?
Anonymous No.12091207 [Report] >>12091238
>>12091193
In english?
Anonymous No.12091216 [Report]
>>12091195
Touhou is certified homosexual and for gays.
Anonymous No.12091221 [Report]
>>12091195
There's a metric fuck ton of visual novels
Anonymous No.12091238 [Report]
>>12091193
>>12091207
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-98
Anonymous No.12091259 [Report] >>12091289 >>12095624 >>12095787 >>12109634
Nightslave is pretty damn cool. It's like Cybernator, but way better. And with branching paths.
Anonymous No.12091269 [Report] >>12101001
>>12091195
Space Quest IV
Anonymous No.12091278 [Report] >>12091280 >>12091284 >>12091295 >>12091376
I have almost 80GB of PC-98 games, but I've hardly played any of them because of the language barrier.
Anonymous No.12091280 [Report]
>>12091278
>one of us
>one of us
One of us
Anonymous No.12091284 [Report] >>12091302
>>12091278
Oh, and the emulator I use can't even display Japanese fonts, for starters.
Anonymous No.12091289 [Report]
>>12091259
Thats going in my holocron
Anonymous No.12091295 [Report]
>>12091278
Niche Japanese media with almost no chance of being translated be like that
Anonymous No.12091296 [Report] >>12091367
Nice, I managed to add fonts at least. Now I'm stuck on the second step instead of being stuck on the first.
I think I'll have to wait about 3 or 4 years for someone to create an AI that translates things immediately on screen or something like that.
Anonymous No.12091297 [Report] >>12113519 >>12115071
i HATE my '98
Anonymous No.12091302 [Report] >>12091315
>>12091284
neko project?
Anonymous No.12091303 [Report] >>12091327 >>12092750 >>12092765 >>12093076
There's a PC-98 game I've been translating by going through its dialogue, but it's one of these DOS 16-bit games that cannot access anything higher than 1 MB of RAM and needs reprogramming to fit a potential English script... If anyone could help on that front, that'd be great.
Anonymous No.12091315 [Report] >>12091329 >>12092348
This sounds promising, I'll test it here to see what happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8raoq-NIw

>>12091302
Yes, but I found a link to a "font.rom" file, and I've already solved the problem.
Anonymous No.12091327 [Report]
>>12091303
I know mattkc has talked about the decompilation/reverse-engineering at length. So maybe that rabbit hole can lead you somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gthm-0Av93Q
Anonymous No.12091329 [Report]
>>12091315
good shit
Anonymous No.12091367 [Report] >>12091379 >>12091391 >>12092750
>>12091296
Fuck, Retroarch already has a system like this built into it. Just activate the AI services and configure it, and it will translate whatever is on the screen for you.
Anonymous No.12091376 [Report]
>>12091278
Most of them are just coomer games anyway
Anonymous No.12091379 [Report] >>12091391 >>12091408 >>12091424 >>12091540 >>12092927
>>12091367
Holy shit
I feel like a kid who found a box full of games.
Now I can play obscure Japanese games, lol.
Anonymous No.12091391 [Report]
>>12091367
>>12091379
look at him go
Anonymous No.12091408 [Report] >>12092927 >>12101378
>>12091379
Fuck it... first game I randomly decide between 80GB of options, and I feel like I'm going to be NTR'd.
Anonymous No.12091424 [Report] >>12091492
>>12091379
>game
Anonymous No.12091492 [Report]
>>12091424
There's an investigative part.
Anonymous No.12091540 [Report]
>>12091379
Is that the first anime character with lazy eye.
Anonymous No.12091581 [Report] >>12091710
I'm stuck...Does anyone who knows Japanese know how to form an address in Roman letters from these letters? ChatGPT and Gemini were unable to figure it out.
Anonymous No.12091683 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
Sir I recommend the Half-Life released 1998
Anonymous No.12091710 [Report] >>12091726
>>12091581
I did it! Son of a fuck!
WHITE HOUSE 45 YURIGAOKA 55
Anonymous No.12091726 [Report]
>>12091710
Yeah, I was rewarded for finding out the bitch's address.
Anonymous No.12091779 [Report]
Metajo
Anonymous No.12091857 [Report] >>12092495
By the way, Myrient has pre-patched English translated games now
Pic related
Anonymous No.12092092 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
>PC-98 games in English
There's like 10
Anonymous No.12092181 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
The correct answer is none. Translation removes the soul of the work to allow for mass consumption and thusly is always bad, objectively and perchance.
Anonymous No.12092348 [Report]
>>12091315
Looked interesting, but it turns out it's useless for anything more than visual novels (e.g a single dialogue window for all the text in the game).
Especially when you have several boxes to translate, like pic related.
I can't do another test until tomorrow because of that stupid 20 translations limit per day. But I don't think it's going to be useful for most games.
Anonymous No.12092495 [Report] >>12092613
>>12091857
Ever since cdromance went low profile this is pretty nice to see
Anonymous No.12092613 [Report] >>12092683
>>12092495
Uhh all you have to do is reg an account using a random throwaway e-mail account though.
Anonymous No.12092683 [Report] >>12092727
>>12092613
I tried Guerrilla Mail and it knew what I was doing so I went fuck it and thought I might just patch them myself if I find something cool.
Anonymous No.12092727 [Report] >>12092759
>>12092683
I'll download a patched game for you, anon. What do you want?
Anonymous No.12092750 [Report] >>12092846 >>12093107 >>12106685
>>12091303
You should probably ask around the romhacking.net forums or a PC-98 centered Discord server. No one here is going to be able to help you.

>>12091367
The RetroArch translation tool uses OCR to detect text. This is great for console games since each game has a bespoke text rendering system, but is unnecessary for most PC-98 games since they use the BIOS to print text. If you use the stand alone version of Neko Project 21/W, you can use a text hooker like Textractor or LunaTranslator to extract the text directly from the game and skip the overhead of using OCR.
https://vgmrips.net/wiki/Setting_up_Neko_Project_2_with_Textractor

Honestly though, unless there's a game that looks really awesome and doesn't seem like its going to get a translation patch anytime soon, its not worth it to play games with machine translation. I guess its probably fine for strategy games where text is in service to the gameplay, but in adventure games where reading is the brunt of the experience, it puts a massive damper on the experience. Machine translation just isn't very good.
Anonymous No.12092759 [Report] >>12092768
>>12092727
Oh thanks! Well off the top of my head I suppose Amagami translated. Specifically the vita version cause I'm "relatively" sure its the most ironed out of the 3.
Anonymous No.12092765 [Report] >>12093107
>>12091303
What's the game?
Anonymous No.12092768 [Report] >>12092783
>>12092759
> Amagami - EbKore+ (English v1.1)[NoNpDrm].zip 3 GB
>Amagami - EbKore+ (English v1.1)[vita3k].zip 2.6 GB
Which one do you want?
Anonymous No.12092783 [Report] >>12092794
>>12092768
>Slightly perplexed cause NoNpDrm is used to back up games to work in vita3k
If the page doesn't elaborate much more on the difference then the "Vita3k" one. It'll probably be fine.
Anonymous No.12092794 [Report] >>12092812
>>12092783
Downloading. Any idea where I could host this?
Anonfiles is now dead.
Anonymous No.12092812 [Report] >>12092825
>>12092794
Google drive or proton drive(if you don't like google) are the first to come to mind as pretty reliable.
I know the transformers community uses proton to host the cybertron games so I can vouch for it there at least.
Anonymous No.12092825 [Report] >>12092836
>>12092812
It was already transfering here while you posted: https://www.transfernow.net/dl/20251012IB3xTsj0
Anonymous No.12092835 [Report] >>12092845 >>12092846
>>12091190 (OP)
What game is that? It looks kino.
Anonymous No.12092836 [Report]
>>12092825
bitchin'
Anonymous No.12092845 [Report]
>>12092835
X-Girl
Anonymous No.12092846 [Report]
>>12092835
Its X-Girl. Same game as in >>12092750
Probably my favorite game by Fairytale.
Anonymous No.12092851 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
>Any PC-98 games [...] you'd recommend?
no
Anonymous No.12092905 [Report] >>12092920
>>12091190 (OP)
Anonymous No.12092920 [Report]
>>12092905
Fair enough
Anonymous No.12092927 [Report] >>12092943
>>12091379
>>12091408
what game?
Anonymous No.12092930 [Report] >>12097820
Wizardry 1-4.
Anonymous No.12092943 [Report] >>12092948
>>12092927
PIAS
https://vndb.org/v8817
Anonymous No.12092948 [Report]
>>12092943
anyone translated this game?
Anonymous No.12093076 [Report] >>12093107
>>12091303
I've hacked a few PC-98 games but mostly used MTL as my Japanese is only basic. What game have you been translating?
Anonymous No.12093081 [Report]
Anonymous No.12093107 [Report] >>12093142 >>12100985 >>12106464 >>12110973
>>12092750
What I wrote is the reasoning that was given on the PC-98 Discord server as to why the game isn't viable...

>>12092765
>>12093076
Pic related.
Anonymous No.12093142 [Report] >>12093203
>>12093107
I'll have a look. I suppose you're working on the disk version, not the CD one.
Anonymous No.12093190 [Report]
Revival Xanadu
Anonymous No.12093203 [Report] >>12094505 >>12102995
>>12093142
I appteciate it Anon. Yeah, the disk version, but whichever is more convenient to work with is fine by me. Since hacking the game doesn't seem viable and the script is long, I've been chipping away the translation little by little.
Anonymous No.12094228 [Report]
Does anybody happen to know which PC-98 version was the most widespread? Was it the NEC V30 one (VM, UV), or the 80286 one (VX, UX)?
Anonymous No.12094505 [Report] >>12102995
>>12093203
Disks are easier to edit, so I prefer those.
From what I've seen so far, the main executable only loads a small piece of code from DISK10. This code then provides all kind of basic services like loading a specific file from an archive, displaying a character or changing the palette...
It's pretty similar to what Tenshindo games do, and it allows to load specific executable pieces as needed, instead of having a single fat .EXE that uses a lot of your memory. It's also trickier to hack.

Then it loads one of the packed files and I have to figure how the decompressions (yeah, there are 2 modes) work.
Anonymous No.12095624 [Report]
>>12091259
Also has a great OST and cute chicks.
Anonymous No.12095698 [Report] >>12098936
For whom it may concern: if you are about to emulate the PC-98 I had so many problems with multiple games using the standalone Neko Project 21/W and had no problems with the libretro version. If you are interested in not wasting hours of your life troubleshooting problems that you will never solve.
Anonymous No.12095787 [Report]
>>12091259
Looks based, I love Cybernator and Front Mission: Gunhazard
Anonymous No.12096501 [Report] >>12096503
>>12091190 (OP)
So I am playing Psy-O-Blade for the genesis and my gamer instincts is screaming at me that there is a hidden timer. But I virtually see no guides or talk about this game to confirm my suspicions.
Anonymous No.12096503 [Report] >>12096513
>>12096501
I beat Psy O Blade on genesis years ago, I take my sweet time with old school vn's and don't remember there being anything about a timer or even logged time
Anonymous No.12096512 [Report] >>12097820 >>12098078
Impossible mode: what are PC-98 games translated in English that are NOT skeezy porn games
Anonymous No.12096513 [Report]
>>12096503
Okay, good. I was really suspcious in some parts for being too generous.
Anonymous No.12096728 [Report]
>>12091193
hahahah check out the new guy
Anonymous No.12097820 [Report]
>>12096512
>>12092930
Anonymous No.12098078 [Report]
>>12096512
The Farland Story games were the first fan-translated on the system.
Anonymous No.12098936 [Report] >>12101120
>>12095698
I just got the standalone one up and running and it took me like 20 minutes with basically no issues
Anonymous No.12099036 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
I was gonna say Cho Ren Sha 68K but I just realized it's actually for the X68000. Nobody ever talks about X68000 games. It's actually a very impressive shmup and released for free in 1997. There was also a port made for Windows in 2001. Go play it.
Anonymous No.12099134 [Report] >>12099797 >>12100913
its probably not that good. but I just like slayers cause im old. has anyone beat it? its just a dungeon crawler.
Anonymous No.12099797 [Report]
>>12099134
It's pretty unique : the floor are very maze-like and have lots of teleporters near the end, so it can get frustrating. Characters also don't have levels or equipment.
Still, the story is funny as expected, with great presentation. Also was translated recently.
Anonymous No.12100913 [Report] >>12105428
>>12099134
link me baby. i love slayers too.
Anonymous No.12100985 [Report] >>12101886
>>12093107
what game?
where can i get the english translation?
Anonymous No.12101001 [Report]
>>12091195
>>12091269
A completely from the ground up Quest for Glory I, too.
Anonymous No.12101120 [Report]
>>12098936
I had it up and running too. When I played Illusion City there was a problem that only popped up halfway through the game where a cutscene didnt play correctly, and when I played ys 2 I just couldnt get the sound to work properly for the opening cinematic. All these problems were gone in the libretro version.
Anonymous No.12101378 [Report]
>>12091408
Why do they let some random gray-haired grandpa attend a children's school and bully the children with his grandpa strength??
Anonymous No.12101886 [Report] >>12101891
>>12100985
英雄伝説IV
Are you incapable of reading?
Anonymous No.12101891 [Report] >>12101895
>>12101886
i can't read moonrunes.
where can i get the english translation?
Anonymous No.12101895 [Report]
>>12101891
If you can't find the link yourself it's pointless to help you.
Anonymous No.12102995 [Report] >>12105905
>>12093203
>>12094505

Update. I have nailed the main decompression, it's some mix of LZSS and RLE. What's unique is that some files have multiple passes of decompression applied.

From the files I've inspected so far:
DATA_10 has the main driver, sound driver and main menu.
DATA_11 handles some game logic (pretty big executable)
DATA_H is the opening (executable + pics + palettes), and has its special way to draw text with the dissolve effect.
Anonymous No.12105428 [Report]
>>12100913
Translated game with emulator:
https://archive.org/details/pc-98-slayers
Anonymous No.12105870 [Report]
Thank you once again for looking into it, Anon. Would you say it is theoretically possible? Even with English taking up more space than the Japanese text? I actually have roughly 2/3 of the main scenario translated (up to Madram's encounter on the Isle of Truth) and a decent amount of the open scenario quests. The PC-98 version is significantly different from the Windows version (that one was completely revamped and rewritten by a different person, and for the worse in my opinion), so I'd really like to have the original accessible to more people.
Anonymous No.12105905 [Report] >>12106464 >>12108862
>>12102995
Thank you once again for looking into it, Anon. Would you say it is theoretically possible? Even with English taking up more space than the Japanese text? I actually have roughly 2/3 of the main scenario translated (up to Madram's encounter on the Isle of Truth) and a decent amount of the open scenario quests. The PC-98 version is significantly different from the Windows version (that one was completely revamped and rewritten (for the worse in my opinion) by a different person), so I'd really like to have the original accessible to more people.
Anonymous No.12106464 [Report] >>12110973
>>12105905
I'm only starting to investigate how scripts work, where dialogs are located.
From what I've seen, they're loaded in a buffer that is less than 10 KB. The game handles ASCII natively, using its custom font. Speaking of which, I'm curious to know how you achieved to translate and insert >>12093107
Anonymous No.12106685 [Report] >>12107651 >>12107682
>>12092750
I couldn't get the text extractor to work. It's strange, sometimes I need to run the game in full screen for it to be identified, but it's no use, I can't get the text to be extracted or translated.
The Retroarch solution is really too tedious...
Unfortunately, I can't find any convenient way to actually translate the games, even though the technology already exists to do so.
Anonymous No.12107651 [Report] >>12108224
>>12106685
What version of Neko Project 2 are you using? I got it working with Neko Project 21/W ver 0.86 rev. 96. I've tried it with Neko Project II kai in the past, but despite claiming to support the USETHOOK flag, it didn't work. Also, I use the x86 versions of NP2W and Textractor. I don't know why, but I could never get text extraction to work with the x64 versions.
Anonymous No.12107682 [Report] >>12108224
>>12106685
Textractor requires a bit of frustrating fiddling at first.
Could also be that your game isn't supported. What is it?
Anonymous No.12108224 [Report] >>12108230 >>12108256 >>12109154
>>12107651
>>12107682
I am testing it on PIAS.
The emulator I am using is revision 95 instead of 96.
I'll try another game to see what happens.
Anonymous No.12108230 [Report] >>12108256
>>12108224
I'll try with my old version. I don't expect much because I haven't used Textractor for 5 years or so.
Anonymous No.12108256 [Report] >>12108265
>>12108224
>>12108230
Turns out the text is hooked just fine.
I don't remember why it's not translating... maybe I fucked up the config all those years ago.
Anonymous No.12108265 [Report]
>>12108256
Oh well, it works now.
Are you sure you're using the right version? Mine is not /W.
I can upload it, if you want to try.
Anonymous No.12108862 [Report] >>12110973
>>12105905
I've finally found the opening cutscene scripts and first area in DISK_A.
The compiled script format has more than 160 opcodes, most I haven't investigated. Well, command 0x0F is the one to display text strings, with 0x12 and 0x13 to display the speaker name.

A cool feature I hadn't seen in other script engines is that it can handle complex expressions for assignments or tests, mixing arithmetic, logic operations and comparisons by using reverse Polish notation.

Anyway, before being able to edit the scripts, I need to be able to parse all operations (or at least determine the length of operations I don't care about) and expressions.

There are also some hard-coded strings in some of the executables, like the main menu, opening text and maybe some in-game menus.
If you want to share your translations for the protagonists names, intro cutscene, and first playable area I'm willing to give a try, but it may take a while.
Anonymous No.12109154 [Report]
>>12108224
It looks like Textractor is getting the text data and then interpreting it incorrectly. Is the "Default codepage" setting in Textractor set to 932? I tested PIAS and it works fine for me. I can't replicate the problem you are having, so I don't have much advice to offer. The only other thing I can think of is to try LunaTranslator which is another program that does the same thing as Textractor.
Anonymous No.12109634 [Report] >>12110318
>>12091259
> It's like Cybernator, but way better.
"Way better" meaning linear levels, worse graphics, but with anime tiddies?
Anonymous No.12110318 [Report]
>>12109634
Find out by yourself ~!
Anonymous No.12110973 [Report] >>12111809
>>12106464
>Speaking of which, I'm curious to know how you achieved to translate and insert >>12093107 (You) #
It was actually a friend screwing around. What they did wasn't really a true or sustainable solution, they just dumped the emulator save state memory and live-replaced the string. They were looking into heuristic approaches like that since they never figured out the exact compression format don't have much experience in hacking.

>>12108862
>If you want to share your translations for the protagonists names, intro cutscene, and first playable area I'm willing to give a try, but it may take a while.
I'd have to check the strings from the game itself myself to make sure they properly match. I'm actually not at home for the time being, but here's the translated opening sequence (the one with some text and the title logo) if you want to give it a try:

Original:
それは太古、神々の争いから始まっていた。

大地に人が生まれたばかりの頃
人の知らぬ天界で
バルドゥスとオクトゥムの争いが巻き起こった。

大地は天界の水鏡・・・

バルドゥスに与し者、オクトゥムに与し者。
人に発端を知るすべはない。

まもなくもすると地上に動乱が飛び火した。

太古からの因縁は大地に
散ったバルドゥスの御魂とともに
今も生き続けている。

Translated:
It began in antiquity, with a war among the gods.

In the dawn of time, when humanity had just been born unto the earth,
in the celestial realm, unknown to mortals,
a conflict erupted between Bardus and Octum.

The earth is but a water mirror of the heavens…

Those who sided with Bardus; those who sided with Octum.
Mankind had no way of knowing how it began.

Before long, the flames of turmoil leaped to the world below.

This ancient fate—
along with the divine spirit of Bardus, scattered upon the land—
lives on, even to this day.
Anonymous No.12110978 [Report]
>>12091190 (OP)
touhou
Anonymous No.12111809 [Report]
>>12110973
>They were looking into heuristic approaches like that since they never figured out the exact compression format don't have much experience in hacking.
I had to jump through a few hoops before reaching the compression and having seen similar tricks in Jinn or Kuro no Ken was a big help (well, KnK hacking is above my current level).
Also, in the archives there isn't any clue how a file is compressed, and what kind of file it is (there are no names or flags).
Looking at the opening code, I managed to extract the title logo and think I'll be able to insert your translation. That's a one-off that won't help for the rest of the game but still would be cool to have.
After that, my next task is being able to extract text from scripts and finding how the game strings them together.
Anonymous No.12112795 [Report]
have a bump in honor of the great Sega Master System
Anonymous No.12113519 [Report]
>>12091297
it's okay it still loves you
Anonymous No.12115071 [Report]
>>12091297