Seriously, why has no one translated Tokimemo 1 yet?

I know someone was working on the snes rom but they quit. Still, I'm surprised nothing was done by now. It's so easy to read, and the kanji is basic stuff.

[Shii]

Tokimemo is a black hole into which translation projects go in and nothing comes out.
（ ・∀・）つ http://shii.org/translate/

Originally Posted by Shii

Tokimemo is a black hole into which translation projects go in and nothing comes out.
（ ・∀・）つ http://shii.org/translate/

Haha, wow. Maybe I should try doing something.

[Carl]

Originally Posted by Mio Kisaragi Fan

Haha, wow. Maybe I should try doing something.

Yes, you should ( ^∀^)ノ

[Haeleth]

Translating the text isn't a problem. It's what to do with it after that. IIRC, the most recent attempt did end up with a mostly translated script. It was abandoned because nobody could work out how to fit it back into the ROM.

(And note that the only reason they were working on the cut-down SNES version in the first place was that nobody could even work out how to get the script out of any of the other versions.)

[Talbain]

Fitting it back into the ROM isn't the problem either I would suspect, especially if it's an SNES ROM. I'd say it would mostly be a matter of patience (that is, does anyone want to spend the time hacking it). Plus, there's a new program that's going to be released soon called "PointerGrabber" which is supposably very useful for finding SNES pointers in ROMs, making it much easier to do ASM work (which is likely the kind of work TokiMemo would require if it really is a hard project, though I'm not 100% sure).

[Haeleth]

Originally Posted by Talbain

Fitting it back into the ROM isn't the problem either I would suspect, especially if it's an SNES ROM.

You'd be surprised. Simply reinserting the text isn't difficult, of course. The problem is that there literally isn't room!

As you're doubtless aware, since games of that era typically store kana as single bytes, Japanese is encoded far more efficiently than in modern games that use Shift_JIS; I forget the precise figure, but IIRC in a typical SNES game, English text generally requires about 50% more room than the equivalent Japanese. And Tokimemo apparently didn't have much in the way of empty space to use for text.

Often you can just expand a ROM, but Tokimemo already uses the largest officially-supported size (32Mbit), so the trivial expansion technique doesn't work. So reinserting the text would involve either improving the compression system sufficiently to compensate, or alternatively performing whatever hacks are necessary to trick the hardware into being able to handle a 48Mbit ROM. Possible, but definitely hard.

[roxfan]

Uh, but isn't there a PC ver?

[Talbain]

Originally Posted by Haeleth

You'd be surprised. Simply reinserting the text isn't difficult, of course. The problem is that there literally isn't room!

As you're doubtless aware, since games of that era typically store kana as single bytes, Japanese is encoded far more efficiently than in modern games that use Shift_JIS; I forget the precise figure, but IIRC in a typical SNES game, English text generally requires about 50% more room than the equivalent Japanese. And Tokimemo apparently didn't have much in the way of empty space to use for text.

Often you can just expand a ROM, but Tokimemo already uses the largest officially-supported size (32Mbit), so the trivial expansion technique doesn't work. So reinserting the text would involve either improving the compression system sufficiently to compensate, or alternatively performing whatever hacks are necessary to trick the hardware into being able to handle a 48Mbit ROM. Possible, but definitely hard.

Well, I suppose you could always do what the people who hacked ToP did (which is what you've already stated about expanding the ROM further than hardware specifications). But it also depends on how much of that space is used for text. Graphics and other things might actually be able to be moved around to make the space more efficient, but that's not always possible. Also, even though it uses the 32 MB cart size, it doesn't necessarily mean it's all actually used space. Of course, if TokiMemo were to see a translation, I'd prefer to see the Saturn version myself (and although I know one was being worked on, I'm pretty sure it's been abandoned).

I'd have to agree with Shii that TokiMemo translations seem to fall into black holes.

[zalas]

Originally Posted by Haeleth

Translating the text isn't a problem. It's what to do with it after that. IIRC, the most recent attempt did end up with a mostly translated script. It was abandoned because nobody could work out how to fit it back into the ROM.

(And note that the only reason they were working on the cut-down SNES version in the first place was that nobody could even work out how to get the script out of any of the other versions.)

The PSX version has the script text nicely stored in the files in the /CDROM/SERIFU directory. Re-inserting is a whole different ballgame though, as the CDROM directory itself has an intentionally botched header or something that prevents you from normally navigating to it. However, in terms of extensibility, I think the PSX version allows the most free reign. So yeah, if anyone's bored...

[Samurai Drifter]

Originally Posted by Shii

Tokimemo is a black hole into which translation projects go in and nothing comes out.
（ ・∀・）つ http://shii.org/translate/

Most games seem to be that way. I think there was also an Air translation project that went down the tubes, and a few others that have been cancelled. They seem to fail for two reasons- technical problems and motivation issues.

I would love to translate a game, unfortunately I can read barely anything beyond hiragana.

[Talbain]

Originally Posted by Samurai Drifter

Most games seem to be that way. I think there was also an Air translation project that went down the tubes, and a few others that have been cancelled. They seem to fail for two reasons- technical problems and motivation issues.

I would love to translate a game, unfortunately I can read barely anything beyond hiragana.

I wouldn't say most. There are some, sure. But most is an exaggeration. I think most people that get the motivation to seriously work on a translation project tend to continue with it till it's finished. I know I do my translations because I love translating; though that could just be me. :)

[Carl]

Originally Posted by Talbain

I think most people that get the motivation to seriously work on a translation project tend to continue with it till it's finished. I know I do my translations because I love translating; though that could just be me. :)

Same, although my speed is truely pathetic.