Improved English translation: a more comprehensive mod

[Chortos-2]

I’ve released a new mod where I’ve corrected nearly every line that seemed wrong or odd to me, as someone who understands Japanese and English, during my playthrough:

https://gamebanana.com/mods/459533

Previously, several people have published their own fixes here: tim_pkmn89, gabriulio. My mod includes those fixes thanks to their generosity, and it adds a massive lot more of my own.

Edits currently mainly cover the common parts and the Wrathful route, with some limited fixes for other routes as I haven’t personally played through them yet. As I resume playing, I’ll be editing the remainder and releasing new versions.

My mod doesn’t change Digimon terminology: I want players to have multiple options for this. Gabriulio is updating the undub mod (linked above), and an updated full-dub mod may come later.

My focus has been on translation accuracy and clarity: even though some mistakes are obvious even without knowledge of Japanese, there’s a whole lot more where the official English script just sounds vaguely odd or nonsensical or even outright gives you the wrong idea.

Note that my goal is neither to produce a word-for-word translation of the Japanese (which would be terrible English), nor, generally, to change stylistic choices made by the official team: it is to make the English make sense to English-speaking readers and give them the same understanding as the Japanese text gives to Japanese readers while respecting official choices that don’t conflict with this, as if the official translation team had done a more careful job (with more time, better tooling and maybe better intuitive grasp of Japanese).

And yet, I’d like to rewrite the Braided Girl’s gangster-speak used towards the Gray Hair Lady in the Prologue, but I felt my ability to write casual English wasn’t good enough. If anyone can do it and turn her lines into something befitting a teen girl who is sort of bored of adults and their rules (which is what the original Japanese sounds like), I’ll be happy to include it in the mod. JonPringus kindly offered to help with this, and now it is done! The edited lines will be in the mod’s second version.

[JonPringus]

Question: how exactly did you make this mod?

I was trying to make a text replacement mod for Nier Replicant, but I found out that changing the file size without editing the many headers of the file would break the text in game. Not only that, I was also told that even opening and saving the file in a text editor like Notepad++ would break the file too.

So I'm wondering if you had a tool that's made for editing text in this game, or if unity makes it easier than it was with Nier for me. Or if it all just works regardless of that

As far as writing for the Braided Girl, I'd like to take a crack at it.

[Chortos-2]

Unity does make this easy, because quite a few tools have already been developed by the community, so if Nier Replicant isn’t Unity-based, that alone could make the whole difference.

With Unity, you just open the asset bundle in AssetStudio, Unity Asset Bundle Extractor or similar, or using UnityPy if you’re a programmer, extract the thing you want to edit into a text file, edit it to your heart’s content, and use UABE or UnityPy to pack it back up. Technically, the exact format is still game-dependent, so if a particular game wants to make it harder, or if it’s just programmed in a more convoluted way, it could still be harder than this—in the sense that the file you get after extraction could potentially be something other than a plain text file. For example, Survive’s Digimon stats are encoded in a custom binary format that had to be reverse-engineered and has been by now, and its battle details use another custom format that still remains a mystery.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by Chortos-2:

Unity does make this easy, because quite a few tools have already been developed by the community, so if Nier Replicant isn’t Unity-based, that alone could make the whole difference.

With Unity, you just open the asset bundle in AssetStudio, Unity Asset Bundle Extractor or similar, or using UnityPy if you’re a programmer, extract the thing you want to edit into a text file, edit it to your heart’s content, and use UABE or UnityPy to pack it back up. Technically, the exact format is still game-dependent, so if a particular game wants to make it harder, or if it’s just programmed in a more convoluted way, it could still be harder than this—in the sense that the file you get after extraction could potentially be something other than a plain text file. For example, Survive’s Digimon stats are encoded in a custom binary format that had to be reverse-engineered and has been by now, and its battle details use another custom format that still remains a mystery.

That's great to hear that it wasn't just edited in notepad++ like my failed attempt Nier attempt haha.

I am serious about writing for the braided girl. Is it okay if I add you?

[Chortos-2]

Originally posted by JonPringus:

I am serious about writing for the braided girl. Is it okay if I add you?

Absolutely. I should rather be the one asking for your help and permission to add it to the mod’s next version. The main offending dialogue is here[github.com] for your reference. IIRC she has a few more lines elsewhere but they aren’t as jarring.

[Chortos-2]

Originally posted by Chortos-2:

The main offending dialogue is here[github.com] for your reference. IIRC she has a few more lines elsewhere but they aren’t as jarring.

Ah, found them, and yeah, they ought to be edited as well: here[github.com] (lines 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 are the girl’s) and here[github.com] (lines 4, 6, 9, 11 are the girl’s).

[Chortos-2]

Status update: the Braided Girl’s lines have been edited[github.com]. Thanks a lot! The edits will be included in the second version of the mod.

[󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡]

"key":"EP01_S0156_0004",
- "value":"Ha ha, whoa, hold up, man. They’ll get pissed\nat us for sure."
+ "value":"Ha ha, whoa, hold on. They’ll totally get upset\nfor sure."

I think the original translation is better on this line than the correction if it's meant to be a teen with attitude.

[JonPringus]

Originally posted by 󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡:

"key":"EP01_S0156_0004",
- "value":"Ha ha, whoa, hold up, man. They’ll get pissed\nat us for sure."
+ "value":"Ha ha, whoa, hold on. They’ll totally get upset\nfor sure."

I think the original translation is better on this line than the correction if it's meant to be a teen with attitude.

I tried to downplay the more "masculine" 'tude, and make her more "bored of adults" teenage girl. I believe what I wrote fits better with Chortos' interpretation of the character. Personally, I don't think the gangster speak is that bad of a localization choice, but I think what I wrote at least works.

Do you think the rest of the rewritten lines fit the "bored of adults" character?

[Vixenvania]

Interesting!

[Matt]

Thanks for this, I've downloaded the mod. This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I haven't bought the game yet - I know it is currently on sale but I have a few others currently on the go and I really do need to be careful what I spend money on each month. I'll pick it up in the Christmas Sale and make sure I use your mod before playing.

[Chortos-2]

Glad to hear that!

No promises, but with some luck, maybe by Christmas I’ll find some desire to play and fix more Survive myself and release another version of the mod.

[Matt]

Originally posted by Chortos-2:

Glad to hear that!

No promises, but with some luck, maybe by Christmas I’ll find some desire to play and fix more Survive myself and release another version of the mod.

Great. Just wanted you to know that this game has been near the top of my wishlist but the critical reviews of the English translation have been the reason I haven't bought it. If you think there's merit to the game but with corrections made by yourself and others i'm definitely prepared to give it a go. I recommend you also write a Steam Guide on how to install your mod as a lot of people check the Steam Guides these days without ever looking at the discussions.

[funewchie]

Originally posted by Matt:

Originally posted by Chortos-2:

Glad to hear that!

No promises, but with some luck, maybe by Christmas I’ll find some desire to play and fix more Survive myself and release another version of the mod.

Great. Just wanted you to know that this game has been near the top of my wishlist but the critical reviews of the English translation have been the reason I haven't bought it. If you think there's merit to the game but with corrections made by yourself and others i'm definitely prepared to give it a go. I recommend you also write a Steam Guide on how to install your mod as a lot of people check the Steam Guides these days without ever looking at the discussions.

Really?
I've played through a couple chapters, and the default English script seemed perfectly fine.

I know some purists out there insist that the series MUST use only Japanese names and terms, period. (The typical dub vs. sub nonsense. I hate Japan-iphiles that bash my native English language)

But honestly, the English script is nice.
I chuckled at Minoru at one point saying "Let's make like a bread truck, and haul buns!".
They do use English translation terms, like Agumon using Pepper Breath instead of (ugh) Baby Flame. Like most Digimon games use.

I will say take those reviews with a grain of salt.
-----

Side Note: That said, this mod does sound like a pretty good thing, though.
I'll likely still just stick to vanilla, but I do like the sound of what the OP is making.

[Chortos-2]

The problem is not names (I don’t even change them)—it’s the subpar translation.

[Chortos-2]

Which does get much more obvious in the middle chapters if you’re still only in the beginning, but even those first chapters (even the very first scene of the game) already contain mistakes. As I noted in my original post, some of them are not clear without knowledge of Japanese (which, in some sense, is all the more reason to use the mod), but there are quite a few places where even by itself, the English text just doesn’t make sense or sounds bad. Like, it’s not that they changed things for stylistic purposes; they just completely misunderstood some Japanese lines and forgot how to write English in others.

I absolutely agree that the official English text does also have good and even great parts, and Minoru’s character is one of them (although he’s also written somewhat differently in different scenes). I’ve kept them! But there’s enough bad translation mixed with the good writing that I spend more time editing the text than actually playing the game :-(

And by all means, this is nowhere near as bad as Cyber Sleuth got sometimes. Still, I’d rate it mediocre overall, and I hope my mod makes it a little better!