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Translating Grandia Digital Museum
TrekkiesUnite118 - Jul 27, 2022

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  TrekkiesUnite118 Jul 27, 2022
Some may already be aware of this but I figured I'd make a thread for this now that the main game is done. I've been snooping around Digital Museum for the past year or so now and as expected there's a lot of similarities with file formats. As a result it's not hard to adapt the tools I made for the original game to be compatible with Digital Museum, as well as make new tools for actually editing the data this time.

These new tools are required as there's no existing translation of Digital Museum to leverage this time. This will require an actual translator at some point once I get the tools all polished and figured out. My goal is to have the tools in a state where I can just give them to a translation team that can use them to work directly with the games original files to translate at their own pace. Then they can either have the tool export to the final game data format, or send me a saved JSON file I can use to export back into the games format.

So far here's what's been accomplished:
  • Item Data has been extracted into a spreadsheet and compared to the item data from the base game to eliminate already translated data.
  • Magic and Skills appear to be the same between both games, so that data can be lifted as is.
  • Field Menus have been translated.
  • An early form of a Script Editor has been created and appears to work, though there may still be bugs to iron out.
  • An tool to parse and edit the Enemy data has been started.
What still needs figured out:
  • Some graphics appear to be compressed this time that weren't previously compressed, unknown if Nanash1's tools from last time will work as is.
  • Need to reverse engineer the Mini Games to translate any Japanese in them (will likely require a graphics artist to redo their title screens)
  • Need to reverse engineer the Save Game Library. Currently I can't find where the text that describes the saves or the individual save names are stored.
  • Unknown if the Beastiary uses the info in the Battle Data files or if it's separate thing entirely.
  • Will need an actual translator to translate the script, items, enemies, etc. (have some ideas of people to ask first before I just start taking random volunteers).
There's probably more I'm forgetting at the moment, but this is still a very early project. I'd like to try and have a demo ready for this years competition, but I'm not making any promises. But for now here are some screenshots showing what I have so far.

Script Editor showing a google translate translation being injected into the game:



Translated Menus (items, skills, etc. are still in Japanese):



  paul_met Jul 27, 2022
Why did you need to write a separate script editor? Did Kruptar not cope with this?

 TrekkiesUnite118 Jul 27, 2022

paul_met said:

Because in the amount of time it took me to try and setup Kruptar to work with Grandia's files I could write my own tool that worked directly with the game's data files. It also has the plus side of just handling Grandia's quirks while being a bit more straight forward and easier to use for the end user.

Again, the goal is to be able to give this tool to a translator who doesn't have a lot of technical knowledge to allow them to directly translate the data.

 paul_met Jul 27, 2022
We did all our projects with the help of Kruptar. This is a universal tool that can be adapted to almost any game (the main thing is to figure it out once). I consider writing your own script editors a waste of time when there is a more convenient and powerful tool. But the choice is yours.

 TrekkiesUnite118 Jul 27, 2022

paul_met said:

Sure, but being a universal tool also makes it so when there's something quirky in the data you have to put a lot more effort into setting it up to get it to work with the data correctly. Grandia has a lot of odd quirks and one-off situations in it's data. Trying to configure a generic tool like Kruptar to work around that takes a lot more time and effort when I can just write a tool in Java to understand all that directly.

The bulk of the algorithm was already known from converting the PS1 data to the Saturn format for the original game, so I was able to leverage that and put a little more logic in to make a script editor. Plus being written in Java means it can effectively run on any computer regardless of the operating system as long as the person has Java installed.

 Malenko Jul 29, 2022
I'd be happy to do any tile/art work, and I have 2 resources for translation but I don't think either would take on HUGE amounts of text but theyd likely both be happy to help with mini game translations.

 Russenator Oct 8, 2022
I've always wanted to play Grandia Digital Museum and I have the original game , but the emulator (Yabause) has graphic error, but the best graphic too and the Yaba Sanshiro 2 sometimes graphic error in battle.
I can translate from english to german, because i love the old charm from the PS1 Version what I'm missing in the remastered version.
I would stream this game and this was in german perfect for me... when the game is finish in english, then I say best regards to you

 BlackabyJ Oct 30, 2022
Hey Trekkies. I have been starting to play Digital Museum again and I did not realise until now you had started a thread to translate it too! Looking promising so far. How have you been getting on? Are you anywhere near a test build? While I managed to make a slight hex edit before, I probably am not too much help besides testing but let me know if I can help in any way. I have played through before while holding Google Lens up to the TV so I know the gist of the game's story.

 Taitorama Apr 24, 2023
So guys any news about this project?

 TrekkiesUnite118 Apr 29, 2023

Taitorama said:

The tools for the script, enemies, items, etc. are mostly done at this point. The main issue is still the need for a translator. Until that happens things are going to be slow.

 igg Sep 13, 2023

TrekkiesUnite118 said:

I'm still learning Japanese, but I'd love to help out with translating - I've wanted an English translation of Digital Museum for a while, might as well work on it myself! Are the tools available to download anywhere?

 gardnaeden Sep 23, 2023

igg said:

It would be very nice to see extra help on board for this translation project, so I really hope someone is able to get back with you. I played parallel trippers earlier this year, and this is the only Grandia game I have yet to play, so I'm very curious to see the fruits of everyone's labor!

 TrekkiesUnite118 Sep 23, 2023
I've been talking to a few other people about this but I don't have anything official to announce yet. While I appreciate the enthusiasm I'd like to see if some of the people I've reached out to get back to me first.

 Russenator Jun 3, 2024
Is there anything new?
I can also test the game after missing translation
I'm happy to help with a translation into german

 TrekkiesUnite118 Jun 3, 2024

Russenator said:

Just about everyone I've reached out to is busy with other projects at the moment. So it's still in the state of needing an actual translator. Hopefully when other projects finish up I can get someone to hop on to translate. I do not what to have to resort to machine translation and it definitely should be someone who has more than a semester of Japanese.

 ycliu Nov 6, 2024

TrekkiesUnite118 said:

Hello, I can speak a little bit japan. If no other people can help to translate, I may try it.(Japanese to english)

 TrekkiesUnite118 Nov 7, 2024

ycliu said:

I need to be honest here as I get these kinds of offers in PMs all the time. To translate you really need to have a good grasp of the Japanese language. If your grasp of Japanese is about on par with mine from taking a semester in college or similar to my knowledge of French from taking it in high school then that's really not worth the effort. At that point I may as well just use machine translation which is something I really don't want to have to do.

I don't mean to be mean here, but we just need to be honest about what kind of skillset is actually needed to translate.

 benclaff Nov 8, 2024
Hi. This is just curiosity. Compared to Grandia, how large is the text volume that is actually new ? A large scenario text ? Many items/spells can are new and you previous work cannot be reused ?

 TrekkiesUnite118 Nov 8, 2024

benclaff said:

While it's less than the first game, there is a significant amount of plot text, map text, new items, mini games, enemies, etc. What can be reused from the first game 1:1 is the spells and abilities text. Everything else is partial at best due to the amount of new stuff added.

 swankerme Mar 9, 2025
I'm interested in helping out this cause. N3 Japanese student, currently play Japanese games for practice. This one has been on my list for awhile, big fan of the first game.

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