Jesus Translation

This is a page about my translation of this adventure game.

The patch is available here, and is a standard IPS formatted patch (search here for an IPS utility).

As of 05/07/07, the patch was updated to contain a nicer font and one minor bugfix.

The instruction manual was also available on this page, but is now integrated with the Jesus page.

I am actually thinking about re-releasing the patch, as I made the font look a little more friendly. If anyone requests it by emailing me, commenting, etc. then I’ll toss the new patch up.

Screenshots:

New Font Screenshot

new font!!!

FAQ

“But this is different from the game script!”

Believe me, nobody’s more aware of that than I am. Unfortunately, Japanese is pretty dense even without kanji, and I have to use the same amount of space.
Examples of density (written in romaji for easier writing and because I don’t want to bother with unicode):

  • Doukashitano? – Translates to roughly “Did something happen?”. Consists of 6 characters (7 with ?). I have to settle for “What?”.
  • Kite kurete arigatou – Translates to “Thank you for coming [to see me].” 12 characters, with spaces. I had to condense other text to fit “Thanks for coming”.
  • Totteikuno? – “Are you taking that with you?” – 6 characters. If I run over into other space, “Taking?” will work, even though it sounds silly.
  • Aitakunaiwa – Translates to “I don’t want to meet [it]“. Even with the silly casual speech “wa” semi-particle, takes up 7 characters. You do the math.

Change of meaning is necessary with a change of space. So I’ve had to condense quite a bit – certainly much more than I’d like. Though there is some extra space in the ROM, the text I’m working with is full of pointers, so if I move anything I get some nasty-ish bugs. For this patch, I’ve settled for synonyms and the like. I don’t know NES assembly; if anyone who does wants to help me re-do the patch, please let me know!

“Why would you translate such a horrible-looking game?”

“Horrible” is in the eyes of the beholder. I rather like this game, for all that it sounds (and probably is) terrible. It isn’t as good in English as it was in Japanese, but those are the breaks.
Additionally, this started out as a practice translation project. Since I knew few kanji, an NES game without them was ideal. I happened to buy this game, so I figured I might as well translate the only console game I bought in Japan that had yet to be translated.