Old Computer Appreciation Thread

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood Don't worry, Rusty is notoriously hard.
I generally suck at games (except Rpgs). I can't get past the first boss in Super Castlevania IV, I've never finished a Mario game and I scream with frustration by the time I hit the second World of Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country. It doesn't stop me enjoying the games though.

I completed Castlevania IV the other day! Good to know you are in the same boat then. I need to play Rondo of Blood, I never have.

Zering

@adambegood I got as far as Stage 3 in Rondo of Blood then it started pissing me off. You can save between stages thankfully.
For what it's worth I think it's excellent but I also think that Konami in the early to mid nineties had a certain tendency to sometimes disregard playability in favor of difficulty. Most of their games end up pissing me off in ways that other difficult games do not.
That said I did finish Gradius 1 and 2, albeit with save states. On a good day I can play 3 to 4 stages in either before dying. I've made it to the maximum speed stage of Gradius 2 without dying once, but that stage is a death sentence.

AdamBeGood

@zering I need to play Gradius more, I've never been a shooter man but I'm getting into them more. Love the Cave ones, as discussed previously.

I'm on the second level in Night Slave now also. Died but I can continue which is good stuff.

I understand what you mean with Konami, and think NES Castlevanias are too hard, but I don't think IV is. Unless I have just played it too much.

Zering

@adambegood The only way I could ever get past those medusa heads in Castlevania was on the Famicom Disk System version, which has a save function. The NES games were made more difficult, which I think is insane.
Castlevania X68000 seems really great, though, from what I've seen. Did you ever play Vampire Killer on the MSX?

As for shooters, I'm mediocre at them, but I love them. Gradius, Blazing Lawers on the PC Engine, Ikaruga and Chourensha are great places to start.

Can you save in Night Slave? How good is it?

AdamBeGood

@zering Yeah, it is mad. Have you played Vs.Castlevania on MAME? That is also silly!

I think I've played all of those but not extensively. I need to put the time in. Just trying out Mystic Square.

Edit: Vampire Killer - I have it but haven't played it really.

Zering

@adambegood I'd never even heard of VS. Castlevania. I can't say that I relish the prospect of playing an arcade version of the hardest Castlevania game ^^

Let me know what you think of Mystic Square, it's fantastic.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood I'd never even heard of VS. Castlevania. I can't say that I relish the prospect of playing an arcade version of the hardest Castlevania game ^^

Let me know what you think of Mystic Square, it's fantastic.

I really like it! Need to play the rest of the Touhou games also, and maybe translate them but I'm not sure if that is needed.

I'm on level 3 of Night Slave, level 2 Rusty. Just tried Baruusa No Fukushuu on X68000, it's so hard it seems like it can't be correct.

Edit: does your sound come and go a bit on Cho Ren She? Just a limitation of the emulator for x68000, I guess..

Zering

@adambegood What do you mean the sound comes and goes? Can you give a specific example?

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@adambegood What do you mean the sound comes and goes? Can you give a specific example?

I'll have to play it again, the music and sound effects drop out a bit. I guess you don't have the issue..

Zering

@adambegood Do they drop out completely or is it just a few sound effects here and there?

Folly

Here is an update on the translation part.

The OSD overlay only works if "retropie" is started in a Desktop enviroment, like I do.
So this is not an option with the standard "Retropie OS".

But there is a nice feature in the "translate shell" programm. You can output the text over audio. So the computer will speak it out to you.

Did some tests with lr-bluemsx. I have to use a shader to get better recognition. First I did tests with oilswell just in English.
Then I used the Japanese SD-snatcher. First the "translate shell" wasn't doing the job (did nothing at all, then strange charachters). But when I installed it from source. The recognition is seemed pretty good. :).

It uses "google translation". I hope there is not a limit, on how much you can translate. Will see how this goes.

This was the output :

pi@raspberrypi:~/translate-shell $ /usr/local/bin/trans -brief "信類は異常な危村に下面していた。" -t en -p
The faith was under the abnormal dangerous village.
pi@raspberrypi:~/translate-shell $ /usr/local/bin/trans -brief "謎の生語体、パイオロイドの出現である。" -t en -p
Did you mean: 謎の生語体、バイオロイドの出現である。
The emergence of a mysterious raw language, Pioroid.
pi@raspberrypi:~/translate-shell $ /usr/local/bin/trans -brief "国輸、目的、正体不明。 某国の新兵器 か" -t en -p
National transportation, purpose, unidentified. Is it a new weapon in a certain country?
pi@raspberrypi:~/translate-shell $ 国輸、目的、正体不明。 某国の新兵器か

Onto the next level .

Have a nice evening.

Zering

@folly from your test, was the game playable?

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly from your test, was the game playable?

Yes, I can play oilswell. Sd snather worket too. but at that moment the translator didn't work.

Have to try this later. when I have improved some things.

Zering

@folly What I meant was could you get the jist of the translation?

Folly

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly What I meant was could you get the jist of the translation?

jist ?

Don't actually know if the translation is actually correct if that what you mean. Have to check with the english one.

In oilswell it was correct.

edit : I learned a new word !

Zering

@folly no, jist; it's an English word for essential, most, or such.
I guess I was asking how good you felt the translation was.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly no, jist; it's an English word for essential, most, or such.
I guess I was asking how good you felt the translation was.

I'd say from looking at the text, probably not that good. I did wonder if this will fall over because auto-translate is not up to the task yet. It will improve as time goes on though I'm sure, the translation systems I mean.

Fascinating stuff, @Folly

@Zering - missed your post about saving in Night Slave earlier, it does save between levels. I'm not sure how good it is yet, but I have enjoyed it.

Also, I turned the CPU speed up on Cho Ren Sha and it does seem better. I think the music just gets a bit quieter when there is loads going on. I'll try tomorrow when I'm not worried about waking the toddler up.

Further Edit on Gist/Jist:

Origin
Early 18th century: from Old French, third person singular present tense of gesir ‘to lie’, from Latin jacere . The Anglo-French legal phrase cest action gist ‘this action lies’ denoted that there were sufficient grounds to proceed; gist was adopted into English denoting the grounds themselves.

I just thought the above was interesting. What Zering means is that we are not expecting this translation to give us every nuance of the original Japanese text, but does it give the central essence of the meaning? Is there enough to follow the story with?

Zering

@adambegood That sound thing on Cho Ren Sha is odd. Could you post a clip of the game from your phone or something in the morning? In my experience, it's one of the better sounding games on the system. I play it very often, and I've never had an issue with the sound. It's crisp, loud, consistent.

About Night Slave, I have to ask - do you play hentai shooters while watching the toddler? ^^

I'm at the end of SD Snatcher. All I have to do is pick up an item and shoot the final boss a few times. I would have finished it tonight but this is a Kojima game so naturally there is an hour long unskippable cutscene right before the final stretch. That's after the game pulls a Final Fantasy III and throws you into three consecutive dungeons, one of them a maze with mirrors for walls (!), packed full of enemies, with no chance whatsoever to restock on meds or ammo. Thankfully it's nowhere near as punishingly difficult as Final Fantasy III. The story is excellent, particularly for an 8-bit game, although my impression from Sega CD Snatcher that the villain's main motivation is pretty contrived still stands.
Not sure what I'll play once I finish it. I'm keen to go through Metal Gear 2, but not so keen on playing two Kojima games back to back ; particularly after Metal Gear 1 pissed me off. So it might end up being a toss up between Wibarm and Farland Story (Which I just discovered has an improved port on the PC-FX, with a translation!).

Edit : Then again there's also Illusion City, which looks awesome. So many games.

Edit 2 : Seems like Farland Story FX is out of the story, the patch requires an .iso file that I do not have. Sounds like I'll have to find a new excuse to play the PCFX T_T

Folly

@adambegood said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@zering said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly no, jist; it's an English word for essential, most, or such.
I guess I was asking how good you felt the translation was.

I'd say from looking at the text, probably not that good. I did wonder if this will fall over because auto-translate is not up to the task yet. It will improve as time goes on though I'm sure, the translation systems I mean.

Fascinating stuff, @Folly

Thank you for making an opinion of the translated text. Indeed everything is in very early stages. So we can't expect too much. But it keeps looking promising.

(BTW : Philips CD-I you can't use my script anymore to get it working. Use this : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/27387/cd-i-does-not-want-to-load-after-updating-retropie/20)

AdamBeGood

@folly said in Old Japanese Computer Appreciation Thread:

Thank you for making an opinion of the translated text. Indeed everything is in very early stages. So we can't expect too much. But it keeps looking promising.

(BTW : Philips CD-I you can't use my script anymore to get it working. Use this : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/27387/cd-i-does-not-want-to-load-after-updating-retropie/20)

Not a problem, even if the translated text can work for some sentences, but not all, then this still might work. It is not going to be as good as a human translator at this point, but if it can make Japanese games more playable, I'm all for it.

I was just having a browse on the CD-I subject earlier. I am not sure if I am going to put it on my Pi or not, I think most of the games I have already elsewhere. The only thing I want to try is the Mario and Zelda games, but by all accounts they aren't very good. But thank you for the correct link nevertheless.