This is a good time as any to bring this link up. For one reason or another, months ago out of boredom I decided to transcribe and compare all of Hong Kong 97's text in each language. I did this months before the AVGN even posted his review of the game. And yes, I double and even triple-checked my work. Here's the link to the semi-complete Google document. Any help from people who know fluent Japanese/Chinese to make notes about oddities in the text will be greatly appreciated.


Some things I noted myself, copied and slightly modified from a post of mine from another forum:

-One of the messages in the Japanese language mode uses the word "版權" (copyright), which while still used in Chinese, is a "pre-war" word in Japanese that has been almost phased out of use and largely replaced with "著作権", and this makes things a little bit suspicious concerning if some of the programmers/writers were truly Japan natives or immigrants from Greater China, or just a simple Japanese/Chinese joke (doesn't help that old kyuujitai was used for "版權" rather than current shinjitai "版権").

-And while the English opts to use the colorful "fuckin' ugly reds.", the Japanese and Chinese versions write "人民" without any swearing, which while literally meaning "people", has very high communist connotations in Japan (due in part of the word being used in the full Japanese names of 中華人民共和国 (modern China) and 朝鮮民主主義人民共和国 (North Korea)), so saying 人民/jinmin in Japan is pretty much equal to "those dirty bunch of red commies" in English.

-One final strange thing is that "SGI" (possibly referring to either Silicone Graphics or Soka Gakkai) and "カナダ大使館" ("Canadian Embassy") is in the credits under "協力" ("cooperation") Huh??? What does that even mean? Anyone willing to give any interpretations?? Even the Japanese are racking their brains over this "game". Hong Kong 97 truly is one of the greatest mysteries of video games, and it's so popular to the point of being a meme in Japan and Taiwan.
 
-Oh, and also for fun, I even used Google Maps on the Japanese (former) Happysoft address (the English and Chinese wrote it awkwardly), and you can even use Street View on it.

You are welcome. Although like I said, the translations are very DUWANG-tier Engrish that can sometimes border on incomprehensible (or not) at times, so no way is my machine-translated effort on the same league as a respectable translation team might do. At the very least, my "translations" are mere placeholders for an actual translation to be handled by someone who's competent. Although I have heard reports from two actual Chinese-speaking people that Shui Hu Shen Shou uses "old words" (presumably meaning an archaic way of speaking (think Dragon Warrior's English localization) which does fit a game that takes place in the 12th century), so it might be tougher for those that are used to modern Chinese language to comprehend. At least I copied and transcribed the original Chinese descriptions decently, right?

I'm also working on Shi Kong Xing Shou's mon description transcription and "translation placeholders" right this moment, although I might have to actually slog through the whole game to get the entries, seeing as I have no base strategy guide or source material to draw from (Shi Kong's names are completely original, while Shui Hu's names derive directly from Water Margin's list of the 108 Stars of Destiny with little changes). Ah well, at least there's Youku to guide me through playing the game, right?

I'll keep this thread updated for when I do get all 152 of Shi Kong's monsters transcribed.

(As an aside note, I think Shi Kong Xing Shou's title is derived from Flint the Time Detective's Chinese dub, more specifically, the Chinese name for (what the English dub calls it, anyway) their "time shifters", which is 時空怪獸 (shi kong guai shou), a one hanzi difference from 時空星獸 (shi kong xing shou). Considering that the Chinese dub of Flint aired on Taiwanese television shortly before Vast Fame's mon game hit the store shelves, it may or may not be coincidence (especially considering the general obscurity of Flint the Time Detective (actually, is Flint somewhat popular in Taiwan? I know it isn't in the US), and the fact that the show handled collecting monsters in a way that set it apart from Pokemon/Digimon/other mon genre contenders). Keep in mind that the show itself is called 時空偵探 (shi kong zhen tan) in Taiwan. Some debating to think about, I dunno, I just remembered that the show even existed after more than a decade (who else even heard of the show anyway? I know I can't gather even one other person who remembers). It might be a really thin connection anyway, but you never know with bootleg developers)

My theory is that the music was actually stolen from an MSX2 game, but when it was converted to the NES soundchip, it got mangled horribly beyond recognition due to the different natures of both systems. I do know that at least two Korean arcade puzzle game ripoffs steal music from Treasure of Uşas, and hey, the Koreans DO love their MSX and all. I say all this because the music does give off an MSX2 vibe despite being horrible NES music.

Oh, and I found out what happens if you score beyond a million points in Bugtris:

Man, do I ever bump threads.

So, anyway, in the past I have expressed interest in translating Shui Hu Shen Shou before. So, I got to work on doing a text dump/rough translation of the game's 108 monster dex entries, which is a start. I used the the strategy guide as a base, as well as this Wikipedia article. I drew hanzi with a tablet day and night just to convert the entries to plaintext (as well as give rough translations to give the idea of what it's saying, as Engrish-y as they are), and here is the fruits of my labor:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/i4t9txz8d4l8tmu/GBC_Shui_Hu_Shen_Shou_%E6%B0%B4%E6%B5%92%E7%A5%9E%E5%85%BD_Monster_Dex_Entries_Text_Dump_and_Rough_Translation_WIP.rtf <- .RTF file in MediaFire for download

http://pastebin.com/sf6tmXpp <- Slightly different Pastebin version of the above.

Hopefully, my efforts will encourage interest in further translations of the rest of the game. Hopefully. I don't even know how much ground this project is going to get off of. And anyone who has major knowledge in Chinese and English is free to "clean up" my translations and build upon it.

EDIT: http://www.mediafire.com/view/81vpa5iqctywtb1/Shui_Hu_Shen_Shou_水浒神兽_Type_Strength_and_Weakness_Chart.rtf <-- I also translated the weakness chart from the guidebook, here's the MediaFire link to that. Man, Vast Fame thinks of anything and everything. Who knows, this might actually come in handy someday. The preview won't display the chart properly, "attacking side" should be on the left.

Magic Jewelry is an endless puzzle game, so I didn't technically "finish" it per se. I however, did "complete" the game by scoring over 10,000,000 points and making the score counter loop back to zero as a result. After nearly 25 years since this game was made, what happens when over 9,999,999 pts gets scored is finally discovered for all to see. Apparently, Hwang Shinwei never thought anyone would even get this far into the game, so he didn't bother programming a cap for any of the game's values.


Not shown in this video: apparently, when level 256 is reached, the falling jewels revert back to a manageable level 000 speed. Least those Taiwanese programmers learned from the whole Pac-Man crashing level, at least....

Maybe I will try to attempt a "100,000 jewel" completion or a "level 1,000" completion.... heck, I might try to attempt the same run in Magic Jewelry 2...

It's fine, I found a Youku walkthrough of the entire game (which I linked to earlier) by searching up 水浒神兽, which helps a ton. Maybe I can write up that spoiler-free guide as soon as I'm done playing the whole thing and watching the walkthrough again. It'll probably consist of basic stuff like "GO TO BOTTOM LEFT PATH", "TALK TO RED PERSON", "GO THROUGH LONG CONVERSATION", etc.



The guidebook also helps, as it has all the creatures with their descriptions in more discernible Chinese characters (I swear, I try drawing some more complex characters on certain online translators/dictionaries, and even use apps to translate through photos and they still wouldn't register correctly) and correct palettes for more accurate viewing. I do plan on posting rough translations of all the entries on somewhere. Still though, I might want to screenshot the entries from the game anyway for extra quality/that retro feel. Maybe even do a self-imposed "draw them all" challenge on the creatures.

Man, that Vast Fame makes some really quality games, even by unlicensed standards. They might as well be the best in making unauthorized games, because they cared that much. Too bad they are obscure compared to more inept developer companies. One way to lessen their obscurity would be to make their RPGs readable in actually good English.

Perhaps the fan translation could be a collaborative effort: one person smart enough to resize the font to 8x8 and modify the text printing engine to accompany the changes, and one person (or more) to do translation. Hmmmm.... I have at least seen a fan translation of Battle Mania Daiginjou/Trouble Shooter Vintage make use of three different varieties of 8x8 font (each of which can be activated through a code by the translator) when the original font was 16x16 (this was the type of game where the text would "print" like a typewriter one letter at a time during cutscenes between stages), and a Pulseman fan translation made use of a varied width font when the original Japanese used a monospaced font... I could think of more, but I don't want to talk too much...

Funny you should mention font sizes... I believe the Famicom version of Shui Hu Shen Shou already has an 8x8 font too. This is even demonstrated in the intro, where they use a lot of punctuation and use the number 108 a lot (presumably in reference to the 108 monsters that need to be collected, which in turn could be a reference to the "108 Stars of Destiny" in the original story)



Now it's only a matter of resizing some text boxes to support 2-3 lines.

Though...the Game Boy Color version is superior in every way. For example, I get money and experience points from defeated monsters in the GBC version, while I only get exp in the Famicom version. Also, keeping in mind that the GBC version is Taiwanese Chinese, while the FC version is Mandarin Chinese. Still, wouldn't hurt to try one's hands on either version...

I just wish enough interest was garnered to make a fanbase and fan translation for this Water Margin-based RPG for the Game Boy Color....even if it means learning how to replace and manually resize fonts for translation... I understand how fan translation can be a tough process based on that alone, but I have seen so many amazing examples of complete patches that overcome that hurdle. Granted, Shui Hu Shen Shou is no Mother 3 in any aspect, but it still seems like an interesting overlooked RPG that deserves to be known more anyway. A man can dream, can't he?

(Wasn't the font in Harry Potter 3 2003 resized for the fan translation anyway?)