Hack Series: PocketRGB-EN - A Full Red, Green, and Blue Translation of the Original Pocket Monsters

[Dracrius]

Been off doing other things but decided to check in on this project. Happy to see there was some interest and I'll be doing my best to go over the comments and issues posted to the github and try and do some updates in the coming months.

Somethings I will touch on quickly though, the english version was used over the reverse as it was the only sensible why to proceed as someone who doesn't speak Japanese at all. It is far easier to search for words in my own language and correct the much smaller number of differences then it would be to LITERALLY translate the entire game with no knowledge of the language. Using the Japanese releases would have resulted in 100x more bugs and issues especially seeing as the character tables are not compatible. A lot of code changes were made just to handle that in the English releases. Other projects have attempted this but it brings many many other issues. Secondly for anyone looking for a completely borked and buggy recreation I'm sorry but this is just not the project for you! I am a developer myself and these are not intended bugs I only fixed things that are 100% not intended / generally solved and patched by yellow since most of the code to patch said bugs comes from it. I think you are only doing pokered justice if you take the time to follow it's comprehensive guide on bugs and patch at least some of them.

With that said one of the main things I'd still like to address are any frame over flows or typos. If you have seen any it would be much appreciated if you could give a detailed description and screenshot. With that I will try and address any that are mentioned but it makes it a lot easier with pictures or exact quotes I can use to search the source files.

I apologize for any disappointment these details have caused but I was limited in how much I could test / find while working on this on my own with no testers!!

 

[Dracrius]

This is exactly the kind of thing I have been waiting for for over a decade. However what sours it for me is the bug fixes(Minus the ones that make it more like the Japanese release like the encounter tile behavior, I'm all for stuff like that). I would much prefer everything, warts and all, from the original be intact. It's a very odd conflict of interest to put so much effort into making it authentic but then immediately invalidate it by changing things like this.

If a version that doesn't include bug fixes could be made available, I would definitely appreciate it as would other people Im sure. Also the new save format is unnecessary and simply inconvenient. I don't think this needed to be changed and all it does is break compatibility with PkHex and other tools.

I also found after playing all 3 of these through this could use a second pass quality wise, I found several instances of dialogue not matching the new name changes, some of the Japanese Pokemon names are simply incorrect(Venonat for example is Kongpang but this really should be just Konpan as there is no G グ sound whatsoever in the Katakana コンパン Im assuming this name came from Bulbapedia which incorrectly romanizes many of the names) all on top of new bugs such as encountering Level 0 Nidorans in the area above Vermillion city and other things that just look bad like dialogue going outside the border and IAI CUT also going outside the border in the submenu.

Overall this is a solid attempt but I will continue waiting for a true translation of the original Japanese roms with their bespoke codebase rather these frankensteined romhacks of the US games.

I already addressed the bugs I think thats just a dev thing vs a personal thing. I know some people may want a buggy recreation but that felt unfaithfull to the original intentions of the developers as all of said bugs are unintended and solved by pokemon yellow which is were the code for the majority of fixes are found.

About the "new save format" claim though I'm sorry but this is just false... I'm not trying to pick on this comment but I don't want others to avoid the rom hack because of a false statment about save files. Nothing was changed with how saves output except the name of the rom which matches the jp releases and as such the saves work just as they did before. I can actually use the same save on an original Japanese rom and my own translation with no issues. The statment "The save system has also been adjusted to handle mid-save shutoff corrupted saves" refers to a bug that would BREAK saves it does not change the output of a save it actually just protects your saves from becoming corrupt.

PkHex is actually how i tested a lot of things and made my comparisons. I only ever saw a save incompatablity trying to start a game with a save from a diffrent "color" (ie running red with a pokemon blue save) I also used PkHex to do a lot of testing so idk how you can say the saves are not compatible... They are as compatable as I'd expect for a rom hack especially since said tool is what I used to edit my saves for testing. You even had me concerned enough I downloaded the save from my personal cart I made of Pocket Red and I opened it up with PkHex to see only one issue a warning related to my Farfetch'd having invalid encouter data / in-game trade name was changed... I don't think I need to explain that this is a result of the translated names!!




Thank you for the info on Venonat though, as my description of the project says I do not speak japanese so there was litterally no way for me to know this was even an issue. If you could please list any other issues they made with naming that would be much appreciated as Bulbapedia is as far as I'm aware of our ONLY source for translated names if you can't translate them yourself. I'll also see if I can recreate the Level 0 Nidorans as I have not seen this but this is something that really should on the projects Github issues if you don't mind posting it there (https://github.com/Dracrius/pocketrgb-en/issues). I will do my best to solve this if I can track it down.

I also currently have Iai Cut on the same Farfetch I tested with PKHex so I have seen this issue. Unfortunatly my only option is going to be making it "IAICUT" but I guess that is better then breaking the boarder.

 

[sangacanga1]

Hi, I would like to translate these versions you made into my language. How can I unpack and repackage the files? Is there a way to unpack the files like on this github page? https://github.com/pret/pokered

 

[treefroggy]

This is everything I've ever wanted. I've played Japanese Red, Blue, Green, Yellow multiple times since I first got them in the 90's before Pocket Monsters was released in english.
For that same reason, I'd really like to play this translation of Japanese Blue, but with the Spaceworld 97 backsprites which were made to match Japanese blue's front sprites.
Is there any way to make that happen? I know the point of this patch is accuracy to the official release, and I don't wanna be that feature creep guy, but it would really be great to be able to somehow inject the SW97 back sprites for a playthrough of Japanese blue, in English.
Thanks again.

(Edit 1):
Been playing a lot this month! Using an everdrive gb x7 and stock gameboy pocket and gameboy color hardware. I've been trading over link cable with an OEM copy of Pokémon blue version US. Doesn't appear to be any glitches. Is it safe and intended to be compatible to trade with official releases? So far so good. Really enjoying this. I may even be soldering my own custom cartridges of these in the future for my personal use :o)
Thanks again!

(Edit 2):
Looking into / thinking about doing my own work here and adding in Spaceworld 97 Backsprites to this english translation of Japanese Blue, similar to this seemingly simple injection Cremason did into yellow version. I haven't done any ROM hacking since the Earthbound PKHack days on starmen.dot back in 2006. I am an electrical engineer, working with hardware, really don't enjoy coding. But I'm thinking about it! Once again, utmost respect for your work here, Dracrius.

I will reiterate once again that I love Gen 1, I love the original R/G backsprites. I am not requesting SW backsprites for any reason other than to play Japanese Blue version with them, because I have been playing Red/Blue literally since they came out, so over 25 years, and when I go to play this translated version of Blue, it would be nice to mix it up a bit, personally. I am still playing all these games in monochrome on original unmodified Game Boy Pocket hardware. I should post photos maybe, once this post is approved.