[squarejawhero]

I totally forgot about this.

Yeah, in Japan I saw the above. Cheap too, with the magazines alongside Onimusha 3.

[Karmillo]

phoenix on the PC? was it just the first one or was it all 3?

[squarejawhero]

Not speaking Japanese I've no idea.

Looked identical to the DS version on the back.

[nikoniko]

Yeah, the original three Phoenix Wright games for the GBA are now available on PC in Japanese only. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the DS was a port of the first GBA title, with an additional chapter thrown in to persuade those who owned the original to buy the new one. There's supposed to be another game in the series coming out this year for DS with all new content, but I haven't heard whether an English version is planned.

[Karmillo]

so the second and third game are on pc aswell?
Hmmm, wonder if theres a translator patch out there

And why is this in general gaming?

[the gnome]

Yes, it should be in the adventures forums... Anyone who speaks Japanese care to shed some light on the topic??
Please?

[squarejawhero]

doro speaks Japanese.

[nikoniko]

There's no patch, but there's a fan translation of the third game in the series in the works for the GBA. When it's done, one will either need an emulator to play it or a transfer system to play it on the real hardware.

Some time ago I found an automatic translator utility which used the internet to translate text in some Japanese software. Whether it worked at all depended whether the game used standard Windows text services or not, which is not always the case in games. Also, some fullscreen games don't allow the utility's window to float over top of the game display, so you'd have to Alt-Tab back and forth to read the translation. But of course, the greatest deficiency of the program was the quality of the translation itself. Whereas some languages survive machine translation better than others -- for instance, translating Russian news reports to English is often quite readable -- Japanese to English typically looks like you picked a random list of words that have nothing to do with one another, strung them out with some nonsensical grammar inbetween, put a period at the end, and abitrarily called it a sentence.

As the program was simply a curiosity to me and nothing of long term interest, I didn't keep it, and unfortunately now I can't remember the name of it. I'll do some Googling though and see if I can find it. Maybe for someone with no knowledge of Japanese it could be useful for muddling through a game somehow.

EDIT: Ah, here's the official page for the software I was talking about.

Oh! Hooker... I mean "Oh! Text Hooker".

[fov]

Originally Posted by doroposo

But of course, the greatest deficiency of the program was the quality of the translation itself. Whereas some languages survive machine translation better than others -- for instance, translating Russian news reports to English is often quite readable -- Japanese to English typically looks like you picked a random list of words that have nothing to do with one another, strung them out with some nonsensical grammar inbetween, put a period at the end, and abitrarily called it a sentence.

Unfortunately, in a heavily text-based game like Phoenix Wright I think the quirks of the translator would probably outweigh its usefulness.

[nikoniko]

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I personally believe it's much easier to learn Japanese than it is to make sense of Google or Babelfish translations of said language.

Perhaps in a perfect future, all Japanese games will be bilingual releases, with Russian News as the second language.

[squarejawhero]

I liked Japanese bi-lingual television. Dunno how it's done, but it's clever and it's not even digital.

[nikoniko]

A few TV shows in the US also offer that feature. I wonder if there's something about the NTSC signal used by both countries that leaves enough room to strap on the extra signal, whereas maybe PAL doesn't allow for this?

[Dasilva]

Funky, I might pick this up for PC if it comes out in the UK.

[squarejawhero]

@Doro - probably. Although Pal is the better signal for picture quality by far.

[nikoniko]

Definitely, especially when it comes to flesh tones. I figured that maybe the higher definition of PAL leaves little room for piggybacking extras on the signal. I may be wrong, though. It's all kind of moot with digital signals now anyway, as I'm sure we'll see a lot of future applications using the technology to send all sorts of useful and useless information.