SS1 Japanese System Shock version

[6629a1a9dc676Kolya]

As pointed out by Briareos_H there apparently used to exist a Japanese retail version of System Shock with translated in-game text and English sound. (original source)
This comes as a surprise because to my knowledge only the English/German/French version was known before.

According to Google translation the author of this "Blog of a man who was tired of life" gives this information on the Japanese version:

Released In the very fine and after 1996, sales representative for Electronic Arts Victor , Inc., Japanese transplants in charge of Infinity, Inc. (listed in the previous 2000 work history).

Box, CD, manual in the DOS / V it was written with the version, but in practice PC-98 version of the hybrid version of it has been recorded on the CD together with.

The following differences between the English version

• Installation program is written in Japanese. The DOS / V is not displayed correctly unless the environment, and garbled can continue to set as it is good if it remains the. Sound card , install movie image quality, unlike the English version of some set of destination joystick is not set.
• Game body Japanese fonts are Japanese localization without built etc.. However, the game to run CD-ROM MSCDEX. requires EXE it is necessary to also incorporate. ": \ -t Cdrom MOUNT DD": (D found in the \ if to run in DOSBOX CD-ROM to be mounted by entering the drive path) CD-ROM be to put the.
• VESA1.1 compatible video card is required. The error is displayed in the start-up before and no different from the English version.
• Basically CD-ROM -based version. The movie has high-resolution audio, the log.
• Game resolution can be selected from the three stages of the 320 * 200,320 * 400,640 * 400. The default is 640 * 400 setting. 640 * 480 story that was in the English CD version.
• Display English, the characters only alphanumeric notes that you can be described Japanese, to map all voice.
• Localization I think can of that's enough, but (and bossy than necessary) the tone of SHODAN is different from the image a little.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plxr1Jv7DPE

[6629a1a9dc9d2Marvin]

Jesus, the interface help screen looks even more daunting/terrifying in Japanese.

[6629a1a9dcb21Join2]

Awesome box art.

Strange this went unknown to Western SS fans all this time...

[6629a1a9dcc36Kolya]

So does anyone speak enough Japanese to point this guy here and politely ask him to give us a copy?
RocketMan?

//Attached slightly cleaned up version of the boxcover, because afaik this is the largest we have of this motif, which was also used as a poster.

[6629a1a9dd051unn_atropos]

He also shows some footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOGNzez1u18

What search engines does the people in Japan commonly use?
google.co.jp? or something else? Mabye there is more information about this release, but I lack the knowledge to find it.
I have never seen a glimpse of this in the "western" parts of the internet.

So does anyone speak enough Japanese to point this guy here and politely ask him to give us a copy?
RocketMan?

The guy is on youtube and steam and seems to speak english. So maybe someone can talk to him there?

[6629a1a9dd14aKolya]

Aye, I'll send him a message.

[6629a1a9dd428RocketMan]

I probably wouldn't be much use to you anyway.  Though I can speak Japanese proficiently enough, I can't read or write it at all.  I was always intimidated by the prospect of learning characters when I can barely print my own name legibly or remember what I ate this morning.

If you don't get anywhere with him I can write to him in Romaji or send him an audio file or something.

Have you guys found his email or... what point of contact are you using?

[6629a1a9dd7f2Olfred]

What search engines does the people in Japan commonly use?
google.co.jp? or something else?

As far as I know japanese really like yahoo.
But could as well be that all that favor already shifted towards google, my intel is like 5 years old.

[6629a1a9dda4dKolya]

Have you guys found his email or... what point of contact are you using?

I sent him a friend request on steam and put a comment on his profile page there that links to this thread. Apparently he's a game translator, so English will be fine.

[6629a1a9ddb47RocketMan]

I asked my girls to scour his network for an email address and they didn't find one so we'll see if he replies to your post.

[6629a1a9ddc95Kolya]

I don't want to stalk him, just ask if he can give us the translated files. Maybe I can create a language addon for SystemShock-Portable from that.

[6629a1a9ddd82RocketMan]

Isn't it modular like with the other languages?

[6629a1a9dde6bKolya]

I don't understand the question. I have no idea how they implemented Japanese. French and German were not modular, I just separated the files from the main game download.

[6629a1a9ddfa4ZylonBane]

I don't even want to imagine what that text looks like at 320x240.

[6629a1a9de0b0RocketMan]

Sorry K I assumed that there was like a "german file" that you just had to swap with an english one to make it work.  I assumed Japanese would also be plug and play.  I don't know how the files work though.

ZB:  Some characters would be illegible but then contextual cues are often enough to make out what it should be.

[6629a1a9de1b0Kolya]

It's a bunch of files for each language. The main problem though is that the language buttons in the menu are hardcoded. So you can't just drop in another language. It will have to replace English, German or French. Replacing English is the most straightforward way, because then it starts up in that language.

[6629a1a9de2efRoarkes]

If the buttons are hard coded, with what can a language file be open ? There is a tutorial out there, because i played SS1 and i can translate it to romanian language.

[6629a1a9de3e7Kolya]

Well if you replace the English language files with translated files, then the "English" Button will enable your translation. What I meant was, that there is no (easy) way to transparently add new languages, ie in such a way that new language buttons would appear.

[6629a1a9de50eKolya]

We have all files from the Japanese version that differ from the English release now. Attached to the first post.
Go ahead and look through them. Apparently sshock.exe is different too, although I doubt it's for language dependency. Maybe a different version of the game executable?

[6629a1a9de682Briareos H]

I don't have the time to check right now but I'd think the new .exe has to be there because of the language. The character table for written japanese is quite enormous and there are specific character width requirements (full width kana and kanji + half-width katakana), usage of which would have to be reflected in the code.

Also: thanks Kolya for taking the initiative to contact the blogger and getting to the bottom of it.
Now my life's goal is to obtain a boxed copy.

[6629a1a9de78eunn_atropos]

I need some help for this. I wanted to get the log texts with Gigaquads SS1transl, because I think that I got the german texts this way. (cant' remember too long ago)
The japanese version has a CYBSTRNG.res, a JAPANESE.res and a JPOLH.res. How do I go on from here?
Export subdir? And which one? Do I have to rename the files to CYBSTRN.res or something?

[6629a1a9de888Kolya]

I don't think I ever used the translation tool. And my first test of just slapping CYBSTRNG.RES into the game and wait for the Japanese to pop up proved unsuccessful, the game stayed English. So you're as smart as me.

Also: Get a headset and let's mumble!

[6629a1a9de977unn_atropos]

When I replace cybstrng.res with the japanese cybstrng.res, the english text (also in menus) is replaced with numbers and letters. Logtexts are completly gone.



[japan_shock.jpg expired]

[6629a1a9dea65Kolya]

That's something. There are also font files included if I'm not mistaken. They have some weird code as file names like KMN215671. Something like that. I'm at work and can't check right now.