Dungeon Master Nexus for Sega Saturn - English version by ChristopheF

Version 2
January 2, 2024

Description

This is a complete fan translation to English of the Japanese game 'Dungeon Master Nexus' for Sega Saturn.
The only place where Japanese language is still present is in the soundtracks of the 3 game videos, but English subtitles were added into the patched videos.

The patched version is region locked 'For USA and CANADA' (the original game is region locked 'For JAPAN').
It also fixes these little bugs in the original game:

The initial translation was performed using several online translation tools. Translated texts were then reviewed, rephrased or adapted for better translations or to fit under the limitations imposed by the game. The original Dungeon Master vocabulary was used wherever applicable (champion names, spell names, creature names, item names and actions, etc.). Version 2 has many translation improvements that result from reviews and feedback from English and Japanese native speakers.

Credits

Version 1
kentaro.k-21, Lunever, Sophia from the Dungeon Master forum who helped with extraction and decoding of all text data (2010)
Etokapa and Sedie from Fan Translators International who helped with the transcription of Japanese speech in the game videos (2023)
Version 2
Shu whose feedback about the original Japanese texts lead to many adjustments
Jay and Jennifer Elizabeth Shaw for their thorough review of English texts and precious feedback

Changes in game data files

This section describes all the changes in the English translation and the associated source files.

'Translations.csv' contains all Japanese texts in the game and their translation to English.
The original bitmaps containing Japanese texts are replaced with bitmaps containing English texts.

Disc image
'Dungeon Master Nexus (English).cue' is a custom CUE file to reference the custom ISO image (with track 1 using MODE1/2048)
IP.BIN contains the inital program extracted from the first 32KB of the ISO image of the original game, with a modified region lock 'For USA and CANADA' (replacing the original region lock 'For JAPAN').
DMN_ABS.TXT, DMN_BIB.TXT
'Translations.csv' contains English texts to replace the Japanese texts in these two files.
DMV0.AVI, DMV1.AVI, DMV2.AVI
'DMV0.srt', 'DMV1.srt' and 'DMV2.srt' contain English subtitles to add to the original videos containing Japanese spoken language.
FONT256.S2D
'FONT256.S2D_21.bmp' contains a replacement for the '5' character in the original font where the top bar is one pixel too low.
'FONT256.S2D_5.bmp' contains a potion icon used in some spell names instead of the word 'Potion'.
'FONT256.S2D.bmp' contains replacement characters for the champion rename screen
ITEM.IBS
The original file is modified to fix the following bugs in the original game:
'Sabre' and 'Samurai Sword' item images (in inventory and on the floor), names and descriptions were swapped.
'Staff Of Manar' and 'Yew Staff' item images (in inventory and on the floor) were swapped.
In the original game, two items 'Leg Plate' and 'Foot Plate' have the same name. The original file is modified to reference a new string added in TEXT item #3 in RLOWFIX.BIN for 'Foot Plate'.
LOGOBG.DG2
'LOGOBG.DG2.bmp' contains an updated title screen image where the original Japanese title text was removed with Cleanup.pictures and replaced. This file is not used by the game as there are no references to its filename. The actual title screen is the result of a 3D rendering of level 0 combined with bitmap overlays for texts.
MENU.BPK
'MENU.BPK_5.bmp', 'MENU.BPK_40.bmp', 'MENU.BPK_47.bmp', 'MENU.BPK_48.bmp', 'MENU.BPK_57.bmp', 'MENU.BPK_58.bmp' and 'MENU.BPK_146.bmp' contain updated graphics with Japanese text replaced with English text.
These new bitmap images are compressed using the same algorithm as the original images and do not take more space (even a few bytes less). Other graphics in MENU.BPK are left untouched.
RHIFIX.BIN
The SPLL item #2 in this file is modified to include the translation of spell names, which refer to characters in FONT256.S2D. RHIFIX.BIN_2_9.bmp contains a spell name that is too long. This text was condensed manually to fit on screen and use custom font characters in FONT256.S2D that replace unused characters in the original font.
RLOWFIX.BIN
'RLOWFIX.BIN_0_88.bmp' contains a replacement for the 'x' character which the game uses to draw item counts in the inventory. This smaller x makes some room (just 2 pixels) for item names. The original 'x' character in 'RLOWFIX.BIN_0_5.bmp' is moved elsewhere in the font. Encoded text uses that original 'x' character and not the smaller one.
'RLOWFIX.BIN_2_0.bmp' contains a potion icon used in some item names instead of the word 'Potion'
'RLOWFIX.BIN_1.bmp' contains replacement characters for the champion rename screen.
'RLOWFIX.BIN_9_6.bmp' and 'RLOWFIX.BIN_9_9.bmp' contain champion names that are too long. These texts were condensed manually to fit on screen and use custom font characters in FONT256.S2D that replace unused characters in the original font.

The 3 FONT items #0, #1 and #2 in this file are modified with replacement characters to optimize encoded text size. English text only uses half-width characters in FONT0 which are encoded on 2 bytes each. To minimize the size of all encoded text, many of the full-width characters in FONT1 and FONT2 (also encoded on 2 bytes each) are replaced with the most frequent pairs of half-width characters found in the texts to encode. In that way, many full-width characters are used in the encoding so that 2 bytes of encoded text = 2 half-width characters on screen, so it means 1 byte = 1 character for most (not all) of the encoded text.

The 5 TEXT items #3 to #7 in this file are replaced with the encoded English texts from 'Translations.csv', with the storage optimization described above.

The PLRD item #9 in this file is modified to include the translation of champion names, which refer to characters in FONT256.S2D.

Other items in RLOWFIX.BIN are left untouched.
TITLE.BIN
'TITLE.BIN_23.bmp' contains an updated text overlay for the title screen. Other items in TITLE.BIN are left untouched.
WARNING.BIN
'WARNING.BIN_0.bmp', 'WARNING.BIN_1.bmp', 'WARNING.BIN_2.bmp' and 'WARNING.BIN_3.bmp' contain updated graphics with Japanese text replaced with English text. These new bitmap images are not compressed and use the same space as the original graphics.

History