[Trickless]

Originally Posted by MadTricks

Are there any special sites that dedicate those translations and Adventure genre?
It would be good to know upcoming translations etc.

Well i know of Romhacking.net. They list of all (well, most of them anyway) rom translations, not just adventure games.

And there is also Visual novel Translations, which as the name implies lists translations for visual novels. They mostly concentrate on the PC visual novel games.

I actually know of a few translations projects (for console games) that are 'in progress'. I've not listed them because you just can't guarantee that these projects will be completed (I'm not bashing translating groups, but I have seen projects being dropped due to difficulties). I've only mentioned the Policenauts translation group because they've been featured in magazines, and because it's such a big game.

[Atlantis]

If you own a snes or snes emu, there are a fair amount of Ag or Ag styled games on it, you can find their english translations by other project groups on the emulator, some Id reccommend are the original Clock tower game which relies heavily on investigating and puzzle solving to stop yourself getting killed by a murderous nine year old, instead of simply shooting him. (Its a weird game at points)
and famicom tantei (detective) club, its a good game with a decent storyline and play time, its thoroughly enjoyable.

[Trickless]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

A couple of Goichi Suda games (orginially on the PlayStation) are being redone for the Nintendo DS.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/newsitem.php?id=1594

Just some more info on the 'Silver Case' DS game.

There are actually two Silver Case games being ported to the DS. The original PSX game "The Silver Case", and the cellphone sequel "The Silver Case Ward 25".

From what I understand, these two games will both be in one DS game. As opposed to two seperate release.


First announcement, back in GDC'07

However, there really hasn't been any concrete news ever since the first announcement back in the Games Developers Conference in '07 (no DS screenshots etc). I'm not saying its cancelled, but probably be a while till it even gets a release over here.

[Atlantis]

Originally Posted by TFeldt

Maybe one of you guys can help me with a conundrum. Several years ago I played a SNES game that revolved around a murder. I believe you either played as a police officer or a private eye. Unfortunately I've forgotten the title of the game and googling for relevant keywords only seems to lead me to a spirit detective game for the GBA. The only additional details I can offer is that the first murder took place at either a harbor or a canal of some sort. I have a vivid memory of that particular scene..

It seems no-one directly answered you but the game has been mentioned here several times.
The game you remember is Famicom Detective Club 2: Girl in back
The girl in the canal is a girl named Yoko.

[Lucifiel]

I just tried the Ever17 demo. Whoa really cool but... how do you "play" this game? It seems to be going on and on from Day 1 to Day 3 or something... and there's nothing I can do? Furthermore, I didn't know how to Save this game so I just pressed Alt + F4.

Anyways, this is awesome stuff and I've just ordered Ever17, Piece of Wonder and Dark Alchemist. About the other DVD games, I'll get them once I'm brave enough with visual novels.

[papillon]

The demo for Ever 17 isn't actually playable. It just shows you bits and pieces of the story, and not in perfect sequence either. It's more like a very long movie trailer than a demo. When you're playing the actual game, you will get to make choices and determine how the story goes.

It really is a great story. Better than mine. On the other hand, Ever 17 doesn't do puzzles or minigames, so if you want some puzzle-solving to break up your reading, play Fatal Hearts.

[Lucifiel]

Originally Posted by papillon

The demo for Ever 17 isn't actually playable. It just shows you bits and pieces of the story, and not in perfect sequence either. It's more like a very long movie trailer than a demo. When you're playing the actual game, you will get to make choices and determine how the story goes.

Yeah... I asked about the Ever 17 demo a short while ago and was told that.

Oh well!

It really is a great story. Better than mine. On the other hand, Ever 17 doesn't do puzzles or minigames, so if you want some puzzle-solving to break up your reading, play Fatal Hearts.

Better than yours? What game did you create?

Puzzle-solving, huh... well, unfortunately from what I've heard, the puzzles in Fatal hearts seem to revolve around "click-fests" than on logic and thinking skills, right?

And with that said: very few games have mazes which're truly playable. You often either end up with games like Kyrandia where the maze keeps locking you out of the game(if my memory serves me right) or Delaware where the maze turns into nothing but a huge confusing click-fest.

Well, the last option is the type of "maze" they implemented in The Tale of Two Kingdoms: no dead-ends, no confusing paths and where if you fail, you simply try again. But very tough if you refuse to work it out the old-school way: mapping it out.

I wonder what type of maze they went for in Fatal Hearts.

[papillon]

I wrote Fatal Hearts, and I have no idea where you got the impression that it's full of click-fests. I know the review here says it's full of mazes, and I don't know why it says that, either.

There is one very short maze-type area that you do have to map. It's not a 'sneaky' maze... there are no one-way passages or anything ridiculous. It's just navigating through a large building. You can't get stuck, you just have to wander around until you find where you're supposed to be going.

There is one 2d maze. 2d. Like the kind of thing you'd find in an activity book. You don't have to map it, it's all on the screen. You just have to work your way through it.

And that's it for mazes. There are many different kinds of puzzles. Some are more active than others, to the point of being minigames. Some are pure thinking.

I, as an adventure player, am story-driven. I see no reason why anyone would lock a door with a pyramid of soup cans. So the puzzles try to be reasonable things for the character to do in the story. Trying to find your way through a large building is a believable activity, this happens in real life!

Anyway, the game has a free demo, so please do check it out, you can play all the way through the first chapter for free and that should give you a little sampling of puzzles.

[Lucifiel]

Originally Posted by papillon

I wrote Fatal Hearts, and I have no idea where you got the impression that it's full of click-fests. I know the review here says it's full of mazes, and I don't know why it says that, either.

Ah... 'cos generally to me, many mazes I've encountered so far usually revolve around "aimlessly wandering across random screens" until you find your way out. Thus, what could've been a challenging experience can turn into a click-fest and even more so if it's timed.

Hmmm... perhaps the reviewer could shed some light as to why he/she thought so?

There is one very short maze-type area that you do have to map. It's not a 'sneaky' maze... there are no one-way passages or anything ridiculous. It's just navigating through a large building. You can't get stuck, you just have to wander around until you find where you're supposed to be going.

Oohkay, that's good and sounds better.

There is one 2d maze. 2d. Like the kind of thing you'd find in an activity book. You don't have to map it, it's all on the screen. You just have to work your way through it.

2d, huh? Good...

And that's it for mazes. There are many different kinds of puzzles. Some are more active than others, to the point of being minigames. Some are pure thinking.

That's far better.

I, as an adventure player, am story-driven. I see no reason why anyone would lock a door with a pyramid of soup cans. So the puzzles try to be reasonable things for the character to do in the story. Trying to find your way through a large building is a believable activity, this happens in real life!

Yuppers, I know what you mean about weird puzzles like that "soup can" example.

Anyway, the game has a free demo, so please do check it out, you can play all the way through the first chapter for free and that should give you a little sampling of puzzles.

Sure thing.

[MadTricks]

I just got PORTOPIA Serial Murder Case (NES) english translated version working on my DS perfectly, how neat!

[Trickless]

Seeing as how I can't seem to edit my old posts after a certain period, I've decided to put my list up on a web page.

For those that missed page2, I made a list of Japanese adventure games that were available in English to play (on consoles and handhelds, not pc). It's become sort of a mini-project for me. And it's been fun going through all these game archives, yet also disappointing at the same time because there's a few games I would like to have seen in English!

Anyway, with the power of horrible html coding, stupid colour scheme, notepad, and googlepages(lol). I bring you:

PIXEL MENU!

Just don't expect frequent updates or news

I've also made another list of games (cos I love doing them so much). This time it's Japanese Only DS adventure games. Whilst I doubt any of you will buy these games due to the obvious language barrier, I think most of you will find it interesting. These games may find its way over here, you never know!

Japan Only DS adv games!

I think the 'lesser' known games like JB Harold:Murder Club (which was also released for pc and turbografx back in the 90's in english) and Lux-Pain actually have a decent chance of getting a localisation.

[Matan]

Originally Posted by Trickless

Seeing as how I can't seem to edit my old posts after a certain period, I've decided to put my list up on a web page.

That list is great, thanks!

Wow, I have so many games to go through now...

[LimpingFish]

Very nice page, Trickless.

Japanese adventures have always been of interest to me, and I've spent hours tracking down information about forgotten Japanese adventures from the glory days of the MSX/MSX2 and X68000 home computers.

You'd be surprised how many are still fairly playable today; even with my limited grasp of Japanese.

[-=三D三=-]

Cheers Trickless, That list is fantastic,
I'll have to check them out.

thanks to everyone else too. Edited down this thread would make a nice article for the site.
-David

[Trickless]

Originally Posted by LimpingFish

Japanese adventures have always been of interest to me, and I've spent hours tracking down information about forgotten Japanese adventures from the glory days of the MSX/MSX2 and X68000 home computers.

You'd be surprised how many are still fairly playable today; even with my limited grasp of Japanese.

And don't forget about the PC98 computers! The amount of adventure games on that thing is quite ridiculous, although the majority (and I really do mean that) of them are of the hentai variety.

Of the non-h games, there are some really neat looking ones. There's the Dead of the Brain games, which was also released for the MSX and the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx CD. It was the last ever game released for the TurboGrafx, and despite having inferior graphics the game had additional voice acting. The Turbografx game is also being translated by a group! ( link)

There's also Tokyo Twilight Busters, which is a mixture of adventure and survival horror. And then there's the JB harold detective series. Let's not forget about Policenauts either.

Yup, there are certainly a lot of retro adventure games that we don't know about!

Dead of the Brain


Tokyo Twilight Busters

[LimpingFish]

Dead of the Brain! \o/

I'd actually been working on a semi-translation-port to PC of the Sharp X68000 version, as a kind of side-project, just for my own amusement. I really liked playing through the Japanese version, and the fact that it pre-dates Resident Evil by over three years, yet shares a number of similar plot points, is interesting.

Fairytale mostly seemed to make hentai-esque adventures, though Dead of the Brain has only minimal nudity. They also made Dracula Hakushaku the same year...



...but in this case the hentai element is more apparent.

[Matan]

Just beat "Famicom Detective Club 2". What a cool game!!

Geez, it feels so great discovering this world. It's like discovering a parallel dimension where tons of adventure games have been made which I've never even heard of. I now can't believe these games existed for so long and I had no idea...

Anyway, trickless, thanks a lot for the recommendations. I'm going to continue following your "pixel menu" site for more updates.
(and I won't rest until I play each and everyone of these games! )

[Trickless]

Originally Posted by Matan

Anyway, trickless, thanks a lot for the recommendations. I'm going to continue following your "pixel menu" site for more updates.
(and I won't rest until I play each and everyone of these games! )

Whilst I haven't played all those games, I'm sure there are a few of them which don't play that good. tbh I think you've probably played all the best ones lol. So don't feel like you need to play all of them

[Lucifiel]

Playing Ever17 now... whoa, it sure is a good novel.

Btw, why do people call this medium "games" anyways? They may share some characteristic related to computer games but it's mostly a lot of reading and extremely limited interactivity as opposed to computer adventure games where you're most often allowed to move from one place to another and to talk to different people when you want to.

[papillon]

The same reason that choose-your-own-adventures and all related items are called "gamebooks".

How much VNs are games varies. Some of them are very gamelike. Some of them are very much like novels with director's cut alternate endings.

But not all adventure games let you wander and talk to people, and VNs can contain puzzles... genres are fuzzy things