Jump to content

Noratoto - 18+ Restoration Project


Recommended Posts

Mod Note: This thread was merged with another. Direct replies to this post start here.

Noratoto - 18+ Restoration Project

DZPhHQ0.jpg

1. VN Info

Spoiler

Title: Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart / The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart

Publisher: Harukaze/Fruitbat Factory/TOKYOTOON

Official Site: Link

VNDB: Link

Steam: Link

Getchu: Link

2. Synopsis

Spoiler

Nora lives together in Sakuragabuchi with Shachi, a girl younger than him whom his mother had adopted. After his mother’s passing, they were able to grow up just fine with the support of those around them. Shachi loves Nora very much, and wakes up him every day while straddling him in bed. Then they head to school and enjoy their time with their friends, including their childhood friend and discipline committee head Michi, and his cheerful gyaru-like kouhai Yuuki.

One day, Nora came upon a girl named Patricia in a park on his way to school. She was a Princess of the Underworld and she came to the world of the living on her mother’s orders to destroy everything and remind humans of death. However, the life energies were too strong for her and she was overwhelmed by it. Nora took care of her while she was feeling ill, and she fell in love with him as a result. She asked him to explain the ‘mysteries of life’, but why does that include reading porn books...!?

From [VNDB]

3. VN OP

Spoiler

4. Project Introduction

Spoiler

One more eroge got censored (read: gutted and butchered) so that it could be released for the Western audience. This time, the victim is Noratoto, a visual novel the fans have been talking about ever since it was originally released in Japan to critical acclaim and commercial success. To understand the popularity of this title, you don't need to look further than the fact that it received both a full-fledged sequel and an anime adaptation, which is not common for visual novels. There aren't many visual novels that can boast of such achievements.

Knowing this, it's not hard to see why so many VN fans were revolted when they learned that Noratoto would get localized, but without all the content that made it popular in the country it originated from in the first place. Namely, the edition of the game that got localized for the Western audience is the one that came much later, when the developer decided to expand to the console market. Noratoto has been ported to 3 consoles so far: Vita, Switch, and PS4. From what I understood (if I in fact understood anything at all), the version of the VN that got localized for the English release is the Switch one, with maybe some differences? I'm not 100% sure on this, but regardless of that, it's still based on the console release, which means that the major problem still stands - lack of H-scenes without any patch, official or unofficial, in sight to restore them. And this localization decision was made by the publishers themselves, which in this case are the developers themselves, Harukaze, and a company no one here ever heard of (or at least I never heard of them) by the name TOKYOTOON. One more company was involved in the localization of Noratoto, but from what I understood, their involvement was fairly minimal (from what I got, they only did QC and some PR/marketing level stuff). I've seen many people blaming this company for Noratoto's situation, as they are an indie publisher who prioritizes only all-ages VNs, but I must defend them here and say that I am 100% convinced they didn't call any shots. The decision to localize the console release instead of the original PC release was made solely by Harukaze and TOKYOTOON. And by the time that they got involved, the matter was already settled to do only the all-ages console release, without any kind of restoration patch. There are still things I'd blame this company for, but those aren't related to the censorship problem.

Now, I have to admit I myself don't know how much the H-scenes in Noratoto mean for the whole experience (though I did hear from those in the know that they're tied to the plot in some way or another), but even if the impact of their removal was 0, I'd still say it's censorship. And any kind of censorship always changes the vision of the work that may be significantly different from the one the original author intended it to be. If in Japan they're reading one version of the game (that skyrocketed Noratoto in popularity in the first place), why should we be treated to a totally different version, arguably the one that's inferior to the one they've been reading over there? What are they trying to tell us by doing this? That what the Japanese liked, we won't? That sex is a normal thing in Japan, but not in the West? WTF? What's the point, I don't get it? Are we being treated like children or something? 12-year old French girls? Really? I didn't know 12-year olds were even reading VNs. I was around 17 when I read my first VN. And I don't recall hearing about any censorship of VNs at that time, aside from the mosaics issues. What changed so much in the last 5 or so years that we're hearing about censorship of localized Japanese media so often?

Anyway, to finish off the rant and get back to the point - we're gonna try to fix the censorship done here to the best of our abilities. I'm not promising this is gonna go any better than the way the last project I was involved in went. Worst case scenario, we're just gonna MTL the H-scenes and dump the patch like that. It's not an ideal solution, but you could say that the VN got at least uncensored then. What I also can't promise is when it's gonna be finished. At the time of writing this, our current progress on the translation is 0%. The only real progress that was made so far was on the tech side of things, for which I can only thank @marcus-beta and @casual_scrub. Their devotion to testing and fixing bugs is unparalleled. I really hope that their efforts won't go in vain and that we'll see this through the end, without having to resort to MTL.

The version of the VN we are making our patch for is the Steam's censored release. Not the JP release. Praise Marcus for being able to hack the Steam release ^_^ ...

That's it for the project introduction.

5. Staff

Spoiler

1. @Markovich - Project Leader, Editor

2. @Zephyrast - Translator

3. @randompleb - Translation Checker

3. @marcus-beta - Hacker God and our resident Tech Wizard

4. @casual_scrub - Quality Assurance

5. @Infernoplex - Maybe Editor (when I have spare time)

6. @BigBigDog - Quality Assurance

7. Various testers

6. Recruitment

Spoiler

For now, we aren't looking for anyone. But if you believe you could help us with something, PM me.

7. Progress

Spoiler

TL: 6%

Edit: 0%

Tech & QC: A lot

 

Edited by Infernoplex
Updated Project Leader/Editor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm I'm mad with the cut of the +18 content, but the most sad part to know is the fact of how they changed the engine.
To me port the old script to the kirkiri isn't impossible, but I will need give a time researching the
Old engine script syntax and write a tool to 'convert', I already did this with a game before and worked fine
But I need spend a time with this and I don't know japanese to translate it, If I do something again will be a shitty mtl patch.
I'm not sure if I will do this, but at least I'm interessed in this game

And is more 'easy' if I port the english release translation to the japanese engine, But to me this isn't the best way because to translate to my language that have special characters, the kirkiri engine is the best option.

Edited by marcus-beta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, marcus-beta said:

Hmm I'm mad with the cut of the +18 content, but the most sad part to know is the fact of how they changed the engine.
To me port the old script to the kirkiri isn't impossible, but I will need give a time researching the
Old engine script syntax and write a tool to 'convert', I already did this with a game before and worked fine
But I need spend a time with this and I don't know japanese to translate it, If I do something again will be a shitty mtl patch.
I'm not sure if I will do this, but at least I'm interessed in this game

And is more 'easy' if I port the english release translation to the japanese engine, But to me this isn't the best way because to translate to my language that have special characters, the kirkiri engine is the best option.

I actually wanted to PM you and ask you to make an MTL patch like you did for Miazora. But I didn't want to bother you too much. Also, if it's any help, Noratoto's JP release was done in Whale engine. The only tools for Whale I know so far are https://github.com/vn-tools/whale-tools

I am gonna test those now to see if they work on the JP release, but yeah, it's not an ideal solution, whatever we do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, If I think will be hard port the h-scene to the kirikiri I can try at least port the english translation to the old engine, if they don't rewrited/revised the text of the japanese release, in other words, if they don't touched in the text I can do a port pretty  easy in like one or two days, the trouble is just tools to repack they, if this tool don't work I can need spend a time into this too.
But I'm not really too hyped in port the translation to the old engine...

Edited by marcus-beta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, marcus-beta said:

Well, If I think will be hard port the h-scene to the kirikiri I can try at least port the english translation to the old engine, if they don't rewrited/revised the text of the japanese release, in other words, if they don't touched in the text I can do a port pretty  easy in like one or two days, the trouble is just tools to repack they, if this tool don't work I can need spend a time into this too.
But I'm not really too hyped in port the translation to the old engine...

Yeah, I understand you. It's not really an ideal solution. And there's not much anyone can do about it. It's a lot of work for just a bunch of fans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Infernoplex said:

Yeah, I understand you. It's not really an ideal solution. And there's not much anyone can do about it. It's a lot of work for just a bunch of fans.

It will be a few hundred people at least, judging by the number of downloads for the simple CG Patch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, marcus-beta said:

Someone have a full save of the old game? this will save me of spoiler.

Google "Sagaoz net" and the Japanese title and you should find one.

I would love to translate the missing content for this title. @Infernoplex @marcus-beta Would either of you be capable of extracting the missing text so it could be placed in a spreadsheet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Blooming Sakura said:

Google "Sagaoz net" and the Japanese title and you should find one.

I would love to translate the missing content for this title. @Infernoplex @marcus-beta Would either of you be capable of extracting the missing text so it could be placed in a spreadsheet?

I only have the raw script files. They can be opened with a text editor, but can't make sheets out of them. Perhaps Marcus would be of more help for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

8k of lines. @Blooming Sakura - Will you be able to handle such a long project?

The number of lines is no problem. The time it will take to do said lines is what might disappoint people. I estimate it taking at least 4 months. I plan on translating after work a few times a week. This is merely a hobby projet. I have never actually played Noratoto, but got interested in helping out after seeing the discussions about the cut content here on Fuwanovel. I will probably buy the original game so I can have it running in the background while I translate. Translating Japanese without context can be a nightmare.

30 minutes ago, marcus-beta said:

I can put a MTL in the spreadsheet if he think is usefull 

That will not be necessary. Using a machine translation as a base would just hinder my progress, if anything. I am sure there are some people who would be satisfied with machine translated h-scenes though. Maybe you could make a machine translation patch for people who do not want to wait for my translation. It will take a while before I finish.

Thank you very much for the spreadsheet.

Edited by Blooming Sakura
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@marcus-beta - Could you share your tools with Sakura? Or at least help out with the tech side of things? As for MTL, I agree with Sakura. It'd just be a hindrance to his speed and progress.

@Blooming Sakura - Thank you so much! I can't stress enough how much this is gonna mean for the community as a whole! If you need someone to proofread/edit/give feedback or anything like that later down the line, I'd be glad to help ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I don't have tool ready to use yet... For now I don't have way to repack the old engine .dat;
I keep looking foward to the kirkiri yet... I'm doing some's test, I have just  2 bugs yet that I need solve to can port:
1 - The backlog don't register the dialogue voice
2 - I don't found the macro that make the multi-language support of this shit (thx psb)

Edited by marcus-beta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Infernoplex said:

Thank you so much! I can't stress enough how much this is gonna mean for the community as a whole! If you need someone to proofread/edit/give feedback or anything like that later down the line, I'd be glad to help ^^

For starters, a bit of information on the translation style used in the English version would help.

- What tense is used?

- What romanization is used for each one of the characters' names?

- Are there honorifics in the translation?

I would not want to mix in different romanizations and tenses. I'm sure that would be confusing. As for honorifics, I am not a fan of them. But if the current translation uses them, I suppose I will have to adapt to that.

I was thinking of releasing the translation in batches, perhaps one route at a time. If you want to help edit the translation, I could send you the first route whenever it is finished.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@marcus-beta For the old engine .dat file, the hacker who made tools for Tsujidou left some notes saying: "Currently it supports only Tsujidou-san no Junai Road, but it shouldn't be too difficult to add support for other games - it should boil down to changing constants inside archiver and using different filenames.lst file."

I don't know what he meant by that, but maybe you'll be able to figure it out. What I do know is that it shouldn't be impossible. Also, there's code for extracting in GARBro. If you could analyze that, maybe you'll be able to make a reverse algorithm for it.

@Blooming Sakura

1. Past Tense narration was used

2. I didn't meet all the heroines yet, but I'll check

3. No, they dropped honorifics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Infernoplex said:

1. Past Tense narration was used

2. I didn't meet all the heroines yet, but I'll check

3. No, they dropped honorifics.

Oh good. I prefer past tense over present myself. Would you mind sending me a message with the names of the characters once you have seen them all? I have a busy week ahead of me, so I probably will not start the translation until this weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Blooming Sakura said:

Oh good. I prefer past tense over present myself. Would you mind sending me a message with the names of the characters once you have seen them all? I have a busy week ahead of me, so I probably will not start the translation until this weekend.

As I am reading it now, it'll take me a bit to reach them all. I am using the "Japanese + English" mode, reading both in JP and ENG at the same time (which means I am being rather slow with my progress on Noratoto, but I am having a blast readnig this VN). That said, I took a look inside the voice options and this is how they showed the characters' names:

sqDKm04.jpg

This should be helpful for you, I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I tried... is basically working...? 
I just have 2 problem that need to be solved, first is the fucking sprite don't works, I'm feeling like an idiot because the [image] tag is not showing up shit, the BG/EV image work because I used the [ev] tag...
The second problem is the speaker face in the textbox, the face don't hide when is the protagonist who speak... well...

uc?id=1pEDI_ex8pQ3GzdqFs2Q_s6bx9Q9VGvJo
I don't liked much of the result, because the old engine have very, but very strange function names, like this
uc?id=10IChDRgWuTCxXFoROrX8hF7XgplvVPkl

Then I tried see the function code to try understand this shity, and I got

uc?id=1LSC96wqqgUOyOq1yZNXc7I59GHP3N3ET

With lazy to 'convert' this strange code I just commented out and I forgot about this shitty command,
So, basically, Worked but i'm sure there are minnor effects like image roll that has 'ignored' by the conversion.
After spend two days into this, fuck man, I want die.

Edited by marcus-beta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, marcus-beta said:

So, basically, Worked but i'm sure there are minnor effects like image roll that has 'ignored' by the conversion.

After spend two days into this, fuck man, I want die.

So does it look like these issues are fixable or not?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the effect? Isn't a issue at all, I just cut off the effect because i'm with lazy to understand the strange command of the old engine.
But if are you asking about the issue that I said in the top of my post, I'm sure they are fixable...
The problem is the Nora to Oujo major part of the .tjs script is compiled and the .ks is in the .scn format.
I don't have many hints to discovery the right macro used in the nora to oujo to rewrite the script

Edited by marcus-beta
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...