Here we are, and actual brand new translation hack by me.
The first one I’ve published since 2023.
This time I bring you The Jungle Book for the NES which released in 1994, making it a relatively late release for the system.
It very apparent that the game also tries to mimic a lot of 16-bit practices when it comes to it’s presentation, like big custom letters compared to the small and basic-looking ones we’d usually see.
That being said, the game itself does leave a lot to be desired in the gameplay department.
Rather than being traditional 2D platformer where you have to make your way to the end of a level, in this one, the game tasks you to scavenge the entire level, high and load in the pursuit of gemstones, meaning you’d likely have to explore every nook and cranny, the strict time limit, awkward combat and frustrating controls doesn’t really do the game any favors
Usually on the NES, it was Capcom were known for the classic Disney tie-ins but this game was instead brought to us by Eurocom and it can be felt.
Its like the game wants to simulated the Pitfall games but ultimately it ends up being rather unmemorable.
So why did I want to do a translation of this game?
Well, first of all, its one of the rare NES games that I actually remember playing from my childhood. I grew up in the SNES era and would only really get to play the original NES if we rented it from the rental store or I was playing it at a friend’s place.
We also had this TV programme over here called “Troldspejlet” which was like THE show on TV to watch back in the day for game enthusiasts as it was basically the only one that would broadcast video game reviews where you could see the games actually play in motion.
One of those games that I remember recording to VHS was The Jungle Book and I just remember being a little obsessed with it for some time, even though I never got it back then. I did get to play it at one point at a friend’s place and years later I bought my first NES from another friend along with Zelda 1, 2, High Speed and, you guessed it, The Jungle Book
So the game has sorta always followed me around so I felt it was fitting to actually do a translation of it as part of my Disney translation hack series.
Here’s the thing tho. I really hated working on this game.
As previously states, this was a very late NES release and apparently the developers decided to be extremely untraditional and arbitrarily complex in the way their code works and interact.
It worked completely different to any other game I had worked with before and debugging was exceptionally tricky as the game sorta hides all the info you need to work with it effectively, so there was a ton of time spent just trying to brute force stuff to see if I would get some results so I could figure out how to get access to certain parts of the code.
It was a MASSIVE chore.
Thee stupidest part was probably where I had to change just a single letter in the word “pause” but it took me 3 hours to find the text in the code… why? Because the developers had misspelled it as “pavse” So that was fun.
I also had to get REALLY creative with some of the design decisions as they the game does not like it when you try to go outside it’s original scope.
For example, there was a part where you could turn options “on” or off” but the “o” part was baked in there and couldn’t be changed and you could also not add any additional letters.
This was basically how the entire game was to work with.
Usually pointers to text strings are also located relatively close to said text but here it was halfway through the game’s code, which took a lot of time to chase down.
In all honestly, I just kept postponing and not wanting to actually continue work on this one but I also felt committed to finally get it done and off my table to I could actually start work on some other projects.
So after nearly 1½ a year of work, I am now proud to finally bring you the final result of my trials an hardships xD
The game mostly features text between the stages as well as a load of menus, descriptions, and ofc the big title screen which also took a lot of time to get just right with all its new unique assets as well as reworking the graphics around it as well as the monkeys that are hanging and dancing on it.
I will say that I’m pretty proud of how well it turned out.
I spent a lot of time fine-tuning everything and trying to make it fit into the Danish language and for the most part, I will say the final product is almost without any compromises or downsides.
And even if the game itself isn’t the best, I still hope you’ll all enjoy it
Happy new year 2025
As of the time of this writing, my next project has not yet been determined so whatever I upload next will not be from any older projects Ive had on hold but completely new
Her er den så, min første nye hack siden 2023!
Eller, faktisk er denne hack også en jeg startede tlbage i 2023 men først nu endelig er blevet færdig med.
Spillet er Junglebogen til NESen, bygget over den klassiske Disney film af samme navn.
Når man taler Disney spil til NES konsollen tænker de fleste nok på de ikoniske Capcom spil som primært var bygget over de populære Disney Sjov serier men denne gang er det Eurcom der har stået for udviklingen og et kan godt mærkes, for spillet føles langt fra ligeså poleret eller sjovt at spille som Capcoms spil.
Man kan dog sagtens mærke at udviklerne har ladet sig inspirerer af Pitfall spillene og 16-bit konsollerne når det kommer til spillets grafiske side.
Junglebogen spillet udkom i 1994 hvor både SNESen og Sega Mega Drive konsollen allerede havde været ude i noget tid og var at finde i mange børneværelser.
Grafikken er nok spillets bedste træk da den er detaljeret og godt ligdner stilen fra filmen den er bygget over.
Det er dog gameplayet der godt kunne trænge til noget forbedring.
I forhold til de fleste traditionally 2D platformer skal man nemlig ikke bare fra en ende af en bane til den anden men istedet lede efter diamanter på banerne, og de skal alle indsamles under en ret strikt tidsfrist.
Det, kombineret med meget uintuitiv combat og frustrerende platforming gør ikke spillet nogle tjenester.
Så hvorfor valgte jeg at oversætte spillet hvis det ellers ikke er godt.
Mest fordi jeg har lidt historie fra min barnom hvor jeg husker at have set op optaget spillet da det blev anmeldt i Troldspejlet.
Og selvom jeg aldrig selv fik det som barn har det lidt forfulgt mig, da en af mine venner havde det, hvor jeg kunne få love at prøve det, og da jeg købte min første NES konsol var det også en af de spil der fulgte med den.
Og da jeg allerede har lavet så mange NES oversættelser af Disney spil tænkte jeg at det også kunne være et sjovt projekt.
Desværre var det dog alt andet end sjovt at arbejde med og grunden til at det tog 1½ af færdiggøre den var grundet hvor frustrerende det var at arbejde med den.
Spilets kode fungerede nemlig total anderledes end jeg er vandt til, hvor alting var flettet utroligt kryptisk sammen og det utroligt svært at ændre elementer uden at ødelægge andre.
Der skulle både en masse kreative ændringer til for at få tingene til at spille med hinanden, men allermest var det ihærdighed og tålmodighed.
Det var svært at føle sig motiveret når man arbejde med den men i sidste ende lykkedes det mig og vil mene at slutresultatet taler for sig selv og er en rimelig kompromiløs adaption af spillet, nu fuld spilbart på Dansk.
Det meste reele oversættelsesarbejde bestod af de små cutscenes der er mellem banerne så vel som menuer og selvfølgelig den store titel skærm som tog lang tid at få helt rigtig men det var vigtigt for mig at den skulle ligne den originale Danske så godt som muligt og det syntes jeg også den kom til.
Det her er de sidste Danske Romhack jeg uploaer som er fra et gammelt projekt, alt jeg foretager mig herfra kommer til at være helt nye projekter og jeg har allerede et part planlagt som jeg håber jeg kan starte arbejde på her i det nye år.
Jeg håber i se frem til dem:
Og jeg håber i vil syntes om denne oversættelse
Godt nytår!
CRC-32: 4b849368
SHA-1: a2d12631f4fa1bd2ff6415004265c66cd40b4af5
I know this might sound weird, but i really want to thank you for making these translation hacks. I’m learning danish, and I enjoy consuming media to learn languages. I’ve found it pretty hard to find content in Danish to practice with. Ive been using your hacks to supplement my Danish learning journey. Thank you for your hard work! 🙏💝