Is the English translation any different for the PAL versions? I know some Nintendo games have different English translations between the NA and EU versions (Tomodachi Life is a major example of this).
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqankit's probably a little different, but given it's directly based on the American version and not the Japanese version, it's probably not that different.
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqank it really varies. We have English and all the common languages in one game and I can't speak for every country but in Australia, you'll often open your australian game case to reveal a UK, German or French disc/cartridge instead of an Aussie one and regardless of what version you get, it defaults to English and asks for your language. The PAL localisation is based off the US one as it's already translated to English. Sometimes it's identical and sometimes there's changes made as PAL releases are usually done after the NTSC release. These changes are sometimes bug fixes, translation/spelling errors, censorship often due to some innocent things being slang for highly inappropriate things in the UK (don't think they care about Australia but our inappropriate slang is very similar to UK slang), often things involving WW2 and Germany are highly censored, some names may be changed to reflect the Japanese version or due to censorship and legal issues (Star Fox becoming Lylat Wars is a good example) sometimes we actually get things that were censored in US releases restored in our release. So overall while it can vary, a majority of the time it's identical save for the odd censorship or bit of slang that makes no sense here. We also get our own versions in Australia sometimes. Ratchet and Clank 3 in Europe is just called that due to censorship, however in Australia we have the original name "Up Your Arsenal". Another example is Pokemon Crystal has some changes over here when compared to the UK release and looking at my save when dumping it from my legit cartridges (my brother has had them brand new since 1999 and 2000 and I still have the manuals for them so I know they're not counterfeit), Pokemon Yellow and Emerald (I purchased a few years ago when I lost Sapphire but have opened it up to replace the battery and confirmed it's legit) also have Australian roms but I have no clue if they're any different to the other PAL games as I haven't played them
I know it’s a case by case basis and it is a tossup whether Australia literally gets the EU version of a game or a unique release (as a separate point). I was mainly curious about Animal Crossing specifically (more specifically the English translation for EU/AUS, not the differences between the two from each other). I know the EU and AUS versions of the game differ a bit.
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqank if there are differences, the cutting room floor usually lists them. I used to just browse games I like on that website to see unused content, region differences and anti piracy measures. If there are text differences documented, it would be on tcrf/the cutting room floor. Take a look and hope you find what you're looking for or other interesting things!
14:22 I don’t know anything about the development, but if _nuke_ is meant to be Japanese, it’s the participle form of _nukeru_ 抜ける “to escape, to get out”, or can be an abbreviation of _nukegara_ 抜け殻 “empty shell (of a molting insect)”, which seem fitting.
@@YeahImRose Hmm...that’s technically possible...? But I can’t confidently say that one might use the word 抜け by itself (without mentioning 色) to mean discoloration. Normally you have to say “getting COLORS out” (色を抜く, 色が抜ける) to mean it.
@@YeahImRose As a native speaker, that interpretation didn’t naturally come to mind, but I don’t deny the possibility depending on the naming scheme. Maybe some dictionaries list “to discolor” as a possible translation but I’d like to make it clear that _nuke_ 抜け itself just means something (occupant/member/part/soul/filler/ingredient) becoming absent or getting removed from inside something, not specifically colors.
Basically the game allows for special e-Reader cards which contain character data to be scanned, and it will read that data (name, textures, house, etc) and put the villager in your town. All the characters new to e+ work this way, you have to have their card. One neat thing is a Japanese magazine actually held a contest to design a villager who would then have an official card distributed for them, Nindori. Because the game's just reading villager data, we can take advantage of this feature and, because the format has been figured out, use Cuyler's program to create custom villagers.
I felt joy but also pain when I found out that there was an official SD card solution in Japan for essentially backing up your save, remembering that my original save got corrupted and it was tied to that memory card no matter what 😭 I actually think the European version deserved more of a segment, it took a whole 3 years to translate the game into multiple languages and was a huge undertaking by NoE in that regard. Still, I really loved this video, absolutely adore the original Animal Crossing! 😊
Outside of the language support, the EU and Australian releases are practically identical to the North American version, so I didn't spend too much time there. One of these versions may be important later on though...
@@Hunter-R. Ah, fair! European version is more personal to me really since I recall eagerly waiting for that back in the day, genuinely felt as if it was never coming out here. Huge respect though, I am looking forward to what animal crossing content you're planning in the future! ✨
Not just an entire game, freaking *animal crossing* of all things. A game so large in scale that 20 years later, fans still haven't completed a full complete English translation of e+.
11:00 Not to be a total nerd or anything but usually the actual programming and content changes done in games like Animal Crossing are usually done on the Japan side, as they're the ones that actually made the game and understand it the most. Sometimes the localizers will have to have their own programming skills and implement their own "hacks" to implement localization changes, but most of the time they give guidance and translated scripts back to Kyoto for the programmers to implement. So in this case it's not so much a "reverse localization" as it was them taking advantage of the fact that they spent all this time making a new, updated version of the game for another region, and used that as a basis to create the even more updated e+ game. Before content patches delivered through the internet, regional releases were used to basically get post release updates out there in the world. (For example, see how the PAL version of Melee has balancing adjustments.)
EDIT: You’re correct. Some interviews were a bit overzealous with NoA’s actual contributions to implementation, and it seems Nintendo of Japan largely handled the implementation themselves in collaboration with NoA’s localization notes.
There's an interview with a couple of the localizers where they basically confirm this. The work they had to do is still incredibly impressive, especially considering how much inherently Japanese cultural content is featured in Doubutsu no Mori+, but essentially they came up with the items, holidays, etc and then had the Japanese team develop it. They also say they worked directly together to create the summer camping tents at E3 2002, which is interesting because it’s only a few months before the game released!
@@Hunter-R. I didn't see this reply until now, haha. With that comment I was mainly making an assumption to how EarthBound was localized. For that game, a couple people at NoA would translate scripts, but otherwise sent everything back to Japan for programming implementation. An interesting side effect of this is that certain localized assets got to have a newer version in the translated version of the game. For example, for Mother 2 in Japan, Dr. Andonut's lab says "LABO", but for America this was changed to just "LAB". In the process, the localized version also used a newer version of the sprite that looked slightly different, but was not made in time to be implemented in the original Japanese release. It wasn't until the game was released in America that this updated sprite had a chance to ship out. Anyway I think nowadays Redmond does spend a lot of time working with Kyoto both on the translation and the programming side to ensure that non-Japanese text is rendered correctly, but back in the day this was mostly directed by NoA localizers who otherwise had no programming ability. I think it really depends on the company, though.
The "侠客" is just a user role/level of that forum. The actual username of the translator is "hide". In the same post they claimed to be an employee in iQue during 2003-2008, and later paticipated in the development of a Sony original game
I know it's not what you usually do on this channel, but I would watch the heck out of a longplay or even livestream playthrough of e+. Those extra features are fascinating to me- I remember thinking that the Resetti secret hideout was fake because I could never get there on my copy of the game. Would be so cool to live vicariously through you and see you interact with all of these new mechanics.
I’ve been thinking about eventually getting into live-streaming, but I’d have to wrap up a few projects first before I look into it. Animal Crossing GCN generally isn’t a super popular game to stream though, and I wonder if I’d be able to be entertaining enough in a live setting lol 🤔
@@ZimriYT I think their original claim was that the feature was abused too much, but I think it was just a cost-cutting thing. Huge shame because it was really useful for foreign language videos (anyone can add their own language as captions) and for people with hard of hearing
@@halami2149As someone who often has to use them for medical reasons (sounds make my migraines worse), if the speaker has a heavy accent, doesn't enunciate enough for the program (which is not the same as not enunciating!), or there's multiple speakers, the autocaptions are absolutely worthless. Even native English speakers get put through the mangler if they don't speak in the very specific way the auto translate needs.
Calling the Frozen Time grass palette "earth_nuke" is already pretty morbid, but it's even more so when you remember that Japan is the only country to have ever been nuked...
Only country to have ever been nuked by another country. Technically, you can say that the US, USSR, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea have also been "nuked" (by themselves)
I'm unsure if E+ ever gotten a English fan translation yet, really seems like THE version to play if you want a classic and improved original Animal Crossing experience.
I'm looking around online for a fan-translation right now! There's also demand to bundle the HD texture pack with it, which would be awesome if I can run it on my Wii or on a custom Gamecube disc. I'll get back to you shortly about what I've found ^_^
Just learn Japanese. I wavered on it years ago when I was a middle schooler and wanted to play e+. It will take you a few months of dedicated study to be able to play the game reasonably comfortably. And by study, I mean playing the game itself and trying to read everything.
There is! Though, the last update I've heard of was over 2 years ago at this point. Not every text has been translated yet, and it uses the japanese keyboard rather than the international one. Just google "doubutsu no mori e+ english patch"
There is a fan translation available, but it isn't complete so some text is still in Japanese. I still recommend trying it out if you want to play the game in English.
I think you could have mentioned the different voices of the animals when you talked about the European version. In addition to the on-screen text in German, French, Spanish and Italian, they have also adapted the animals' voices to each language so that the pronunciation of the individual letters is correct. German and Italian are my personal favorites!
I work in China, and very much so want to get an iQue just for the novelty of owning each version. For those wondering why the iQue even exists. Chinese laws prevented the selling of video consoles during that time, which is lifted now, but putting a whole console in the controller was a loophole, and games were downloaded via kiosk. I'm happy that it exists, as it gave Chinese players a chance to experience Animal Crossing at all during those times.
"but putting a whole console in the controller was a loophole" Reminds me of how the PS2 was sold in Europe with a disc that had a BASIC interpreter on it (Yabasic), so they could claim it was a home computer for tax purposes... Not only did their argument not work, but it later turned out that Yabasic could be exploited to soft-mod the PS2...
@@vlc-cosplayer "so they could claim it was a home computer for tax purposes..." Reminds me of when peppy villagers in New Horizons claim they're studying fashion for tax purposes. Sure...
the australian pal version had e-reader support as the E-reader was released here so if you wanted a pal version to use the e-reader you would need that version
Re: earth_nuke, 抜ける (nukeru) is used in reference to the removal of SD or memory cards and it can also mean to extract data. I think it's more likely this refers to "earth while the save has been extracted"
The e+ SD card and villager creation features are so cool! The ability to copy your town to an SD card makes me wonder if it is possible to transfer a town from a legitimate copy of the game to an emulated version, or vice versa.
Hot take: The e+ title screen has some neat ideas (the key change in the middle of the song for a moment is nice) but the added percussion seems to replace the secondary piano melody from the other versions, and I personally think it sounds more empty/incomplete that way.
If I recall correctly, the Zelda 64 engine is actually a heavily modified Mario 64 engine that they say took about half of OoT's development cycle to make. Mitamoto said in an interview about it that he wanted to use that engine more, so that would explain wanting to use it for Animal Crossing.
@@LaFu3000 I'm not sure. When I looked into it, I found this quote from Miyamoto. "We were using the Super Mario 64 engine for Zelda, but we had to make so many modifications to it that it's a different engine now. What we have now is a very good engine, and I think we can use it for future games if we can come up with a very good concept. It took three or so years to make Zelda, and about half the time was spent on making the engine. We definitely want to make use of this engine again." It's possible that they used a modified Mario 64 to do Star Fox and modified that for Zelda, but this is the info I found.
Fun fact: The Upgraded Japanese version HAS been translated into English, and you should deffo play it, if you plan on visiting the Internet Archive soon! ;)
Love the video! iQue version looks really impressive for cramming thousands of chinese character into n64 cart tbh. Also, 14:25 "nuke" part might mean 抜け殻(nukegara) which means empty shell.
MAN I hope Prakxo figures out how to somehow merge the code from e+ into the USA release of Animal Crossing after both games are decompiled. It'd be the ultimate version!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the public works projects in e+! I don’t know if it’s just common knowledge or not, but I was blown away finding out that you can do that long before New Leaf existed! I actually didn’t know that feature was a thing until I played the WIP e+ translation haha
It's odd, I don't play animal crossing often, usually just to mess around for a while, but I'm amazed by these videos. Thanks for making great videos hunter!
You forgot a really big change in the US release! The first two Japanese releases didn't have villager catchphrases at all, they were an addition in the US release. Japan liked that and included it in e+.
Sadly this is just false. "Endings"/"Tail phrases"/"Catchphrases" were a staple feature present in the original game. Its plausible that some of them were updated when re-translation occurred to e+. However, they've been editable since Doubutsu no Mori on the N64!
The N64 game should be on Nintendo Switch Online! It's such a cool and obscure piece of Nintendo history! Nintendo is even marketing the expansion to Animal Crossing fans with the DLC of New Horizons being a part of it!
That custom villager feature was definitely ahead of its time, I'd love to see a native PC port with the e-reader model and mentions replaced with a period-correct desktop system or something lol
@@Zippy_Zolton I see. I just think it'd be cool if, when Nintendo adds Animal Forest, Animal Forest+, Population Growing, and Animal Forest e+ to their gaming library on the Switch, the custom villager feature was kept. I'd have SO much fun making my OC bat villagers real.
@@Most-sane-deltarune-fan afaik there's no confirmation of Gamecube on NSO so they'd probably just do original on the Japanese N64 collection also they don't add features to games, all they do is localise untranslated games (sometimes) and make sure netplay works
I’ve always loved learning about the iQue player, something about it is just so fascinating to me! It was a welcome surprise to see iQue credited for the simplified Chinese localization of New Horizons…!
I think the person who ported to the iQue also detailed changes in the code he had to make, I swear I've seen something like that before, with the tone that they were frustrated
I've been wondering... could you compare the Japanese dialogue to the English dialogue? I'd like to see if the claim that the villagers were always nice in the Japanese version but were made rude by the various localization teams is true.
The RPG origin is probably why some villagers have some particularly out of place designs, when the rest of them look like ordinary people. Perhaps characters like Resetti were meant to be allies or enemies you fought.
Those grey palettes are creepy, but also really fitting for a game "frozen in time". Does this mean you could still access shops and events long after they've ended, as long as you don't get your file back?
Great video Hunter! Quick question-are you familiar with the Memory Card corruption message that would occur in the original US version of Animal Crossing? I remember seeing it as a kid and KK Slider ominously mentioning "The Man" teling you to format your memory card, and it always freaked me out, but I've never been able to replicate it or find it online. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for mentioning the PAL version of GameCube version missing the eReader. Many other UA-camrs making the Animal Crossing region difference videos forget that.
There is NO way the Resetti Surveillance center actually existed all this time. Back in (maybe 1st or 2nd grade?) i got AC New Leaf for my 3ds and a friend told me that you could rebuild that guys place and then visit it when it was night. Obviously i tried that, saved all the bells to rebuild the surveillance center, placed down the manhole cover, stood in front of it, pressed A and nothing happened. I was so annoyed but my friend INSISTED that he saw that somewhere. Seeing it now, after literally more than a DECADE was so crazy.
You can visit the surveillance center in the 3ds version, is just not always available Also you can screenshot the game with L+R (from what i can remember)
it’s really rare nowadays to find people who still talk about the original animal crossing, most of the topics i find online are from 15+ years ago. thank you!
I think the Australian version is literally just the US version with the region lockout changed to run on PAL consoles. I remember seeing the E-Reader machine there, despite the fact it was never released here and only Pokémon Channel got cards.
would you be able to do a video about how villagers work? such as friendship, best friends, what determines who leaves, who moves in, and how to get certain ones? i cant find anything about it and im really curious! ❤
I had no idea about the official SD card adapter for GameCube or any of the related e+ features. I will definitely see if I can grab one! Thanks Hunter R
Too bad no one made a translation hack of the Japanese exclusive e+ version of Animal Forest, I'd love to play that. Being able to create your own custom villagers sounds amazing. Too bad you can't make your own custom furniture, I'd love to make a custom furniture based off the NES Classic Edition, it would be smaller than the actual NES in the game and you'd be able to load all the NES games that you have in your SD Card without the need to convert the ROMs into GCI files. This would be a little easier and faster way to see which NES games can run in AC's built-in emulator and which ones don't.
There is a partially translated one by Cuyler. The villagers sometimes randomly speak in Japanese but it's entirely playable, and any dialogue you need to actually play the game is translated.
@@Chubby_Bub Ah I see, better than nothing I suppose. I'd still want a full translation but that'd take years with how many lines of dialogue are in the game.
Stuff like this makes me PRAY a full decomp/pc port happens some day, as I feel it would encourage the modding scene for the game. But of course, we have to hope for a finished E+ localization, too.
I've got to say, your technical commentary videos on Animal Crossing are simply amazing! Your deep insights and thorough analysis add a whole new level of understanding to the game. I appreciate the effort you put into each video, and it's clear that you're passionate about sharing your knowledge with the community. Keep up the fantastic work! Looking forward to more enlightening content from you!
Quite interesting to know that existed an iQue version and boy, I feel so bad for the poor soul that had to port it, modify it, translate it and localize it but it's China after all... Anyway it was quite neat to know the other versions, I have to admit that the Japanese e+ version sounds amazing, it would be nice if have a re-re-release translated version overseas on the Switch but with the free NES games that has the game on it, I doubt it. Also despite that the European version was kind a watered down port of the American version, still it has one exclusive feature from all the other versions and is the "Multiple Languages" option, unlike the NTSC one the PAL version has the option to play the game in either on English, Spanish, French, German and Italian depending of what language the GCN is set up.
I'm pretty sure there was actually an interview with the person who translated it - and it was pretty much just one person who did the entire port, with its thousands of messages, I think... An incredible amount of work, like so much of what iQue did, and massively underappreciated by Nintendo and its fans.
loving all of your vids!!! just binged a ton of them a few days ago and i love your coverage into these old gems!! i played doubutsu no mori+ when i was a kid so its nice seeing you talk about those versions as well !
Before I found your channel, I thought I’d already heard every weird, niche animal crossing fact. I have been a fan of animal crossing before I could even read, it’s cool that there is still aspects of these games I haven’t heard of before
canadian viewer, can confirm we are Also Here (tm) this is super cool though......... particularly interested in custom villagers and the frozen town state. and the ique honestly looks rad as hell....... it's a shame they essentially got a port of the prototypical version of the game, though :( still a cool little console!!
I remember reading forum posts as a kid about how it was possible to enter Nook's Cranny at night and Resetti's hideout. Most people, including me, didn't believe it. The fact it was only possible in *one* of the Japanese versions probably added to the confusion. Loved the video!
The BIGGEST surprise to me in this entire video are that DnM had designs for Rei's plugsuit and something referencing Sachiel. Now I wanna start up a new file of ACNH to make Tokyo-3. I mean it kinda makes sense due to how insanely popular and influential NGE is in Japan, so it shouldn't be surprising that one of the developers probably used those designs for testing, which is pretty neat.
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BOT GO TO SCHOOL @@mushroomol56
The EU version also included localizations to French, German, Spanish and Italian, which probably was a huge effort and why it released so late.
Is the English translation any different for the PAL versions? I know some Nintendo games have different English translations between the NA and EU versions (Tomodachi Life is a major example of this).
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqankit's probably a little different, but given it's directly based on the American version and not the Japanese version, it's probably not that different.
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqank it really varies. We have English and all the common languages in one game and I can't speak for every country but in Australia, you'll often open your australian game case to reveal a UK, German or French disc/cartridge instead of an Aussie one and regardless of what version you get, it defaults to English and asks for your language.
The PAL localisation is based off the US one as it's already translated to English. Sometimes it's identical and sometimes there's changes made as PAL releases are usually done after the NTSC release. These changes are sometimes bug fixes, translation/spelling errors, censorship often due to some innocent things being slang for highly inappropriate things in the UK (don't think they care about Australia but our inappropriate slang is very similar to UK slang), often things involving WW2 and Germany are highly censored, some names may be changed to reflect the Japanese version or due to censorship and legal issues (Star Fox becoming Lylat Wars is a good example) sometimes we actually get things that were censored in US releases restored in our release.
So overall while it can vary, a majority of the time it's identical save for the odd censorship or bit of slang that makes no sense here.
We also get our own versions in Australia sometimes. Ratchet and Clank 3 in Europe is just called that due to censorship, however in Australia we have the original name "Up Your Arsenal".
Another example is Pokemon Crystal has some changes over here when compared to the UK release and looking at my save when dumping it from my legit cartridges (my brother has had them brand new since 1999 and 2000 and I still have the manuals for them so I know they're not counterfeit), Pokemon Yellow and Emerald (I purchased a few years ago when I lost Sapphire but have opened it up to replace the battery and confirmed it's legit) also have Australian roms but I have no clue if they're any different to the other PAL games as I haven't played them
I know it’s a case by case basis and it is a tossup whether Australia literally gets the EU version of a game or a unique release (as a separate point). I was mainly curious about Animal Crossing specifically (more specifically the English translation for EU/AUS, not the differences between the two from each other). I know the EU and AUS versions of the game differ a bit.
@@bigbangbot-SuperSqank if there are differences, the cutting room floor usually lists them. I used to just browse games I like on that website to see unused content, region differences and anti piracy measures.
If there are text differences documented, it would be on tcrf/the cutting room floor. Take a look and hope you find what you're looking for or other interesting things!
14:22 I don’t know anything about the development, but if _nuke_ is meant to be Japanese, it’s the participle form of _nukeru_ 抜ける “to escape, to get out”, or can be an abbreviation of _nukegara_ 抜け殻 “empty shell (of a molting insect)”, which seem fitting.
I feel like the "to discolor" meaning is a bit more likely lol
Right, people on my Japanese ultimate team would often say "nuke" (ぬけ) when someone was subbing out of the playing line.
@@YeahImRose Hmm...that’s technically possible...? But I can’t confidently say that one might use the word 抜け by itself (without mentioning 色) to mean discoloration. Normally you have to say “getting COLORS out” (色を抜く, 色が抜ける) to mean it.
@@さゆぬ-x7i Yeah but consider they're just making a variable name, they're gonna shorthand stuff one way or another usually
@@YeahImRose As a native speaker, that interpretation didn’t naturally come to mind, but I don’t deny the possibility depending on the naming scheme. Maybe some dictionaries list “to discolor” as a possible translation but I’d like to make it clear that _nuke_ 抜け itself just means something (occupant/member/part/soul/filler/ingredient) becoming absent or getting removed from inside something, not specifically colors.
Every copy of Animal Crossing is personalized...
Yet in all of them, Resetti still yells at you.
omg hi dino i'm subbed to you i loved your tomodachi life video it's how i found you :)
About that...
We may all be different, but we all suffer from the wrath of resetti. 😂
oh hey wsp? my sis watches u sometimes :)
In New Horizons, at the Roost, he only APPEARS to be yelling at you. In fact, he's just venting to nobody in particular.
14:34
Hold up. You're saying the game can have custom villagers?? We need a full video on this and how it works, that's incredible.
Basically the game allows for special e-Reader cards which contain character data to be scanned, and it will read that data (name, textures, house, etc) and put the villager in your town. All the characters new to e+ work this way, you have to have their card. One neat thing is a Japanese magazine actually held a contest to design a villager who would then have an official card distributed for them, Nindori.
Because the game's just reading villager data, we can take advantage of this feature and, because the format has been figured out, use Cuyler's program to create custom villagers.
@@Chubby_Bub it's pretty crazy that they basically added a modding API to a gamecube game
I want to hear more about this too! a full video on it would be great, i've always thought custom villagers is a cool idea.
GameCube Raymond when
@@sheepuff5999 the dam has collapsed, the beans are spilling 🤯🤯🤯
I felt joy but also pain when I found out that there was an official SD card solution in Japan for essentially backing up your save, remembering that my original save got corrupted and it was tied to that memory card no matter what 😭
I actually think the European version deserved more of a segment, it took a whole 3 years to translate the game into multiple languages and was a huge undertaking by NoE in that regard.
Still, I really loved this video, absolutely adore the original Animal Crossing! 😊
Outside of the language support, the EU and Australian releases are practically identical to the North American version, so I didn't spend too much time there. One of these versions may be important later on though...
@@Hunter-R. Ah, fair! European version is more personal to me really since I recall eagerly waiting for that back in the day, genuinely felt as if it was never coming out here.
Huge respect though, I am looking forward to what animal crossing content you're planning in the future! ✨
Imagine being tasked by your boss to translate and port an entire game all by yourself...crazy.
Not just an entire game, freaking *animal crossing* of all things. A game so large in scale that 20 years later, fans still haven't completed a full complete English translation of e+.
11:00 Not to be a total nerd or anything but usually the actual programming and content changes done in games like Animal Crossing are usually done on the Japan side, as they're the ones that actually made the game and understand it the most. Sometimes the localizers will have to have their own programming skills and implement their own "hacks" to implement localization changes, but most of the time they give guidance and translated scripts back to Kyoto for the programmers to implement. So in this case it's not so much a "reverse localization" as it was them taking advantage of the fact that they spent all this time making a new, updated version of the game for another region, and used that as a basis to create the even more updated e+ game. Before content patches delivered through the internet, regional releases were used to basically get post release updates out there in the world. (For example, see how the PAL version of Melee has balancing adjustments.)
EDIT: You’re correct. Some interviews were a bit overzealous with NoA’s actual contributions to implementation, and it seems Nintendo of Japan largely handled the implementation themselves in collaboration with NoA’s localization notes.
There's an interview with a couple of the localizers where they basically confirm this. The work they had to do is still incredibly impressive, especially considering how much inherently Japanese cultural content is featured in Doubutsu no Mori+, but essentially they came up with the items, holidays, etc and then had the Japanese team develop it. They also say they worked directly together to create the summer camping tents at E3 2002, which is interesting because it’s only a few months before the game released!
@@Hunter-R. I didn't see this reply until now, haha.
With that comment I was mainly making an assumption to how EarthBound was localized. For that game, a couple people at NoA would translate scripts, but otherwise sent everything back to Japan for programming implementation. An interesting side effect of this is that certain localized assets got to have a newer version in the translated version of the game. For example, for Mother 2 in Japan, Dr. Andonut's lab says "LABO", but for America this was changed to just "LAB". In the process, the localized version also used a newer version of the sprite that looked slightly different, but was not made in time to be implemented in the original Japanese release. It wasn't until the game was released in America that this updated sprite had a chance to ship out.
Anyway I think nowadays Redmond does spend a lot of time working with Kyoto both on the translation and the programming side to ensure that non-Japanese text is rendered correctly, but back in the day this was mostly directed by NoA localizers who otherwise had no programming ability. I think it really depends on the company, though.
The "侠客" is just a user role/level of that forum. The actual username of the translator is "hide". In the same post they claimed to be an employee in iQue during 2003-2008, and later paticipated in the development of a Sony original game
I know it's not what you usually do on this channel, but I would watch the heck out of a longplay or even livestream playthrough of e+. Those extra features are fascinating to me- I remember thinking that the Resetti secret hideout was fake because I could never get there on my copy of the game. Would be so cool to live vicariously through you and see you interact with all of these new mechanics.
I’ve been thinking about eventually getting into live-streaming, but I’d have to wrap up a few projects first before I look into it. Animal Crossing GCN generally isn’t a super popular game to stream though, and I wonder if I’d be able to be entertaining enough in a live setting lol 🤔
@@Hunter-R. I'd watch!
@@KaidenAC count me in too!!
I never knew you liked animal crossing!
@@Hunter-R. Maybe when Cuyler gets around to finishing the e+ translation?
SO glad for the subtitles! Makes it much easier for non-native english speakers to keep up and look up words when nessescarry
it's a shame community subtitles got phased out, so it's always appreciated when channels take the time to put their own subtitles
@@Safyire_ Why would UA-cam get rid of that? 😢
@@ZimriYT I think their original claim was that the feature was abused too much, but I think it was just a cost-cutting thing. Huge shame because it was really useful for foreign language videos (anyone can add their own language as captions) and for people with hard of hearing
Tbh the auto captions work really well now, so if a video doesn’t have manual captions, I’d recommend trying the auto generated ones
@@halami2149As someone who often has to use them for medical reasons (sounds make my migraines worse), if the speaker has a heavy accent, doesn't enunciate enough for the program (which is not the same as not enunciating!), or there's multiple speakers, the autocaptions are absolutely worthless. Even native English speakers get put through the mangler if they don't speak in the very specific way the auto translate needs.
You're telling me that the Villager can stop time with nothing more than an SD Card and chooses not to wield this power in Smash?
It was a different villager that handled the save data
That's why smash is the city folk villager, not the original.
Sakurai is saving that for when he adds Dio
Calling the Frozen Time grass palette "earth_nuke" is already pretty morbid, but it's even more so when you remember that Japan is the only country to have ever been nuked...
Only country to have ever been nuked by another country. Technically, you can say that the US, USSR, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea have also been "nuked" (by themselves)
Didn’t the USA bomb themselves (bikini akoll)
@fuseegelee by that logic, every country with nukes has nuked themselves
@@fuseegeleeMany hundreds of nuclear weapons were dropped on America main land. New Mexico got hit hard.
K
I'm unsure if E+ ever gotten a English fan translation yet, really seems like THE version to play if you want a classic and improved original Animal Crossing experience.
I'm looking around online for a fan-translation right now! There's also demand to bundle the HD texture pack with it, which would be awesome if I can run it on my Wii or on a custom Gamecube disc. I'll get back to you shortly about what I've found ^_^
Just learn Japanese. I wavered on it years ago when I was a middle schooler and wanted to play e+. It will take you a few months of dedicated study to be able to play the game reasonably comfortably. And by study, I mean playing the game itself and trying to read everything.
There is! Though, the last update I've heard of was over 2 years ago at this point. Not every text has been translated yet, and it uses the japanese keyboard rather than the international one. Just google "doubutsu no mori e+ english patch"
There is a fan translation available, but it isn't complete so some text is still in Japanese. I still recommend trying it out if you want to play the game in English.
@@Ohrami it's that easy. not hard and sluggish at all, and so so so easy
Honey wake up, new Hunter R video dropped
Beat me to it!
I think you could have mentioned the different voices of the animals when you talked about the European version. In addition to the on-screen text in German, French, Spanish and Italian, they have also adapted the animals' voices to each language so that the pronunciation of the individual letters is correct. German and Italian are my personal favorites!
I work in China, and very much so want to get an iQue just for the novelty of owning each version.
For those wondering why the iQue even exists. Chinese laws prevented the selling of video consoles during that time, which is lifted now, but putting a whole console in the controller was a loophole, and games were downloaded via kiosk.
I'm happy that it exists, as it gave Chinese players a chance to experience Animal Crossing at all during those times.
"but putting a whole console in the controller was a loophole"
Reminds me of how the PS2 was sold in Europe with a disc that had a BASIC interpreter on it (Yabasic), so they could claim it was a home computer for tax purposes...
Not only did their argument not work, but it later turned out that Yabasic could be exploited to soft-mod the PS2...
@@vlc-cosplayer "so they could claim it was a home computer for tax purposes..." Reminds me of when peppy villagers in New Horizons claim they're studying fashion for tax purposes. Sure...
The earth_nuke palette is so unnerving. It’s like it’s neither day nor night.
It's really eerie. The name doesn't help either. It obviously was a joke but it's creepy either way lol
@@BWoodRap A joke? But who would joke about an innocent game getting hit by a nuclear missile?!
the australian pal version had e-reader support as the E-reader was released here so if you wanted a pal version to use the e-reader you would need that version
no european languages though 😢
@@Larry_Danger sadly
Yes, I imported it because it came out over a year before the European release!
Re: earth_nuke, 抜ける (nukeru) is used in reference to the removal of SD or memory cards and it can also mean to extract data. I think it's more likely this refers to "earth while the save has been extracted"
The e+ SD card and villager creation features are so cool! The ability to copy your town to an SD card makes me wonder if it is possible to transfer a town from a legitimate copy of the game to an emulated version, or vice versa.
that is already possible by extracting the virtual memory card save and inserting it into a real memory card with 'gcmm'
CUSTOM VILLAGERS?!?! Oooooh I need to make some of these for my friends! What a fun surprise that'll be!
Hot take: The e+ title screen has some neat ideas (the key change in the middle of the song for a moment is nice) but the added percussion seems to replace the secondary piano melody from the other versions, and I personally think it sounds more empty/incomplete that way.
Animal Crossing was built on the OoT engine, so I'd say that'd explain the dungeon sketch.
If I recall correctly, the Zelda 64 engine is actually a heavily modified Mario 64 engine that they say took about half of OoT's development cycle to make. Mitamoto said in an interview about it that he wanted to use that engine more, so that would explain wanting to use it for Animal Crossing.
@@Aasoko wasn't OOT ones based on Star Fox 64?
@@LaFu3000 I'm not sure. When I looked into it, I found this quote from Miyamoto. "We were using the Super Mario 64 engine for Zelda, but we had to make so many modifications to it that it's a different engine now. What we have now is a very good engine, and I think we can use it for future games if we can come up with a very good concept. It took three or so years to make Zelda, and about half the time was spent on making the engine. We definitely want to make use of this engine again." It's possible that they used a modified Mario 64 to do Star Fox and modified that for Zelda, but this is the info I found.
Fun fact: The Upgraded Japanese version HAS been translated into English, and you should deffo play it, if you plan on visiting the Internet Archive soon! ;)
Cannot BELIEVE there was a version without the sea bass. Which begs the question: what was that game iteration’s version of the sea bass???
The only ocean fish was the coelacanth with a 10% spawn chance while raining
Really glad to see the channel growing, and the Australia joke really got me
Love the video! iQue version looks really impressive for cramming thousands of chinese character into n64 cart tbh.
Also,
14:25
"nuke" part might mean 抜け殻(nukegara) which means empty shell.
Ah, I suppose that would make sense considering the town is frozen and converted to a "husk" of itself.
I also just wanted to write that comment! Nicely spotted c:
I'm happy to see the iQue version get some love, that was the best game on the iQue Player.
it's so cool to see how in depth the community goes to find new things after 2 decades!!
MAN I hope Prakxo figures out how to somehow merge the code from e+ into the USA release of Animal Crossing after both games are decompiled.
It'd be the ultimate version!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the public works projects in e+! I don’t know if it’s just common knowledge or not, but I was blown away finding out that you can do that long before New Leaf existed! I actually didn’t know that feature was a thing until I played the WIP e+ translation haha
is the translation finished?
It's odd, I don't play animal crossing often, usually just to mess around for a while, but I'm amazed by these videos. Thanks for making great videos hunter!
That villager creator is spurring my brain. I need to play around with that soon
14:09 what else has changed? Are villagers frozen? As well as fish, bugs, ect? What about the music?
Man, there's so much I wanna know about this hehe
9:39 Hey now, as a Canadian viewer of your channel, this game was my childhood. It continues to amaze me to this day.
You forgot a really big change in the US release! The first two Japanese releases didn't have villager catchphrases at all, they were an addition in the US release. Japan liked that and included it in e+.
Sadly this is just false. "Endings"/"Tail phrases"/"Catchphrases" were a staple feature present in the original game. Its plausible that some of them were updated when re-translation occurred to e+. However, they've been editable since Doubutsu no Mori on the N64!
@@CuylerFascinating. This was spread around a lot years ago, man you're debunking all the things!
@@Cuyler that definitely makes more sense, since "verbal tics" tend to be a more common trope in japanese stuff, nya.
The N64 game should be on Nintendo Switch Online! It's such a cool and obscure piece of Nintendo history! Nintendo is even marketing the expansion to Animal Crossing fans with the DLC of New Horizons being a part of it!
i discovered this channel 2 days ago and i've just finished watching every video. i want more
I'm so glad that there's still a community appreciating these old AC games. Thanks for the great content.
That custom villager feature was definitely ahead of its time, I'd love to see a native PC port with the e-reader model and mentions replaced with a period-correct desktop system or something lol
"and mentions replaced with a period-correct desktop system" What do you mean?
@@Most-sane-deltarune-fan mentions of the e-Reader device
@@Zippy_Zolton I see. I just think it'd be cool if, when Nintendo adds Animal Forest, Animal Forest+, Population Growing, and Animal Forest e+ to their gaming library on the Switch, the custom villager feature was kept. I'd have SO much fun making my OC bat villagers real.
@@Most-sane-deltarune-fan afaik there's no confirmation of Gamecube on NSO so they'd probably just do original on the Japanese N64 collection
also they don't add features to games, all they do is localise untranslated games (sometimes) and make sure netplay works
I’ve always loved learning about the iQue player, something about it is just so fascinating to me!
It was a welcome surprise to see iQue credited for the simplified Chinese localization of New Horizons…!
I think the person who ported to the iQue also detailed changes in the code he had to make, I swear I've seen something like that before, with the tone that they were frustrated
I've been wondering... could you compare the Japanese dialogue to the English dialogue? I'd like to see if the claim that the villagers were always nice in the Japanese version but were made rude by the various localization teams is true.
You really got me with the "Oh, and Canada is here". Didn't think I'd get a laugh this early in the day. Well done.
The RPG origin is probably why some villagers have some particularly out of place designs, when the rest of them look like ordinary people. Perhaps characters like Resetti were meant to be allies or enemies you fought.
But now he just gets pissed off at you for going to reset (New Horizons excepted).
The E+ stuff is fascinating! I'd never heard of some of this stuff, such as the "earth nuke" grass and the custom villagers
Custom villagers are insane, I never knew the GameCube version was this advanced. Also the sd card adapter is actually news to me. Great video Hunter!
Those grey palettes are creepy, but also really fitting for a game "frozen in time". Does this mean you could still access shops and events long after they've ended, as long as you don't get your file back?
You got sponsored? DUDE CONGRATS
it would be cool to have an english fan-localization of the e+ version tbh
There is one being worked on! It is not finished, but may be in the near future.
@@Kabosu_Doge that's so cool!!
@@11th.death.kause.of.tamari I also have a custom villager i made in there too, if you want it.
@@Kabosu_Doge What do they look like? What animal are they?
@@Most-sane-deltarune-fan oh its based off the flipnote frog, i named it hatena.
That one person working on the Chinese version needs a raise
Great video Hunter! Quick question-are you familiar with the Memory Card corruption message that would occur in the original US version of Animal Crossing? I remember seeing it as a kid and KK Slider ominously mentioning "The Man" teling you to format your memory card, and it always freaked me out, but I've never been able to replicate it or find it online. Thanks in advance!
Nothing better than a youtube channel that loves your favorite games more than you and can pass those sweet secrets in such entertaining ways. 👏
Thanks for mentioning the PAL version of GameCube version missing the eReader. Many other UA-camrs making the Animal Crossing region difference videos forget that.
There is NO way the Resetti Surveillance center actually existed all this time.
Back in (maybe 1st or 2nd grade?) i got AC New Leaf for my 3ds and a friend told me that you could rebuild that guys place and then visit it when it was night.
Obviously i tried that, saved all the bells to rebuild the surveillance center, placed down the manhole cover, stood in front of it, pressed A and nothing happened. I was so annoyed but my friend INSISTED that he saw that somewhere.
Seeing it now, after literally more than a DECADE was so crazy.
You can visit the surveillance center in the 3ds version, is just not always available
Also you can screenshot the game with L+R (from what i can remember)
@@KARLOSPCgame I knew about the screenshot thing, but how did i miss the surveillance center for 12 years? XD
Is Cuyler ever going to finish the translation of e+?
it’s really rare nowadays to find people who still talk about the original animal crossing, most of the topics i find online are from 15+ years ago. thank you!
I think the Australian version is literally just the US version with the region lockout changed to run on PAL consoles. I remember seeing the E-Reader machine there, despite the fact it was never released here and only Pokémon Channel got cards.
I was in utter dismay that this video was upside down!
Glad you fixed it at the end though!~
would you be able to do a video about how villagers work? such as friendship, best friends, what determines who leaves, who moves in, and how to get certain ones?
i cant find anything about it and im really curious! ❤
I had no idea about the official SD card adapter for GameCube or any of the related e+ features. I will definitely see if I can grab one! Thanks Hunter R
I love the building one where u make stuff for villagers. Wish they made a 2nd version
Babe please wake up new hunter R lore video just dropped
Too bad no one made a translation hack of the Japanese exclusive e+ version of Animal Forest, I'd love to play that. Being able to create your own custom villagers sounds amazing. Too bad you can't make your own custom furniture, I'd love to make a custom furniture based off the NES Classic Edition, it would be smaller than the actual NES in the game and you'd be able to load all the NES games that you have in your SD Card without the need to convert the ROMs into GCI files. This would be a little easier and faster way to see which NES games can run in AC's built-in emulator and which ones don't.
There is a partially translated one by Cuyler. The villagers sometimes randomly speak in Japanese but it's entirely playable, and any dialogue you need to actually play the game is translated.
@@Chubby_Bub Ah I see, better than nothing I suppose. I'd still want a full translation but that'd take years with how many lines of dialogue are in the game.
Stuff like this makes me PRAY a full decomp/pc port happens some day, as I feel it would encourage the modding scene for the game. But of course, we have to hope for a finished E+ localization, too.
You are killing it with these videos, you came out of nowhere and I'm absolutely hooked! Keep it up!
7:37 Love the Easter egg in the corner lol
I've got to say, your technical commentary videos on Animal Crossing are simply amazing! Your deep insights and thorough analysis add a whole new level of understanding to the game. I appreciate the effort you put into each video, and it's clear that you're passionate about sharing your knowledge with the community. Keep up the fantastic work! Looking forward to more enlightening content from you!
I didnt know you could make custom villagers in animal crossing E+!!
Insane!!
7:35 that's some serious dedication that i respect a lot.
I’m happy you changed your avatar, I thought it was really scary 😝
Quite interesting to know that existed an iQue version and boy, I feel so bad for the poor soul that had to port it, modify it, translate it and localize it but it's China after all...
Anyway it was quite neat to know the other versions, I have to admit that the Japanese e+ version sounds amazing, it would be nice if have a re-re-release translated version overseas on the Switch but with the free NES games that has the game on it, I doubt it.
Also despite that the European version was kind a watered down port of the American version, still it has one exclusive feature from all the other versions and is the "Multiple Languages" option, unlike the NTSC one the PAL version has the option to play the game in either on English, Spanish, French, German and Italian depending of what language the GCN is set up.
I'm pretty sure there was actually an interview with the person who translated it - and it was pretty much just one person who did the entire port, with its thousands of messages, I think...
An incredible amount of work, like so much of what iQue did, and massively underappreciated by Nintendo and its fans.
Im sick as a dog in bed, and all I wanted is another deeply analytical loook into animal crossing. So good. 🙏
loving all of your vids!!! just binged a ton of them a few days ago and i love your coverage into these old gems!! i played doubutsu no mori+ when i was a kid so its nice seeing you talk about those versions as well !
lets go new Hunter R. video! Also new pfp?? :o
I think you forgot to talk about public projects that you can add to your town
Animal crossing is older than all of the beluga community.
the little gigachad next to xiake's name gave me a lil chuckle
3:00
WHAT.
There is a timeline where AC was a partial dungeon-crawler
I'm glad you like Cleffernote's music as well :D
I was gonna perform cpr on someone that collapsed on the street but then i realised you uploaded
🤔
Before I found your channel, I thought I’d already heard every weird, niche animal crossing fact. I have been a fan of animal crossing before I could even read, it’s cool that there is still aspects of these games I haven’t heard of before
Pretty sure the shirt design with a big red X is the logo of the band X Japan ! That's really cool
E+ is really the best experience of the first game, it sucks the translation project for it seems to have died 😔
"I've been playing the original Animal Crossing lately"
"Which one?"
canadian viewer, can confirm we are Also Here (tm)
this is super cool though......... particularly interested in custom villagers and the frozen town state. and the ique honestly looks rad as hell....... it's a shame they essentially got a port of the prototypical version of the game, though :( still a cool little console!!
this is probably my favourite video of yours so far ❤ great work as always 👍
I didn't realize there was no e-reader in the Europe version! Also I can confirm, the Australian version is definitely 100% like that in the video :)
wow had no idea about the leftover soldiers and oba! super cool
Dude! I have been waiting for a video like this! I don't know if I made a comment suggesting this, but I definitely did think about this!
I remember reading forum posts as a kid about how it was possible to enter Nook's Cranny at night and Resetti's hideout. Most people, including me, didn't believe it. The fact it was only possible in *one* of the Japanese versions probably added to the confusion.
Loved the video!
Man, I need a shirt that says "I ❤64" now.
I love all your content. I always get so excited for new uploads
The BIGGEST surprise to me in this entire video are that DnM had designs for Rei's plugsuit and something referencing Sachiel. Now I wanna start up a new file of ACNH to make Tokyo-3. I mean it kinda makes sense due to how insanely popular and influential NGE is in Japan, so it shouldn't be surprising that one of the developers probably used those designs for testing, which is pretty neat.
The custom villagers thing is insanely cool, holy moly.
Really cool seeing like alternate-reality versions of a game I played so much when I was younger lol. Great video!
the power of the custom ereader cards combined with nook codes sounds like the base of ace
FINALLY AN ANIMAL CROSSING VILLAGER CREATOR
WE NEED THIS IN NEW HORIZONS
That grayscale town was such a missed opportunity for a great creepy pasta back in the day!