Could you really fit a big storyline in a 16-bit cartridge?

[RedSwirl]

A while back I played through Breath of Fire 1 and 2, which are notorious for their bad English translations.

The thing is, those are I think the first RPGs I've played through pretty much in their original SNES forms. All the other ones I've played any significant amount of, were in the form of later ports that had been retranslated (I don't know if Chrono Trigger was retranslated between SNES, PS1, and DS). A lot of games from the 16-bit era had less-than-stellar English localizations, and part of it was from the fact that writing in Latin letters takes up more data than the same writing in Japanese kana, so translating a game from Japanese to English and fitting it back onto the same ~4MB cartridge required compromises. I think another limitation was that localizers often couldn't change text size or scroll text where the Japanese version didn't need to.

Now I'm wondering if there were any great English translations on that generation of consoles. I remember Super Mario RPG's writing being pretty good.

You've also got unofficial translation and retranslation patches that, as far as I know, fit perfectly fine on the original cartridges. I'm guessing those hacks got over the text box and size problems.

 

[ispendtoomuchmoneyongames]

Earthbound's localization is excellent

 

[balohna]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Earthbound has a smaller word count than some other RPGs from the era, but the localization is really good. It seems like the system they had for displaying text was pretty versatile. Lots of scrolling, alternate text sizes, alternate fonts, effects, etc. The original Japanese content has a lot of character to it, and the English translation is full of jokes and references and puns that work super well for an English speaking audience.

The writing is a big reason the game has endured and frequently comes up on lists of GOAT JPRGs despite being a flop at the time.

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

Sure?

Pokémon RBY were Gameboy games and they had a ton of text. I don't think bit/cartridge size is an excuse for poor planning. If there was even a chance of a game being localised, the game designers should have planned to take that in to account from the word go. They didn't have much excuse by the time of the SNES.

 

[werezompire]

Earthbound has a great localization. I remember Phantasy Star IV's localization being good. Lunar: Eternal Blue also has a good localization, although that's a CD-based 16-bit game so it doesn't have the same size restrictions.

 

[show me your skeleton]

Sure?

Pokémon RBY were Gameboy games and they had a ton of text. I don't think bit/cartridge size is an excuse for poor planning. If there was even a chance of a game being localised, the game designers should have planned to take that in to account from the word go. They didn't have much excuse by the time of the SNES.

Click to shrink...

that's not really how stuff worked then.

 

[ManNR]

Word count does not equal big storyline so maybe clarify which you are asking about in the OP.

If you are talking about word count then old text based adventures contained a "bigger" storyline than most anything else.
If you are talking about grand storytelling then text count is only a part of that.

FFVI had an expansive story both in scope and text count.

When it was being promoted a selling point was that the ending was the longest to date. 24 minute cutscene and 33 minutes including credits. That was huge back then.

 

[tiesto]

I guess you're talking about localizations... but there were certainly lots of text adventures/VNs on the Super Famicom in Japan, the most famous being Kamaitachi no Yoru/Banshee's Last Cry (which later got an English translation for mobile).

 

[Kazooie]

You could put a lot of text onto a typical snes cartridge, so yes, in principle it would be possible, but often the extra space required for longer texts was not taken into account with the design of the game in Japan.

 

[mute]

You are going to need a lot more than 16 bits....that's like 2 characters.

 

[Hieroph]

There are a lot of ways you can fit more text into a 16-bit game. But that usually requires extra programming so it's easier to add in text when you've got ports with more storage.

You are going to need a lot more than 16 bits....that's like 2 characters.

Click to shrink...

But then this is also true.

 

[exodus]

This is a great podcast to listen to on the subject. It's an interview with Ted Woolsey where he goes over the challenges of localizing FF VI.

Episode 16 (02/12/07) – Lost In Translation

There's no more controversial figure in console role-playing game fandom than Ted Woolsey. During the '90s he worked at Squaresoft and was responsible for the English translations of games like Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger. His work is either loved or totally reviled by fans on the...

www.playeronepodcast.com

 

[ghibli99]

Can't really comment on the quality of a lot of those older RPG's actual writing since it's been decades, but I will say that their stories were a lot more *impactful* on me than a lot of later RPGs that had bloated stories, regardless of translation quality. I appreciated the general succinctness of 16-bit era RPGs. Could also be that I was more impressionable back then and didn't have a lot to compare them to.