Yume Nikki:Translation Differences

There exist some minor differences between the historic Uboachan fan translation and the current official translation in the English Steam version.

Effects

Effect names in the Steam version are generally more accurate to the original meaning. Uboachan's translations are sometimes given slightly different names, such as "kitchen knife" being translated to simply "Knife", and "blonde" translated to "Blonde hair" to be more consistent with the other two hair effects. Uboachan also failed to translate the "eyeball arm" and "squishy/flabby" effects, instead using romaji.

Of the three effects originally named after yōkai, the Uboachan translation retains the Japanese terms for the Yuki-onna and Noppera-bō, but translates oni to an English equivalent, "Demon". The Steam version does the opposite: Yuki-onna and Noppera-bō are translated to "Snow Woman" and "Faceless Ghost" respectively, but oni is retained.

Another difference is that Uboachan's translation only capitalizes the first word of effect names, unlike the Steam version which uses title case.

Effect names

Original	Literal meaning	Uboachan	Steam
かえる	frog	Frog	Frog
かさ	umbrella	Umbrella	Umbrella
ぼうしとマフラー	hat and muffler	Hat and scarf	Hat & Scarf
ゆきおんな	Yuki-onna	Yuki-onna	Snow Woman
ほうちょう	kitchen knife	Knife	Kitchen Knife
めだまうで	medama, eyeball + ude, arm	Medamaude	Eye Palm
ふとる	肥る, get fat	Fat	Fatten
こびと	小人, little person	Midget	Midget
ふえ	flute	Flute	Flute
ネオン	neon	Neon	Neon
のっぺらぼう	Noppera-bō	Nopperabou	Faceless Ghost
なまくび	生首, severed head	Severed head	Severed Head
タオル	towel	Towel	Towel
ねこ	cat	Cat	Cat
でんとう	電灯, general term meaning electric light	Lamp	Lamp
じてんしゃ	自転車, bicycle	Bicycle	Bicycle
ロングヘアー	long hair	Long hair	Long Hair
ウンコヘアー	poop hair	Poop hair	Poo Hair
ブロンド	blonde	Blonde hair	Blonde
△ずきん	triangle hood	Triangle kerchief	Spirit Headband
まじょ	魔女, witch	Witch	Witch
おに	oni	Demon	Oni
ぶよぶよ	squishy/flabby	Buyo buyo	Squish-Squish
しんごう	信号, traffic light/signal	Stoplight	Traffic Light
ゲームのせつめい	game explanation	Instructions	Tutorial

Effect descriptions also have minor differences in translation. The Uboachan translation reliably uses the word "become", while the Steam translation took some creative liberties and has a unique translation for most effects. One notable description is Uboachan's Poop hair effect, which is not a translation of the original, but instead a joke made by the translator. The Uboachan translation also omits the period at the end of each description.

Effect descriptions

Original	Uboachan	Steam
「かえる」にへんしんする。	Become a frog	Transform into a frog.
「かさ」をさす。	Open an umbrella	Use an umbrella.
「ぼうしとマフラー」をつける。	Wear a hat and scarf	Don a hat & scarf.
「ゆきおんな」になる。	Become the snow woman	Morph into a Snow Woman.
「ほうちょう」をもつ。	Wield a kitchen knife	Equip a kitchen knife.
「めだまうで」になる。	Become Medamaude	Warp into an Eye Palm.
ふとる。	Get fat	Balloon in size.
ちいさくなる。	Become small	Shrink in size.
「ふえ」をもつ。	Play a flute	Brandish a flute.
「ネオン」にひかる。	Become a neon light	Glow like a neon sign.
「のっぺらぼう」になる。	Become the faceless ghost	Materialize as a faceless ghost.
「なまくび」になる。	Become a severed head	Be reduced to a severed head.
「タオル」をかぶる。	Wrap up in a towel	Wrap yourself in a towel.
「ねこ」のみみとしっぽがつく。	Grow ears and a tail	Sprout cat-ears and a tail.
「でんとう」になる。	Become a lamp	Change into a lamp.
「じてんしゃ」にのる。	Ride a bicycle	Mount a bicycle.
「ロングヘアー」になる。	Grow long hair	Grow long hair.
「ウンコヘアー」になる。	I certainly hope it's hair	Grow poo hair.
きんいろのロングヘアーになる。	Grow long, golden hair	Glow long blonde hair.
「△ずきん」をつける。	Wear triangle kerchief	Put on a Spirit Headband.
「まじょ」になる。	Become a witch	Become a witch incarnate.
「おに」になる。	Become a demon	Reconstitute as an oni.
からだが「ぶよぶよ」になる。	Body becomes soft and squishy	Change into a squishy blob.
「しんごうき」になる。	Become a stoplight	Change into a traffic light.

Other Text

There exist changes to other text in the game, such as changing the menu theme in the Mall.

A notable change is that the Uboachan translation modified the chair riding event in Madotsuki's Dream Room to completely remove the message that usually appears.

History

When the English Steam release of Yume Nikki first came out, the translation used different names for the Fat, Flute, Severed Head, and Demon effects as well as the Instructions, respectively dubbing them "Get Fat", "Whistle", "Talking Head", "Devil", and "Game Info". This was changed 12 days after the original release; the update additionally touched up the descriptions for many effects, including those that were not renamed, ranging from minor grammatical fixes to changing the tone of the text.

Unique Issues

Besides the glitches and minor issues still present in the original game, there are numerous exclusive issues in the two commonly used translations of the game.

Uboachan Issues

• On older copies of the translation, or on any copy of the game installed using the installer as opposed to the portable folder, it is possible for the game to crash trying to access any of the FC worlds with all twenty-four effects, due to a misnamed file. To fix this, rename FCM2ALL.xyz in the folder "Picture" to FCM２ALL.xyz (with the superscript ２ character), or redownload the game.
• The "Working... please wait..." picture that appears when starting the game and during saving does not have its transparent colour set correctly, causing it to have a black background visible each time it appears.
• Collecting the Severed Head effect from the Guillotine in the large version of Guillotine World shows mojibake as the string was not translated. The normal version of Guillotine World does not share this issue.
• Interacting with the menu change Toriningen in the Mall while the Stoplight is red shows an incorrect string with leading spaces removed. This causes the text to be anchored to the left of the screen instead of inside the text box.
• Common event 218, responsible for the sound of the flowers in the Crossover Garden, has its sound file name changed to "flower". As this file does not exist, no sound plays when interacting with the flowers. More strangely, the louder "pawn" sounds of the Spaceship music use the same sound, and are also handled by a common event, but the file name was unchanged, so the sound plays normally.
• The Picture folder has three unused duplicates of the Famicom Glitch event, each labelled with "FCH" instead of the original "FC？".
• There is a duplicate of the spotlight picture used when saving and opening Nexus doors, named "spot". This file is used instead of the original. It is the only renamed file in the translation that is used.

Steam Issues

• Interacting with the menu change Toriningen in the Mall while the Stoplight is red shows an incorrect string that is untranslated. This causes the text to render as mojibake on most systems.
• Some effect names appear using their older names in the FC World menu and when picking up dropped effect eggs in the Nexus.
  • The Tutorial is named "Game Explanation" in the FC World menu.
  • The Fatten effect is named "Get Fat" in the FC World menu, and "Get fat" when picking up the effect egg in the Nexus.
  • The Midget effect is named "Miget" in the completed version of the FC World menu.
  • The Flute effect is named "Whistle" in the completed version of the FC World menu and when picking up the effect egg in the Nexus.
  • The Severed Head effect is named "Talking Head" in the completed version of the FC World menu and when picking up the effect egg in the Nexus.
  • The Oni effect is named "Devil" in the completed version of the FC World menu and when picking up the effect egg in the Nexus.
• The Spaceship's main room and room with the bed are both set to play the Mars BGM quietly after the Spaceship Crash event is over. However, this version tries to use a BGM file named 0020 while the actual Mars BGM is 0313. Due to the file not existing, no music plays.
• Sleeping in the bed in the Spaceship does not dim the screen, even if the crash event is activated. In addition, the siren does not dim the screen, and the crashing event has no fade in or out. These are all due to the purely black picture used in such events having its transparent color incorrectly set to black. This issue may have occurred when converting the names of the files. Although the same picture is used in other dimming events, such as opening the family game menu, these do not have any issue as none of the other events have the "Use Transparent Color" option on. Only the Spaceship events are set to use the transparent color, even in the original game where it makes no difference.
  • Interestingly, the CharSet file with the Fisherman correctly displays the character's black color despite that color also being used as the transparency. This is functional due to the two identical black colors being in separate color indices. The fact this remains working calls into question whether the Spaceship issue is really a conversion issue or not.
• Sounds in move events have many different issues, such as incorrect settings, referring to the wrong file name, or being deleted entirely. This includes:
  • The Umbrella effect making no sound when facing left in FC Worlds.
  • The Eye Palm effect has its speed and volume both set to 100% instead of 70% and 60%.
  • The Cat effect has its volume set to 100% instead of 20%.
  • The liquid sound Tokuto-kun makes when tipped over has the original Japanese file name, which causes no sound to play.
• There are two candles in Candle World that turn into flashing lights when stabbed. This is because their move events are the only two that use index 0 of the CharSet with the unlit candles instead of the proper index 3.
• At some point, the files "000000000005" and "000000000006" were renamed to "BBBBBBBBBBB1" and "BBBBBBBBBBB2" respectively. This causes issues in FC World:
  • The cursor sound of the FC World menu uses common event 193, which plays a file named "000000000005" at 50% volume. Since this file name does not exist, no sound plays.
  • The FC Pirori use file names "000000000006" then "000000000005". Since these files do not exist, no sound plays.
  • The Lizardmen use common event 202 for each number displayed, which plays a file named "BBBBBBBBBBB2" at 40% volume and 80% speed. This is the correct name of the file, so the sound plays.