Japanese HeroQuest: Quest Translation

[Bob-Bob]

Final Chapter: The Showdown

Quest 14: The Final Battle
The heroes have returned to Dread Castle. It is time for the final battle. Failure will not be permitted. Defeat the Evil God, put an end to Grimdead, and bring peace back to the world.

[Quest Rules]
The heroes take turns in the order of Wizard, Dwarf, Elf, Warrior.
In this quest, the Wizard uses all the magic, and the Elf cannot use magic.
A -- The grave is already empty.
B -- When this door is opened, the Demon King should say the following:
“The Evil God has recovered the powers of darkness and is a tough opponent. You must attack and deal 2 damage or more with each of the weapons in the order: the weapon of fire, the Flame Axe; the weapon of ice, the Freeze Bow; then the weapon of silver, the Silver Blade. If any attack fails, the Evil God will not be defeated. The Evil God heals all damage on its turn.”
The Evil God’s abilities are as follows:
[Movement: 8 squares, Attack: 4 Combat Dice, Defense: 4 Combat Dice, BP: Unknown, MP: Unknown, the Evil God can attack twice on each turn. Magic does not affect it.]
C -- If a hero conducts a Treasure Search in this room, a small key is found in the corner of the room. This is the key to the central room.
D -- This door can only be opened by the hero holding the key. When this door is opened, the quest is over. The Demon King should remove all monsters from the game board, and say the following:
“A bloodcurdling voice rings out in the empty room. 'Heroes… How dare you ruin my plans… I admit defeat, for now… But as long as the yearning for darkness exists deep in human hearts, the powers of darkness can never be destroyed… Someday, this world will surely come to be ruled by darkness… Without fail…'”
([End Of Quest] is on page 30)

---

[End Of Quest]
The heroes have finally driven away the powers of darkness.
As they leave the castle, they see the morning sun has begun to rise in the sky to the East. The frozen sea has also begun to melt.
Now that the Evil God has been defeated, and the Dark Demon King Grimdead has vanished, this castle will no longer be known as Dread Castle.
From today on, it will become a symbol of justice.
So that the powers of darkness will never come back, the heroes decided to name the castle Peace Castle.

Everyone praised the heroes’ bravery, and built statues of them back on Neef Island.
The story of the four heroes will be passed down, and is certain to become a legend upon Neef Island.

Since that day, nobody has ever seen Grimdead again.
Yet he was a man who controlled so much dark power. Perhaps he is proceeding with a new plan for world domination somewhere else.
But no matter what powers of darkness attempt to take over the world, without fail, new heroes will appear to save the world. Just like the heroes in a certain legend…...

END

[knightkrawler]

You guys are fast. Awesome! Thanks again.

[Bob-Bob]

Fast?

We started this three weeks ago. He spent several days translating and I spent several days proofreading and formatting. I just waited until the whole thing was done before I posted it here. Sadly I may have to wait a while before he can translate the cards, though.

[TMU]

Fast?

We started this three weeks ago.

That is fast on this forum.

[Fullork345]

Any chance the quest maps can be posted or are they the same as the UK ones?

[ruiza97]

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1610

[Daedalus]

Any chance the quest maps can be posted or are they the same as the UK ones?

They are definitely not the UK maps, as the Quests are original. knightkrawler had posted this link from Old Scratch:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B47Van3P5U9YUnA5YkQ3QnJLbVU/edit?pli=1

[HispaZargon]

Hi everybody,

After finishing my translated versions of the Rulebook and the Screen of the Japanese Edition of HeroQuest (see this post and this post), I will continue my translation project with the Japanese Edition's Quest Book. Here you have the copy of the original Japanese one I found somewhere here in the Inn which I have taken as master version:

HQ_Japanese_Questbook_1991_[JAP]_[RAW-VERSION]_LR.pdf

I see there are in the Inn several available translations of the Japanese Edition's quests, like the great ones performed by AerynB and Bob-Bob in previous posts, the translation to German language by JackieX & fenrir79, and I also see that already exists an adaptation of the quest book to the North American and European styles, including some original changes, which campaign was titled by the Community as "Rise of the Chaos God". Those translation works are excellent but no one of them was edited nor written in the same style as the original Japanese Edition's Quest Book so, that's the main reason I will try to do it, as more accurate as posible, and share with you my progress, in line with the already translated rules of play and screen, and trying to use all the available information in the Inn up to now.

I have started this new task by translating the covers of the Quest Book. As you probably know, the original Japanese covers art of the Quest Book was based in the artwork of the EU rulebooks' covers but including a Japanese text in the front cover, as you can see here:

HQ_Japanese_Questbook_covers.jpg

I have not found any translation to English of such text so, since I am not a Japanese speaker, I had to extract as better as posible those Japanese characters and try to translate them with the help of Google Translator. As you can imagine, due to the original Japanese text was written over a picture, the text extraction was not easy, but here are my translation conclusions:

Original Japanese text:

クエストブック
- 警告 -
このクエストブックは魔王になったりのだけが読みことのでキる書物である。
魔王以外の者は次してこの書物を開いてはいけない。

Google Translator results:

Quest Book
- WARNING -
This quest book is a book that can only be read by becoming a demon king.
No one other than the Demon King should open this book next time.

My best guess translation:

Quest Book
- WARNING -
This quest book can only be read by the Demon King.
No one other than the Demon King should open this book.


In the other hand, the content of the Takara company label at the back cover is the same as in the rulebook so I could take the one I already translated to English for the Rules of Play.

For the artwork, I decided to made it by adapting the UK 1990 rulebook's cover instead of the Japanese one since it would be easier to use a EU one due to the Japanese had too many text characters to be erased in the front cover and in case of the UK cover, only the deletion of words "Rules of Play" was needed so the final result would be much better.

Then, according to all herein above and "my best guess translation" of the front cover text, I am glad to share with you the first draft I have done of the translated covers:

Edited message: Content of the following attached picture has an updated version in this post.

HQ_Japanese_Questbook_covers_in_English_DRAFT.jpg

I will continue with the rest of the Quest Book during the next weeks.

Of course, comments are welcome.

[Kurgan]

I look forward to this. It sounds like it will be a worthwhile literal, but readable variant in the long saga of Japanese HeroQuest through Western eyes. Good luck!

[Daedalus]

My best guess translation:

Quest Book
- WARNING -
This quest book can only be read by the Demon King.
No one other than the Demon King should open this book.

Again, nice work translating over a picture--looks really tough. To keep with the UK 2nd ed. format, I'd suggest this change: "This quest book can only be read by the Demon King.. . . " > This Quest Book can only be read by the Demon King.. . .