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Danthrax
Established Member
She's actually saying "self-bricking mechanisms." The idea is that the enemy ships are still intact, they've just been damaged so badly that there's not much to learn from them. They're not completely destroyed. Sorry for it not being clear (ironically, right after Ardiloso's comment about Renee's words being crystal clear, heh).
Nothing about this localization is intended to be Engrish-like at all, I assure you.
This was a tricky bit, but just to add a bit of context to Dan's reply, the idea is specifically that the ship computers seem to be dead or somehow locked out upon examination--distinct from a "self-destruct" mechanism, which sounds like something that makes the ship blow up. No spoilers, but this specific concept comes up at a key plot point later. I...hope this isn't a widespread mishearing, but I appreciate the feedback!
Danthrax
Established Member
As you may have noticed, our team made a public release over the weekend — we entered a patch for the Stellar Assault SS demo disc into the SegaXtreme Saturn game competition! Check it out by downloading the attached file in this post.
The Stellar Assault SS demo disc was released in late 1997 a few months before the final game. It didn't have any voice acting ... so Shadowmask added some! He replaced the voiceless intro CGI with the voiced one we made for the final game patch. The demo's music was much louder than the final release, too — so loud it drowned out our English narration — so Shadowmask recreated the music and added it to the intro along with the voice work. You can read more details about this demo disc patch and the work Shadowmask put into it at our submission post.
Shadowmask also added a variety of English voice clips to the other CGI cutscene in the demo just to give a taste of what we've got coming later this year. You can access that video from the "English demo" option in the menu. (Shadowmask edited this screen to say "English promo" instead of "opening movie" too!)
The only Japanese found on the demo disc is on a screen that appears after a gameplay demo that runs if the player does nothing at the title screen. I changed it a bit from its original message about the game releasing Feb. 26, 1998, for 5,800 yen.
You can apply the patch using Knight0fDragon's Sega Saturn Patcher utility. Apply it to a copy of the Stellar Assault SS demo, also called Stellar Assault SS Taikenban. (You'll have to come up with that on your own.)
You can read more details about this demo disc patch and the work Shadowmask put into it at our submission post.
And I gave some more details about how I changed that screen's graphics at my post here.
As for our work on the main game, things were a bit slow over the holidays. But since our last public update three weeks ago, Lacquerware recorded lines through mission five for Brenda with Diana Allocco and finished the remaining lines for Aya with Renee Martin.
Shadowmask also finished adding full English voiceovers to the first five missions, and we debuted that work on the Shiro Show a couple weeks ago. You can check that out here:
And just yesterday, I figured out how to change the comments that accompany save files in the Saturn's memory manager. Stellar Assault SS normally writes "stellar data" in Japanese, so I changed that to English. (Older save files will still be compatible with our patch, though!) It's a small thing, but it's localization nonetheless.
The Stellar Assault SS demo disc was released in late 1997 a few months before the final game. It didn't have any voice acting ... so Shadowmask added some! He replaced the voiceless intro CGI with the voiced one we made for the final game patch. The demo's music was much louder than the final release, too — so loud it drowned out our English narration — so Shadowmask recreated the music and added it to the intro along with the voice work. You can read more details about this demo disc patch and the work Shadowmask put into it at our submission post.
Shadowmask also added a variety of English voice clips to the other CGI cutscene in the demo just to give a taste of what we've got coming later this year. You can access that video from the "English demo" option in the menu. (Shadowmask edited this screen to say "English promo" instead of "opening movie" too!)
The only Japanese found on the demo disc is on a screen that appears after a gameplay demo that runs if the player does nothing at the title screen. I changed it a bit from its original message about the game releasing Feb. 26, 1998, for 5,800 yen.
You can apply the patch using Knight0fDragon's Sega Saturn Patcher utility. Apply it to a copy of the Stellar Assault SS demo, also called Stellar Assault SS Taikenban. (You'll have to come up with that on your own.)
You can read more details about this demo disc patch and the work Shadowmask put into it at our submission post.
And I gave some more details about how I changed that screen's graphics at my post here.
As for our work on the main game, things were a bit slow over the holidays. But since our last public update three weeks ago, Lacquerware recorded lines through mission five for Brenda with Diana Allocco and finished the remaining lines for Aya with Renee Martin.
Shadowmask also finished adding full English voiceovers to the first five missions, and we debuted that work on the Shiro Show a couple weeks ago. You can check that out here:
And just yesterday, I figured out how to change the comments that accompany save files in the Saturn's memory manager. Stellar Assault SS normally writes "stellar data" in Japanese, so I changed that to English. (Older save files will still be compatible with our patch, though!) It's a small thing, but it's localization nonetheless.
Danthrax
Established Member
Hi everyone, just checking in with a quick progress update. We're making steady progress toward our next public demo of missions 6 through 10 in English.
In the last few weeks, we've recorded missions 14 through 16 for Edgar with Dan Bosley, all of the Umbrella pilot's lines with Rowin Dincht and missions six and eight for Brenda with Diana Allocco. We've now recorded more than 80% of all the lines in the game!
And this week, Lacquerware chose which lines we're going with for missions 6 through 8 and delivered audio file timelines to Shadowmask, who is now working on mastering all those audio files and converting them to a format the Saturn likes. Lacquerware expects to finish choosing lines for missions 9 and 10 soon.
Lastly, I tried to figure out how to edit the loading screen to say "United Nations Space Force" to match up with our localization. But it's harder to get data and color palettes with Yaba Sanshiro — it either crashes when I try to bring up a debugger window or it seems to have already loaded the next screen's palette into memory — so I haven't cracked this nut yet.
It's not the most important thing in the world, but it would be nice to have.
In the last few weeks, we've recorded missions 14 through 16 for Edgar with Dan Bosley, all of the Umbrella pilot's lines with Rowin Dincht and missions six and eight for Brenda with Diana Allocco. We've now recorded more than 80% of all the lines in the game!
And this week, Lacquerware chose which lines we're going with for missions 6 through 8 and delivered audio file timelines to Shadowmask, who is now working on mastering all those audio files and converting them to a format the Saturn likes. Lacquerware expects to finish choosing lines for missions 9 and 10 soon.
Lastly, I tried to figure out how to edit the loading screen to say "United Nations Space Force" to match up with our localization. But it's harder to get data and color palettes with Yaba Sanshiro — it either crashes when I try to bring up a debugger window or it seems to have already loaded the next screen's palette into memory — so I haven't cracked this nut yet.
It's not the most important thing in the world, but it would be nice to have.
Yeah, I heard it as "breaking" and also assumed it was just a clumsily-worded way of referring to a self-destruct mechanism. In fact, I actually came here to point it out but saw Alex had already done so.
Danthrax
Established Member
Ready for another taste of the Stellar Assault SS fan localization? Watch the Shiro Show live today at 6 p.m. EST (2300 GMT) when Pat will stream missions six through 10 — newly dubbed into English! The show will be at https://www.youtube.com/@SEGASATURNSHIRO and, after about an hour of discussing this week's Saturn news, Pat will play a new patch showing off the new dubs we've completed. Some of the team and the voice actors will be there, so we hope you'll check it out!
As for what we've been up to in the last couple weeks, Lacquerware recorded the final mission's Edgar dialogue with Dan Bosley. The team also recorded missions 10 through 14 as well as some retakes for Jake with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht. We've only got missions 14 through 17 for Jake and missions 12 through 17 for Brenda and we'll be completely finished dubbing the game!
Lacquerware also chose lines for missions nine and 10 and sorted them into a timeline to deliver to Shadowmask. Then Shadowmask mastered and formatted all the English dialogue for missions six through 10, making all our new voice work sound awesome in-game.
We wanted to localize the loading screens to match our script, and NoahSteam helped me out big time. I edited the first screen to say "U.N. SPACE FORCE" instead of "SYNTHESIS SPACE FORCE" and I edited each fighter-specific screen to say "UNSF" instead of "SSF". Then NoahSteam used a tool he made to convert the edited loading screens back into a format the game can use. Big thanks to him for his help! We couldn't have done this without him.
As for what we've been up to in the last couple weeks, Lacquerware recorded the final mission's Edgar dialogue with Dan Bosley. The team also recorded missions 10 through 14 as well as some retakes for Jake with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht. We've only got missions 14 through 17 for Jake and missions 12 through 17 for Brenda and we'll be completely finished dubbing the game!
Lacquerware also chose lines for missions nine and 10 and sorted them into a timeline to deliver to Shadowmask. Then Shadowmask mastered and formatted all the English dialogue for missions six through 10, making all our new voice work sound awesome in-game.
We wanted to localize the loading screens to match our script, and NoahSteam helped me out big time. I edited the first screen to say "U.N. SPACE FORCE" instead of "SYNTHESIS SPACE FORCE" and I edited each fighter-specific screen to say "UNSF" instead of "SSF". Then NoahSteam used a tool he made to convert the edited loading screens back into a format the game can use. Big thanks to him for his help! We couldn't have done this without him.
Last edited:
Danthrax
Established Member
I'd like to update everyone on our progress with the patch, but first, I'll point out that Stellar Assault SS released in Japan 25 years ago as of last week on Feb. 26. We hope to do the game proud in its 25th anniversary year! I apologize for not pointing out Stellar Assault's anniversary at the time — I had personal life stuff happening that week. The whole team had a difficult February, really, but we're still making progress.
Lacquerware chose lines for the remaining FMV mission briefings (11 through 15 and 17) as well as the in-mission dialogue for missions 11 through 13 and sorted them into timelines. Shadowmask is now working to master all of that audio and format it for the Saturn — he's already finished with the audio in mission briefings 11 through 14.
Lacquerware also recorded Jake's dialogue in missions 15 and 16 with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht. All that's left is Jake's dialogue in the final mission and Brenda's lines in a handful missions and we'll be done recording!
We brainstormed some different nomenclature for the Trace menu options, too, and I inserted them into the game's TITLE file. The original language used is a bit difficult for native English speakers to understand what each option actually does, so hopefully these new descriptors will be more clear. The original screens are on the left, the new ones are on the right:
We'll have to leave the overall menu named "Trace" though, as there isn't any extra room inside the code for another letter to make it "Record" or "Replay."
Lastly, I'll mention that a person who frequents Lacquerware's Twitch streams named Silos is helping investigate the code to add Mission Stick functionality. Let's all cross our fingers that he's able to figure it out — it would be a great feature to add to a space sim like Stellar Assault SS.
Lacquerware chose lines for the remaining FMV mission briefings (11 through 15 and 17) as well as the in-mission dialogue for missions 11 through 13 and sorted them into timelines. Shadowmask is now working to master all of that audio and format it for the Saturn — he's already finished with the audio in mission briefings 11 through 14.
Lacquerware also recorded Jake's dialogue in missions 15 and 16 with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht. All that's left is Jake's dialogue in the final mission and Brenda's lines in a handful missions and we'll be done recording!
We brainstormed some different nomenclature for the Trace menu options, too, and I inserted them into the game's TITLE file. The original language used is a bit difficult for native English speakers to understand what each option actually does, so hopefully these new descriptors will be more clear. The original screens are on the left, the new ones are on the right:
We'll have to leave the overall menu named "Trace" though, as there isn't any extra room inside the code for another letter to make it "Record" or "Replay."
Lastly, I'll mention that a person who frequents Lacquerware's Twitch streams named Silos is helping investigate the code to add Mission Stick functionality. Let's all cross our fingers that he's able to figure it out — it would be a great feature to add to a space sim like Stellar Assault SS.
Danthrax
Established Member
We're in the home stretch on Stellar Assault SS and we've made a ton of progress in the last three weeks. One big piece of news: Silos tracked down the bits of code that govern which controllers can be used in the game and changed them to allow players to use the Mission Stick! Check out a video our project lead, Lacquerware, took of himself trying it out:
Silos also froze the continues counter, so players essentially have unlimited continues. We opted for this sole gameplay tweak after much deliberation, and we hope it will allow more players to experience the game in full without impacting the fundamental challenge.
Meanwhile, Lacquerware recorded Jake's dialogue in the final mission with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht as well as Brenda's dialogue in the final several missions with Diana Allocco. That means we've recorded 100% of the game's lines!
Lacquerware also chose the takes for all the dialogue in missions 14 through 17 and sorted them into timelines for our audio engineer, Shadowmask. Shadowmask in turn has finished mastering the audio in mission 15 and 17's FMV briefings. He also mastered the in-mission dialogue for missions 11 through 14. Check out a stream of him working on mission 14 here:
I began paginating an English U.S.-style manual that will be included with the patch file. I'm about halfway finished with it. Here's a sneak peak of a page I laid out and the corresponding page in the original Japanese manual (sorry about the scan of the original manual being a bit rough):
Lastly, I adjusted the wording of the controls menu to be clearer for an English-speaking audience. I also removed the hyphens to make it easier to read. Here's a comparison between the screen now (on the right) and how it looks in the original game:
We still have a little more work to do as well as playtesting before releasing the patch, but it won't be long now. Get ready to play the Saturn's best space combat shooter, Stellar Assault SS, in English soon!
Silos also froze the continues counter, so players essentially have unlimited continues. We opted for this sole gameplay tweak after much deliberation, and we hope it will allow more players to experience the game in full without impacting the fundamental challenge.
Meanwhile, Lacquerware recorded Jake's dialogue in the final mission with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht as well as Brenda's dialogue in the final several missions with Diana Allocco. That means we've recorded 100% of the game's lines!
Lacquerware also chose the takes for all the dialogue in missions 14 through 17 and sorted them into timelines for our audio engineer, Shadowmask. Shadowmask in turn has finished mastering the audio in mission 15 and 17's FMV briefings. He also mastered the in-mission dialogue for missions 11 through 14. Check out a stream of him working on mission 14 here:
I began paginating an English U.S.-style manual that will be included with the patch file. I'm about halfway finished with it. Here's a sneak peak of a page I laid out and the corresponding page in the original Japanese manual (sorry about the scan of the original manual being a bit rough):
Lastly, I adjusted the wording of the controls menu to be clearer for an English-speaking audience. I also removed the hyphens to make it easier to read. Here's a comparison between the screen now (on the right) and how it looks in the original game:
We still have a little more work to do as well as playtesting before releasing the patch, but it won't be long now. Get ready to play the Saturn's best space combat shooter, Stellar Assault SS, in English soon!
The Mission Stick support is a beautiful cherry on top!
Thanks a lot for your great work. I'm kinda bummed I was late to the audition party because I'm running a professional studio, but there will always be next time!
Wishing ya'll the best with it.
Danthrax
Established Member
This is it — a new Sega Saturn English localization is blasting off tomorrow when we release our Stellar Assault SS patch LIVE during the Shiro Show! The livestream begins 6 p.m. EDT Friday at https://youtube.com/@SEGASATURNSHIRO — be there when we launch!
Danthrax
Established Member
Patch is live now! Download button should be at the top of this thread, but if you don’t feel like scrolling up, here's a link to the resource: Stellar Assault SS (English)
I've managed to use Saturn Patcher first time with success, my Stellar source are two bins the second bin is a mere two megs. After patching it built out just a single bin+cue, is this green light for burn?
Thank you so much! Above+beyond work again
Thank you so much! Above+beyond work again
privateye
Established Member
It should work like that but if you want multi-bin, tick 'Separate Tracks Files (if applicable)' in the bottom-right corner of the main window.
