Stellar Assault SS English localization project
- Thread starter Danthrax
- Start date
Nice. Wouldn't "self breaking mechanisms" be "self destruct mechanisms"? Or is the idea to be a bit Engrish-like on purpose?
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!
Ah, cool. That was probably just me, English is not my native language. Thanks.
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.
