Press ESC to close

Visual Novel Translation Status (02/27/2016)

This week’s header image is from (left) “Lucy -The eternity she wished for” (VNDB) (Buy here), and (right) “Beat Blades Haruka(VNDB) (Comes out on Monday, pre-order/buy here).

Lots of updates this week and — as a special treat — we’ve had one release this week and another coming in just two days.

Anyway! Welcome to our weekly VNTS (Visual Novel Translation Status) series, in which we track visual novel translation updates in-house (we don’t rely on /jp/ posts on 4ch, for example) and post it for your enlightenment and enjoyment each Saturday. If you find any errors, or you think a project is missing from this list, please let me know in the comments.

The Short Version:
Only the New Stuff

New Releases

Removed from the List This Week

  • Hara Miko Shimai (Completed!) – Congrats, again, to Loe Quality TL for finishing the project. Get the patch and more information here.

 

All the Game Updates:

Fan Translation Projects

Fan Translation Projects

[wpdatatable id=72]
JAST USA Projects

JAST USA (Updates; Archive)

[wpdatatable id=73]
Other
  • Starless – Script check 10%, added new mosaic to fix list.
MangaGamer Projects

MangaGamer (Updates)

[wpdatatable id=74]
Other
  • Rance 5D, Rance VI, and Rance Quest fan translations on hold in anticipation of potential official release by MangaGamer.
  • Magical Eyes – Red is for Anguish – Pre-Order is up! (Link)
Sekai Project Projects

Sekai Project (Update Page)

Important note: These percentages should be seen as vague indicators of progress, and are not entirely accurate due to a variety of reasons.

[wpdatatable id=75]
Other
  • Here’s a handy link to sort Sekai Project’s Steam releases by release date: link
Misc. Projects

Other Projects

[wpdatatable id=76]

 

The Zakabox

— Commentary Section —

Zakabox™ Commentary

「…」

Decay’s Musings

Another week, another release. This one kinda sorta snuck up on us. I’ve seen the name around, but I never really looked into it until now. Lucy -The eternity she wished for- seems kind of cool. It’s one of the very few Korean VNs translated to English, which is a rarity. It has no reviews on VNDB, EGS, or anywhere at all, really. Usually us English readers have an army of people telling us what we should think about a VN before we even touch it, but practically no one has played this thing. It’s almost liberating, in a way. That said… I’m still not sure if I’m going to give it a try any time soon, lol.

Muv-Luv also had a pretty sweet Kickstarter update this week. They announced a minor delay, but they also announced the translation team for the project, and the news there is pretty good. You may recall that this was to be based on the Amaterasu fan translation, and it still will be. But this update shows that they are pouring far more effort into improving that translation than anyone previously imagined. It is being TLCed, edited, proofread, QCed, beta tested, etc. Koestl, the famed translator of the Grisaia games, is on the team. While I still have to wonder whether it was the right decision to use the Amterasu translation if it requires this much reworking, I’m glad they’re at least putting in the effort, these games deserve it.

It sort of ties into what I talked about last week, Degica cares immensely about Muv-Luv and wants to do the right thing by it, and it shows. So what does that say about JAST and Flowers? You may have heard the commotion by now, but in case you haven’t, JAST released a demo for Flowers a few days ago and it has been embroiled in a contraversy regarding its translation quality. To put it plainly, it sucks. Badly. This is deeply disappointing on many levels. I find it difficult to imagine why a demo for such an important release would be in such a state, and it exposes some core problems with how projects are run at JAST.

Why is it that nobody saw this before the demo’s release and said “Hey, maybe we need to do another pass on this first”? First impressions are incredibly important, and you only have one chance to get them right. Why is it that nobody saw this shortly after translation began and said “Hey, maybe this translator we hired is in over their heads”? I’ve heard about how little oversight their projects have, is this a symptom of that? Why is it that Bad End, a talented translator responsible for Kara no Shoujo 2 and Kindred Spirits, was hired by JAST to work on Sonicomi of all games, and not Flowers, a VN she super wanted to work on? I’m guessing no one at JAST even asked. And the most important question I have, how do they plan on whipping this translation into shape in time for the impending March 20th ship date? Will they delay it again?

I have a lot of questions, and practically no answers. There’s a glimmer of hope for Flowers, however. JAST has announced their commitment to improving the translation, and fixing all problems before release. That’s a tall order, and is a claim I’m not willing to buy into wholesale just yet. Some JAST employees are talking big about their plans for correcting the script, however. I think we can give up the dream of a fantastic translation suddenly rising up out of the ashes here, but hopefully at least we won’t be left with a total travesty. Please show us that you at least care, JAST, even if the results won’t be perfect.

I know this commentary has already run on for awhile, but I wanted to ask something off-topic, have any of you played Stardew Valley, yet? I’m a moderate Harvest Moon fan, and have been excited for Stardew Valley for what seems like (and may actually be) years now. I haven’t had the chance to touch it yet, though. If you have, how is it? I haven’t read any impressions on it at all yet. I hope it was worth the wait!

TAYsteful™ Thoughts

[Although Tay compiled most of this week’s update, he didn’t have the time to do any commentary. Sorry! – Decay]

 

Tay

I'm the Fuwanovel community admin and a big fan of Visual Novels. The easiest way to get a hold of me is via a PM on the Fuwanovel Forums, by twitter (@ArchmageTay), or by email.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

13 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
divX
8 years ago

> Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura Doki – Edit: 84% > 100%; TLC: 38%; QC: 0%
YES! Good work guys.

Scars Unseen
Scars Unseen
8 years ago

“Beta version of Muv-Luv Extra”

*cough* that’s BETA version, mister. ;p

invalidname
8 years ago

On Muv-Luv, the existing fan base is happy with the readability of the Amaterasu translation, but it seems like Amaterasu (and Ixrec specifically) was only ever interested in Alternative, and was openly contemptuous of Extra and Unlimited (the README literally says “welcome to the worst game we’ve ever translated”). Look carefully at the comments from the translators in the recent update and you’ll see they think the first two parts of Muv-Luv are better than that, and personally I’m hoping a fresh look at Extra’s translation will make it a funnier and more enjoyable game (which, of course, will make descending into the nightmare of Alternative that much worse).

The other interesting thing to notice about the announcement of the Muv-Luv translators is that it includes the core membership of the Alternative Projects fan translation team. As @enjoievan tweeted, that explains why AP has been so quiet lately: https://twitter.com/enjoievan/status/702341844827439104

littleshogun
littleshogun
8 years ago

How about some commentary here from me, and as usual good update.

First, maybe at the time you compiling this update, Astral Air still at 69.84%, but as of now it was at 70.41%. Congratulation on finally touching 70%, Chuee and hope you could do 30% left well. To be honest, maybe I’m putting pressure too much, but I didn’t had any good word other than good luck (Of course I could bombard his site with word that you definitely didn’t like, but let’s not). And I’d waiting for this game to be translated.

About translation quality, to be very honest I didn’t care much about it as long as I could understand what they want to tell, although guess there was a case called Lost In Translation or something like that. For Amaterasu, I knew it was controversial, but at least the translation didn’t affect much for VN scoring, especially Muv Luv Alternative (As of now, it’s still number 1 at VNDB), and I think in regard of Amaterasu and their unpolished translation, it also happened in many video games industries, especially with FF before FF8 and many PS1 games which suffered bad translation (Especially Suikoden 2), but still hailed as best game. So yeah I didn’t mind much about Amaterasu, although some people might didn’t agree with that though.

Oh about Flower, I think I understand enough. But I think JAST should not let English speaker to knowing their mistake though. Since they company, not amateur like Amaterasu, right? (Then again, sometimes company translate slightly worse than amateur though) Although I said I didn’t had any problem with translation, if Decay info was true about the translator, did JAST somehow didn’t know that people far more interesting to see Flower than SoniComi. Apparently JAST didn’t checked Bad End capability to work with one IG games (Kara no Shoujo 2) and one yuri games (Yurirei), instead tell Bad End to work with SoniComi, a work which I’d suggest that JAST should take the time very slowly to translate it. Although I’d like to think that JAST translated the demo at the time of AX 2015 and then tell Bad End to work on Flower after that, and JAST didn’t improve the demo translation (I hope that’s the case, but don’t count on it though).

For Koiken Otome, congratulation for finishing the translation, although we still need waiting for edit, TL, and QC obviously. Hope to be fast and this year release. KARAKARA looks like slowed down, but I think as long as Sekai desperate enough near the end, it will reach 30000 hopefully. And for SakuSaku, at least we need to be waiting for TLC and QC.

That’s all for now.

Eu
Eu
8 years ago

Uh is it just me or both the links to VNDB below the header go to Beat Blades Haruka?

Decay
Reply to  Eu
8 years ago

Whoops, fixed!

Voc
Voc
8 years ago

Just as a note, Seinarukana has been available for pre-order on J-List for more than a month now. It’s only the physical copy, sadly, as JAST seems to be allergic to posting online versions when people want them. But, yeah, that’s old news.

Decay
Reply to  Voc
8 years ago

Yeah. I could have sworn we added the link to it before, but I guess not. Must have been something we intended to do one week, forgot about it, and then assumed we had already done so until now. Just a dumb mistake, sorry!

NeoAnkara
NeoAnkara
8 years ago

Still waiting for indefinite project like Sumaga and Tasogaredoki no Kyoukaisen.

Decay
Reply to  NeoAnkara
8 years ago

Regarding Tasogaredoki no Kyoukaisen, I contacted the team a couple weeks ago and received a brief “still alive” message. It’s strange, the project seems to have stagnated yet they don’t accept outside help, and they say they’re still alive… I can’t say I understand. Oh well, hopefully they give us an update soon!

mayumin
mayumin
8 years ago

instead of putting a link to beastmaster and prince vnbd page put a direct link to the kickstarter so ppl can more easly check it out

Tinecro
Tinecro
8 years ago

I don’t know if you’ve seen my post two weeks ago, but there is a translation project of the first Bishoujo Mangekyou, which can be found at https://euphemictranslation.wordpress.com/.
Also, the link for the KS of Beastmaster and Prince -Flower and Snow doesn’t work.

sanahtlig
8 years ago

Might as well pitch this week’s project here:

Sanahtlig’s Corner: Eroge with a censored official English release, a comprehensive list
http://sanahtlig.blogspot.com/2016/02/eroge-with-censored-official-english-release.html

An ongoing project to document eroge with various types of censorship in an easily browsable and sortable spreadsheet

This is a unique resource and I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else on the Internet.