I hope everyone is enjoying V21! A couple of run-off-the-page lines have been discovered, but nothing serious, so that is good news. Be sure to continue to report any issues in the forum.



There are a couple of exciting developments that I just couldn’t wait for my normal update to share.



I have partnered with the Phantom River Stone translation service after a fellow named Urban Reflex emailed me to recommend them. He is not a SFC member as of yet, but thanks for the recommendation, Urban Reflex! Phantom River Stone has done work on the Shenmue series and the sample they did for me was well-done.



A fellow named Switch gave me a reasonable quote for finishing up the review of Sc3. It will come in two phases. The first phase is to determine how accurate the existing lines are. If they are accurate, they can be considered reviewed. If they are not 100% accurate, they will move on to phase 2 which is full translation service.



I will be taking donations for this remaining translation work. I am planning to pay for the work myself and hope donations help offset my cost. I was actually planning to do Retropalooza this year, but this is a far more important use of funds and effort.



Now for the numbers. We have approximately 3150 images remaining to be reviewed. Pricing was determined per image, so longer lines have 2 images generally. The phase 1 review will be 5 yen/image (one yen is roughly eqivalent to one cent) plus 10% (Japanese consumption) tax. I estimate phase 1 will cost $180. This is where the value is.



Phase 2 will be quite a bit more expensive. If images need full translation service, we are looking at 60 yen/image plus 10% tax. I was not sure how much of this I could afford to do with so many images to review, but…



The brilliant news is that a very healthy number of our images are coming back accurate. That is, the number of images that need phase 2 is smaller than expected so far. Currently around 1200 images have been reviewed and around 720 of them are accurate.



I’m not excited about taking donations, but I’m certainly excited about the prospect of finishing the review for this project. This partnership seems like a good way to wrap up the translation aspect and if it costs me some money, I think it’s worth it.



Another somewhat exciting thing is in the beginning stages as well. After sulfuroxp posted his fantastic scanning of the SF3 Artbook, mr2dax was able (and kind enough) to translate a couple of things that I requested for the translation proper. I don’t know how sulfuroxp did it, but those scans are very clear and aren’t that big file-size wise. The Artbook has been uploaded to the FTP HERE.



Somewhere along the way I decided to document the 248 Artbook pages and organize their translation (refer to the Artbook Page Descriptions.txt file in the same directory as the images). mr2dax has indicated he will help as he can with this translation, having more opportunity to contribute around mid-year. The plan is for the output to be worked back into the images similar to what we did for the World Map, except obviously on a larger scale due to the amount of text involved. I plan to update the pages on the FTP as we get them done.



If anyone wants to volunteer to help translate the Artbook, that would be most welcome. Additionally, since we are taking donations, if anyone wants to sponsor an Artbook page, we could make that a priority. The order will not be front to back, it will likely be least amount of text to most unless sponsored.



I have set up a Paypal.Me account to take donations for both of these causes. Use the note feature or PM/email me with any requests for your donation. If you would like to donate, here is the link:

paypal.me/sf3translation



On a personal note, I just saw the ending credits of Sc3 for the first time. I’ve obviously worked on and tested the dialog and seen LPs, but this is the first time I’ve finished the game proper. In the process, I’ve made some improvements to the Remotest dialog. So you can look forward to those improvements. I added my Sc3 Complete save in an Internal RAM file on the FTP for those that might want to jump into the PD with a super-charged party.



Thanks in advance for everyone’s support!



Talk to you again soon.





legalize freedom!