If Atlus won't, fans will: a group of fan translators has completed their work on making Persona 2: Eternal Punishment playable in English. This game is an enhanced port to PSP of the original PS1 release, and is the second part of the Persona 2 duology. Persona 2: Innocent Sin, the prequel's enhanced PSP port, did receive an official localization in 2011, but prior to the fan translation's release, the only way to get the full experience and play Eternal Punishment in English would have been through the original PlayStation 1 localization which came out in 2000.

The project, composed of a team of three—eiowlta, Sayucchi, and DarTisD—takes that original PS1 localization script and modifies and improves upon it, while taking the Tatsuya scenario—exclusive to the PSP version--translation from another team—p2px-scenario tumblr--with permission, and editing it. You can download the English translation patch from GitHub, note that you'll need a backup of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment for PSP, as well as the ISO patcher, also available on the project's GitHub. According to the translation team, the patched ISO will work on PSP, PS Vita, and on PPSSPP.

This news also follows upon a poll from Atlus, which asked fans which Persona game they'd want a remake of, to which Persona 3 and Persona 2 were tied with the most votes. Persona 3 is at least getting a remaster of its PSP version, Persona 3 Portable, sometime next year, while Persona 2 remains stranded, and only fully playable thanks to the efforts of fan translators.

Source

 

[Cris1997XX]

Lets fucking gooooooo! I never thought this day would arrive! The original PS1 version is actually okay and a much better localization than Revelations Persona, but Innocent Punishment and this one just blow it out of the water

 

[ZeroFX]

Good for who doesn't understand jp or too afraid to play the psx ver, i wonder how accurate to the original script it is or if they took "liberties" with it like LA "localizers" often do, might play with it just to see. Cheers to the team, it demanded a good amount of effort for sure.
BTW, the article seems to have some formatting issues? edit: it was nothing.

 

[The Catboy]

Finally! Gay persona in English

 

[Chary]

BTW, the article seems to have some formatting issues?

Mind sharing a screenshot? I know sometimes images can cause problems when I write the news on my phone, but I don't see any problems on PC or phone.

 

[AmandaRose]

Mind sharing a screenshot? I know sometimes images can cause problems when I write the news on my phone, but I don't see any problems on PC or phone.

No issues at all on my phone.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

I'm so happy to see this! Being able to play this on my vita or psp in english just to relive what wasn't (at the time) would be huge fun!

 

[MariArch]

I've been holding off in starting this second game in the duology till this released. Looks like my patience paid off

 

[relauby]

Good for who doesn't understand jp or too afraid to play the psx ver, i wonder how accurate to the original script it is or if they took "liberties" with it like LA "localizers" often do, might play with it just to see. Cheers to the team, it demanded a good amount of effort for sure.
BTW, the article seems to have some formatting issues? edit: it was nothing.

The GitHub says the translation is by Atlus West so I'm guessing it uses the translation from the PSX version.

 

[Kwyjor]

I didn't even know this was in the works – and that's probably the way people should do things if they want to avoid a premature shutdown.

 

[Zajumino]

The GitHub says the translation is by Atlus West so I'm guessing it uses the translation from the PSX version.

Wouldn't that make it not a fan translation? Unless, of course, the people at Atlus West were fans of Persona.

If anyone would read more than a half line of text, they would know that that the scripts used (both the original PS1 translation and the other stuff) were modified.



I haven't checked yet, but I hope the translation is more on the literal side. Official anime translations these days have often been so bad that even I notice with my limited Japanese ability.

 

[such]

I didn't even know this was in the works – and that's probably the way people should do things if they want to avoid a premature shutdown.

At least two have been in the works at one point or another, I think.

 

[duwen]

Nice! I can finally ditch my hybrid PS1 version with bubbles etc ripped from the J-PSP version on my Vita.

 

[Desconocido90]

Does this game allow save transfers from P2 Innocent Sin?
I think the PSX version had that feature...

 

[julianuf]

So... There apparently is some behind the scenes drama here. (See cj_iwakura's Twitter.)

Person was part of/joined a team that had been working on this for over five years, disappears, and later drops this out of nowhere.

While that's shitty, the thing that REALLY gets to me. They took an official localization and somehow managed to completely butcher the crap out of it and make it worse?

Example:

Original: "How cruel... My big sis it not a murderer!!"
"New": "How cruel... My onee-sama is not a murderer!!"

 

[Valwinz]

is possible to play this on a hack vita with the translation

 

[Tatsuna]

So this is not the one which was being made my iwakura Productions, is it?

 

[such]

So this is not the one which was being made my iwakura Productions, is it?

Yes. And they just decided to abandon their project on the basis that... someone beat them to the punch and drama ensued? There's a statement and all:
https://iwakuraproductions.wordpress.com/2022/07/27/persona-2-eternal-punishment-psp-update-2/

I can live with the honorifics, but only on the condition that I can personally smack whomever made the decision to use them in a localisation.

 

[PacBunnyXV07]

Blah, this is pointless

 

[Sansgaming420]

So... There apparently is some behind the scenes drama here. (See cj_iwakura's Twitter.)

Person was part of/joined a team that had been working on this for over five years, disappears, and later drops this out of nowhere.

While that's shitty, the thing that REALLY gets to me. They took an official localization and somehow managed to completely butcher the crap out of it and make it worse?

Example:

Original: "How cruel... My big sis it not a murderer!!"
"New": "How cruel... My onee-sama is not a murderer!!"

Cj would have never released the patch, also honorifics are based.