Hacking Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity - English Translation

[xBladeM6x]

This is just going to be a patch made from the latest of what we have so far.
Unfortunately there is still a lot more left to do

Crushed hopes, and shattered dreams. Lol.

I'm curious, do you (or anyone else in the development team) ever play Infinity just for fun, or has it just become work at this point? I remember when I hosted a Minecraft server for a couple years, it became work to a point where I was just forever burned out, and never wanted to touch it again. Lol

 

[JamRules]

Crushed hopes, and shattered dreams. Lol.

I'm curious, do you (or anyone else in the development team) ever play Infinity just for fun, or has it just become work at this point? I remember when I hosted a Minecraft server for a couple years, it became work to a point where I was just forever burned out, and never wanted to touch it again. Lol

Haven't had chance to play it at all outside of testing since I started ;(
Probably similar for the others

 

[Fefo]

Very selfless from you all. Sure, maybe when you finish it the increased player pool might make things more enjoyable, but to do such a thing for nothing is still incredible. Thanks again.

Since you spoke about the patch, how much would hurt you if it went public? Lots of people dislike the "done when it's done" mindset, but since the game isn't going anywhere I see no problem with it. Of course I would be very swooned to play, but there's nothing like a finished, well done job.

 

[Nessly]

Get to hunting those PA discs!!

 

[Weyu]

I used to play it but then I got the best shotgun in the game that I'd literally farmed months for, and lost my goal to play and my motivation along with it.
I started playing less and less after that, and eventually stopped and moved on to other stuff.

Then I saw the call for help on PSO and decided to translate this. I probably mentioned it before somewhere, but this is my favorite PSP game— it was the reason I bought a PSP and I've clocked hundreds of hours on it.
The story is just super entertaining and the characters are appealing to me, and working on this is rewarding in itself even if it brings in no money. Of course it's not all fun and giggles, there's a lot of grunt work and a majority of it isn't too fun to slog through, but the story parts make up for it.
That's really the only reason why I'm on board— because I like the game.


As for partial patches, we just don't do that. I absolutely don't want it and neither does Jam.
There are too many QC issues and I don't want an incomplete version floating around the web.

 

[reinzhart]

This is just going to be a patch made from the latest of what we have so far.
Unfortunately there is still a lot more left to do

I'm just happy it's already work for testing phase
"Unfortunately there is still a lot more left to do" Just chill a little bit, you guys had already done great job all this time translating this great game

I used to play it but then I got the best shotgun in the game that I'd literally farmed months for, and lost my goal to play and my motivation along with it.
I started playing less and less after that, and eventually stopped and moved on to other stuff.

Then I saw the call for help on PSO and decided to translate this. I probably mentioned it before somewhere, but this is my favorite PSP game— it was the reason I bought a PSP and I've clocked hundreds of hours on it.
The story is just super entertaining and the characters are appealing to me, and working on this is rewarding in itself even if it brings in no money. Of course it's not all fun and giggles, there's a lot of grunt work and a majority of it isn't too fun to slog through, but the story parts make up for it.
That's really the only reason why I'm on board— because I like the game.


As for partial patches, we just don't do that. I absolutely don't want it and neither does Jam.
There are too many QC issues and I don't want an incomplete version floating around the web.

Glad the team didn't release partial patch.
I think partial patch was only good option for canceled translation only(for fans and off course the next translator team to take the job)

 

[Fefo]

No need for patch if they cancel it, sharing their progress would be enough. My gripe with coldbird when s/he tried is that whatever s/he made was lost when he gave up. Doubtful if there would be much to use, just like DeviFoxx guide can only help so much, but at least some knowledge could be gained.

So far things are going to a very professional look, indistinguishable from a proper (and well done) release. If something surfaces 5 years from now, it'll be awesome.

 

[reinzhart]

No need for patch if they cancel it, sharing their progress would be enough. My gripe with coldbird when s/he tried is that whatever s/he made was lost when he gave up. Doubtful if there would be much to use, just like DeviFoxx guide can only help so much, but at least some knowledge could be gained.

So far things are going to a very professional look, indistinguishable from a proper (and well done) release. If something surfaces 5 years from now, it'll be awesome.

Yes very good progress indeed, it's pretty unlikely this project canceled
If my memory serve me right, it's time when coldbird fiasco started when s/he left the project right?
Like i said before partial patch for fans and data/information/tools for the next team.
why partial patch?because not all dead/canceled translation will have new translation team that interested to translate it.
this getting out of topic so yeah back to topic

 

[JamRules]

No need for patch if they cancel it, sharing their progress would be enough. My gripe with coldbird when s/he tried is that whatever s/he made was lost when he gave up. Doubtful if there would be much to use, just like DeviFoxx guide can only help so much, but at least some knowledge could be gained.

I don't know the circumstances of how the Coldbird project ended but it's probably not like they could share their progress that easily. For example I would need to spend absolutely ages to put together some notes that would actually be useful.

 

[Fefo]

Yeah, I figured that, no copy paste possible. Now thinking about it I doubt it would be useful as research material; the knowlegde to get where you are now must be enough to know where to go or not.

 

[meinhard]

No people...please... don't even mention the words "project canceled" in this thread, i'm dying for the hype
Seriously, i prefer honest devs that say "still a lot left to do" instead of saying "almost done, release soon!" and delaying for ages. And if i remember correctly, coldbird project was about some kind of ram injection of the translated part, very difficult for other team to take over (compared to game files modification).
However, keep up with the wonderful job, guys!

 

[Weyu]

The thing about projects that are public or have many cooks in the kitchen is that the consistency invariably suffers, and quality often along with it.
The advantage is that you can get things finished faster, but if you want it done properly you need to invest a lot of time to work out the discrepancies with that method. With a smaller team it's like your own kitchen where you know where everything is.
So in the end you might not save as much time as you think. In some cases people just get it done and skip that other step and just fix the biggest problems as they come across them— but that's just sprinkling a lot of condiments over it to hide the shoddy taste.

Those types of projects work if you have a gatekeeper (or multiple) at the end who know what they're doing and smooth things out.
But often it just turns into a soup with too many ingredients though.

That kind of soup could still be edible (especially if you're starving and don't care what you're eating) but that's not how I want to cook.
So both methods definitely have merits, it's just about what you're expecting from the end result.

 

[reinzhart]

No people...please... don't even mention the words "project canceled" in this thread, i'm dying for the hype
Seriously, i prefer honest devs that say "still a lot left to do" instead of saying "almost done, release soon!" and delaying for ages. And if i remember correctly, coldbird project was about some kind of ram injection of the translated part, very difficult for other team to take over (compared to game files modification).
However, keep up with the wonderful job, guys!

man you are dying?i already using many scape doll hahaha
don't forget you bring that too.
JK aside even it release next year or two i don't mind because i know like Weyu post it will be good translation afterall

 

[Nessly]

Phantasy Star Infinity Hype! BEST GAME EVAR!



Eagerly awaiting the patch! KEEP TRUCKING GUYS! ^^b

I compiled all these weapon photos to pair it with the weapon charts from the English wiki (https://sites.google.com/site/psp2iwiki/home/weapons) to make a giant spreadsheet that shows photos of each weapon. Anyone is free to use it:
https://sites.google.com/site/psp2iguide/weapons/axes

 

[Weyu]

Looks good. If you want to help, you could get started by putting that info in an English wiki of the game. Or create one if there isn't one yet, based on the JP one or on the PSP2 vanilla one.

 

[Fefo]

These are the wikis?

Japanese: http://kizuna-infinity.net/psp2i/wiki/
English: https://sites.google.com/site/psp2iwiki/

Is the japanese at least accurate? A complete wiki for any game is a dream, but even bigger communities fail to mantain theirs.

 

[Weyu]

I haven't used the English one, but the Japanese one is good.
There is another one here too: http://pspo2.wikiwiki.jp/

As for completeness, I think it's more important that the most important info is there.
And if you're looking for something or people are asking for something, you can always add more later.
The original PSP2 wiki can probably also be used as a template, which saves a lot of time.

 

[Fefo]

At least they are somewhat usable with machine traslation, and PSP2 wiki can help a lot. Lack of reliable drop tables and rates might be a problem, but you won't need to fool yourself with hope that some uber-rare item will drop

 

[Weyu]

But that's what makes it fun.
If they dropped often, then you'd find everything really quickly and there would be nothing left to do.

Back when the servers were online, half the fun was to see the interesting equipment and cosmetic outfits people had.
I remember there was one guy who would insist on using Hyakka Ryoran and their single saber counterparts almost exclusively.
And those damn things never dropped either, heh.

 

[Weyu]

A few days late, but here's a whopper of an update.
We got the new patch working now, and the nasty crash issue we had before at some point is gone.
This is the biggest patch so far probably, since I've overhauled all the menu entries and system messages.
Probably totals over 10.000 entries and well over 30.000 lines.
Stuff looks pretty legit now, even if I say so myself.

And the story text is an on-going work in process as always, which is more text heavy than that.
Here's a lot of screens:

Custom made title menu descriptions by maestro Jam

Example of a title menu description

EP2 intro text, rewritten once again

Example of a weapon & armor description in the menu

Item menu description

Class & stats menu (I don't play Forces)

Client request menu and some of the new missions

Infinity mission menu, names and descriptions

The Japanese text are DL missions, we haven't worked on those. The window on the bottom right shows the mission info, a lot of effort went into that to make it look the way it does (it's harder than one might expect).
And because the original naming system for the IMs only worked in Japanese, I threw that entire system away and made my own.
With some luck Jam can also change the naming so we can get "Hades's Beach" rather than "Beach of Hades," but that remains to be seen since it's not as easy as changing some letters around.

Code counter menu and planet treasure obtain conditions

The orange text in Japanese needs to be custom made later.

Infinity mission tutorials

Menu of the new Curtz client requests added in infinity

Some menus in the Visiphone in the player's room

Title log

Just kidding.

These names were the first version, before I knew there was a character limit here as well.
Fast forward to ~5 hours of work of referencing (the terms are now uniform with the US ver. of PSP2) and coming up with new names:

And some of the newer titles added in infinity, with new English names too

Some of the diaries I wrote

These can be accessed through the same device, and they retell the events that happened in the game from the perspective of the protagonist.
The writing may seem a bit weird, but it's supposed to be in character for her.

New partner card

Story mission hint

Settings menu

Some random NPC text

These windows have not been widened once, but two or three times by Jam, to maximize the available text space.
Same thing with the text log window below.

Remember this one?

Tutorial text

And some story dialogue, taken from the beach scene

She's really Bruce Lee in disguise

And lastly, some of the kinks we still need to work out, mostly typesetting issues that aren't easily fixed because they require hacking

Wrong codes (oops). The Japanese was supposed to make the text in between them red.

Mission names too long and there are some formatting issues with the reward descriptions as well

And of course, the question that everyone is dying to ask is— when is it ready?
Unfortunately, there is (yet again) a lot, lot more stuff to be done. First we need to fix all the issues that this huge batch of new files brought with them, and improve some things to make them work in English.
And then we need to work on the in mission text (menus, objectives, story text there, etc.) which hasn't really been touched yet. But there are a lot of files.

And then there's other tech stuff for Jam, such as replacing textures with English ones, subtitling of movies, and so on.

So the road ahead is still very long, but a lot of steps have already been trodden.

P.S: if you reply, please don't quote this entire post with all the pictures in it.