I personally would not object to releasing a menu patch, but as I am not a one man team, we have collectively agreed to release a single complete patch. There are several reasons for this.
First, as Kalker says, a single patch requires no updates and we can thoroughly test that nothing is broken with our changes causing the game to crash.
Second, we believe that in a largely story driven game, it will be unsatisfying to play the game without any real understanding of the story.
Third, and to me less important, but still extant, is that in any case where a partial patch is released a number of people will quickly take that partial patch, change very little or nothing at all and claim it as their own, which is annoying as the group who have donated months of time and effort to developing the patch. The final version will likely include a relatively difficult to remove watermark, likely our group's name and website on the new game screen. The doesn't remove the possibility that someone will remove the watermark and claim it, but it makes it less likely.
Finally, a single patch means we do not have to support our mistakes. I had for instance initially, accurately translated the the kanji 層 as "layer", Kalker pointed out to me that the Light Novel translations have translated that kanji as "floor." In the spirit of consistency, I have change this even though I personally like layer better. If we released a beta patch, we would either have to release two version for those who like one better than the other, or have people bitch at us constantly about how we changed things that they liked.
Thanks, I appreciate your support and patience. I am hopeful, but not promising that it could be out by June. My initial goal was for the end of the year, but returning to school and some now resolved technical difficulties have made this effectively impossible.
