Does anyone here know if the Japanese PS3 physical copy of the book is the same as the Japanese DS physical book?
Yes, the physical
Magic Master hardcopy that's bundled with
Shiroki Seihai no Joou is identical to the one that comes with
Shikkoku no Madoushi. But you won't be able to get it with
Shiroki anymore because it was only available if you preordered the PS3 game in Japan. Basically they printed a surplus of the book for
Shikkoku, and in order to get rid of their stock they offered it as a preorder bonus for
Shiroki. If anything, the only difference is that the
Magic Master that comes bundled with
Shiroki has a sticker label on the shrink-wrap, while the one bundled with Shikkoku has no sticker. See the image below:
Left: Shikkoku | Right: Shiroki
You might still be able to get a hardcopy if you buy
Shiroki at a used game store. It would be nice for you to have two copies of the book. But even if you can't get a second copy, well you'll still have the one that comes with
Shikkoku.
If we do translate the book now or any time before the official translation is released, we should be sure to later go back and compare the official to ours so we can incorporate NamcoBandai's syntax in order to make sure that those who have played the localised PS3 version of Ni no Kuni, probably the majority of people who will be playing the translation, will be used to the spell names and such. What does every one else think? Should we try to translate it directly and ignore the changes NamcoBandai makes, should we keep true to the official translation's syntax, or or should we simply choose on a case by case basis? Or is there an option I forgot?
I'm almost positive that when
Wrath of the White Witch is released, there will be a Prima Games strategy guide or some other official guide for it. It will likely contain most, if not all, of the information found in
Magic Master (but not necessarily formatted/organized in the same way).
If you guys still want to translate the book before
White Witch is released, my bigger concern would be the fact that the translation is a collaboration effort. Unless you have an editor who can read Japanese, it's going to be hard to keep things consistent. Not just with terminology, but writing styles will be different as well. My suggestion would be to have one person translate the book,
maybe two translators at the most. Then they could collaborate with each other for consistency. If you want to have a third translator, he/she should just be an editor and check the work of the other two translators.
but it's not always that bad
