You will find the Luminous Arc 3 full-translation English patch v.1.0 attached to this post.

The tool for patching can be downloaded from here: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/704/
CRC-32 of the original Japanese rom: 848822fd
CRC-32 of the successfully patched English rom: caec12b5

There is still room for improvement in terms of quality of the translation, but since we didn't encounter any serious problems with the rom, we want to keep the word about the release "by the end of the year".

If you need help with patching / want to talk about the game / want to help us improve the future versions of the translation / want to try Multiplayer - join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/QN2mcfskWG

Speaking of which... This patch features fully-translated Online/Multiplayer mode, tested to be fully functional!
(if configured with Wiimmfi Network; here's the guide: https://luminousarc.fandom.com/wiki/Multiplayer)

Credits
Plasturion - romhacking / tools development
Jaumander - graphics editor
Asakura - graphics hacking
Buster Gundo - proofreading
CheshireCat - machine translator operator

Honorable mentions
Yukiwa-kun - for all the assets and ideas we reused from his unfinished translation
Cuc - the author of the "Luminous Arc 3: Eyes – Intermission Guide" which was very helpful in this translation https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/971291-luminous-arc-3-eyes/faqs/58746
Micah - the original poster of the LA3 translation thread on gbatemp.net forum, who helped us in making first steps in the translation
And all other people who helped and supported the creation of this translation in any constructive way.

Disclaimer: this translation was made with the use of machine translators (mostly DeepL and Google Translate) and some romaji skills acquired through watching too much anime.

 

[Jayro]

Not my type of game, but great job to all those involved, it looks fantastic.

 

[MonkeyDKid]

Holy shit man, you're the best, been w8ing for this so many years.

 

[gamecaptor]

I've never played this series, probably never will, but I love seeing translation projects! Congrats on the hard work and successful 1.0 release!

 

[darkxex]

thanks my friends

 

[quickthrow]

Just dropping in to say thanks. Have had a lot of fun over the weekend.

Anyway, might want to apply the "Translation" filter tag to the post. I almost missed the announcement since it doesn't show under that filter. These forums got a bit hard to navigate since the redesign with everything lumped together.

 

[RetroAXG]

How its the translation quality? I don't want to sound like a ungrateful prick but I hope this game was at least proofreaded by people familiar with the lore of the previous titles because even the most advanced machine translations can't really substitute a proper TL made by a actual human being, so it being MTLed really makes me worried about lost nuances, plot holes and other nasty stuff.

 

[SDA]

How its the translation quality? I don't want to sound like a ungrateful prick but I hope this game was at least proofreaded by people familiar with the lore of the previous titles because even the most advanced machine translations can't really substitute a proper TL made by a actual human being, so it being MTLed really makes me worried about lost nuances, plot holes and other nasty stuff.

Same for me, I hope this translation does not contain stuff like that

 

[LuminousCat]

How its the translation quality? I don't want to sound like a ungrateful prick but I hope this game was at least proofreaded by people familiar with the lore of the previous titles because even the most advanced machine translations can't really substitute a proper TL made by a actual human being, so it being MTLed really makes me worried about lost nuances, plot holes and other nasty stuff.

Machine translations are as good as you make them.
The translation algorithms are getting better by the day. If you feed them with enough context, they will produce decent outcomes even for such tricky languages like Japanese.
Of course, they aren't perfect and they will introduce plenty of mistakes too. The final outcome depends on how much the human translator/proofreader will delve into the original text/scene/world to be able to correct those mistakes. I think it's a great opportunity to learn, by the way.

You can check @TigerTiger's guide on "how to translate Japanese games without speaking a word" as it perfectly addresses the usual scepticism towards machine translations and explains how to make them right: https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-translate-japanese-games-without-speaking-a-word.572525/

I think I can say that through the last 2,5 years, I've analyzed Luminous Arc 3 source material quite thoroughly. There should be no plotholes except for those introduced by the original creators... ;')
You don't have to worry about the lore either, as I would never spend so much time on translating the 3rd game, if I wasn't a big fan of the prequels.
Actually, the official translations of the prequels made some questionable changes to the original material, mostly due to the space limit the translators were dealing with.
When you check for example item descriptions in LA1&2, they are very short and sometimes they are completely different from the original Japanese text.
@plasturion's innovative text display method helped to overcome this limit in our translation of LA3, but when translating the same items in LA3, we had to decide if we should keep the naming and descriptions the same as in prequels or be more faithful to the original, but lose the connection with the prequels. And sometimes we chose the first option and sometimes the second, because it's not an easy choice.

About the nuances: some are lost for sure, as in any translation, especially beween such different languages and cultures as English and Japanese.

Whatever I say won't be seen as objective, so I advice anyone having doubts to check the patch for themselves and to form their own opinion about it.

Anyway, if anyone spots some mistakes or weird sentences, I encourage you to report them in our discord server, so that we can fix them in the future patch releases. We already have some valuable contributions to the 1.1 version of the patch.

 

[Snokko]

Wow, I can't believe this actually happened! I used to check on an old thread that talked about translating the game a few years back, but after so much time with no updates I just kinda put this game out of my mind, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the title of this post on the side bar lol. I wouldn't say the Luminous games are dear to my heart or anything, but I remember having a fun romp playing them. I'm excited to play this one as well, but I think I'll wait for the 1.1 version.

Huge props for everyone involved in this, you guys are awesome!

 

[TigerTiger]

LuminousCat has spent just as much, if not more time on this than any translator would. The problem with wonky machine translations is not so much the 'translation', but the missing human behind it. And like he said, half of the 'nuance' is untranslatable anyway. What are you going to do, put "t/n: at this point, said character drops the さん suffix indicating a new sense of closeness"? Nah

 

[quickthrow]

It's a pet peeve of mine, but the past tense of "cast" is "cast" and not "casted."

There are also some word choices that I personally would not use, but I do notice they get used in fan translations a lot, e.g. the a-word and the r-word. The r-word is especially outdated. I'm guessing the original word there is baka. Not offended, just not a fan either. Usually cussing is done with cuter, more innocuous words in games like these. Jerk, brat, dummy, knucklehead, to name a few. Up to translator discretion of course.

Other than those, don't have much else to nitpick on. Honestly, if the machine translation wasn't advertised, no one would even notice. They've clearly been proofread, so everything feels natural to read. The translation is very good, and the game is very fun to play.

 

[Herald]

Dating myself here but I was waiting for an English Patch when I was still in high school. It's been nearly a little over a decade but want to thank you for all your hard work working on this patch for such a hidden gem for the DS.

 

[RetroAXG]

Thank you for your answer LuminousCat, sinked two hours in the game and yep, its actually pretty high-quality.

I probably would not even notice it was MTLed if I didn't knew beforehand.

You guys are amazing, thank you for the hard work

 

[Blobbio]

Thank you SO MUCH for this!!
When I read “machine translation” I got a little worried, but actually from the team’s post, it’s clear how much care and effort has gone into this project. At the end of the day, sounds like it’ll definitely be playable so I can’t wait to try it. Better dig out my 3DS or an emulator lol

As someone who fondly remembers the first 2 Luminous Arc games, I don’t think people realise what a big deal this is. We FINALLY get to play the lost third game. Thanks so much again!

 

[VyraLove]

I'm so glad it's out now! Downloading now!
I can't wait to do a franchise run now! I've never finished the first one. XD

 

[Snokko]

Will the 1.1 patch come out sometime soon or will it be a while before it's ready?

 

[sd62252]

I have never used a patch before to play a game not released in the US but really love the Luminous Arc series and would love to play this game in English. Can someone walk me through this process?

 

[sd62252]

Would anyone be willing to walk me through how to do this to be able to play the English translation of this game? I have never done anything like this before!

 

[LuminousCat]

Will the 1.1 patch come out sometime soon or will it be a while before it's ready?

Not anytime soon, the changes so far are minor (mostly grammatical errors corrected here and there).

Would anyone be willing to walk me through how to do this to be able to play the English translation of this game? I have never done anything like this before!

I'll send you a PM.

 

[Snokko]

Not anytime soon, the changes so far are minor (mostly grammatical errors corrected here and there).

Ah, gotcha. I'll just download the current patch then. Thanks again for your work!