Rom hackers/Editors needed for luminous arc 3 translation

I can't put more than 10 videos in one message, so here's the new one:
Chapter 4 part 1:

Chapter 4 part 2:

Ashley Bath Event 1:

Heine Intermission 1:

Fortuneteller Samantha Intermission 1:

Glen Intermission 2:

Chapter 5 part 1:

Chapter 5 part 2:

Glen Bath Event 1:

Eruru Intermission 2:

Inaluna Intermission 1:

Chapter 6:

Ashley Intermission 2:

Glen Intermission 3:

Eruru Bath Event 1:

Chapter 7 part 1:

Chapter 7 part 2:

Inaluna Bath Event 1:

Heine Intermission 2:

Sarah Intermission 1:

 

I can't put more than 20 videos in one message, so here's the new one:
Kopin Intermission 1:

Hiyo Intermission 2:

Side Quest 1 (Our Rebellion):

Chapter 8 part 1:

Chapter 8 part 2:

Heine Bath Event 1:

Inaluna Intermission 2:

Sion Intermission 1:

Fortuneteller Samantha Intermission 2:

Chapter 9 part 1:

Chapter 9 part 2:

Sarah Bath Event 1:

Ashley Intermission 3:

Eruru Intermission 3:

Yuu Intermission 1:

Lotta Intermission 1:

Glen Intermission 3A:

Ashley Intermission 3A:

Eruru Intermission 3A:

Hina Intermission 1:

 

Hello!

Is there an update for the translation of this game?

 

Glad to see this is still being worked on as late as 2019! I really look forward to seeing this project come to fruition!

 

Really love the fact that your still working on updating people of this game q u q...i do hope for the game to be released fully in english.

 

I am so glad this is still going. I will continue to look forward to getting to play this game in english

 

Why not ask one of these guys for help?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/unfinished-translation-projects-that-could-be-revived.544922/page-3

 

I thought about contributing some but I'm both very busy with a full time job and not quite good enough at Japanese - somewhere in the N3 range. I can understand most lines but I'd be a pretty slow translator. I rather liked Stella Glow and with the collapse of the studio it's super unlikely this would ever get translated beside by fans.

It took me about 45 minutes to translate 12 lines dialogue lines, and I'm not 100% on 1-2 of them. That speed isn't TOO bad, but I'm a very busy person and I could probably only guaranteed to do about 45 minutes a week, and that's assuming I don't get any busier (which is unlikely).

The suggested way of doing the script that's in the google drive is probably gonna be really hard to do. The files are too large to edit + translate all in the same file. Or at least, I found it too confusing. It also seems to be assuming that it's on github.

The pros are that the script appears well laid out - each speaker is identified on each line. It's also mostly not terribly difficult japanese. The fact everything is spoken also helps in translation.

The cons are that it's a very long script. The best guess is that 20-30% of the 1.2 MB of scripts is header, but that's still about 700kb of text - about 350K words. About 60k words is already translated (about 40% of the main scenarios, but not necessarily by text - the last half have some very large scenarios). Those still need edited though. It's honestly not that surprising Atlus passed up the translation. It'd be about 230 days of work for a professional translator, and then another 60ish for revising (high end for translation, low end for revision but these are just rough numbers).

The bottleneck on this is going to be translation. So I've set up a google doc to make it easier. It's each .bin.txt converted to a more easily read script format - line breaks between each new screen, and two line breaks between each speaker change. It's a little harder to put back in and test, but MUCH easier to translate, which is going to be the harder issue. I've also put in the 17ish lines I've translated for the str0bin, which I'm now pretty sure is the Omake (Lefia and some student are talking about baths under a temple). https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DNmydWZhHp21ZoJPGJk0lgpYmg-hbOpvmblnWyr5E6U/edit?usp=sharing

In theory I can manually add any comments to a cell that includes a suggested translation. This would also allow people in the future to pick it back up if I fall off the face of the earth - those comments would be visible and anyone can make a copy of the google doc and reshare it. Even someone with just good english would be useful on editing the already translated lines. A couple have grammar issues but the bigger issue is that a lot of the lines sound unnatural (which is just a consequence of translation).

There are plenty of extra characters that I've removed to convert to these spreadsheet formats. There are two ways to rectify this.
One, write a simple java program that finds column a with what is in column b (I can write this if needed, I'm a java programmer by day). Then debug. Other way is to export each as csv then, replace all \r\n\r\n with $p and \r\n with $n - that would reverse how I made this doc, and then to match up the first line manually with its location in the original raw dumps.

 

Just to add my two cents - file 0.bin is probably not the best place to start translating from. 0.bin contains dialogues with NPCs (and monologues with objects) which happen if you interact with them in your free time (mostly in the evening, but also some in the morning). These dialogues change every couple chapters, so they are very context-dependent and it would be the best to translate them after the chapter in which they change (at least that's how I do it while doing semi-automatic translation for my own private use). For example, here are the chapters in which those lines you've translated are available (I've added this as comments in your spreadsheet):

Code:

--- Chapter 5 ---
Male Student: Doesn't it feel like the atmosphere underground is different from the ground?
Levi: Does it?
Male Student: You know... The Bathhouse and the Fortune-telling Hall surely give different vibes...
Male Student: ...because they are both indecent!
Levi: Indecent, you say...
--- Chapter 6 ---
Male Student: Isn't the Witch Festival exciting?
Male Student: Even if you are in the basement, it feels like the atmosphere is transmitted.
--- Chapter 7-9 ---
Male Student: I like the darkness. It feels like something secret is hidden, doesn't it?
Male Student: Like what if I did something wrong?
Male Student: My heart is beating...
--- Chapter 10 ---
Male Student: People calm down in dark places. I wonder why?
Levi: It's more quiet here.
Male Student: And this cool feeling makes you foresee something.
-

The guy is talking about Public Bath and Fortune-telling Hall, because he's standing next to them, underground. Also in Chapter 6, he's talking about Witch Festival, which is an event happening in that chapter.

Apart from that, 0.bin also contains "small" Intermissions / After Breaks with other playable characters ("big" ones are in separate files) and dialogues needed to trigger the Side Quests.
Also the character which you call "Lefia" is Levi (Refi), the main character of the game

Anyway, good luck.

 

bumping cuz I wanna play this game

 

CSV Files are a good fast fit because the special characters I stripped out are essentially linebreak symbols - to insert them back into the bins you can just do a find-replace for double linebreaks with $p and single ones with $n. Well, not really a true CSV, more of a CSV without any delimiter aside from line breaks (I was unsure how to set it to this on import to google sheets, thus why there are 2 columns - to account for random commas). The speakers are included in the direct text. Google Sheets offers the option to let anyone insert notes.

This isn't to say XMLs wouldn't be without merit. I'm unsure how hard it would be to translate them back to the bin (I do a TON of xml parsing in day job, but usually the other way, xml->string. I basically never create xml). I didn't get the formatting perfect is the largest issue here (in the bins the speaker names all followed by some sort of control character but some of these control characters got stripped, some got converted to a space, and some got removed) and XML is almost certainly better able to handle the oddities of strange characters in the script than CSV. The downwside is that you'd have to write a program to go both ways and the CSV will probably work fine for quite a while in the progress.

Thanks for that. Makes a lot of sense as to why I was getting very lost in s0. The lines had almost nothing to do with each other lol. S0 being scattered throughout makes the script a bit less scary, but still massive. I should have some time this weekend to work on the next scenario a bit.

Is Levi the official translation? Refi does work too. I'll need to listen to the voice lines a bit. I was misreading フィas フャ. Katakana is probably what I'm worst at (I also sit pretty far back from my monitor and am a couple years out of date on glasses).

I see someone has gone and added comments of edited lines to most of s2.bin. I'll review them tomorrow and change some out.

An additional thought occurred to me while reading those edits, how much of the spirit of what they are saying vs the cultural sense do we want to keep?
(Exact literal translations are usually terrible, so I'll avoid them)
Example here :
Context:
(In response to Eru saying her flute isn't for fighting)

ハァ？
レフィ いや、でもお前だってメイガスの一員だろ？
出撃命令が来たらどうするんだよ
Current:
Hah?
Levi I mean、you're a member of Magus right？
What are you gonna do when we enter battle
Suggested:
Hah?
Levi Aren't you a member of Magus?
What are you going to do when we have to fight?

(Very literal)
Unfortunately*, but, after all, you're a member of the magus, I think?
It's just that what are you going to if a battle order has arrived?

*[いや can mean no, but in this context he's likely stating that he thinks what he's about to say is unfortunate. he could also be saying that he thinks it's awful to use her flute for battle]

The reason the lines are so strange when translated literally translated is because Japanese language/culture frowns upon direct disagreement, so couches anything like this with a ton of modifiers (but, after all, I think?) . If he's especially polite compared to other characters then we might want to preserve more of this spirit. However, if he's no more brash than everyone else it should be discarded for one of the earlier options. So I'll need to read what we have translated and listen to his voice lines to really decide on this specific line, but some people have a very strong preference to preserve a bit more of the cultural components (I see honorifics are included in some of the translated script so far).

Terse:
Huh?
You're a magus.
If a battle happens, what're you gonna do? (higher class/less lowbrow alternative : What are you planning to do when we get ordered to battle? )

Polite:
Huh?
Um, you're a magus, right?
What are you planning to do when we get ordered to battle?

(Magus vs member of the magus, the singular form is more natural in english unless this group is always or uniquely in this instance referred to as member of magus rather than a magus. Plus, line length)
Apologies for the long post.

 

Levi is not an official translation, because there is no official translation ; ) But it was the name agreed on by the original translator and his supporters and it's used in the already translated scripts / wiki / forums. I've seen Refi also being used, but in voiced parts of the script it sounds more like Lefi/Lefy. Definetely not like Levi from Attack on Titan though ; )
You can find the archive of the original translation efforts here (including some of the names propositions): https://pastebin.com/CdkGNkVt

Magus is used in the script as a special force / team name, not towards a single person. Members of Magus are top elite among Magi / Magi Knights / Knights of Magi.

Levi is a troublemaker / delinquent, so he shouldn't be too polite. Instructor Valerie often scolds him for forgetting about the honorifics.

 

Hey there nevuki, I'm the one who posted all of the comments on s2.bin, and I apologize for the inconsistent translation phrasing. As you mention, I'm not entirely certain how much spirit vs cultural sense we want to do with the script, so I just kind of went with things that sounded decent. As LuminousCat mentioned, Levi is more of a relaxed/bum kind of character, so it makes sense for him to not be too polite. In fairness though, he tends to act a little more respectfully/carefully when talking with Eruru, so his politeness in that statement might just be a reflection of that.

I'd also like to mention that though I am writing the suggested translations in a way that I think would fits the characters, I have the same kind of experience Cat does; too much anime and having played/watched the game enough that I feel I have a decent handle on how the characters should sound/act. This of course means that my interpretation of them might not be accurate, which means I might unintentionally suggest lines that don't fit too well, and if I do, I apologize.

 

Don't worry about, I was glad to see other people's input and I was legitimately asking - I didn't think your suggestions were bad at all, it just hadn't occurred to me and it's a pretty large philosophical question that underpins a lot translations and criticisms of them, especially in the Anime/JRPG communities. For instance, a lot of people hate honorifics, that sort of thing. They're definitely saying Lefi, which is a much more feminine sounding name than Levi in English. It might be a case where it doesn't sound feminine at all to the Japanese ear, so if you go with the direct then the audience may be expecting him having a girly name to come up at some point. It's not really a big deal at all to change either way (ctrl-f replace all Levi with Lefi or vice versa).

I've gone through and edited/touched up the first 50% of the first scenario (s1bin) . Not a whole lot of changes. You can find them in the E column (F contains notes, like about the meaning of Fufu) . It was mostly rewording awkwardly phrased English statements or slight ... not mistranslations, but a few places where some info was left out, probably due to difficulty of the wording. I'm getting more familiar with the characters as I go. There were only one spot where I was unsure on the translation and marked them a * in the F column (When referring to the Lapis for the first time summoning it. No idea what to make of that phrase. I think he's referring to a spirit rather than an actual soul, but I'm guessing that's answered later). I'll probably do that in the future as well on spots I'm not sure of. I think I'll need to read up to the places you've made the suggestions before I can assess them fully.

 

Ok, I can see there's some power struggle going on in here ; )

My sugesstion is to join forces - competing parties and unclear situation discourage new people from contributing to the project.

I think making the already translated script public was a good decision - valuable input from new people can already be seen (@nevuki, @AlbertMorden, ...). It will definetely help to liven up this project.
Like @nevuki said, there is a lot of work to be done here, so the more people help, the better (for example, there were some people offering to proofread the English script). On the other side, group work introduces inconsistencies, but there are means to deal with that (which I mention below).
Also, the amount of text to translate isn't the only issue here. Second thing is putting the translated script into the game, which might not be a trivial task and it might introduce some limitations that will redefine the translation. I'm not a rom modder, but from what I've read in the original translation archive, the translated sentences might have to be made as short as possible to fit in the defined boxes.
I would really want to see someone try to handle it - I would do it myself if I had the needed skills. Prequels and the unfinished translation of Yukiwa-kun aka betagammaomega might help in this. If this problem is solved, we could release promotional youtube videos of already translated parts of the game, which will help to attract more people (and potential contributors) to the project.

Already existing wiki might help in keeping the translation and terminology/naming consistent. I've already updated it with all important content up to Chapter 11, but there is probably a lot of room to improve.
We could also make some discord server to talk things out, keep the project alive and communicate in real time. That way, anyone who is interested in contributing or just wants to support / give motivation to contributors, could easily do it.
I don't want to be the one to create this server, so I leave it to you, guys. I will keep doing my best-effort translation, even if this project fails completely. But I really want it to succeed and I offer my dedication to it and I will gladly cooperate with other people who want to finish it. I don't know Japanese and I'm not a native English speaker, but I have a pretty good understanding of the story and game-mechanics.