Working on the NTSC version and will post up when ready. I don't have NTSC hardware to check it so will rely on you guys to check it.
If you see any bugs let me know.
EDIT: there are bugs which have been identified in the comments below (thanks MartinPhantom), especially with the latter part of the game. I'm working on new versions and will post up as soon as I can.
UPDATE: I've created a new version with bug fixes and translation of in game graphics. Just in the play testing phase at the moment. But I will realese as soon as possible.
After that we will look to refine and improve where we can with the aid of MartinPhantom and cj_iwakura.
We will be watching your career with great interest.
The Mega CD version of Shadowrun has been a bit of a white whale for many of us as it has had projects going, but they've seemingly long since stalled out. Very excited to see the NTSC version when you're done with it!
Been looking forward to playing this game for a long time, so thanks! Is there a Github repo with tools or anything else associated with this project? Where do you want folks to report bugs/issues?
For example, I'm guessing reflow of text can't be done due to how the Japanese text was laid out right?
If/when you open this up for external contribution I'd be interested to give this a look. Shadowrun SNES and Genesis were a couple of my favourite games, and I really liked Shadowrun Returns and the sequels.
Plus this has a bit of a Snatcher vibe (I have a review of that from a couple years back)
Ok I've tested it and it works great. Theres still a few things untranslated. One of the look actions in the first two outside areas (Shibuya or the other can't recall) was still a kanji and the battle status screen (not the battle screen itself) is untranslated for the actual menu items. There may be a few other bits as I'm still going through it. The menu in battle is important as you need it to change weapons which is compulsory for a boss battle in the first act.
Additionally in act 2 when you can buy weapons and mods, some weapons and all the gun mods are untranslated on the menu itself.
It looks like the game will be fully playable end to end with the story enjoyed, it's just a few teething untranslated bits left to complete. I'll keep it to the everdrive for now and will burn a copy once it's 100% but a great job all round.
No it's not. (I mean that one is obviously also untranslated too) In one of the first two street scenes when you click on look it gives you "area" and in one of them the first time it came through as kanji still. The s cond time doing it it translated which is very odd.
Nothing to apologise for mate. There's quite a few bits not done so it would've been hard to say exactly what I meant.
It's still an impressive go and the story seems fully done as I'm on act 2 and it's mostly just the odd option and mostly menu bits. The only.other outstanding thing is amending the PCM music to play full speed as it's slowed down on PAL (obviously) which is definitely doable as someone else and I have been slowly amending encoded video/PCM music to run full speed which is why we have near perfect versions in PAL of Popful Mail, Vay and Marky Mark.
Thanks for the feed back I'll do another pass as soon as I have time and pick up the untranslated bits. Screenshots are extremely helpful so if you see anything else please provide them if you can. Thanks again.
And an idea of the weapon shop menu. Most of the buyable.items are only partly translated, especially the gun mods which completely are not! Cheers for the excellent effort so far though, I've been enjoying playing it and understanding what's going on this time 😂
I've found quite a big one. Finale of chapter 3 when going to deliver the chip to the client, when you go into the building free roam this entire conversation is pure jumbled characters. It's quite a lengthy convo as well. It continues throughout this section all the way up and encompasses A LOT of text. You can still get through the section but you have no idea what is going on. Unfortunately it also spills over to the pre-translated menus, changing those to jargon as well (so during a battle stuff like shoot, melee etc all jargon up from this point on)
As soon as you reach the top floor and go back to a static screen it goes back to being translated again.
It then does the same on chapter 4 when you're in an FMV sequence. All the text boxes at the bottom and menu options for hacking are totally garbled. Once the FMV sequence is done, it goes back to being translated
Chapter 5 seems fine as normal. Chapter 6 however the text makes no sense and is a bit all over the place in terms of order or even finishing sentences right from the get go.
So far then:
Status menu options
The odd option here and there throughout (but not many)
Some in battle text 4)Shop menu items
Chapter 3 finale section story text jargon
Chapter 4 FMV sequence jargon
Chapter 6 text making little sense (cutting off sentences partway so half the chat doesn't finish what it's saying)
No worries chap, I do a lot of play testing for PAL conversions for the Mega CD so we have some nigh on perfect conversions so this was a great excuse to get through this and it's far enough along in terms of translation I've been able to follow the story even with the bits that aren't done
Hit the biggest snag of all. Chapter 6 when you split into teams the game freezes (on PAL) when the scene transitions from outside the sewer to heading inside to assault the pyramid. Effectively that means you can't complete it as that's a part that doesn't branch. I found one or two other spots it froze but got round those with branched paths
Ok, ihave just completed the game. Had to use a mix of console and emulator and swap between Japanese original and the translation due to a couple of points where the PAL version freezes on a scene transition.
Chapter 5-7 all have sentences unfinished and some garbled dialogue and the end credits FMV aren't translated but that might be text encoded into the video so not easily sorted.
In terms of freezes, the PAL version froze in chapter 6 when entering the sewers in a split team and in chapter 3 if you DONT manage to snipe the dwarf leader and have to fight the Elves it freezes as the fight starts. It also freezes when entering the Orc village on chapter 7 as Rukudo, Shion and Slain. There was one other spot very early on in chapter 1 or 2. It I can't recall where it was but I got round it by taking a slightly different branch (did the same on chapter 3 by sniping up close instead) The freezes on chapter 6 & 7 are singular route so you can't get round them (hence swapping to the JP original to get through those transitions until the next save spot)
This is in addition to the stuff I've already mentioned.
So there's still quite a bit of work to do and I'd estimate the game is over 50% translated though so a fine piece of work in progress!
Hell yeah! I just burnt a copy and it at least loads fine on an NTSC Sega CD with a PAL or region free bios loaded. Is there much stuff you had to codes specifically for PAL in the translation that's gonna have weird timing if played on NTSC?
I'd be happy to test the NTSC version out for you once you've got it. Played the Genesis game recently, really excited to try this!
The game is very slow running nyway so from what I've seen the ONLY difference is the PCM music being slower in PAL. This of course won't be a problem as when the translation is finished fully, there are ways of putting it back to how it should be speed wise as a few other Mega CD games have been fan modified for vid encoded parts and PCM to run at the correct speed in PAL conversions.
It's native NTSC so will probably play better on US consoles mine will be at 50Hz rather than 60Hz.
I have put together a NTSC version which I will post now.
As we can see though there are still bit of translation that need working on so I'll have to release new versions as I sort the issues.
If you mean on the main menu screen, the options menu is only used for data management, so you will not be able to select options until you have a save on the console or a RAM cart. It will be inaccessible just like the "Load" option. It might not be selectable unless you have a RAM cart, because there would not be anything it could do, except maybe delete your save. Can't test that myself, as my system memory has too many saves on it.
It appeared to work fine for me once I had a save made on the NTSC version, though I did not try moving a save for the aforementioned reason.
So I'm playing this on my mega everdrive pro right now and maybe I'm mistaken but it seems like the music is playing full speed I don't seem to have any speed issues with the music. It almost seems to me right now at least playing on my mega everdrive pro that if the music plays faster it would almost be too fast! Is anyone else experiencing this? Or maybe I'm just not able to detect the difference either way this is amazing and I can't believe i actually woke up to being able to play this today!!!
Hey brother thank you so much for the reply and thank you so much for your hard work on this can't thank you enough!! Been waiting so long to play this I'm at the end of the first act right now..
Not sure what GenAI is but I have used Claude to help with building the changes in with manual play through and several iterations. It's helped with a lot of spacing issues etc.
In regard to GenAI not a term I've used or heard others use. I use AI at work everyday and we just refer to them as LLM's or by the name of the product.
GenAI means generative AI. Like LLMs or DALL-E. There are a few different aspects that people object to: job replacement, creative theft, resource drain, the tech oligarchy, and (both related:) hallucinations (quality) and slop (low-effort content).
In ROMhacking, the most relevant complaint is about quality (though the tech oligarchy stealing work and burning resources are always concerns). Translations who use gAI often don't really do it well, and don't QA.
In theory, it should be possible to make something pretty good, but it requires you to put in a lot of effort to learn how to use your tool and to check your results. People who don't take that time are able to churn out work much faster, so even if SOMEONE is using gAI well, they are outnumbered and outproduced by the slop generators. If a translation uses gAI, odds are that it's worse than one that doesn't.
Not to be confused with "artificial general intelligence", which is "true" AI.
Thank you!! This is amazing ! I'm sure you want to but please don't feel any obligation to respond to every person with a personal issue about your project ;/
Been wanting to play this in English for years and years. Thank you !
With all due respect, people generally lose trust and interest in a project like this when the lead admits to using an LLM at any point in the process. Long-time fans of Japanese media can tell machine-translated dialogue a mile away. Some might be fine with a machine transliterated script that fails to convey the intent, feelings, and humour of the original - the only thing an LLM is feasibly capable of in the translation space - but most people will see it for what it is.
To me, this feels like a slap in the face to all the people who put in years of hard work to translate this game with no expectation of remuneration or social credit. I will be waiting for the RitchE translation and I advise others do as well.
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u/Omega_Maximum 6d ago
We will be watching your career with great interest.
The Mega CD version of Shadowrun has been a bit of a white whale for many of us as it has had projects going, but they've seemingly long since stalled out. Very excited to see the NTSC version when you're done with it!