[Dreamcast] Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka the Swordswoman English Patch v1.0

[BreakSilence]

Here is an English patch for the Dreamcast game:

Fushigi no Dungeon: Furai no Shiren Gaiden - Onna Kenshi Asuka Kenzan!

This continues the old SharkSnack English demo patch.
The original patch wwas never finished.

translated:

• Main story
• System/menu text
• Item labels
• Most visible UI

not translated:

• FMVs are not subtitled

I would call this around 98-99% playable in English...

I tried looking into FMV subtitles, but honestly I do not know enough about Sofdec video to do it properly.
Derek Pascarella aka ateam has done this kind of work before with Rainbow Cotton, but this part is still over my head.

Maybe somebody else will take on the FMVs in the future...

For now, enjoy an almost complete English translation of the actual game.

[LINK REMOVED as by SharkSnack's request, will be available again eventually]

 

[Exxistance]

Woah, cool! Nice to see another DC translation.

I did a bunch of subtitling for SGGG. Use SofDecVideoTools to get the videos into a format like .mkv or .mp4. Then use AegisSub to create subtitles and time them. Then use SofDecVideoTools again to get them back into .SFD format. It's not hard...just tedious. Good luck!

 

[Donald]

What a good news

 

[cheesegromit]

Oh brilliant! Has somebody been able to test this yet?

 

[cocik26761]

I had to apply this ontop of SharkSnacks old v0.16 translation.
If I apply this to a clean untouched japanese gdi, it crashes and endlessly loops the Dreamcast boot screen.

 

[cheesegromit]

Seeing as Langrisser V turned out to be AI slop, is this AI slop too?

 

[Ikagura]

More Shiren translation is always good.

 

[SharkSnack]

Hi, this is SharkSnack, the author of the original Asuka Kenzan demo patch, and both the Dreamcast and PC versions of my English patch are still currently in-progress even as of this writing.

As far as I'm aware, you never contacted me about helping me with my work, and furthermore, why would you assume the project is dead just because I haven't posted an update on social media? You know there's a Discord server link, so why not just join and ask? Or go to the project thread and ask there if you dislike Discord?

So, I'm going to first request that you immediately take down your patch + stop distributing it, and let me finish my work without your interference. If you still wish to create a translation patch of your own, do so without using ANY of my work as a foundation. I do not condone what you've done, and I don't appreciate it whatsoever.

I hope I've made myself clear and that you comply with this request, and that nothing further will need to be said or done.

• SharkSnack

 

[BreakSilence]

Hi, this is SharkSnack, the author of the original Asuka Kenzan demo patch, and both the Dreamcast and PC versions of my English patch are still currently in-progress even as of this writing.

As far as I'm aware, you never contacted me about helping me with my work, and furthermore, why would you assume the project is dead just because I haven't posted an update on social media? You know there's a Discord server link, so why not just join and ask? Or go to the project thread and ask there if you dislike Discord?

So, I'm going to first request that you immediately take down your patch + stop distributing it, and let me finish my work without your interference. If you still wish to create a translation patch of your own, do so without using ANY of my work as a foundation. I do not condone what you've done, and I don't appreciate it whatsoever.

I hope I've made myself clear and that you comply with this request, and that nothing further will need to be said or done.

• SharkSnack

Hi SharkSnack,

I’ll remove any remaining material based on your work from my patch and rework it so it does not contain any of your assets, text, edits, or other contributions as a foundation.

That said, I think this situation could have been handled in a much more constructive way. The goal here was never to interfere with your work or disrespect your project. The goal was to help make the game more accessible to English-speaking players. It is genuinely a shame that instead of communicating openly, collaborating, or at least assuming good faith, the first response has to be this hostile and territorial.

I understand that you do not want your work used, and I will respect that. But I also think the scene would be better off if people tried to move projects forward together instead of treating every independent effort as an attack. Lack of public updates naturally creates uncertainty, and not everyone will know the current state of a project unless that information is clearly available.

To be clear: I will take down the current patch, remove anything connected to your work, and continue only with my own independent work from this point onward.

I hope that resolves the matter.

Cheers

 

[SharkSnack]

Yeah, sure, it's easy to take the high road once you've already released it and you've been caught - ignoring the fact that you made zero attempt to contact me beforehand.

But anyway, thank you, I really do appreciate that you will stop distributing the patch in its current state. I generally don't have a problem with people releasing competing patches, as I have full confidence that my work stands apart from the average patch out there these days. I'm even open to collaboration when contacted properly, but that's not what happened here.

On the off chance you would like to do things properly, I'd be willing to discuss a collaboration attempt on Discord, but otherwise, thanks in advance again for removing all traces of my work from your patch, and I wish you good luck.

 

[Feitang]

Here is an English patch for the Dreamcast game:

Fushigi no Dungeon: Furai no Shiren Gaiden - Onna Kenshi Asuka Kenzan!

This continues the old SharkSnack English demo patch.
The original patch wwas never finished.

translated:

• Main story
• System/menu text
• Item labels
• Most visible UI

not translated:

• FMVs are not subtitled

I would call this around 98-99% playable in English...

I tried looking into FMV subtitles, but honestly I do not know enough about Sofdec video to do it properly.
Derek Pascarella aka ateam has done this kind of work before with Rainbow Cotton, but this part is still over my head.

Maybe somebody else will take on the FMVs in the future...

For now, enjoy an almost complete English translation of the actual game.

[LINK REMOVED as by SharkSnack's request, will be available again eventually]

Thanks

 

[Lavtz]

I was happy when I saw the announcement, but seeing the discussion it sparked... What a petty thing.
Anyway, best of luck to both of you, and let’s hope the community doesn’t suffer in the end.

 

[cheesegromit]

Damn this sucks. Hopefully somebody else posts the patch outside of Discord servers soon.

 

[offalynne]

What a petty thing.

SharkSnack has put huge effort into translating many of the games, maintaining community discussion on multiple platforms, bridging the Japanese and Western fan communities and resources, and much more. All of the activity and progress working on the series has been transparent including ongoing work on Asuka.

Many people have been involved in various Shiren community projects including translation patches and Shark has been welcoming and encouraging to all who have contributed in good faith. Grabbing the patch, modifying and rereleasing it without discussing it all with the author when a finalized patch from the original author is actively under production is just weird and counterproductive.

I hope BreakSilence considers contributing more thoughtfully in the future.

 

[Donjune]

translated:

• Main story
• System/menu text
• Item labels
• Most visible UI

not translated:

• FMVs are not subtitled

I would call this around 98-99% playable in English...
[LINK REMOVED as by SharkSnack's request, will be available again eventually]

Did you manage to solve technical problems like fully rebuilding SSCR.BIN or decrypting the text of the pc version? Cause I'm sure Shark was only upset about the translation side, which is understandable. But maybe you could help on the hacking side?

 

[Lavtz]

SharkSnack has put huge effort into translating many of the games, maintaining community discussion on multiple platforms, bridging the Japanese and Western fan communities and resources, and much more. All of the activity and progress working on the series has been transparent including ongoing work on Asuka.

Many people have been involved in various Shiren community projects including translation patches and Shark has been welcoming and encouraging to all who have contributed in good faith. Grabbing the patch, modifying and rereleasing it without discussing it all with the author or the community when a finalized patch from the original author is actively under production is just weird and counterproductive.

I hope BreakSilence considers contributing more thoughtfully in the future.

They could have talked privately; there was no reason to draw attention to it publicly and demand that the link be taken down.

I don’t find it strange that someone decided to translate the game after a beta was released three years ago, it’s either that or resorting to AI.
All of this plays into the argument of those who defend AI translation when certain actions occur in the community.
But whatever, I’m not going to argue about this anymore.

 

[HikaruKitsune]

Requesting it be taken down is justified.

Doing it in a way where it seems like it was intended to get people to pile on is where I'm less on that side.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

This... escalated quickly.

I can certainly see SS's points, but I don't agree with their methods of getting them across.

 

[offalynne]

resorting to AI

How does that have anything at all to do with this?

it was intended to get people to pile on

Why do you say this? There is nothing about the post that indicates this, and there is no pile-on to be found, just people that feel entitled to the patch OP voluntarily removed posting to complain.

If it was handled in private, people who think they're entitled to it would still be complaining. BreakSilence did not message Shark who is obviously active in the community and quick to respond across Reddit, Discord, GitHub, etc. about using his work, posted it here publicly, and Shark publicly responded.

 

[Lavtz]

I really didn't want to bring this up again, but SS locking the franchise's subreddit because of this is just wrong.
I'm speechless.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I really didn't want to bring this up again, but SS locking the franchise's subreddit because of this is just wrong.
I'm speechless.

Wait, what? oO

 

[Zeb89]

What the fuck is up with people stealing old translations from others? Geez...

 

[Lavtz]

Wait, what? oO

 

[SharkSnack]

You know what is actually wrong? Endlessly harassing me through every avenue people seem to be able to find (including the subreddit our community started), when all I did was essentially make it clear that I don't appreciate my work being stolen and then requested the distribution of the patch with my work in it to be discontinued.

This is the last message I'm going to write on this site, but I'll try to lay out the facts for those who are still somehow confused:

- BreakSilence never contacted me before doing what they did.

- I never released my Asuka Kenzan tools publicly.

- I'm very easy to contact online, as I'm on the subreddit, Youtube, Twitch, Discord, other romhacking related sites and forums, and even the wikis I created which BreakSilence credited in their release have a contact link, etc. If anyone who doesn't use Discord wanted to know the status of my ongoing Asuka Kenzan project at any point, they are fully capable of reaching out and just asking "what's the status? Need any help?" or whatever, and I'd respond right away. The excuse that I had vanished and everything was in the dark doesn't hold water at all.

- I understand people on this site for whatever reason feel entitled to my work, but that doesn't give anyone a pass to continue to send harassment messages when I stand up for myself. Some of the messages I received were full of lies, incredibly nasty, and downright discouraging, and well, I don't owe any of you anything. What I've been doing since roughly 2019 is out of passion for the Shiren series, and the modern English Shiren community was largely built by our small team. If people somehow lost sight of that and resort to harassing our community and just being awful, they can go ahead and take a break from our circles and create their own content - without leveraging our work in the process at all.

- Do people not realize that this type of harassment often makes the recepient step away from the scene? Realize, that would mean no further translations of the remaining untranslated games from our team, no more strategy wikis to make playing the games easier, no more community events including international cooperation between the EN and JP Shiren communities, and so much more. Do you really want to lose all of that?

- Lastly, if BreakSilence was such a benevolent, talented, and caring person, they wouldn't have had to use my demo patch as a base to begin with - or they would have contacted me before doing any work to show interest in collaboration, which I would've gladly accomodated like others I've worked with on projects in the past. No matter which way you look at it, they're in the wrong here. Go ahead and make competing patches that don't use my work at all, I couldn't care less about the fact that other patches for the same games exist. But what I do care about is having my work and name involved in something I wasn't actually involved in, and wasn't contacted about whatsoever.

I could say a lot more, but that's what I'll leave it at for the time being. And for those worried about the subreddit, it'll be back to being public eventually once your group of harassers go find something better to do + when we have more mods to manage this sort of incident if it comes up again in the future. It's not taken away forever, as I actually do care about the Shiren community. At the same time, I won't tolerate having something I helped build be used as an avenue for continued harassment.

 

[UnDubious]

SharkSnack released complete, quality translations for Shiren the Wanderer 2 in 2022 (excellent game btw), and 4 in 2024. I never doubted that he would release his Asuka patch eventually, it's common for proper fan translations (ie not AI trash) to take some time. There's no reason to assume the project has been abandoned after just a couple years. Who cares if he called out the guy publicly? Shark could have handled it more diplomatically, but he didn't, who cares? The other guy should have reached out to ask if he could use his work, he didn't, he probably won't make that mistake again.