Progress has been very good so far! Here's where I'm at:
- 95% of both English dubs have been retimed to the FMVs for both the releases.
- I've written a tool to redub the FMVs from the original release.
- Script format is partially reverse-engineered; I'm able to insert new text, and understand most of the control codes.
- In-game voice format is understood, and I'm able to insert new voices.
- New font, created by a friend; it updates the English PS1 font with the higher-quality shading the Saturn version uses for its text.
And here's a video showing the original release's FMVs dubbed in English (with no in-game text or voices):
Here's an incomplete TODO list:
- Finish writing my font-generation tool.
- Adjust the spacing between letters in dialogue to match the English version; the Japanese version uses wider spacing.
- Identify and translate the menu text and graphics.
- Decide what to do with the few FMVs which have issues with the WD dub.
- Come up with a workflow to insert the full script in both games' maps.
Q: Why bother when the PS1 version is in English?
A: A few reasons!
- The MPEG version has much better FMVs!
- The graphics are better in a few places.
- The music is different.
- I'm a Saturn fangirl, and I want to be able to play all three Lunar games in English on the same system!
A: YES! I'm planning on releasing patches for both versions, so the six other people with VCD cards have something to look forward to.
Q: Will anything in this patch be different from the PS1 version?
A: A few things, mostly technical:
- A few FMVs, including the opening song and Luna's boat theme, will have better-quality music than they did in the PS1 version. I'm using the soundtrack CD as a source, so those scenes can have stereo, CD-quality music.
- The in-game voices will be slightly lower quality.
- I plan on restoring the hints to the Vane dungeon puzzle, which Working Designs removed, and using the fancy special characters that exist in the font for it.
- I won't be using any of the gameplay changes Working Designs made. All of the gameplay, including the difficulty level and chest placement, will be the same as in the Japanese versions.
- I won't be using the visual edits Working Designs made to the FMVs. This means that the flashback cutscenes late in the game won't be sepia-toned.
A: Aside from text, I might be able to improve the quality of the audio in the FMVs in the original release. There will be extra room on the disc, and there's room within the bitrate budget for higher-quality audio.
Q: Wait, what's this about problematic FMVs?
A: Working Designs altered the lengths of several cutscenes. In some cases they repeated shots over again to add room for more dialogue; in one scene they actually slowed down the entire FMV by about 10 or 15% to increase the length and add room for more dialogue. I'm not sure how I'll handle this yet; I don't want to trim down dialogue if I don't have to, but reediting and reencoding the cutscenes might be hard.
There's also one cutscene where the audio lines up, but a shot was zoomed in to mask the fact that the voice acting doesn't match up well with the lip movements. Not sure how I'll handle that either.