It’s been a while hasn’t it? I was supposed to update 3 months ago for the Q4 update. I guess I’ll break down everything that’s important. I can’t use a TL;DR, but the subtitles should work as your TL;DR.
Future Diary - The 13th Diary Owner RE:WRITE’s Translation is Being Worked on Simultaneously!
For those unaware, 2 games were published for Future Diary. The first came out while the manga was still going on. The second game released out of the anime’s popularity. This game is a “re-release” of the first adding in:
- A new memory (each chapter is a “memory”)
- Changes to the UI. Here’s one such example:
Left: first game; right: second game.
- Fixes to difficulty
- There are more tutorial cutscenes to explain mechanics.
- Yuno’s insanity was too hard to balance in the original game, so they added in more ways to lower it (for Yunoteru fans this means more lovey-dovey scenes).
- This is what the other translator told me, so I don’t know if this is true.
- Voice Actors (everything is voiced except the current protagonist)
The Addition of Subtitles
With VAs being added in, some lines contain no text, but still have a voice line. So our solution will be to add in subtitles. There is one small problem with this technique, it’s very difficult to implement on a PSP. I won’t go into details, but it requires careful management of multiple things at once to make sure the PSP doesn’t crash.
Our Change in Translation
Originally, our translation was half machine translation and someone studying Japanese checking over the MTL. Our translation perspective has changed, and so has our recruiting process.
Translation is as much of an art form as writing the piece itself, and by translating literally (word for word) into English, we ruin both pieces of art. Therefore, I’ve been revising my translation ability by reading books on translation theory and changing our recruiting process. If you’d like to help translate, great! However, you’ll need to have an N2+ level and be competent in Japanese-English translation theory.
Now, due to this change in translation perspective, it makes the overall translation slower. If you really want to play the game translated with edited MTL, there’s plenty of software you can use, but we won’t do this for your final experience.
How We’ll be Releasing the Patches
Once we get to a stable release for both games (whether incomplete or complete), we’ll release a program that will overwrite your ISO. We won’t be releasing a patch because a patch would be limiting. What we want to do with this program is give you a couple options when “translating” your ISO:
- Decide whether or not you’d prefer to have Japanese suffixes on (i.e. -san).
- Decide whether you’d prefer the names to be in Japanese orientation (i.e. Gasai Yuno) or English orientation (i.e. Yuno Gasai).
- Decide whether you’d prefer subtitles to be on or off.
In case you're a little skeptical of downloading a program, we'll be publishing it on GitHub, so you don't have to worry.
A New Programmer Has Joined Us!
Now that I (Sermeno) am in college, I have a roommate, who luckily has programming experience in ASM! He offered his help to our project, so please welcome Avodkada!
Why Our Update Took so Long
- I started college this semester, and getting used to the environment has taken a while. I now seem to have a better grasp on things, so finding free time should be less difficult.
- Changing our translation philosophy caused me to have to revise the way I’ve been studying Japanese.
- Working on the subtitles is really difficult simply because of how much we have to manage and how they work behind the scenes.
Hopefully in our Q2 update, we’ll have more we can show all of you.
Sincerely,
The New Future Diary Alliance
Image Editor: JackPyez
Japanese-English Translators: Desi, Sermeno
Programmers: Avodkada, Sermeno
At most, from afterlife 
I will visit you as a soul in pain to haunt you 
and to urge your work: and I will go no further, until I have played it in english on my (at that sad time) dusty, battered and rusty PSP.
Xdqwerty
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