Sega CD's Shadowrun Gets A Second English Translation, Also AI-Assisted

Released exclusively in Japan in February 1996 for the Mega-CD, Shadowrun is an adventure RPG developed by Compile and Group SNE, unrelated to the Shadowrun games released on Mega Drive and Super Nintendo around the same time. Unplayable in English for three decades, the game received its first full translation earlier this year from MadMorigan, built on a reworked machine translation. A second translation, this time from RetchE, has now been released in early September.

RetchE, who had already announced plans to release his own version after it came out that MadMorigan's patch used AI, took the same approach: a base machine translation, then edited, corrected and playtested to cut down on errors and smooth out the text. The patch covers all seven of the game's scenarios, along with dialogue, menus, items, equipment, spells and battle commands.

Two versions for players to choose from

RetchE's patch, available as version 1.1 on Romhacking.net, ships with two font options: an "AllCaps" edition with a matching uppercase font for the save/load screens, and a "MixedCase" edition with mixed-case dialogue and menus. RetchE himself notes that this isn't a professional localization and that some wording may still be refined down the line.

Having two competing translations for the same obscure game released just days apart shows the romhacking community's growing appetite for Japan-only RPGs that never made it west, now made accessible thanks to machine translation tools.

Source: Time Extension