As reported by the publication Sega Saturn, Shiro! a few days ago, the long-awaited fan translation of the Sega Saturn Sakura Wars 2 has been released and is now available to download online.
Launched exclusively in Japan back in 1998, Sakura Wars 2 was the result of a collaboration between Red Company and Sega's CS Research & Development No. 2 division and was the follow-up to the 1996 Sega Saturn title Sakura Wars.
It saw players stepping into the shoes of the returning protagonist, Ichiro Ogami, who had previously been tasked with leading the all-female Flower Division of the Imperial Combat Revue, assembled to keep Tokyo safe from demonic threats. Featuring a blend of tactical turn-based roleplaying, timed social encounters, and animated FMVs, the game spanned several genres and went on to inspire various sequels, with only a couple of these ever getting an official localization in the West — 2010's Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love for the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 2, and the series's soft reboot for PlayStation 4.
In 2019, a Sega enthusiast named Noah Steam, together with a group of other fan translators and hackers, collaborated on a project to bring the first Sakura Wars game on Sega Saturn into English for the very first time. They then later announced they would be doing the same for the second game in the series in 2023, having apparently started work on the patch two years earlier. Now it appears, the patch is finally ready for the public.
The new patch adds subtitles to the movies and translates everything from the story dialogue to the minigames, load screens, system menus, battle menus, and more.
Here are the credits for the project:
==PROJECT LEAD==
NoahSteam==REVERSE ENGINEERING, PROGRAMMING AND TOOLS==
NoahSteam
TrekkiesUnite118==TRANSLATION LEADS==
MattoBii
CrouchingMouse==TRANSLATION==
Natsume38
Neko
MatatabiMitsu
==LEAD EDITOR==
BowlOfLentils==EDITORS==
Burntends
CrouchingMouse
MattoBii
Natsume38==GRAPHICS MODIFICATION==
Dyn0muTT
Joqu
Gong Xian
TrekkiesUnite118
NoahSteam
MattoBii
SaturnDave==MOVIE SUBTITLES==
TrekkiesUnite118==TESTERS==
BowlOfLentils
cj_iwakura
TrekkiesUnite118==TALENT RECRUITMENT==
Burntends==TRAILER==
Edited by TrekkiesUnite118
Audio Mixing by Shadowmask
VO by CrouchingMouse
If you want to download the patch, it is available now from the website SegaXtreme, which is also where you'll find more information on compatibility and detailed instructions on how to get it up and running.