@KingMike With all due respect to your work (assuming you are the King Mike who translated a ton of NES and SNES games - I have a bunch of your work in my personal collection and very much appreciate your importance to the fan translation scene), Hilltop has been a revolution for the PS1 and PS2 transaction hacking community and he backs up his "hype" videos with professional quality work that is actually released on time. I think he earned the right to promote like this.
Only had the time to play around with the start of the game but I'm amazed this exist.
I can't praise Hilltop and his team enough, he managed to get probably my three remaining bucket list PS1 translations over the line between Racing Lagoon, Aconcagua, and now this (not to mention Jingle Cats...)
All while being professional and avoiding the drama pitfalls and project deaths that so many fan translation groups fall into. Every time he's promoted a project, he's delivered.
I wish he would venture into Saturn translations considering how good of a hacker he has become, although I can't complain if he continues to get PS1 and PS2 games over the line.
@OdysseyPoint It is a tool, and like many tools it's used by opportunists to promise something it is not.
I'm as big an AI skeptic as it gets, I don't even think LLMs should be called "AI", and it's producing a lot of slop content. The glut of AI slop games with AI artwork and AI programming is a real issue.
That doesn't mean LLMs supervised by people aren't a valuable time saver. You're right that AI use is a red flag but fan translations being subpar is not something new and you got to take it on a case by case basis.
It's possible the creator of this used AI for other uses and ruined what is a good game, based on my test so far I don't see it, and this is not a game where machine translation is a disaster. Machine translation has its place, ideally with human made edits.
I agree with a lot of the angst around AI slop and by itself I wouldn't necessarily trust it to do justice to a text heavy game like an RPG where even a literal translation might be missing a certain nuance - the recent Segagaga fiasco being a good example.
But it's a tool, and a useful tool, and perfect for a project like this, a good, not particularly text heavy game that would probably be in translation purgatory without tools such as AI to speed along the translation. I played this game before (it's a fun pinball game for PS1 and Saturn) in Japanese and having a translation patch just makes it a better experience for me.
I think the AI debate is an important one but machine translation tools have been used in fan translations for years now, and if it allows projects like this to move along quicker, it's a good thing.
Xenocider is maybe the most impressive Dreamcast indie release - it has some homebrew jank and the controls are frustrating (but that's consistent with Dreamcast), but it's as far as I know still the only 3D indie release for the system that isn't a third rate racing game, and it genuinely feels like a retro Sega release - clearly inspired by Space Harrier but unique enough that there's nothing else quite like it.
It's a shame to see this team go after so much promise. Sovietborgs looked very promising - while a multi-directional Genesis shooter is a more saturated market than Xenocider, the art design and demo both showed a lot of potential.
Yaba Sanshiro was a few years ago a game changer when it came to Saturn emulation, although at this point it'a far more buggy than Beetle/Mednafen which can now run Saturn full speed for the most part on a mid level android device.
While the Yaba standalone app keeps improving and I appreciate the hard work put in, the interface at this point is much more restrictive than Retroarch without the optimization and flexibility offered by Duckstation for PlayStation.
Still, I credit DevMiyax for helping to make Saturn more accessible.
I have a RP5 and it runs most GameCube (and controller friendly Wii), PS2, and Saturn games. Of the three, PS2 had the most issues due to the state of emulation, but I would say most games are playable and probably use it for PS2 emulation more than anything else. Saturn I actually get the best performance using Retro arch unlike older android devices.
I will probably eventually pick up an RP6 although right now I'll probably stick with the 5.
Comments 6
Re: After Many Years Of Development, An English Patch For The PS1 Cult Classic Kowloon's Gate Is Now Available
@KingMike With all due respect to your work (assuming you are the King Mike who translated a ton of NES and SNES games - I have a bunch of your work in my personal collection and very much appreciate your importance to the fan translation scene), Hilltop has been a revolution for the PS1 and PS2 transaction hacking community and he backs up his "hype" videos with professional quality work that is actually released on time. I think he earned the right to promote like this.
Only had the time to play around with the start of the game but I'm amazed this exist.
I can't praise Hilltop and his team enough, he managed to get probably my three remaining bucket list PS1 translations over the line between Racing Lagoon, Aconcagua, and now this (not to mention Jingle Cats...)
All while being professional and avoiding the drama pitfalls and project deaths that so many fan translation groups fall into. Every time he's promoted a project, he's delivered.
I wish he would venture into Saturn translations considering how good of a hacker he has become, although I can't complain if he continues to get PS1 and PS2 games over the line.
Re: "I Sympathise With The Negative Sentiment" - Technosoft's 'Fantastic Pinball' Gets An AI-Assisted English Translation
@OdysseyPoint It is a tool, and like many tools it's used by opportunists to promise something it is not.
I'm as big an AI skeptic as it gets, I don't even think LLMs should be called "AI", and it's producing a lot of slop content. The glut of AI slop games with AI artwork and AI programming is a real issue.
That doesn't mean LLMs supervised by people aren't a valuable time saver. You're right that AI use is a red flag but fan translations being subpar is not something new and you got to take it on a case by case basis.
It's possible the creator of this used AI for other uses and ruined what is a good game, based on my test so far I don't see it, and this is not a game where machine translation is a disaster. Machine translation has its place, ideally with human made edits.
Re: "I Sympathise With The Negative Sentiment" - Technosoft's 'Fantastic Pinball' Gets An AI-Assisted English Translation
I agree with a lot of the angst around AI slop and by itself I wouldn't necessarily trust it to do justice to a text heavy game like an RPG where even a literal translation might be missing a certain nuance - the recent Segagaga fiasco being a good example.
But it's a tool, and a useful tool, and perfect for a project like this, a good, not particularly text heavy game that would probably be in translation purgatory without tools such as AI to speed along the translation. I played this game before (it's a fun pinball game for PS1 and Saturn) in Japanese and having a translation patch just makes it a better experience for me.
I think the AI debate is an important one but machine translation tools have been used in fan translations for years now, and if it allows projects like this to move along quicker, it's a good thing.
Re: "Farewell, Tovarisch" - Dreamcast Community Dealt A Disappointing Blow As Xenocider Dev Calls Its Quits
Xenocider is maybe the most impressive Dreamcast indie release - it has some homebrew jank and the controls are frustrating (but that's consistent with Dreamcast), but it's as far as I know still the only 3D indie release for the system that isn't a third rate racing game, and it genuinely feels like a retro Sega release - clearly inspired by Space Harrier but unique enough that there's nothing else quite like it.
It's a shame to see this team go after so much promise. Sovietborgs looked very promising - while a multi-directional Genesis shooter is a more saturated market than Xenocider, the art design and demo both showed a lot of potential.
Re: "I'm Just Enjoying Building Software With Those New Tools" - Yaba Sanshiro Dev Credits AI With Saturn Emulator's Renewed Momentum
Yaba Sanshiro was a few years ago a game changer when it came to Saturn emulation, although at this point it'a far more buggy than Beetle/Mednafen which can now run Saturn full speed for the most part on a mid level android device.
While the Yaba standalone app keeps improving and I appreciate the hard work put in, the interface at this point is much more restrictive than Retroarch without the optimization and flexibility offered by Duckstation for PlayStation.
Still, I credit DevMiyax for helping to make Saturn more accessible.
Re: "The Future Of Retroid Is Here" - Retroid Unveils Two Brand New Handhelds, Including The Retroid Pocket 6
I have a RP5 and it runs most GameCube (and controller friendly Wii), PS2, and Saturn games. Of the three, PS2 had the most issues due to the state of emulation, but I would say most games are playable and probably use it for PS2 emulation more than anything else. Saturn I actually get the best performance using Retro arch unlike older android devices.
I will probably eventually pick up an RP6 although right now I'll probably stick with the 5.