The Return of the Great Departed Prosecutor, and the State of the Study

The Return of the Great Departed Prosecutor, and the State of the Study

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Screenshot of Miles Edgeworth putting on his jacket, from Ace Attorney Investigations 2

“Hurry! Contact the High Prosecutor’s Office! We need that man… Miles Edgeworth… If there’s anyone who can save this franchise, it’s him!”

The year is 2023 AD. The Ace Attorney series is entirely available on modern platforms. Well, not entirely… One small indomitable game still holds out against localization.

Hello everyone, and welcome to a belated update from Scarlet Study, which I have the pleasure of writing this time around. We have some exciting if unusual news to share – unusual in that it is news, which we haven’t been great at giving lately, and unusual because this time we’re showcasing a project from outside the bounds of Scarlet Study.

As eagle-eyed fans have already noticed, the long-running project to bring the classic fan translation of Gyakuten Kenji 2 to Android has finally come into fruition. So please enjoy this launch trailer for Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor’s Path on Android, put together by project leader Mr. Akrasr.

If you’ve been following this team’s efforts, you know this has been a long time coming. Early efforts go back to 2018 when Uwabami and onepiecefreak joined forces with Auryn, the original Prosecutor’s Path project lead, to reverse engineer the Unity port of the game. Work continued under hacking wizard an-error. However, as the DGS project took priority and a pandemic happened, progress came to a halt – that is until Mr. Akrasr, whom you may know for his Russian fan translations, offered to take over.

His team, which includes graphic editors Dzin Icaoka and Leff as well as another former Prosecutor’s Path team member in Anthiflo, was the driving force behind this new release and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

The release comes with an installation guide which should allow anyone to purchase a legitimate copy of the game and apply this patch. Gyakuten Kenji 2, as it is formally known, is a special game and we hope this release allows a new set of players to discover it in glorious HD.

Not so fast…

We would be remiss to end this transmission without an update on our main endeavor, that is the Great Ace Attorney translation project. In 2021, a few months after we released our latest translated chapter (DGS2 Episode 3), Capcom brought The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles to consoles and PCs worldwide.

While we kept a low profile to allow this official release to get all the attention it deserves, there’s no denying it brought some incertainty to this project. In the end, it relies on a passionate team contributing their free time, and a great motivational factor was lost when the goal to see a complete localization for these games was essentially reached.

As team members moved on or became unavailable, work on the next two cases continued sporadically thanks to the dedication of translators Roseheart and zakuro with help from Teekro, okaykei and, as always, BenjiD, Hyarion and Rahky. However, the burden of keeping the momentum going is too much for one person to take up at a time, and progress ultimately stalled.

As it stands, Episode 4 is translated and the bulk of the work is in proofreading, inserting and testing the translation. It’s clear this can only happen with a proper team dynamic, which is why we’re looking for contributors to help the project get back on track. Specifically, the roles would be:

  • Translators – We’re looking for people to help check the translation for any errors, and validate the finished scenes. There are also scenes to translate in Episode 5. Therefore, you should have a level of Japanese equivalent to N2.
  • Editors – The main skills we’re looking for are proficiency in English and a passion for creative writing. You would be inserting the translation into the game’s scripts while making sure the lines sound natural and fit well into the overall style. As of 28 September 2023, we are all set for editors!

Head over to our application form if you’re interested in helping out, we’d love to see some new faces!

It has been heartwarming to see an influx of positive notes on our original translation, and fans asking for it to be completed. It remains our goal to provide a way to play in English to those who bought the game on 3DS and Android, and if we were the betting kind, we’d wager your support helped The Great Ace Attorney become the sleeper hit it is today.

Thanks again for your patience and support for this team.

Script Changes

Script Changes

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It has come to our attention that Capcom has decided to restore DGS1+2 as well as Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice to PlayStore and iOS, the latter also getting a refresh of Ghost Trick, which we recommend you to play if you haven’t done so yet. As of the time of writing this, DGS has not been restored on 3DS eShop. Update May 26, 2021: both games have been restored to the 3DS eShop with the same changes.

Both DGS1 and 2 have also received what Capcom calls a “minor bugfix”, but when we looked a bit closer we found something quite interesting. For the first time, an update for either of the DGS games involves changes to the script. Not just small typos, it looks like specific words have been removed, 野蛮 (barbarian) and サル (monkey). Of 13 changed passages, 10 are said by Jezail and nearly all of them are said in a racial context. As the small number suggests, this certainly doesn’t cover all instances of racially charged passages in the game, and one instance of 野蛮 remains in DGS1 in which it appears the context isn’t racially charged but could be taken as such. Many other cases remain in the game, mostly remarking on the appearance, intelligence or honor of Japanese people in an insensitive or insulting manner.

This makes us wonder why they did make these changes. If the objective was to tone down racist rhetoric, then they failed to do their job right, since equally bad or even worse passages remain in the games. Someone theorized it could be a change in certain rating board rules which could force higher ratings on games that feature specific words. We do not know at this point and welcome any input from someone who does.

It stands to reason that these changes will also find their way into the upcoming Chronicles version for PS4/Steam/Switch, which we are very much looking forward to. Hope you all managed to place your preorder on time!

Since only 13 passages were actually changed, we documented them all so you can see for yourself and come to your own conclusions. For your convenience, we added our current translation and a rough translation of the changes.

The Return of the Great Departed Soul

The Return of the Great Departed Soul

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DGS23

Art by qosic

“My friend’s wiry arms were around me and he was leading me to the chair.
“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake say that you’re not hurt!”
It was worth a wound -it was worth many wounds- to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay beyond that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

What a year it has been. A year full of surprises, good and bad – but mostly a year where you all where starving for new content. The long-awaited, extra-long Episode 3 is finally here.

The last year hasn’t been normal in any shape or form, for any of us, and many a plan we had didn’t quite work out the way we had hoped. This release will not include the long-awaited Android fix some of you have been waiting for and meanwhile, Capcom has removed both games from all digital storefronts. We are still commited to rectify this, people who have bought the games on PlayStore still spent their hard-earned money trusting that we would come through and I promise, we will. Here’s to hoping Capcom will restore the games eventually.

Many of you have read the news about the leaks, and so have we. There seems to be something big on the horizon, and you have questions. So do we. If the rumors turn out to be true, we hope you will join us in supporting Capcom finally bringing this gem to the west. Niche games like DGS need all the support they can get. Let’s show them that localizing these games is worth their time. It will definitely be interesting to see where the official translation will differ from ours, but as we said on twitter, we do not intend to comment on the situation further until Capcom chooses to make a public announcement.

As always, enjoy this new Episode and let us know what you think in the Comments, on twitter or on the Fan Translators International Discord (link is on the Contact page), if you do find any mistakes in our script, please do let us know on our bug trackers (links are on the Download page).

Hopefully, our Android users won’t have to wait for much longer, and we will see what else the future brings. A big thank you to d0k3, Dj_Mike238, Wolfvak for helping us fix some technical issues and qosic for the beautiful art for this release post!

Happy Easter!

Note: Please start Episode 3 from the Chapter menu, not from a save you made from the preview, or the Save button will be hidden.

PlayStore updates

PlayStore updates

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Art by Tryphena

CAPCOM has pushed updates for both DGS1+2 on PlayStore today to address changes in the GooglePlay service, screen issues on certain devices and unspecified further issues. This breaks our patch, please don’t update and/or patch until further notice while we investigate.

3DS Only: DGS 2: The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney & The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro

3DS Only: DGS 2: The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney & The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro

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Art by Tryphena

“Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it was indeed he.” – Dr John Watson, A Scandal in Bohemia

Hello, everyone!

Happy holidays from everyone at Scarlet Study! I’m pleased to announce that our patch for DGS 2 episodes 1 and 2 are now available for 3DS! We hope that you’ll enjoy it as a special present from us! You can download the patch here!

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Android patch has been slightly delayed, but we are anticipating that it will release soon!

In the meantime, if you need a refresher on what happened in DGS 1, there’s a cute little animated recap series that has been translated by Shobrisu! Otherwise, if you just feel like playing DGS1 through again, we’ve been back through it and given it a little touch up! You can grab the updates here. Don’t forget about our British Glossary and translation notes, too, which have also been updated for the new release.

But there’s even more news! We also have a brand-new Twitter account! We will be posting all sorts of tidbits here, and it’ll be an easy way to get in touch, check if we have any updates, and to see that we’re not dead! And, last but not least, we are now opening up recruitment! Specifically, we are looking for more translators and editors. If you’d like to join us, please sign up using the form. If we’re interested, we’ll contact you back via Discord.

Well, that’s all for now! Wishing you all the best for the holidays and the new year!

Complete Android Release for The Great Ace Attorney!

Complete Android Release for The Great Ace Attorney!

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Hey boys and girls, we’re back with the mobile release. Sorry again for the delay; we’ve taken some measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

If you happen to already have IrisMobile and the previous Android release installed, just open IrisMobile and it should prompt you to update.
If you don’t have the Android release yet, check the Buying Guide link to get started; after you finish buying the game, a link to the patch itself is at the bottom of that page, along with further instructions. This DOES work on Android emulators for PC like BlueStacks! See the IrisMobile page for more info on that.

Some sidenotes and near-future plans

  • Yes, the plans for the English dub are on track. More info very soon™, in its own post.
  • There’s a big demand for retranslating our translation into other languages. We dig that, but we want the translation to stabilize before we open it up. This means waiting for feedback from our users and for the rewrite that started some time ago to finish. We’ll let you know when we’re ready.

But wait, there’s more!

The 3DS demo for The Great Ace Attorney 2 – The Resolve of Ryuunosuke Naruhodou is now released, as well. It requires the original Japanese demo to be installed. Unfortunately, there is no such demo for the Android version of the game. But if all goes well, it won’t be long before both 3DS and Android players have something to sink their teeth into, if you catch my drift.

 

Android Purchasing Guide & Installation Instructions

Download the 3DS The Great Ace Attorney 2 Demo Patch

 

By the way, we’re looking for an ARM reverse engineer or two to help us out with TGAA2 and AAI2 and an Android frontend developer who knows Xamarin. Contact us if you’re interested!

3DS-Only Full Game Release – ANDROID SLIGHTLY DELAYED

3DS-Only Full Game Release – ANDROID SLIGHTLY DELAYED

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Art by Tryphena

“I ought to know by this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of deductions it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.” ― Sherlock Holmes, “A Study in Scarlet”

 

 

Hey boys and girls, it’s time for some pretty great news and some suboptimal news. First off, the pretty great news: it’s release time. The Great Ace Attorney is complete and we’re here to offer…the 3DS release. For now. This is the suboptimal news: due to some issues – unforeseen, as they often are – we’re not quite ready to toss out an Android release yet. But rest assured that we’ll have it out very soon; we just couldn’t hold in the 3DS release any longer because we’ve been buzzing about this for a while.

Just to be absolutely clear: THE ANDROID RELEASE IS NOT READY YET. BUT SOON, TRUST ME.

So, here are some things included in this (3DS!) release:
– A fully translated script, complete with all UI stuff and credits in English.
– A vast rewrite of episodes 1 and 2, with the number of ellipses cut down hard.
– Some miscellaneous fixes throughout the game.

In order to update your 3DS installation of The Great Ace Attorney, you’ll have to download the new patch files and the new patcher from the Github release (see the bottom of this post). That last part is important, so don’t skip it, please.

As for the Android release, we’ll be making a new, small post when that’s ready. But users who already have IrisMobile installed can just check it once in a while over the next few days, and it should let you know when there’s a new release out.

Here’s a list of things to be included in a future “fix all the things we messed up” release:
– Some missing minor features, like the 3DS’s manual feature.
– Corrections on whatever issues are sure to pop up after I submit this post.
– MORE removed ellipses, woo!

Script work in TGAA2 is moving at a breakneck pace compared to previous episodes, so unless someone important gets hit by a bus, hopefully me or someone else will be writing up another one of these lame release posts soon.

Big thanks to the following individuals, groups, and communities:

Benuno
d0k3
dading
Z6n4
GodMode9
Luma3DS
CourtRecords
Fan Translators International

 

Download the 3DS Full Game Release

By the way, we’re looking for another ARM/Android reverse engineer or two to help us out with TGAA2. Contact us if you’re interested!

Happy New Year! ~ A Little Update

Happy New Year! ~ A Little Update

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Four months have already passed since our simultaneous release of Episodes 3 and 4, and we thought it about time to give a little update to signal the new year. Unfortunately, we have no new release today, but we thought it worthwhile to give some rough plans for the immediate future.

We’re happy to announce that since the last release, the script for Episode 5 has been mostly completed! It’s still in the process of undergoing fixes, but the initial translation is all complete. What is mainly left to be done for 1-5 is video editing, graphic editing, and beta testing, but our team is working tirelessly to get it out to you as soon as possible, so please bear with us. In the meantime, however, as translation works separately to what is left to be done, translators have already started getting their mitts on DGS2 until DGS1-5 is as it needs to be.

Now that we’re in 2019, there are three main things we want to achieve before 2020 rolls around:

  1. Finish off DGS1, of course.
  2. Make big progress in DGS2.
  3. Carry out auditions for the English Dub of DGS.

The first is rather self-explanatory, so let’s just jump into the second point, shall we?

(We’re hard at work, as you can see.)

2018 saw four new translators added to Scarlet Study (including myself), which has already helped with our pace, but DGS2 is a bigger game than DGS1, so it will still take some time. While we can never guarantee what may happen to our members as time goes by, we still would like to aim to get a good little portion of DGS2 out to you before the year ends. We hope you can enjoy it just as much as the first game!

Just so there are no uncertainties, we will be releasing it the same way as DGS1, episode-by-episode rather than a full game release. On top of that, applying the patch will work the same way as for DGS1, so there’s no need to worry about the possibility of a new complicated process.

Now to get a tad bit more in-depth about the voice acting.

First, apologies for the long wait — we know that many of you have already expressed interest in auditioning for a role since it was mentioned in the post back in July (and we’re happy that you are!), but we’ve been so busy with both real life and working on the main game that it’s been difficult to dedicate as much time as we would like to it. Don’t worry, though: we’ll be releasing a separate update when we’re ready for casting, so keep an eye out!

An important thing to note concerning this is that there will be a number of characters who are in both games where the lines to be voiced will no doubt spoil DGS2, especially the main cast. Therefore, if you plan to audition for the role of a main character (or, perhaps quite obviously, just for a DGS2 role), you will have to be okay with DGS2 spoilers. There is always the possibility that something may happen to the person we have casted for a character that appears in both games, and so the voice actor can’t return for DGS2 – having both sets of lines recorded at once guarantees that something like this will not become an issue.

That will be something we address in more detail when we open up for casting, however, so for now, please look forward to the release of Episode 5! We hope to have it out to you all soon!