Rant incoming!
When Monolithsoft's game Namco X Capcom was first announced in late 2004, I was immediately hooked on the idea. Being a longtime fan of the Super Robot Wars series and something of an advocate of crossover games in general, the thought of being able to play a game in which Taizo Hori of Dig Dug fame fought alongside Chun-Li had me excited as hell. When the game finally came out in May 05, I immediately downloaded a copy and played the hell out of it, finally buying it for real when the PS2 The Best edition was released the next year. Despite the rather lacking difficulty (even on "hard mode") and the fact that the game was approximately 30% longer than it really should have been, I still love it and was immediately interested when I heard that translation group TransGen was going to work on a patch for it. The patch was released earlier this year, but I only downloaded and applied it this week.
Unfortunately, despite being labeled as "final," the patch completely fails to live up to even modest expectations:
-The grammar is nonexistent.
-The text is done in a monospaced font in which every letter has an unnecessary amount of space around it and all the dialogue is kept at the original line lengths without regard for English sentence structure, both of which add up to make reading the dialogue a chore.
-None of the in-battle text is translated, and neither are parts of the characters' status screens, with the result that the effects of certain abilities and items are entirely incomprehensible to one with no prior experience with the game.
-Attack, ability item and stage names are translated with little regard for meaning or legibility.
-There are misplaced pointers all over the place, with the most obvious example being that a common monster's punch attack is called "guard," with "punch" appearing on many playable characters' status screens in place of the "defend another" ability.
All in all, the patch demonstrates a complete lack of basic competence, with the result that I am very unlikely to try any of TransGen's other works.
Unfortunately, despite being labeled as "final," the patch completely fails to live up to even modest expectations:
-The grammar is nonexistent.
-The text is done in a monospaced font in which every letter has an unnecessary amount of space around it and all the dialogue is kept at the original line lengths without regard for English sentence structure, both of which add up to make reading the dialogue a chore.
-None of the in-battle text is translated, and neither are parts of the characters' status screens, with the result that the effects of certain abilities and items are entirely incomprehensible to one with no prior experience with the game.
-Attack, ability item and stage names are translated with little regard for meaning or legibility.
-There are misplaced pointers all over the place, with the most obvious example being that a common monster's punch attack is called "guard," with "punch" appearing on many playable characters' status screens in place of the "defend another" ability.
All in all, the patch demonstrates a complete lack of basic competence, with the result that I am very unlikely to try any of TransGen's other works.