********************************************************************************
*                  Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna: Final Edition                 *
*                          English Translation Patch                           *
*                              v1.0 (08 May 2023)                              *
*                                                                              *
*                               Supper -- Hacking and Translation              *
*                             Mafoo343 -- Translation Support, Testing         *
*                               cccmar -- Testing                              *
*                             Xanathis -- Testing                              *
*                             Cargodin -- Testing                              *
********************************************************************************

The Machinate Empire has invaded Earth! Scrambling to stop its hordes of robotic 
soldiers is Savior of Light and happy-go-lucky galactic idol Yuna Kagurazaka. 
Facing more foes than ever before, Yuna's power alone won't be enough. She must 
gather her many (many) friends, battle her way to the shadowy Machinate Emperor 
in the far reaches of space, and put a stop to her plans of conquest before 
Earth – and the galaxy itself – is destroyed. Along the way, she must also 
uncover the connection between this mysterious empire, a legendary battle from 
ages past, and her beloved friend Ayako...

Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna: Final Edition (Galaxy Fraulein Yuna: Final 
Edition) is a 1998 strategy RPG/adventure game for the PlayStation, developed by 
Red Company and Will and published by Hudson Soft. It is a mildly enhanced port 
of the 1997 Sega Saturn game Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna 3: Lightning Angel. A 
major departure from the adventure games which had comprised the series to date, 
this entry, drawing inspiration from Red Company's own flourishing Sakura Wars 
franchise, sees it transformed into an isometric tactical RPG with missions 
linked together by visual novel segments: a "tactical adventure", as the game 
proclaims itself. True to its name, it's also the final entry in the Yuna 
series.

This patch fully translates the game into English.

                    ****************************************
                    *          Table of Contents           *
                    ****************************************

  I.    Patching Instructions
  II.   Running the Game
  III.  Known Issues
  IV.   Controls
  V.    Additional Features
  VI.   FAQ
  VII.  Bonuses and Easter Eggs
  VIII. Saturn vs. PlayStation
  IX.   Authors' Comments
  X.    Special Thanks
  XI.   Version History

                    ****************************************
                    *       I. Patching Instructions       *
                    ****************************************

To use this translation, you'll need to apply a patch to a disc image of the 
game. Unfortunately, patching disc images is inherently complicated because 
there are numerous CD image formats in use, as well as many ways that 
poorly-written disc ripping programs can mess things up and make a patch not 
work properly. As a result, this is a rather long section – sorry! But please 
read it over carefully before complaining that the patch doesn't work.

Normally, I have to jump through a lot of hoops to support both single-file and 
file-per-track disc images. But this game only has one track, so in this case, 
both of those formats are actually the same. Thus, you only have one option for 
patching: Directly patching a single-file Redump-verified BIN or IMG image. This 
process is explained in the subsections that follow.

  -------------------
  - BEFORE STARTING -
  -------------------

It should go without saying, but first, extract all the contents of the 
translation patch's ZIP to your hard drive if you haven't already.

Before you start, you'll need to determine what format your disc image is in. At 
the very least, you must have an image in BIN+CUE or IMG+CUE format; more exotic 
formats are not supported. It's unfortunately not uncommon to come across disc 
images that don't use the standard extensions used in this section, or use them 
differently from normal, which makes things very confusing. Some tips:

  - One common way of distributing disc images is the "dual CCD/CUE" format. 
This consists of four files: a CCD, a CUE, an IMG (or possibly BIN), and a SUB. 
If your image is like this, you can throw away the CCD and SUB files, as they 
aren't needed for the patch. For our purposes, an IMG is the same as a BIN, so 
any references to a "BIN" below can also refer to an "IMG" or vice versa.
  
  - A CUE file is not actually needed for the patching process, so don't worry 
if you only have a CCD and no CUE.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------
  - Directly patch a single-file Redump-verified BIN or IMG image -
  -----------------------------------------------------------------

You can patch using this method if your disc image *exactly* matches the 
verified "good" image listed on Redump.org.

First, check that your disc image contains a file with the extension ".bin" or 
".img". If it does, verify that that file matches the following specifications. 
(If you don't know how to do that, just go ahead and follow the steps listed 
below; if you get an error, your disc image is wrong.)

  http://redump.org/disc/61515/
    Redump name: Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna: Final Edition
    CRC32:       3ae39fd8
    MD5:         b5779da816fa7dfe524117f00b7648e0
    SHA-1:       aa739893d453c9cdbf740058db4e582eadea0d0c

If your disc image is a match, then all you need to do is apply an xdelta patch 
to the BIN or IMG file, then rename it and pair it with the CUE file provided in 
the download.

  1. Extract the "redump_patch" folder from the translation ZIP and open it.
  
  2. Run "DeltaPatcher.exe", which should be present in that folder. This is the 
popular Delta Patcher program for applying xdelta patches. If you're not using 
Windows, you'll need to obtain an alternate patching program for your system, 
such as the command-line "xdelta3" program.
  
  3. Locate the .xdelta patch file in the "redump_patch" folder.
  
  4. Use Delta Patcher (or another xdelta patching tool) to apply the patch to 
the BIN or IMG file. If you get an error, you'll need to try the other patching 
method below. Note that the output file will be noticeably larger than the 
original due to the addition of redundant data to reduce load times.
  
  5. If your disc image came with a CCD or CUE file, delete it now.
     DO NOT USE THE OLD CCD OR CUE FILE WITH THE PATCHED IMAGE!
     Also get rid of any SUB file if it exists. It's not needed.
     
  6. The "redump_patch" directory should contain a CUE file with a name like 
"Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna - Final Edition EN [v1.0] Redump.cue". Rename your 
patched disc image so it has *exactly* the same name as the CUE, except with a 
.bin extension instead of .cue.
     IMPORTANT: If the file you patched was originally an IMG file, make sure 
that you change the extension to .bin. The CUE will not work if the extension is 
.img.
     
  7. You're done! Make sure you have the CUE and BIN in the same directory, then 
open the CUE in an emulator.

                    ****************************************
                    *         II. Running the Game         *
                    ****************************************

Please note that if you run this game through an emulator, you may or may not 
need a Japanese BIOS image. Some emulators such as Mednafen require it, while 
others such as PCSXR have an option to simulate the BIOS if not available. For 
the sake of accuracy, I strongly recommend running the game with the BIOS if 
possible. The required BIOS image is for the SCPH-5500/v3.0J version (SHA-256 
hash 9c0421858e217805f4abe18698afea8d5aa36ff0727eb8484944e00eb5e7eadb); once you 
have such an image, check your emulator's documentation for instructions on how 
to configure it for use.

                    ****************************************
                    *          III. Known Issues           *
                    ****************************************

There are no known issues with the translation itself at this time. However, on 
at least some systems, the current version of DuckStation – 0.1-5485-gc6a57273 
(dev) – experiences significant audio stuttering issues when generating large 
amounts of text or long subtitles if the translation is run in the default 
"Recompiler" CPU execution mode. To ensure proper behavior, open the Console 
section of the settings menu, locate the CPU Emulation section, and set 
Execution Mode to "Interpreter (Slowest)".

Also, some names in the staff credits have intentionally been left untranslated 
because I couldn't find a reliable source for their readings. There's simply no 
way to be sure of the pronunciation of a Japanese name without having the person 
in question provide it somewhere, and if I couldn't track down a name between 
MobyGames, Anime News Network, AniDB, VGMdb, and typing it into Google, I 
generally gave up. I will admit I was forced to guesslate the names of some of 
the fan letter contest winners, since those appear in-game. Sorry to any of the 
Japanese kids (who are probably well into their thirties by now) whose names I 
might have screwed up.

                    ****************************************
                    *             IV. Controls             *
                    ****************************************
  
  ------------------
  - Adventure Mode -
  ------------------
  
    Directional Buttons
      - Select commands
    
    Circle/Square
      - Advance messages
      - Confirm commands
      - Immediately finish current message (if not fully printed), or advance 
message (if fully printed and voice playing)
    
    X
      - Cancel commands
    
    Triangle
      - Advance messages
    
    Start
      - Skip video sequences (added for translation)
    
    R2
      - Fast-forward (added for translation)

  -------------------
  - Simulation Mode -
  -------------------
  
    Directional Buttons
      - Select commands
      - Move characters
      - Change character's facing
    
    Circle
      - Confirm commands
    
    Square
      - Confirm commands
      - Auto-place selected unit on unit placement screen
    
    X
      - Cancel commands
      - Close windows
    
    Triangle
      - Auto-place all units on unit placement screen (hold)
      - When selecting a target square:
        - Squish unit graphics for better visibility
    
    L1
      - Change character's facing
      - When selecting a target square:
        - Jump cursor to previous ally unit
        - Scroll camera (press a Directional Button while holding)
      - Switch to previous set of stat columns in character list
    
    R1
      - Change character's facing
      - When selecting a target square:
        - Jump cursor to next ally unit
        - Increase cursor speed
      - Switch to next set of stat columns in character list
    
    L2
      - When selecting a target square:
        - Scroll camera (press a Directional Button while holding)
      - Switch to MOV/SPD stat columns in character list
    
    R2
      - When selecting a target square:
        - Increase cursor speed
      - Switch to ATK/TATK stat columns in character list
      - Display unit information window on unit placement screen
      - Fast-forward/animation skip (added for translation)
    
    Additionally, holding any button other than Start, Select, or the 
Directional Buttons will make units move faster when changing position. This 
applies to both allies and enemies.

                    ****************************************
                    *        V. Additional Features        *
                    ****************************************

  -------------
  - Subtitles -
  -------------
  
  This translation adds subtitles to the game's many voice clips and movies. 
These are enabled by default, but can be disabled in the Options menu. This will 
also affect the subtitles shown in videos, in case you'd like to watch them 
without a bunch of text blocking the screen.

  ----------------
  - Fast-Forward -
  ----------------

  In an attempt to address a common complaint about the game, this translation 
adds a fast-forward/animation skip feature, which is activated by holding R2. It 
has two modes, "Skip Minor" and "Skip All," which can be set in the Options 
menu.

  When set to Skip Minor (the default), holding R2 has the following effects:

  - Sounds that are streamed from disc (including all voice acting) do not play. 
Any streamed sound that is already playing is immediately stopped if the game is 
already waiting for it to finish.

  - Messages that would normally print one character at a time print all at 
once.
  
  - The normal pause for a button press at the end of each dialogue message is 
skipped.

  - In Adventure Mode, images with scrolling instantly jump to their target 
position.
  
  - Almost all animations related to attacking, counterattacking, technique use, 
item use, etc. are skipped. A small number of animations whose playback is 
directly tied to some sort of gameplay feature, such as the Teleport ability, 
are still shown. Animations indicating the start of a status ailment are also 
still shown.
  
  - HP/EP meters increase/decrease instantly instead of slowly moving to their 
new value.
  
  - HP/EP meters are displayed for less time after changing value.
  
  - The explosion animation shown when an enemy or obstacle is destroyed is 
skipped, and the destroyed object blinks for less time before disappearing.
  
  - The mission objective screen is skipped.
  
  - Movement animations on the long-range map (world map) are skipped.
  
  When set to Skip All, all the same effects as Skip Minor occur, along with the 
following additions:
  
  - Animations indicating the start of a status ailment are skipped.

  - Level up and tech upgrade animations are skipped.
  
  - The "DEFENSE" animation shown when ending a turn without taking an action is 
skipped.

  Also, though you're unlikely to notice, some clunky input handling code has 
been partially cleaned up so that holding R2 won't interfere with operating the 
game interface.

  --------------
  - Video Skip -
  --------------

  In the original game, normally, only the introductory videos can be skipped by 
pressing Start. The translation makes this possible for all videos.

  ---------------------------
  - Dialogue Loading Delays -
  ---------------------------

  When voices are enabled, Final Edition suffers from longer loading times 
between boxes of dialogue compared to the original Saturn game. This is caused 
by a combination of the technical requirements of the XA sound format used on 
the PlayStation, changes in how the files are packed, and a suboptimal disc 
layout: the game has to constantly jump between very distant areas of the disc 
to load character portraits and play the voice files. To try to mitigate the 
issue, this translation makes several optimizations that reduce the amount of 
time required to switch to a new line of dialogue. These include:

  - A more sensible disc layout that places the character portrait files closer 
to the sound files.
  
  - Placing multiple redundant copies of the character portrait graphics on the 
disc, with the closest one loaded instead of having to seek the drive to a 
single fixed position for every load.
  
  - Caching the portrait archive's index so it doesn't have to be loaded from 
disc every time it's accessed.
  
  - Optimizing the RGB graphic decompressor to avoid wasting time on endianness 
conversions and "safe" copy loops. (It doesn't help much, but it's something.)

  Together, these changes cut the average delay between dialogue boxes to around 
30-40% of what it was in the untranslated game (based on emulator testing, 
anyway). There's usually about a second of waiting between boxes in the 
translation, which is unfortunately still not quite as fast as the Saturn 
version, but nonetheless a whole lot better than it was to begin with.
  
  If you really want to maximize speed, you can turn off voices in the options 
menu to remove most of the delay, at the obvious expense of the voice acting.

                    ****************************************
                    *               VI. FAQ                *
                    ****************************************
  
Q. So this is the Yuna 1 remake, right?

A. No, though it's an easy mistake to make. The Yuna 1 remake is titled "Ginga 
Ojousama Densetsu Yuna Remix" and was released only on Saturn. This game is a 
port of "Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna 3: Lightning Angel," originally released 
on the Saturn; for whatever reason, the "3" and the original subtitle were 
dropped for the PlayStation port. Perhaps someone felt that PlayStation players 
would be put off by a numbered sequel to a game that wasn't available on their 
console in any form.

   Incidentally, I have no intention of translating Remix. It's just the 
original game with worse art and exactly none of the flaws fixed. Just play the 
PC-Engine version that I poured so many hours into hacking. And if you go two 
sentences back and replace "game" with "OVA", you have my explanation for why 
I'm not doing Yuna FX either.


  
Q. Hey, I played Yuna 1 and 2, but I don't remember any of this stuff about 
"Ayako," "Misaki," the "Machinate planet"...

A. This game's plot takes place after the two OVA series that were released 
between Yuna 2 and 3, and in particular ties in to the second OVA very heavily. 
The information you really need to know to understand what's going on is 
provided in-game (there's even a helpful five-minute series recap if you wait at 
the title screen for a bit), but if you want the full Yuna experience, you'll 
need to watch the OVAs. For better or for worse, those actually got an 
officially licensed English release twenty-odd years ago, so you can probably 
find them somewhere if you go looking.



Q. Okay, so I watched the licensed OVA translations, but you translated a bunch 
of stuff completely differently from them. What gives?

A. You know, I hate to knock other people's work, but from what I've seen of the 
localized OVA releases, they're just not very good. I find their translation 
choices quite dubious, and they have shoddy workmanship all around: obnoxious 
hardsubbed credits and title logos plastered on top of the openings, episode 
previews and bonus features that were on the Japanese DVD release removed, the 
final episode's unique ending animation outright replaced with a plain text 
scroll...My impression is that the licensee was doing the bare minimum to try to 
make a quick buck on a property they could get their hands on for cheap. (How 
much money would YOU expect to make from translating a years-old tie-in OVA for 
a Japan-only game series, four out of five of whose entries were released 
exclusively for consoles that bombed horribly in the West?)

  So, I decided to just ignore those releases and do things the way I wanted. 
Sorry if that bothers you, but slavishly adhering to the arbitrary localization 
decisions of a sub-par translation from two decades ago would bother me a lot 
more.



Q. I'd like to file a complaint regarding the readings of the Chinese names...

A. I went with whatever English reading was provided in the game or, failing 
that, the 1999 artbook. Right or wrong, it's at least an indication of what the 
developers thought the characters were called, and I have neither the ability 
with the Chinese language nor the inclination to try to second-guess them. But 
considering the game doesn't even manage to spell Chun Fong's name with the 
right kanji sometimes, I'd be amazed if they didn't get other things wrong, so 
my apologies to any Chinese speakers!



Q. Do the choices in the adventure segments actually do anything?

A. Some lead to different missions while others are just for flavor, but in 
certain cases, picking a particular option gives a silent boost to Yuna's stats. 
The boosts are few and minuscule, though – 4-8 points apiece – and ultimately 
make very little difference. Consult retrogamejaxx's guide (Japanese only, 
sorry) if you want the details: 
http://gemanizm.main.jp/retrogamejaxx/game_yuna.html



Q. Why do my characters' stat buffs keep disappearing before they're supposed 
to, or not taking effect to begin with?

A. This game has the peculiarity that a character can have only one "status 
condition" at any time – and buffs and debuffs are considered a type of status 
condition. For the most part, negative status conditions override positive ones: 
a unit with +200% ATK that gets its techniques sealed will lose the ATK bonus to 
make room for the seal, and conversely, trying to give an ATK buff to a sealed 
unit will have no effect. The exception to this is Miki's special ability to 
copy other characters, which is considered to be a status condition and will 
replace any existing one, positive or negative (though beware: receiving a new 
status effect while transformed will cancel the transformation).



Q. I can't beat a mission. What should I do?

A. Just keep trying, and don't reload if you lose. Seriously. If you get a game 
over and retry a mission, not only is there no penalty whatsoever, your 
characters actually retain any EXP and levels they gained in the failed attempt. 
Between that and the heavy EXP scaling for low-level units, you'll be in a more 
viable position within a few tries. It's really not a very difficult game; if 
you're looking for that, you should probably add some voluntary challenges (no 
items, no secret characters, A-rank every mission...).



Q. That's great, but the mission I can't beat is the stupid puzzle in Chapter 4.

A. Well, fine...Yuna on sun, Pai Siang on moon, Jing Ming on star, Chun Fong on 
wave, everyone else on yin-yang. Nothing more to it.

                    ****************************************
                    *     VII. Bonuses and Easter Eggs     *
                    ****************************************

  --------------
  - Bonus Mode -
  --------------
  
  Beat the game to unlock a bonus menu accessible from the title screen that 
allows images, sounds, and movies to be viewed.

  ---------------------
  - Secret Characters -
  ---------------------
  
  Three of the recruitable characters are semi-hidden "secret" characters. 
Here's how to obtain them:
  
  - Kaede Yumioka: After clearing either the Mirage Planet Kantsea or Eternal 
Princess mission in Chapter 4, backtrack to Earth and go to the TV Station. 
Clear the mission that occurs, and Kaede will join.
  
  - Emily of Culture: After clearing the Great Black Wall mission, backtrack to 
the ruins of the Heavenstar. Clear the mission that occurs, and Emily will join.
  
  - Yoko Mizuno: Go to Norush, the training area found at the end of Chapter 4. 
Defeat the enemies on the highest difficulty setting, and Yoko will join.

  -------------------
  - Ending Messages -
  -------------------
  
  Exclusively to this version of the game, one of two short voice messages from 
Yuna will play after the credits if certain conditions are met. There are three 
conditions:
  
  1. Beat the game with Yuna under level 30
  2. Have 25 or more A ranks on missions
  3. Have 29 or more cards, including duplicates. (Many Japanese web sites 
erroneously list this requirement as "29 or fewer cards," but they're wrong; I 
disassembled the code just to be sure.)
  
  One message plays if at least one of these conditions is met. If all three are 
met, the other one plays instead.

  ------------------
  - Gold Washbasin -
  ------------------
  
  When an ally character misses an attack, hold down Triangle. After any sound 
clips finish playing, they'll get struck on the head by a gold washbasin (a 
Japanese comedy cliche that originated with the Drifters, a popular comedy 
group/band). This has no actual gameplay effect. (Many Japanese sites claim this 
requires "good timing," but you need only hold the button down for it to work.)

                    ****************************************
                    *     VIII. Saturn vs. PlayStation     *
                    ****************************************

Final Edition is a PlayStation port of a Saturn game, released about half a year 
after the original version. So what's different between the two editions? Some 
good things, some bad things, some "meh" things. For the most part, though, it's 
the same content with a few relatively minor enhancements and a few relatively 
minor drawbacks. For those interested, here's every version difference I'm aware 
of, which is probably not an exhaustive list.

Overall, there's certainly an argument to be made that the Saturn version is a 
bit better in terms of overall presentation, with Final Edition's biggest draws 
being the two-player mode and better video quality. But honestly, there's very 
little meaningful difference between them in the end, so I ultimately went with 
the PlayStation version for this translation due to its extra content, however 
minimal.

  ------------
  - THE GOOD -
  ------------
  
  - A new two-player versus mode was added, allowing players to use their teams 
to duke it out on five different maps (requires two Memory Cards and a save file 
for each player).
  
  - A card collection "sidequest" was added. Trading cards containing brief 
biographical information about characters from the series are found scattered in 
various unmarked locations on each map, and can be collected by stepping on 
them. There's no reward for getting them all beyond completing the illustration 
shown on the card select screen, though collecting at least 29 of them is one of 
the requirements for the new ending messages.
  
  - Two short voice messages from Yuna were added as bonuses after the credits 
if certain conditions are met. See the Bonuses and Easter Eggs section for 
details.
  
  - Video quality is higher in Final Edition due to the PlayStation having 
better video playback hardware (which is to say, any at all).

  - A serious bug with Miki's Crank In ability (localized as "Action!" in this 
translation) was fixed. In the Saturn version, leveling Miki up while she's 
copying a character can result in her techniques becoming permanently stuck at 
level 1 and/or Spotlight Beam being made unobtainable. This no longer occurs in 
Final Edition.

  -----------
  - THE BAD -
  -----------
  
  - The Saturn version has an effect where each letter in dialogue text fades in 
as it appears. Final Edition simply has the letters pop in immediately. I 
honestly don't know why; there's a console that's notorious for struggling with 
transparency effects, and let me tell you, it's not the PlayStation.
  
  - As mentioned above, the PlayStation version has noticeably longer delays 
than the Saturn version when switching between boxes of dialogue with voices 
turned on, as well as marginally longer delays for loading some other types of 
files from disc. The Saturn version organizes its files differently, usually 
giving it a speed advantage.
  
  - In general, the PlayStation version has slightly longer delays before 
playing disc-streamed sound files for technical reasons related to the XA sound 
format.
  
  - Streamed audio files have the same sample rate as the original game but use 
XA compression instead of raw samples, so the quality is (very) slightly lower.
  
  - Audio mixing and/or quality is a bit different on the PlayStation version, 
so the music and sound effects don't sound 100% identical to the original.
  
  - When playing videos, the Saturn version freezes on the last frame for a 
little while after playback finishes, while the PlayStation version blanks the 
screen immediately. Unfortunately, some videos were originally made with this 
pause in mind and not edited for Final Edition, causing dramatic tableaus to 
vanish jarringly after a fraction of a second (most noticeable in the 
transformation sequence near the start of the game).
  
  - Despite Final Edition coming out a mere half a year after the original 
version, the developers seem to have managed to lose the original art assets for 
the title screen. As a result, the PlayStation version's title screen is a quite 
poorly-done edit of the Saturn's, with the parts that needed to be changed 
sloppily "cleaned" by copy-pasting chunks of the background or just sticking big 
bluish blobs over them. The result looks so bad that I ended up completely 
redoing the title screen for this translation based on the original Saturn 
version. (I refuse to get blamed for somebody else's bad cleaning job.)

  -----------
  - THE MEH -
  -----------
  
  - The game was given a new title, rather confusingly changing it from "Galaxy 
Fraulein Yuna 3: Lightning Angel" to "Galaxy Fraulein Yuna: Final Edition".
  
  - All the obvious necessary changes for moving to a new platform: controls 
were modified to accommodate the differing controller layouts, saving is now to 
Memory Cards, etc.
  
  - Various interface animations that were in the Saturn version, such as 
spinning buttons and expanding and contracting windows, were dropped for the 
port. This may sound like a negative, but while they look nice enough, these 
animations also add delays that make the interface less responsive. In the end, 
it's kind of a net neutral.
  
  - The loading screen was redone, possibly due to looking kind of plain in the 
original game.
  
  - Yuri's ability set was changed for Final Edition. In the Saturn version, her 
second technique is an exact copy of Yuna's Scattershot technique, while her 
third technique is Kurukuru Punch ("Spinnamajig Punch" in this translation). 
This redundant and underwhelming skill spread combined with her sub-par stats 
means she's quickly outclassed beyond the early game. Apparently recognizing 
this and attempting to rectify it, for the PlayStation port, the developers made 
Kurukuru Punch into her second ability and gave her an entirely new third 
ability, which is an all-enemies attack. She still compares poorly to the 
numerous other characters available, but hey, it's something. All other 
characters are unchanged from the original game.
  
  - The title screen attract sequence was expanded to include gameplay demos. 
During these demos, the spots that contain collectible cards are marked with a 
sparkle effect; it's the only in-game way to find out where they are other than 
accidentally stumbling onto them.

                    ****************************************
                    *        IX. Authors' Comments         *
                    ****************************************
  
  ------------
  - Mafoo343 -
  ------------
  
  Well, it’s been a long time coming, but after several years of hard work, the 
whole Yuna trilogy has been translated.  I enjoyed working on the series while 
it lasted, and now, I guess it’s time to move on.  I’d like to thank Supper for 
everything he’s done, and for putting up with me throughout this whole thing.  
None of this would have been possible without him.  I’d also like to thank 
Cargodin and anyone else that showed their support.  Now that this is finally 
over, I think I’m going to take a well-deserved break.  After that, well…I guess 
I’ll just have to wait and see.  I know this is kind of belated, but I’d like to 
wish a happy 30th anniversary to the Yuna franchise.  The series may be long 
gone, but I’ll never forget the wonderful memories I made along the way.  With 
Yuna 3, I feel like the developers really saved the best for last.  The polished 
presentation and story, combined with the new strategy RPG segments make for a 
fitting swan song to the series.  A LOT of love and care was put into this, and 
I hope you all enjoy! :)
  
  ----------
  - Supper -
  ----------
  
  Working on the Yuna games was my first time doing a real "series" translation. 
I'd previously worked on several entries in the Madou Monogatari series, but 
those games have little in the way of story or connectivity with each other, 
whereas Yuna has some semblance of continuity and lots of recurring characters. 
It makes things harder -- you sometimes find yourself stuck with your own 
not-so-great localization decisions down the road -- but it's also a lot of fun 
to see the characters and the overall concept develop. It's difficult for me to 
really get invested in games just by playing them these days, but having to 
develop a consistent translation forces you to look at the material more closely 
and appreciate the details in a way a casual player wouldn't. Perhaps that's one 
of the things that keeps me coming back to translations, despite all the work.
  
  I started working on this game immediately after the release of the Yuna 2 
translation at the end of 2021. The first thing I did was play the Saturn 
version of the game through to the end. The second thing I did was add a 
fast-forward feature to the PlayStation version, because I sure as hell wasn't 
sitting through all those animations again for my second playthrough. The third 
thing I did was decide I didn't actually feel like working on a translation at 
the moment and put off further work for what ended up being more than a year. 
Various misadventures later, I came back to the project early this year and 
finally started on the tedious hacking work that's more or less inherent to a 
game like this one.
  
  This time around, Mafoo343 and I both independently translated the game's 
script in full...which, well, wasn't exactly planned. It's kind of hilarious 
overkill for what the game actually is. Even more so when you consider that 
someone had already "translated" the first four chapters back in 2000 -- not 
doing a very good job of it, unfortunately, but those were different times. Was 
it really necessary for this extremely niche game to get translated three times 
over by three different people? No, probably not. But I can tell you the quality 
of the final product is much better for the extra scrutiny, so, necessary or 
not, it's probably for the best in the end. That's what I keep telling myself, 
anyway.
  
  That said, for all the work that people have collectively put into it over the 
years, this game's script is actually quite short. The main story text is only 
about 40,000 characters in Japanese (approximately 20,000 English words). By 
comparison, Yuna 2's main text block is around 34,000 characters, so Yuna 3 is 
only marginally longer. All those SRPG battles sure do eat up a lot of time, 
huh?
  
  On the hacking side of things, the game was pretty much what I've learned to 
expect from a 32-bit game: a bunch of really involved work up front to get the 
text system to meet the needs of the translation, followed by a neverending 
stream of little details to make it all come together (automatic narrowing of 
character names to fit in windows, shifting around hardcoded labels on the 
status screens, adjusting number printing so the new font will correctly 
right-align to the original position...). Of course, this game also had the 
added need for subtitles both in-game and in FMVs, which predictably ate up lots 
of time. The results are satisfying to look at, though.
  
  And it's something no one will ever, ever notice unless it's pointed out, and 
certainly won't care about regardless, but: I implemented proper font kerning 
for this game, which I rarely bother with -- for the pixel fonts I usually work 
with, it makes little difference, but with everything in this game aliased to 
hell and back, it only made sense. It's a lot more work than you'd think, 
so...try to appreciate it a little? Please? :(
  
  In conclusion...god, what kind of conclusions can you even reach about Yuna? 
It starts out as an aimless, fanservicey galge about teen girls in kinky mecha 
armor, and after five years, five games plus two illustration discs, two OVA 
series, six drama CDs, three soundtrack CDs, a collectible card game, some 
uncertain number of figure kits, and no doubt even more otaku crap you can find 
on Japanese auction listings if you go looking, it ultimately ends up being...a 
semi-serious strategy game. About teen girls in kinky mecha armor.
  
  To hell with it, if you want conclusions, you'll have to come to your own. But 
I had fun making this, and I hope you can have fun playing it. My thanks and my 
apologies to Mafoo for everything. See you somewhere, sometime.
  
                    ****************************************
                    *          X. Special Thanks           *
                    ****************************************

Thanks to the retrogamejaxx, operator of the web site カワイイ娘ニハ旅ヲサセヨ (Let's Send 
Cute Girls on Journeys), for creating a detailed strategy guide for this game 
that was a very helpful reference during development: 
http://gemanizm.main.jp/retrogamejaxx/game_yuna.html

Thanks to J.Raido (I think?) for transcribing the credits, which are just a 
bunch of images, to text: 
http://raido.moe/staff/ps1/ps1_ginga_ojosama_densetsu_yuna_final.html This made 
it an order of magnitude faster to look up the names. (In the unlikely event 
that you ever see this, please note that you miswrote 古田 信幸 as 吉田 信幸.) On a 
related note, thanks to contributors at MobyGames for compiling translated 
credits from many games (though unfortunately not this one), which was a big 
help for determining names of staff members.

I have to acknowledge Ditchdigger's highly enthusiastic but unfortunately very 
flawed effort at translating the script way the hell back in 2000(!!) here; it's 
incomplete and consists of far more errors than it does actual translation, but 
it has that early-2000s anime-obsessed-teenager energy that can't help but make 
me crack a little smile. And it did lead me to scrutinize my own work more 
closely and fix a few dumb mistakes, so it did some good in the end. Against all 
odds, it's somehow still online, so read it if you're the kind of person who's 
nostalgic for the Angelfire/Geocities/Tripod days: 
https://www.angelfire.com/anime4/frauleinyuna/yunamain.html

Additional thanks goes to SadNES cITy Translations for the Delta Patcher 
program, which is bundled with this patch as a convenience.

And in parting from this series, I must offer my eternal gratitude to the 
programmers at Will for leaving extensive debug menus in every single one of the 
Yuna games (except maybe FX, and who cares about that anyway?) that I could use 
to debug all these translations. Saved me hours of save file management 
headaches! Thanks, guys, you're the best!

                    ****************************************
                    *         XI. Version History          *
                    ****************************************

v1.0 (08 May 2023): Initial release.
