Meduza Team Release Ogre Battle English Translation Patch

Today, April 6, 2022, Meduza Team (specifically Paul Met, Pennywise & Aishsha) have released v1.0 of their English translation patch for Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen.

“The translation is partially ported from the PS1 version of the game, as it has undergone edits and improvements. The Saturn version has a number of improvements and additions compared to other versions of the game (SNES / PS1): new scenarios, additional music tracks, unique characters, mini-map, different endings, etc… Also, there are no in-game loading screens in this version (only when loading a saved game).” -Aishsha / Blog Post

Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen v1.0
Genre: RPG
Source Language: Japanese
Platform: Sega Saturn
Patch language: English
Author: paul_met/Pennywise/aishsha
E-mail: paul294met@gmail.com, aishsha@gmail.com, aishsha@blogspot.com
http://meduza-team.ucoz.net
http://yojimbo.eludevisibility.org

As part of the translation of the game, the following innovations were also implemented:

• Support for variable character width
• Support for single-byte character encoding
• Support for highlighting the font with color
• Support for translucent backgrounds for most windows
• Highlighting the characteristics of the character, which are affected by the equipped artifact
• Standard voice-overs have been replaced with better ones from the PS1 version of the game
• Changed the narrator’s voice in the introductory scene that tells the story of the game to the female voice from the PS1 version of the game
• Support for an increased level of complexity
• Flat level map by default

NOTE: This patch does NOT currently work with Retro-Bit Wireless controllers right now due to a new translation select menu that has been added to the beginning of the game. This may be addressed in a future update.

Background

(Translation from Meduza Team’s readme file…)

This is a complete English patch for the Sega Saturn port of Ogre Battle.
The project was supposed to be a fast and easy retranslation at its onset, but it eventually transformed into something more. The PS1 script has been ported over to this translation, but later it was heavily redone, with most of it taken from the scratch due to inconsistency, lack of details and sometimes apparent laziness of the official translation. We tried making it as close to the official canon as possible (by taking the PSP lore version as the basis). The script has been reviewed for accuracy and edited accordingly. Another small note is that this is one of those games that fell victim to extreme religious purge to fit it with a younger audience or whatever. The final translation uses the exact lore that was originally meant by the developers since we tried and did bring it back to the roots, so to say. Also, the text of additional scenarios was completely translated. The Saturn version of the game has mini map, additional scenarios, musical compositions, characters, endings etc. More information on that can be found here: https://kahran042.livejournal.com/57736.html
Please note that the game currently has emulation issues on Mednafen that results some backgrounds are shifted to the left. These issues are not present on the original hardware.
The technical details are as follows:

Patching Instructions

• 1. Copy all the patch files into a folder containing the original multi-track game image in the “Bin/Cue” format!
• 2. Launch the “START.BAT” file.
• 3. To make things safer, the original data track is saved in the same folder (with the “old” extension). You may further delete after successful patching.
• 4. All the patch files are automatically deleted at the end of the patching process!
  The original image should be equivalent to the one found here: http://redump.org/disc/8687 =

Credits

paul_met – initiator, coordinator, hacker and designer
Pennywise – testing, editing, coordinating
aishsha – translation review and retranslation, hardware testing

Compiled by Pennywise. April 2022.