On Monday, July 18, Greg (aka Lacquerware) announced that the Bulk Slash Team who brought us the amazing English localization and dub for Bulk Slash, had chosen their new project and were now fast at work on this amazing new adventure… the fantastic 3D space shooter, Stellar Assault SS!
They also provided the community with an early proof of concept video trailer demonstrating the insertion of spoken English dialog into the game’s main campaign and asking for voice talents from the community to come forward and participate, if interested in being a part of the project.
We sat down with Lacquerware to discuss the project a bit further:
SHIRO!: Can you tell us what drew your team to translating and dubbing Stellar Assault SS?
Lacquerware: As a game, it’s similar to Bulk Slash a variety of ways, so it felt like a logical follow-up or companion piece. It’s another sci-fi shooter with dramatic elements, as well as one of the more impressive 3D showpieces for the Saturn, and similar in scope. As a project, too, it overlaps quite a bit with the skills and know-how we acquired and employed for Bulk Slash, so it’s a project that felt within our ability.
SHIRO!: Who is part of the team working on Stellar Assault SS?
Lacquerware: As of now, the team is:
Dan “Danthrax” Myers: Script and Graphics Editor, Various Producer-Like Feats
Shadowmask: Audio Engineer
Cargodin: Script Editor, Bilingual Consultant
Mamdouh “Mampfus” Maduar: Video Encoding/Insertion
Greg “Lacquerware” Moore: Project Lead, Translator, Voice Director
*The team may expand a bit as the project progresses.
SHIRO!: Do you think the hindsight of working on Bulk Slash made working on Stellar Assault SS easier?
Lacquerware: Absolutely. We all learned a tremendous amount on Bulk Slash, and the skills required of us for Stellar overlap pretty much entirely. This is primarily an audio hack since there’s virtually no Japanese text in the game and a lot of voice over to replace, so from a technical standpoint it should actually be a simpler job. We hope. I also gained a lot of valuable voice directing experience with Bulk Slash that I’ll be pulling from for this project.
SHIRO!: Have there been any challenges translating Stellar Assault SS compared to Bulk Slash?
Lacquerware: From a translation standpoint, the only significant challenges have been in making creative decisions about some of the lore-related terminology. There are lots of sci-fi terms flying around in the game that we’ll have to come up with English for that sounds at least somewhat credible. That aside, I expect this project to be much more demanding of me as a voice director as well as of the voice actors. There are fewer roles, but almost all of them are big ones with a lot of dramatic range.
SHIRO!: Did you have an estimated release date for this fan translation project?
Lacquerware: There are a lot of variables still up in the air, especially around recording the voice work, but I would love to have this out by the end of the year again. That might be aggressive, but we’ll try our best. That said, we ended up burning out a little last year in trying to get Bulk Slash out the door before the holidays, and I’d sooner avoid a repeat of that than try to force an earlier launch.
SHIRO!: A lot of people asked about a Bulk Slash Sub version, but due to the technical limitations wasn’t 100% possible. Would something like this be feasible for Stellar Assault SS?
Lacquerware: This was one of the first things we looked into with the help of some of the more technically savvy members of the Shiro Discord; alas, subtitles seem to be no more viable here, for pretty much all the same reasons (which you can read all about here: https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/2021/12/17/bulk-slash-english-localization-dev-blog-1-new-beginnings-and-the-trouble-with-subtitles/)
SHIRO!: Can you tell our viewers where we can follow the translation progress on Stellar Assault SS?
Lacquerware: We’ll be posting regular updates again on Twitter (using #StellarAssaultENG) and Sega Xtreme (https://segaxtreme.net/threads/stellar-assault-ss-english-localization-project.25260/#post-182917). We also have a Discord server for the project (https://discord.gg/4DmTsKud).
SHIRO! and the rest of the community are incredibly stoked to see this announcement, and we will, no doubt, be following their progress very closely and reporting any news to our readers.
In the meantime, here it the official announcement thread with further detail taken from SegaXtreme…
SegaXtreme Announcement
Announcing an English localization of Sega Saturn 3D space combat shooter Stellar Assault SS!
Developed and published by SIMS in 1998, Stellar Assault is a remake of a 1995 Sega 32X game of the same name — although it was called Shadow Squadron in North America. It brings a Wing Commander-like experience to the Saturn with its 3D spaceship combat through 17 missions. It also has some interesting features for the Saturn, including an interlaced mode for improved resolution, a “trace” mode that lets you watch a replay of your last game, and asymmetrical co-op play.
But one of its most distinctive features is its large amount of voice acting that’s found not only in the video mission briefings but also during each mission as the player character and his wingmen chat across their radios. While all of the game’s text is in English (with the exception of the credits at the end) a lot is lost on English speakers who can’t understand any of the Japanese voice overs. That affects gameplay, too, as the mission briefings only deliver instructions in the voice over — outside of some basic “computer terminal” animations, there is no text explaining the player’s objectives.
That makes it crucial to redub this game in English. As with Bulk Slash, there is no in-game routine for displaying subtitles during gameplay, and it would be very difficult if not impossible to hack such a routine in. While we could add subtitles to the FMV mission briefings, that not only might reduce the video quality, it also would be inconsistent to leave the Japanese voice acting there while the in-game pilots are speaking in English. So just like Bulk Slash, we’re dubbing the whole thing.
Lacquerware has been working for the last several months to transcribe every voice line into a script and then translate them into English. He’s now about 98% finished, so it’s time to edit it and recruit voice actors who are willing to volunteer their time and talent to make Stellar Assault SS accessible to English speakers for the first time.
We need five male roles and three female roles filled for Stellar Assault. The roles are:
Aya Hijikata: 32-year-old female commander of the carrier capital ship. Comprehensive operation commander for the UN Space Force. Delivers mission briefings and acts as your eye in the sky.
Edgar: Male-sounding AI unit for the player’s ship. Reminiscent of Data from Star Trek and voiced by the same guy in Japanese.
Maria: Female-sounding AI unit in the Kite-3, the player ship’s support device. Bubbly, cutesy, prone to mood swings. Talks like a gyaru. Equipped with an experimental “emotion circuit.”
Jake MacPherson: 35-year-old male lieutenant who is the squadron captain of Hawk Squadron. Lax and irritable by turns. Prone to drastic mood swings. The player’s direct commanding officer.
Brenda Bright: 23-year-old female ensign who is a pilot in Hawk Squadron. Serious and unlikely to go off-script or act without discretion. Scolds Jake.
Alan Vergil: 34-year-old lieutenant who is the squadron captain of Eagle Squadron. A little weak-willed, but smart alecky and prone to posturing.
Brad Feel: 35-year-old lieutenant who is the squadron captain of Falcon Squadron. Serious and cool-headed. A man of few words.
Pilot: An unnamed male who has a handful of lines during missions.
And here are what the characters look like in the Japanese manual, with their English names added to the photo:
To be clear, this is an unfunded fan project and we’re relying entirely on volunteers. But that also means it would be perfect for aspiring voice actors looking for more experience, or for voice actors who would love to help bring this awesome game to a wider audience.
Anyone interested in auditioning should join our Stellar Assault SS Localization Project Discord server at www.discord.gg/4DmTsKud or email us at StellarAssaultLocalization@gmail.com. We can be reached out to on Twitter @lacquerleaks (Lacquerware) and @Danbo_4 (me). And if you’re just interested in keeping up with the project, you can feel free to join the Discord, too!
As for the already assembled team, Lacquerware is the project lead, translator and voice director. Mampfus and Shadowmask return from Bulk Slash to help with audio editing, mastering and insertion into the game with technical assistance from Trekkies. Cargodin and I will work with Lacquerware to edit the translated script.
Wish us luck, everyone! We can’t wait to make another voice-heavy Japanese exclusive Saturn game more accessible to new fans.
A massive Saturn fan since Christmas ’96, Dave is enthusiastic about growing the community and spreading Saturn love and knowledge to fans old and new. Co-founding the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! podcast back in 2017 and creating the SHIRO! SHOW in 2020, he seeks to create interesting and engaging Saturn-related content for the community. Dave’s interests circle around game preservation, and he is a huge fan of game magazines and developer interviews.
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