Silhouette Mirage Retranslation Patch Stays Faithful to Original Japanese Script

An English translation of Silhouette Mirage that’s faithful to the original Japanese script exists at last thanks to fans who released a patch for the Saturn version Wednesday.

Rasputin3000 uploaded the patch to SegaXtreme. It uses the Sega Saturn Patcher utility, which comes bundled with the patch’s ZIP file download.

Rasputin3000 led the effort last year to insert the official English script from the PlayStation port into the Japan-only Saturn version. That effort took about four months, but while he was doing that, a translator named Wiredcrackpot — the person responsible for the Radirgy fan translation on Dreamcast — was toiling away on a retranslation of the game with editor CSketch.

“Work on this retranslation actually began before the [previous] patch was released, and has honestly been almost as much work (for me at least),” Rasputin said in SHIRO!’s Discord server. “Wiredcrackpot put a ton of passion into the retranslation, and it shows. Check out the included translator notes. You will not be disappointed.”

They took on a retranslation because the official PlayStation localization from Working Designs strayed far from the original Japanese script. It threw out the many overt and implicit references to Christianity and replaced them with “malarky,” as the patch’s translation notes describe it.

Those translation notes, included in the patch’s ZIP file in a PDF, extensively describe the characters and world of Silhouette Mirage as it’s presented in the original Japanese. One of protagonist Shyna’s friends, for example, is named Moses, and he helps her fight against his own people, the Mirages — mirroring Christianity’s Moses defying the Egyptians who raised him from birth. He is named Bug in Working Designs’ script where the allegory is completely lost.

The translation notes show direct comparisons between the Wiredcrackpot and Working Designs scripts:

“This is possibly the most made-up Working Designs script,” the notes say at one point.

The notes also go over parts of the script that were a challenge as well as Wiredcrackpot’s reasons for translating them the way she did. For example, the way the main villain’s genders are treated in stage 1:

“Otoko onna.” It presents a challenge as it can mean more than a few things, and this sentence, at first glance, sounds derogatory. But not OFFENSIVELY derogatory; there’s many more words you can use. It can mean, “feminine boy,” “boyish girl,” or be used to refer to people who are intersex. Yet Zohar is a character multigendered in a fantasy way, and there is no word in English that conveys so much at once.

I initially gave in and rewrote the line, as “Are they a boy or a girl?” However, before the patch was complete, I was watching Utena, and there, the subs say “boy-girl.” I think it makes enough sense, but mostly I just don’t want to have to rewrite the line.

The Working Designs translation omits this line and, at least in Stage 1, treats Zohar as male.

— Wiredcrackpot

The translation notes PDF also includes some comics from the Japanese strategy guide for Silhouette Mirage — newly translated into English thanks to Wiredcrackpot.

The patch notes provide some important patching instructions. In addition to using the version of the Sega Saturn Patcher that’s included with the patch, users should keep in mind:

• Patch will work with both Saturn release versions of the game. This includes: v1.003 (Release) and V1.100 (Rev. A).
• “+ Region Free Patch” must be UNSELECTED when patching in SSP otherwise the game will crash on boot.
• If the game is having difficulty loading on Fenrir ODE, then try patching with “Separate Track Files (if applicable)” SELECTED in SSP.

The patch notes also point out two known issues: the “insufficient RAM” text isn’t centered, and the “continue” screen sprites are untranslated.

“The patch has been confirmed to work on real hardware using Fenrir/Fenrir Duo, Phoebe, and Satiator, as well as via emulation using Bizhawk, Mednafen, and Yabasanshiro,” the notes say.

Silhouette Mirage is a 2D action platformer developed by Treasure and released on Saturn exclusively in Japan on Sept. 11, 1997. It was ported to the PlayStation the following July, and North American PlayStation owners got an English localization of it in January 2000.

But the better version was the Saturn original, arguably, which featured additional graphical effects that the PlayStation didn’t. Not only that, but the English localization from Working Designs also inflated the cost of everything in the game’s shop, which succeeded less in increasing the challenge and more in increasing the frustration and tedium players experienced.

Without Working Designs’ shop changes and fast-and-loose script, Rasputin3000’s team has delivered the truest Silhouette Mirage experience that English speakers have ever had.