An in-progress patch for an English translation of Sword & Sorcery, a 1996 JRPG by Microcabin, was added to the SegaXtreme extreme resources section today! This patch, which is translating from the Sega Saturn Japanese script, is closing in on the 25% completion mark — currently version 0.20 — and is available to download here.
The team behind last year’s Silhouette Mirage English retranslation project — SHIRO! coverage here — are back at it. Wiredcrackpot, fresh off her work with the recent Mobile Suit Gundam and Jung Rhythm English patches, leads the effort, while Rasputin3000 — the author of this article — is handling the hex editing. Other community members have contributed to the project as well, most notably Malenko helping with sprite editing and Bo Bayles unlocking the in-game debug menu.
The inspiration for the Sword & Sorcery English patch can best be described as coincidental. SHIRO! Discord member MD_Prometh shared the following on Feb. 28, 2024:
This kicked off a community discussion about Sword & Sorcery. Many, the author included, were not aware that Lucienne’s Quest had received a port to Sega’s fifth-generation home console. In the short exchange that followed, a number of SHIRO! community members voiced their desire for an English translation of the Saturn version.
Three days passed and Rasputin3000 posted the following on the SHIRO! Discord:
“From this 15 mins or so of poking I would say that patching this game into English is doable… I gotta fight the urge (for now at least)” — Rasputin3000
Wiredcrackpot and Rasputin3000 were, at the time, attempting to get a Vatlva and then a Willy Wombat English translation project off the ground, so neither was keen to volunteer to patch Sword & Sorcery. However, technical hurdles and sprite compression thwarted the duo’s efforts, and by mid-March the question they were pondering was… “do we tackle Sword & Sorcery?”
As luck would have it, wiredcrackpot’s friend runs a Lucienne’s Quest fan site and she had recently discussed the possibility of translating the game. The coincidences piled up, and schedules cleared, and the project got off the ground April 4, 2025.
Bundled with version 0.20 of the Sword & Sorcery English patch is a readme that includes patching details as well as the current state of the project, ongoing work, and known issues.
The game is playable in English through the end of the first dungeon (Chichibra Cave).
The patch has so far only been tested via emulation using Yaba Sanshiro.
System and Menu Text: 99% Complete
Shop and Inn Text: 99% Complete
Battle Text: 99% Complete
Dialogue Text: ~18% completeNOTE: This patch represents an in-progress effort, and none of what is present here should be considered finalized. The names, dialogue, formatting, et cetera as they appear in this version are still subject to change.
In progress:
– Translation and insertion of the remaining ~12,000 words of dialogue text
– Editing of the status screen sprite
– Correcting alignment of items and weapons in menu/shops/battle screens
Known issues:
– Alignment of weapons and items in submenus and of some spells/spells descriptions in battle
– Garbage text appearing after some enemy names in battle
– Likely some typos and other centering issues
The largest hurdles faced by the team have been the pointer system employed in the code, particularly that of the submenus. The submenu pointer system remains unsolved as of version 0.20, forcing the team to rely on abbreviations and careful wording choices to avoid space limitations.
The centering and the “garbage text” issues mentioned in the readme are both symptoms of the game’s coding. The code habitually uses a single text pointer for multiple different submenus. So, for example, the “Hand Axe” item can appear centered in a shop menu, but not in the player inventory, or on the status screen. The patch uses single-byte encoding for text, as opposed to the 2-byte encoding found in the retail release, and garbage text will be produced if the new text value is not even — spaces and null bytes do not ameliorate this issue. An example of this phenomenon is shown below.
A variable width font, real or faked through custom sprite tiles, could fix this issue. The latter is likely to feature in future iterations of the patch.
The translation team will be posting regular progress patches on SegaXtreme, so keep an eye out!
The Microcabin-developed Sword & Sorcery first released on the 3DO in the summer of 1995. An English localization by Panasonic, retitled as Lucienne’s Quest, came to North American markets in March 1996. A mere two month later, an enhanced Sega Saturn port hit Japanese store shelves, where it would remain a regional exclusive for the console.
The Saturn port has gained a reputation as being a rushed remake given its primarily cosmetic alterations to the original game. These changes, however, clearly sought to leverage the more powerful hardware of the Saturn.
New features are visible from the moment the game is booted, as an FMV opening absent from the 3DO version — see below — greets the player. The Saturn port features voice acting for story-related dialogue and in battles, new and reworked character portraits, enhanced textures and sprites, new camera modes, and overall higher polygon counts with better draw distances during cutscenes and gameplay.
Some finer details were lost during the porting process, however. The 3DO version had transparent clouds slowly moving across the overworld, which are absent on the Saturn port. The color palette used in the Saturn version has also been criticized for looking less vibrant than the 3DO original.
The game runs faster than the 3do version but is still a bit slow. I like this game and I am happy to see that a translation is on the way.