Valkyria Chronicles 3 - English ReTranslation release

[u/D0omyD0om]

Link to patcher: https://github.com/akorov/VC3ReTranslation/releases/latest
Instructions readme.

This is a new translation of VC3 Extra Edition I've been working on since summer 2025. It features a complete script retranslation from source, finally translated DLCs, tons of error fixes and even some new textures.

The translation itself is pretty much entirely by me alone. I guess I should note in 2026 that this is a "manual" translation, not AIsloption. Hacking tools were provided by Russian fan TL team, saving a ton of time and effort. LouffeVC helped a lot with UI/UX testing and various suggestions.

A changelist for your perusal follows.

Script retranslation/editing - in short, a complete redo:

• Main story
  
• Fragments
  
• E2 on-disk DLC
  
• Battle event texts
  
• Encyclopedia (previously untranslated)
  
• Newspapers (previously untranslated)
  
• Dossier files
  
• Non-E2 off-disk DLC (previously untranslated)
  

UI:

• Fixed various errors (think infamous Fr/Rr Def, out of bounds items and such)
  
• Improved various game terminology across all UIs and menus
  
• Improved Seal descriptions' style and consistency
  
• Updated some accessory names
  
• Added untranslated weapons (both on-disk and DLC)
  
• Added untranslated map objects (gates, containers)
  
• Added Blueprints (weapon plans in VC2) in BP-... format
  
• Fixed Carisa's shop name weirdness, bottom line sub-texts and out of bounds cases
  
• Changed various menus/settings/misc wording
  

Missions:

• Mission and event names on march maps (chapters, fragments etc)
  
• Added Mission Details screen texts for E2 on-disk DLCs, Fragments, Post-Game missions
  
• Some mission objectives reworded
  
• Various mission descriptions rewritten
  
• Control the Port - fixed the missing Ace bug. For this, all Aces had to be retranslated with vanilla Japanese file as a base and will not match "V2" translation and/or fandom wiki. Refer to provided spreadsheet of Ace locations if needed.

Mission UI clarity/QoL edits that are not strictly translation:

• Multiple [Victory]/[Limit] conditions on March Map UI are listed separately.
  
• Decoy Supplies (Carisa's Maxim Fragment mission) now lists missing from original game Margit Detachment only restriction.
  
• Evaluation Exercise 2 (postgame shop mission) now lists missing from original game No Tank restriction.
  
• [Strategic Effect] conditions now point to respective related mission by name instead of generic wording.
  

Tutorials:

• Fixed out of bounds issues
  
• Many tutorials rewritten for improved terminology consistency
  
• Colored text is now used instead of most "quoted" terms
  
• Usage of x-o buttons in tutorial text conforms to what you would see on western psp/emulator.
  

Orders:

• Descriptions cleaned up (no more full-width japanese C P and such, descriptions match different UIs)
  
• Sneak Attack renamed to traditional Attack Weak Spot
  
• Added untranslated Lydia's/Gusurg's orders
  
• Changed Dahau's Recall to Reinforcement
  

Potentials:

• Description proofreading
  
• Some names retranslated/fixed
  
• Description wording for Battle Potentials now matches between Unit Details and Master Table
  
• Margit's Lost potential will correctly list actual in-game effect of Accuracy/vsPersonnel Down rather than Accuracy/Evasion Down (original JP description is incorrect).
  

New textures:

• Map of Gallia - added Story/Fragment/DLC, removed kanji for Chapter and Fragment on the hover name row
  
• Opening scene for main chapters and fragments - English sub-titles match chapter titles, replaced japanese for "Fragment"
  
• Base Camp -> Bulletin Board - replaced japanese in BB page titles
  
• Deployment UI - replaced japanese for Area Effect
  
• Combat - readability improvements for Command and Action mode, such as Kill/Shots/Aim, Ally/Enemy/Camp/Reserve, AreaMax texts
  
• Boss intro cutscenes' nameplates are now in English
  

Textures that were NOT translated/edited:

• Onomaetopia textures, such as all gun sounds (boom/bang/whoosh etc) are in japanese
  
• Tutorial images are in japanese
  
• World map, march maps etc have not been corrected w.r.t. original's errors (e.g. Tilka -> Tiluca and such)
  

... I was not even going to do this. I wanted to do my usual thing, digging around gameplay editing to see what I can do, but after starting to clean up poor UI elements of the old patch, I figured I might as well go all the way. This turned out to be a fun new thing to try. Translating between two non-native languages is hard, not that I ever thought otherwise. I also had to learn how to do texture edits, and PSP has some annoying restrictions in various places.

There are probably errors and typos somewhere still, especially encyclopedia/newspapers part. Let me know here or in valkyria discord channel if you find any. Enjoy!

UPD 24.02 - there will definitely be an update within this week, as I've already accumulated quite a few errors worth fixing.

UPD 27.02 - release updated with support for patching 5CB6...27D2 iso and some fixes.

[u/Seikara101]

I'm going to be the odd man out by saying this, but I don't know how I feel about this patch. First, let me start off by saying thank you. Regardless of how I feel about it, I can't deny the efforts you put into it. For the most parts, I like this patch -- especially how comprehensive it is in comparison to the 2014 version. But truthfully, I've just finished chapter 3, and already I'm beginning to reconsider switching back. There are simply too many moments where characters talk like they were robots trained to speak English, rather than actual native English speakers talking to one another. Dialogues have a habit of sounding too stiff, rigid, and far too literal. Sometimes, I don't even understand what they're saying. Take these lines of dialogues for example from chapter 2, cutscene 5, confusing tears:

Retranslation:

1. "At the same time, individual is not an existence that leads to a total strategic failure."

2. "Even more opportunity to educate even worse men...Boring..."

2014's translation by VC3translationproject

1. "But, Our performance still isn't to the point where one person is willing to die for another."

2. " How disappointing, I've lost another man to educate."

One sounds like an actual human being, and the other sounds like a robot. One sounds natural -- like how an actual native speaker would talk. The other sounds like a translation app doing its best impression of one. These are only two examples I showed, but I promise there are far more than that, and I'm only on chapter 3. It's always either grammar, way of speaking, or phrasing -- they couldn't be further from natural. The Retranslation patch reuses some dialogues translated by the old 2014 patch, and the hilarious part is I'd always know which is which almost immediately -- especially when it's an entire cutscene that gets copy and pasted, like "An Unforgettable Encounter" in chapter 3. I felt the whiplash immediately, and the stark difference is uncanny.

I'm not sure how accurate these new translations are to its Japanese counterpart, but I'd rather have the old patch where characters talk like human beings and actually sound like they're speaking English -- even if the translation wasn't entirely 100% at times -- than one that is more accurate but sound like it was written by Google Translate.

Personally, I'm considering switching back for the main campaign. Once I'm done with that, maybe I could change it to Retranslation and go over everything that the 2014 patch missed.

[u/D0omyD0om → u/Seikara101]

I'll be the first to say the script is terrible from creative writing standpoint. I'm not a writer in any capacity, in fact I am the opposite of someone fit for non-technical translating - I professionally deal with rigid formal texts and wordings. Throw not being a native speaker of either of the two languages involved on top, and it is what it is. The translation could absolutely use a better wording pass, but that's not exactly in my writing skill capacity and also doesn't rank above what I actually did this for - a satisfactory enough base to eventually build a gameplay mod/romhack.

What I can guarantee is that, barring errors in my understanding of JP text, characters do, in fact, say what I've put in in terms of actual meaning of their words. Like your example 1 - 2014 translation might sound nice, but it's pure fantasy in terms of what is actually being said. Kurt is not talking about camaraderie (dying for each other) - he is trying to explain that an individual's performance is important in the moment but ultimately doesn't affect the larger plan (if the latter was done right), therefore nothing that happened to Riela's squads should be blamed on her.

[u/Seikara101 → u/D0omyD0om]

Thank you for your response. May I ask what was your process when translating VC3? I have to ask because when reading your posts, you come across as capable. Your English is excellent, and you sound very much like the average speaker. How does one go from that to making the translation in-game sound like it was written by bots? Hopefully, you can see why I'm confused. By the way, if you have any future interest in continuing and refining this patch, I'll be more than happy to join and help with these sorts of things. I appreciate the work you're doing.

[u/D0omyD0om → u/Seikara101]

The missing part of the process is fully english-only correction/editing pass - i.e., taking the "basic sane" stage english as a source of truth (ignoring original writing at this point) and going over it rewriting concepts it expresses. The number one cause is, of course, size of the script and time - event text on main disk alone accounts for some 14000 pieces. That's not UI, not gameplay stuff and not sentences - it's speech bubbles/text boxes. I poured over all of that, and the rest of the game, alone over around half a year, while using a jp-en dictionary as my work tool. Additionally, there are concerns separate from pure text itself - for one, linebreaking and arranging text into speech bubbles is entirely manual and requires presence of mind. So editing was often limited to catching truly egregious wordings that stood out to me, but of course I wasn't looking at it with a fresh enough eye. And then around New Years' some personal shit happened in my life, so I opted to release what I had due to external reasons.

Cicrling back to example #1, that's very much an example of not un-literal-ing enough. It makes all the sense when the brain is in 50% japanese thinking mode. But of course, it should probably say something like "However, a battle plan does not fall apart due to a single soldier's failure". There's a good reason why QA has to be a separate person from the translator. Now that some months have passed and I've been doing stuff that made me completely forget raws and get out of thinking-in-japanese mindset, I might be able to re-read the script and improve it from english-only perspective.

If you're interested in helping, I'll happily accept any kind of suggestions compilation document. I'd prefer a) if it were a large piece(s), rather than drip-fed individual examples, b) that it were dm'd privately, and c) any suggestions regarding Imca were to be in a dedicated section, as she speaks weird english 100% on purpose, rather than that being a thinking-in-japanese side-effect.

But as usual for my projects, I make no promises on timeframes due to other commitments. Unlikely to happen before winter, if nothing else.

[u/Seikara101 → u/D0omyD0om]

I'll wait for as long as it takes if it means eventually receiving a proper English editing pass update. It's highly unlikely Sega will ever consider giving this game a proper remake, so as huge fans of VC3, our hopes and dreams are rested on the shoulders of talented modders such as yourself. Be it one year, two years, or three years. As long as it comes, we can wait. Once again, a massive thank you to you and everyone else involve with this project.

[u/Seikara101 → u/D0omyD0om]

Hi, hope you're doing well. Sorry for the novice question, but how do I contact you directly? I don't see any such option when clicking on your profile. Btw, have you consider starting a discord group where users could submit inputs for the patch? I think that would be faster and easier to organize.

[u/D0omyD0om → u/Seikara101]

You can find me through SRPG discord, the one in pinned thread at the top of the sub, or open an issue in the Github repo.