Update #2 (Fri 12th May, 2023 16:05 BST): The long-awaited fan translation patch for Stellar Assault SS will release later today, one of its developers Dan Myers has revealed on Twitter.
It will release during a special livestream on Sega Saturn, Shiro!'s YouTube channel, which will begin at 6pm EDT (that's 11pm BST if you live in the UK). You will be able to watch the livestream here.
Update #1 (Tue 20th Dec, 2022 10:00 GMT): A sneak peek of this Stellar Assault SS's fan translation has been posted online. It shows the game's intro, featuring a fully-translated opening narration voiced by actress Renee Martin. This covers Earth's initial war with the aggressive alien forces and the second contact, which leads to the events of the game.
According to Myers, who posted the clip, "In the last couple weeks, the team has recorded missions four through nine for Jake with Ramir-Pascal von Bannisseht, the rest of Maria's lines with @Crouching_Mouse, all of the unnamed pilot's lines with Space Galaga, and mission 15 as well as some retakes for Aya with Renee."
In other words, it seems like the project is developing well, despite the difficulties involved with recreating all the sound effects and voices and syncing them properly to the video.
This short clip even seems to have caught the attention of Stellar Assault director Koji Tsuchida, who responded "How wonderful" upon seeing the work that Myers and others were putting into the patch.
Original article (Tue 19th Jul, 2022 12:35 BST): The Stellar Assault series arguably isn't that well known in the West.
The first game, which was retitled to Shadow Squadron outside of Japan, was released exclusively for the Genesis's 32X add-on, which meant it didn't exactly achieve mainstream success. Then, once it came time to release the enhanced port for the Saturn, Sega decided not to localize the game for English audiences, preventing those who wanted to give the series a try from actually doing so.
Twenty-four years have passed since then, and it seems that a group of fan translators is finally giving Stellar Assault SS another chance at reaching a wider audience, promising to translate the region-locked sequel on Twitter.
The team behind this fan translation is comprised of Lacquerware and Dan Myers, both of whom previously worked on the impressive localization of the Sega Saturn game Bulk Slash, back in 2021. That translation went above and beyond many people's expectations, incorporating all-new voice acting, and it seems like that's what they're intending to do for this project as well.
As part of the announcement on Twitter, Lacquerware put forth a call for volunteer voice actors to join their Discord and help bring this piece of Saturn history to the West. Currently, he's predicting the project will take roughly a year in total to complete.
Stellar Assault SS, for those unfamiliar, is a first-person space combat game that is divided up into 17 missions. It's not too dissimilar to other space dogfighting games like Star Fox or Star Wars: X-Wing, with players placed in a cockpit and tasked with blasting away all manner of galactic aircraft.
You can watch a video of it in action below: