Forest contains nearly a thousand voice only lines, which have no displayed text to go with them and may be heard at the same time as different, unvoiced lines are displayed in the traditional text box. The group handled these lines by including subtitles near the top of the screen to display these translations. The included read me, in addition to staff credits and installation instructions, includes a list of works referenced in the script in “some form”, a few translation notes, and a detailed walkthrough for the game. The translation notes section lists a couple chapter titles which had a pun or reference that could not be preserved in the translation along with the literal translation of a limerick in the script that had to get a modified translation to keep the rhyme and rhythm.

Forest is a visual novel that was originally released by Liar-Soft in 2004. It focuses on a group of characters in the city of Shinjuku, along with their struggles against the Forest. These characters have gifts, or abilities, as they go up against the riddles that the Forest lays out for them.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (literally ‘When the Seagulls Cry‘) is a popular murder mystery sound novel created by the authors of the equally famous Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The story takes place in the year 1986 at a small, secluded island named Rokkenjima, owned by the head of a wealthy family. After a typhoon traps a number of visiting family members on the island, strange and deadly events start occuring.

The English fan translation of Umineko no Naku Koro ni has become well-known for having received official sanction from the original creator, Ryukishi07 of the doujin circle 07th Expansion. Having even a character in one of the episodes named after the group, the Witch Hunt were able to strike a deal with HOBIBOX to make the Japanese game available in the West through DRM-free download.

Over the course of the project the Witch Hunt have kept a very tight release schedule, releasing the translation of each episode before the following episode was released in Japan. For the last episode it took a year time before the full translation was released, the deadline eventually having been set to December 31, as 07th Expansion had announced it would then release a booklet with solutions to some of the puzzles and mysteries.

We previously reported that the indie visual novel writer Waitingforyouguys had created an original visual novel for the iPhone in Japanese, and had also released a “lite” demo version in English. That English version had been translated from Japanese by the original author, and although the translation was decent it did exhibit some issues. Despite those issues, the Lite version of the app is currently averaging 4.5 stars with 97 ratings.

Since the time of the original article, the entire script has been re-translated from scratch by Akira, a translator with some experience translating visual novels. This has resulted in a significant improvement of the translation quality. The full version in English is now available for purchase in the iTunes app store for $1.99. The free Lite version has also been updated to version 2.0 with the revised script.

Depending on reading speed, the total play time for the full version is somewhere between 1 and 3 hours. The app store’s story description, reflecting the new translation, is as follows:

Toru Fujiwara, who transferred to Sangu high school met a beautiful girl named Yuri on the first day.
At the same time, a new girl named Rita came from Scotland with a secret goal in her mind.
Toru enjoys his school life with Yuri and Rita.
But he is getting involved in battle for Kisaragi-no-Hogyoku (Gemma Februarii).

[update 12/10] In celebration of the release, the full version is free on the iTunes store until December 15, 2011.

Aselia the Eternal, known as Eien no Aselia in Japan, is an RPG set in a fantasy world known as Phantasmagoria, to which the protagonist Yuuto and his sister Kaori have been summoned. With his sister taken hostage by the local king, Yuuto finds himself forced to fight the king’s battles alongside a number of female Spirit warriors. An interesting detail is that when the game starts, neither the protagonist nor the player can understand the language of the Phantasmagorians. As the game progresses, the script becomes more and more understandable.

The game features event scenes in a visual novel-style format and gameplay in the form of RPG battles. The version being released by JAST USA is the Windows port of the all-ages PS2 adaptation, which featured added content and a revised game engine to compensate for the removal of explicit sex scenes. This English release is based on the fan translation released by Dakkodango Translations, who are continuing to offer their translation patch for the Japanese version of the game.