Trails in the Sky the 3rd gets a complete English PSP patch

Modder and translator TheGreatDS (who goes by Awkward_Message1896 on Reddit) has released a complete English translation patch for the PlayStation Portable version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd. Available now on ROMhacking.net after an initial community debut on GBAtemp and Reddit earlier this week, the project transplants the official localization from XSEED Games' 2017 PC release directly into the 2008 Japanese PSP ISO.

For handheld players, this closes an annoying gap that has sat open for nearly two decades.

Why the PSP version got left behind

Nihon Falcom originally launched Trails in the Sky the 3rd on Windows PC in Japan on June 28, 2007, before bringing it to the PlayStation Portable on July 24, 2008. When Western publisher XSEED Games picked up the Liberl arc, the first entry landed on PSP in 2011. Its massive sequel, Second Chapter, suffered through a notoriously brutal localization cycle and didn't hit PlayStation Network as a digital PSP title until late 2015.

Sony's first handheld was already a museum piece in the West by then. Rather than trying to sell a third PSP game in 2017, XSEED released its English version of the 3rd exclusively on PC via Steam and GOG on May 3, 2017. That was a sensible business call, even if it meant anyone playing through the trilogy on original portable hardware hit a language barrier right before the epilogue.

Starring gralsritter priest Kevin Graham and his childhood friend Ries Argent as they explore the otherworldly realm of Phantasma, the 3rd isn't optional side material. Its "Star Doors" and "Moon Doors" lay down essential backstory for the subsequent Crossbell and Erebonia arcs, making it hard to skip without feeling lost in later entries.

Backporting a PC script to a 2008 UMD

Instead of translating one of gaming's wordiest scripts from scratch, TheGreatDS extracted the English text from XSEED's GOG release and injected it into the Japanese PSP files. Porting text between two different builds of an older Falcom engine still leaves plenty of loose ends, particularly around interface elements and platform-specific prompts that don't exist in the Windows version.

"I ported over the script from the official XSEED GOG release of the game, and the stuff that were NOT there have been hand translated," the creator explained when sharing the patch. "This is a big game, I've ironed out as much as I can, please do report any issues and all."

I'm curious how well the PSP's lower-resolution text boxes handle some of XSEED's longer English lines during the multi-page Star Door vignettes, as variable-width font quirks have tripped up plenty of handheld script backports in the past. Still, having a complete, playable draft on original hardware is a minor miracle considering most modders abandoned the PSP releases once the PlayStation Vita's enhanced Evolution versions got their own English patches.

Every PSP Trails game is now in English

This release finishes the job for Falcom's entire PlayStation Portable catalog. Between XSEED's official releases of the first two Sky chapters, older community patches for Nayuta: Boundless Trails and the Crossbell duology (Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki), and this new script port, every single game in the franchise that hit the PSP can now be played in English.

Modern platforms and PC storefronts are objectively easier ways to play through the series today, especially with Falcom's current remake push and the ongoing Calvard arc on contemporary consoles. I still think there's a strong case for the 2008 portable build, whether you're loading it onto a modded PSP-3000 or running it through PPSSPP on a pocket-sized Linux handheld.

Pick up The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd on Humble Bundle.

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