Tokimeki Memorial 3's menus are switching to English

TM3 has come a long way since I started on it. Patch v0.10 is built.

Under the hood

The PS2 disc packs its text with its own compression, and every script is a little program with the dialogue tucked inside. Both are cracked now, and all 971 script files can be pulled apart and put back together. English has its own font, with letters of different widths so lines don't look stretched out. The patched game still fits on a single-layer DVD.

On screen

• The title screen and the extras menu
• The System menu, Data Select (Save, Load, Copy, Delete) and memory card messages
• Options, including the sound and voice settings
• The weekly plan bubbles and profile screens
• Exam results and the remedial class notice
• Minigame titles

A lot of TM3's menus aren't text at all. They're little pictures of letters, sometimes one picture per kana, so each label gets redrawn as a picture in English.

Next up

Name entry in English, and the long list of game text that lives outside the scripts. That includes town events, compatibility readings and diary titles, which I'll translate myself.