Howdy, everybody!
We’ve been busy with E3 here at XSEED, but don’t think for one second that we’ve forgotten about the Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns patch and DLC. We’ve been working on it for several months now, and I’m happy to say that it’s close to completion.
First, let me give you some general information about the patch/DLC, and the effort necessary to localize all of it.
The Japanese patch contents, released in four updates over six months, contained about 210,000 Japanese characters. While this is around a tenth of the total game text, it was still no mean feat to localize, as we anticipated when discussing it in a blog several months ago. We were lucky to have one of the translators who worked on the game back, and I filled in on about a third of the text myself. Our editors were Danielle–by now a veteran of the series–and Nick, who was the project lead on the first Story of Seasons and is a master of puns. Given this, I assigned Nick most of the text for new marriage candidates Woofio and Stephanie, and he did a really bang-up job. He kept a running list of scribbled dog puns while working on Woofio’s text, and as the frowny face indicates, sometimes things got a little ruff.
Look for these in the DLC!
In Japanese, Woofio’s doggerel is mostly expressed with the sentence ending “-wan,” which is the sound that dogs make in Japanese. His Japanese name—Wantatan—even uses it. This is similar to how cats and catgirls use “-nyan.” Woofio’s Japanese dialogue does contain some animal puns and references, but the brunt of the work of characterizing him as doglike is done through the almost constant use of this “-wan” grammar. Because English doesn’t have a similar structure, we had to get a bit cleverer (and by that I mean dumber) for our text. That said, we were careful not to overdo it, as that wouldn’t have been true to the spirit of the text either. I don’t know about Nick and Danielle, but I had a lot of fun localizing the DLC.
Having fun with a rejected eShop icon.
The two new characters are additions worthy of being listed among the series’ strange lineup of secret marriage candidates, but there’s also a lot of content included for those with no interest in fursuing Woofio or Stephanie. There are several events for those who have already gotten married or built great relationships with the three towns, including a post-wedding visit from your family. From what I’ve seen online, players seem to either love or hate Daryl, but I think it’s fun to watch how he interacts with your spouse. And, of course, your spouse’s reactions are very cute too.
Daryl, your serious dad, meets your husband, the guy in the dog suit.
There is also an event where you host a little party for the bachelors (if you’re playing as a male MC) or bachelorettes (female MC). In this event, the variety of dialogue you’ve come to expect from this game is on display, as the characters make comments on whichever interior design you’ve chosen for your house. The DLC also features a lot of new dialogue for each marriage candidate, as well as some new costumes. As you might have heard, you can also now have a child with Inari, the secret marriage candidate. The patch/DLC will also be applied to your current save data, so you won’t have to start a new game for this to happen if you’re already married to Inari.
If you couldn’t guess, Stephanie’s favorite color is pink.
You’ll have to wait a bit longer for a breakdown of the exact details of the patch/DLC (including price and release date…sorry), but the free patch will include some bug fixes, typo fixes, and a new menu that will let you purchase the DLC from the eShop. One of the bug fixes is the Ludus Beverage Bash progress stopper. This was the first thing I confirmed when we received our first version of the patch data. We’ve also fixed the bug that won’t let players designate a furmiliar from the 7th spot or lower on their pet list. For typos, we’ve been able to fix the major issues—the seasonal suns being mislabeled in the cellar, the repeating dialogue in a few events—as well as some other issues that players have pointed out. A lot of these fixes are thanks to your feedback over the past few months.
As far as Woofio puns go, this one is pretty tame.
The free patch will also include text from the Japanese patches that we consider to be “fixes” rather than added content, such as tutorial text listing out the contents of each ingredient group used in recipes, and a warning from the part-time job recruiters to pick up delivery orders before the shop closes.
Reaction to Trio of Towns in North America has been really wonderful so far. I think that’s a testament to how much the game both refined the series’ mechanics and included a level of character detail that was previously unseen. I’m excited for the patch and the DLC to improve the experience for players even further. Stay tuned for more updates.