Mitsumete Knight

So... I wonder if there's anyone here who've heard of that obscure, yet awesome Dating Sim game by Konami and Red Entertainement (the creators of Sakura Taisen).

For those who don't feel like reading the article's long presentation, Mitsumete Knight is a Spiritual Successor of Tokimeki Memorial: Forever with you in a Middle Ages setting. This is a story of love and war where you, as a foreign mercenary, seeks to become a Holy Knight and find the love of your life.

The game is notable for its extremely elaborate Crapsaccharine World, and its characters. They are developped, they have many interactions between each other, they have deep and often sad storylines, and anyone of them can die depending on your actions, something not seen often in Dating Sims.

Why such an interesting-sounding game got past the radar like that? Mainly because it suffers from Stillborn Franchise, Widget Series, No Export for You, and Lostalgia.

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I discovered that game during my 1-year study trip in Japan in 2009, and now I want to share it with all of you. Seeing the successfully completed fan translations of the first two Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side games, and despaired by the lack of Dating Sims for guys in English, I realized that if I don't kick my ass and take matters into my own hands, nobody will.

As such, I decided to start a Mitsumete Knight script translation project, starting from the various translation subtitles I made for various Mitsumete Knight vids on my Youtube channel.

Why did I chose Mitsumete Knight, instead of Tokimeki Memorial 1 or 2? For several reasons:

• I do have prior experience in video game translation scripts, having translated the Endings, and various bits, of Fire Emblem 3 and 4; but I've never done a full game translation script.
• As such, I want to make my hand on a not-too-hard project: Tokimeki Memorial 2 interests me a ton, but it's way too much for me to handle with my current level, and Tokimeki Memorial 1, while not too hard, is already worked on by other people, and I don't want to step on their toes.
• Mitsumete Knight is a game which has much more potential to interest non-Dating Sim gamers than Tokimeki Memorial, with its rich storyline and its various combat sequences.
• And finally, rare are the people who know about Mitsumete Knight. The Tokimemo games at least have a little chance of fan translation; Mitsumete Knight has next to none, if I don't do it.

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For the time being, I'm currently gathering all the translations I already did in the past on Youtube. I realize how much translation I did so far (even though it's still a drop in the sea compare to what awaits me), as I'm not totally finished with this task.

Once the gathering will be done, my translation battleplan will be the following:

• First, concentrate on Priscilla. She's the character with the most translation work done: I just need to translate the bad choices in the dialogue trees of her Special Events, her bad ending, and her date dialogues.

• Then, I'll work on the storyline stuff. It's very important, and I think it'll take me less time than the winnable characters' dialogues, dates and Special Events.

• After that, I'll decide on my mood, but regarding characters, I think that since I have translated Anne's Ending, one of Sophia's Events, and have that video of my Full Sophia Run, I'll work on those two first; then on Hanna, my fave character of the game, and then on Raizze, the favourite character of the fandom. Afterwards, I'll see.

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For those interested, here are the scripts of what I already compiled from my YT stuff. The presentation is a little messy, I'll imporve it with time:

• Priscilla's Special Events
• Priscilla's Endings
• Anne's Ending

And recently, I posted at Animelyrics translation of two Mitsumete Knight songs:

• Mitsumete, the normal Happy Ending song of the game
• Ikusa Ga Unda Uta, a Gene Petromolla song, findable in the 1st Drama CD

edited 21st May '11 5:17:40 AM by AceNoctali

If you feel that the best choice for presenting Mitsumete Knight in English is to create streaming videos, then go ahead. It would be a lot easier than creating a translation patch. And since beggars can't be choosers, it's better than nothing. Also, I'd be surprised if there were copyright complaints, since all the games are long out of print, and there were never rumors that any of the games would be localized.

(Side note... There have been three otome games with name recognition which received fan translations over the last year — TMGS 1 and 2, as well as Starry Sky in Spring. And there are some recent girl-oriented games written in English which have been earning respect from fans — such as RE: Alistair, Chrono Days Sim Date, Frozen Essence, the Fantasia series, Date Warp, Love and Order, and Always Remember Me. But let's be honest — there's always been far more boy x girls games, both in English and in Japanese.)

Huh? Where did I say I prefer doing translated streaming videos than a patch? What I said is that I'm doing a .txt script, starting from picking up every translations I already did on my videos and puttting them in the script, then continue translation and complete that .txt script, so that it's available later for anyone who wants to make a patch.

Also, to add to what you said, not only Mitsumete Knight is long out of print, the franchise was abandoned in 1999 and never picked up again since, even as a PSP Go release, unlike several Tokimemo games; probably because it's a Konami / Red Entertainment joint project, so IP matters problem; add to that, three of the main seiyuu of the game are out of commission (Shiho Niiyama and Daisuke Gouri dead, Hiroko Konishi out of the business).

All I can say is, good luck with this! I admire the work translators do.

I've never played a Dating Sim, but judging from its trope page, Mitsumete Knight looks very interesting.

T's been a year since I haven't posted on the thread.

Not much progression on the translation of the game itself so far, unfortunately: however, that'll soon change, I've recently found some sizable chunks of scripts on the Japanese web, most notably regarding the Dolphan Times Weekly Topics, and the Endings.

But the most important info I wanted to tell, is that I started to work on the translation of the 1-tome spin-off manga, Mitsumete Knight: Another Story!

The script translation of MK:AS is going smoothly so far (doing it little by little during recess at the academy, as a breather; doing the same with the Fire Emblem 4 manga by Fujimori Nuts, BTW): I've completed translation of the first 3 chapters (out of 7) in both English and French.

Since there's virtually no info about that manga on the English web (outside of the mention I made on the TV Tropes article), and VERY few info on it on the Japanese web, here are a few things for you if you're curious and/or wanting to see my progression.

• Translation scripts (need to be proofchecked):
  • English script
  • French script

• Hastily edited translated pics I've cooked up as a preview:
  • [1]◊ (Some of the color pages in Chapter 1)
  • [2]◊ (Kojirô protects Sophia against the Burston Brothers)
  • [3]◊ (Sue's Epic Fail)
  • [4]◊ (Kojirô is a frikkin' Badass. Oh, and he calls out his attacks)
  • [5]◊ (An... interesting use of A Glass in the Hand)
  • [6]◊ (I Will Definitely Protect You)

edited 15th Oct '12 2:14:35 PM by AceNoctali

Update on the translation of Mitsumete Knight: Another Story:

Translation script of Chapter 4, 5 and 6 is complete, in both English and French. Only the Final Chapter and the "Making of Mitsumete Knight: Another Story" to go!

I've updated the translation script links above with that progress.

edited 31st Oct '12 7:02:47 AM by AceNoctali

Great news, everyone:

The translation scripts (both English and French) of Mitsumete Knight: Another Story are 100% complete!!! :D

For those who aren't that interested in the manga, but want to learn an interesting piece of trivia regarding the game, I strongly advise them to read the final page of "The Making of Mitsumete Knight: Another Story" (page 174 in the script).

(You won't regret it: and along with the fact it's the only place where you learn the name of the manga's main antagonist, Gear, it's what decided me to translate the Making of, since I wasn't initially very thrilled at the idea of translating it).

Also, here's a link of the page containing that trivia tidbit◊, so you have a visual that goes along with the text.

Now I need to find someone who would be willing to edit the pages I'm currently scanning...

edited 1st Nov '12 10:07:49 AM by AceNoctali

Special news:

A Mitsumete Knight fan I know from the Game FA Qs forums, Kratoscar2008, is currently doing a Let's Play of the original game on Broken Forum.

I'm going to assist him in his LP by translating bits of the sequences he'll encounter.

And since most people on that forum wish for him to get Menesys, and given that she's a tricky character due to her unortodox questions system, I've written down a full strategy guide for that specific character. You can find that guide here, in the case you want to play her Route as well.