🇪🇸 ¡Os recordamos que Ace Combat 3 también tiene su parche de traducción fan en castellano en forma de Ace Combat 3: electrosfera! Podéis leer la noticia sobre el lanzamiento de la versión española o conocer otros parches de traducción fan, en Traducciones del Tío Víctor.

🇮🇹 Vi ricordiamo che potete trovare la patch in lingua italiana a questo indirizzo. Buon divertimento!

Thank you for downloading this patch and for your interest to play Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere using our fan translation!

We have been working on this project for at least 4 years, we based our work on the original Japanese script to bring you a translation in 3 different languages: English, Spanish and Italian.

Our translators are native speakers in their respective languages, you can rest assured the quality of the translation, as well the proofreading and testing combined, is top-notch!

This is a non-profit effort, we do not accept any donations and we do not endorse piracy, so please do not ask for download links.

Credits and acknowledgements

This project was made possible with the combined efforts of many people in various areas of expertise. We even collaborated with Traducciones del Tío Víctor for the Spanish patch and for additional proofreading.

• International project coordinator: Infrid

• Japanese-English translation: Yarghenforgen

• Graphic/video editing: IlDucci, OrientalComputer_01

• Animated illustrations: Azu Crepuscular

• Tool programming: Infrid, Kosmo零

• Reverse engineering: SolidSnake11, Ortew Lant, IlDucci

• English proofreading/editing: Dfactor, Raivop, IlDucci

• Special thanks: Phoenix, Agna

• English-Spanish text translation: IlDucci

• Japanese-Spanish text revision, AppenDisc subtitling: Dark_Kudoh

• Spanish version testing: IlDucci, Megaflan, 堕落王 (Wu)

• Programming (third-party tools): Steve Monaco “Klarth” (Atlas), RedComet (Cartographer), Stenzek (DuckStation), Michael Sabin (jPSXdec), Lameguy64 (img2tim, isodump, MKPSXISO), Kingcom and all Armips contributors, Silent, Chromaryu, G4Vi, and spicyjpeg (MKPSXISO), Dashman (layer merger), CUE (psx-mode2), putnam (binmerge).

• Online resources:

  • acacac (https://w.atwiki.jp/acacac/): dialogue transcriptions, most of the game’s text has been carefully collected here helping us dramatically.
  • SlyCooperFan1 (https://acecombat.wiki.gg): among other fans for maintaining and updating various information about Ace Combat 3.

Download link

Download English Patch v1.1

If you want to distribute our patch or put it on your website, please consult us first. Under no circumstances distribute or post on the internet the images of the patched game. The translation is made to be distributed as a patch and to be used for the legitimate owners of the original game.

Changelog

v1.1 Minor revision

The translation is getting an update to fix a few errors that were reported or suggested by the community members:

• Search Engine: Fiona’s date of birth has been corrected
• Search Engine: Park’s graduation date has been added
• “Snider’s Top” capitalization inconsistency is now fixed
• AppenDisc: Dialogue box confirmation wording changed to be more clear
• AppenDisc: Fixed a dialogue box typo

v1.0 First release

• A complete, from ground up English translation: Data Swallow user interface, FMVs, broadcasts & news reports, teletext, personal calls & messages, mission briefing & debriefing, radio communications, search engine, archive list, cutscenes and credits are fully translated.
• Certain videos (news, broadcasts, cutscenes) with Japanese text burnt-in have been cleaned up and translated.
• Translated, re-written, and expanded manual.
• Translated AppenDisc.

We also fixed some bugs from the original release, improving the overall experience:

• Bugfix: M27 and M29 play the correct respective soundtracks.
• Bugfix: Search engine is modified to always display an image within an article if there’s at least one non-generic image available.

What do you need to play this patch

You will need the game and a CD-ROM drive to create a backup copy on a computer in BIN/CUE format, we won’t cover here how to create a disc image, there are plenty of tutorials and videos online.

Identify your version of the game

The game has been released 3 times, each publication has a different serial number starting with SLES or SLPS. According to redump.org the full serial numbers are:

• SLPS-02020~1, used on the first publication of the game, this is the most popular version around.
• SCPS-45397~8, second edition for the Asian market, very rare to find.
• SLPS-91214~5, marked as “PlayStation The Best”, when a game sells well they produced a cheaper version, you might be familiar with Platinum or Essential editions. That’s basically the original Japanese name for that line.

We targeted our patch to the most popular revision, usually it has the first or the last serial number. Let’s find out if you version is compatible by attempting to apply the patch!

How to apply the patch to the main game

To apply the patch you need to copy the content of both discs in BIN/CUE format, a tool to apply the patch like Delta Patcher and the xdelta files named:

• lwt-ac3es-disc1-v1.1-160e1555.xdelta
• lwt-ac3es-disc2-v1.1-160e1555.xdelta

An xdelta file contains all the information needed to transform your original, pristine and untranslated BIN/CUE image, into English.

Let’s try to apply the patch, if the process goes well you don’t need to worry about the revisions mentioned above, if not we’ll cover you anyway.

Delta Patcher

We suggest you to use Delta Patcher, downloads are available at https://github.com/marco-calautti/DeltaPatcher/releases

This tool will help you to patch the game. Execute the program on your computer, make sure there is a “Apply patch” button. If not, we need to switch back to “Patch creation mode”, click the button with the arrows to do so.

• Click the button on “Original File” section and select the .BIN file from the disc image, just the BIN!
• Select the xdelta file on the section below
• Click “Apply Patch”
• Rinse and repeat the process for the second disc

Did the process go well? If yes, you can skip the troubleshooting section.

Troubleshooting, different revisions

Did you get an error quoting “checksum mismatch”? This means the process didn’t go well, usually because you have a different revision of the game.

We can check what revision we have by calculating a string, an MD5 hash, with the tool WinMD5 available at https://www.winmd5.com/

Open the tool, and select the BIN file from the disc image. The tool will start to compute and create the MD5 checksum value, hopefully we would end up with any of the following values:

• Revision 1

  • Disc1 30f7dce98b6901290cb26c9baf27268f
  • Disc2 50760963ae8a26ea0188b165f05b33a1

• Revision 2

  • Disc1 86fd694677098d26909086895404f571
  • Disc2 c3909981452f1506290121b2763beb24

Those numbers are hard to read, you can copy-paste those strings into WinMD5 and let the program check.

If you got Revision 1, you might have made some mistake on applying the patch, go back to the previous step and try again.

If you got Revision 2, you need to apply a conversion patch first. Check the conversion_patch folder, apply the xdelta that matches the label of your disc, then go back to apply the main translation patch!

The Asian Version SCPS-45397~8

Most of the copies of Ace Comabt 3 out there have the label SLPS-02020/1, those copies can be either Revision 1 or Revision 2, but there is a third rare revision: the Asian Version.

This version was sold on Asian markets and has the following MD5 values:

• Disc 1 1294b780cb5da2136608bb8e5c2c08a0
• Disc 2 50760963ae8a26ea0188b165f05b33a1

If you happen to have this copy, check the conversion_patch to jump to a different revision.

We translated the AppenDisc too

Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere Direct Audio with AppenDisc, is the name of a 2-disc release containing the soundtrack of the game and a special software for the PlayStation called AppenDisc.

With the AppenDisc you can unlock three special planes and mission simulator from the get go, watch the movies contained on the main game and have access to a special footage made just for this release!

The disc is all in Japanese, but we made a patch for translating the labels and thanks to LonelyChaser Fansubs we managed to sub the exclusive video!

We would like to thank them for providing the subtitles, in particular MartyMcflies as their Project Manager and Windii for translating and timing the text.

Additional editing and rewrite was necessary to fit the text within the video’s low screen resolution. This task was accomplished by IlDucci, Dark_Kudoh and Dfactor.

If you play any other video from the game using the AppenDisc, you won’t be able to read any subtitles. Those are available only during the gameplay for technical reasons.

Like for the main game, you need to copy the disc’s content in BIN/CUE format. But this time you need the disc contents split into multiple BIN/WAV files and a single CUE file. For the game you used to have just one CUE and one BIN file, this is not the case.

Usually disc copying software, in this case, will provide you one CUE and multiple BIN/WAV files, but if you end up with just one big BIN, read ahead.

The reason is that we are going to apply the patch only to the only BIN file, the first track of the disc, once it’s patched you are ready to use the CUE file with an emulator or burn it to a disc.

Apply the patch to the AppenDisc

Open the Delta Patch tool like you did on game:

• Click the button on “Original File” section and select the only .BIN we have in the AppenDisc
• Select the lwt-ac3es-appendisc.xdelta file on the section below
• Click “Apply Patch”

You are ready to go!

Use binmerge-gui to handle multi-track images

Some disc copy tools don’t create a file for each track, they just produce one CUE file and one big BIN file. In this case you have to split the BIN into different tracks, apply the patch and merge the image back.

To do so in an easy manner, we created the binmerge-gui tool, which is able to split and merge such images. It’s based on Chris Putnam’s binmerge.

You can download the tool at https://github.com/loadwordteam/binmerge-gui/releases

Game Manual has been completely translated and expanded

The game manual, especially for these kind of video games, is an integral part of the game experience. We managed to recreate the manual, with screenshots and accurate descriptions.

We spent a lot of time on this booklet, make sure you read it first, before starting a new game!

Mission 00 Tape has been preserved and translated too!

Ace Combat 3: Mission 00 (エースコンバット3 エレクトロスフィア ミッショ ンゼロ) is a VHS released only in Japan, to introduce the player to the world of USEA as well as the entire saga. It was released circa 3 months after the game’s first publication, on 5th June 1999.

This tape, among the AppenDisc, was never released outside Japan. It was never subbed or properly preserved before as far as we know.

This VHS is very rare to come by, and usually tapes like this last only 10–20 years. Every copy of Mission 00 is now 24 years old, this means we’re already crossed the line where probably most of the tapes like this are damaged or unusable.

Fortunately we acquired a copy last year, the intention is to release the footage, properly digitalized completed with subtitles in English, Spanish, and Italian!

We started a collaboration with LonelyChaser Fansubs, a group very passionate on bringing old and less fortunate anime to the attention of western audience. They helped us with Mission 00, and also they gave us a hand on the AppenDisc as well.

Marty, Windii and Yume provided the subtitles for this tape. They went through all the 35 minutes of footage and did work that nobody had ever done on this VHS. Additional proofreading and suggestions were made by Dark_Kudoh, and teaming with IlDucci to provide Spanish subtitles.

English Subtitled Version

Spanish Subtitled Version

LonelyChaser Release

There is also a native resolution release available at LonelyChaser Fansubs. This version comes with a higher bitrate than YouTube can provide for 480p content.

More information about this release is available on their website.

If you got stuck on the game and need help to complete it

For this project, Dfactor, tested every possible game scenario, proofread all the dialogues and rewrote parts of the AppenDisc subtitles and game manual too. While he was helping us, he managed to create a complete walkthrough to help you to complete the game 100% with all A ranking!

You probably heard this one million times, make sure to subscribe to Dfactor’s Youtube channel because has lots of hi quality walk-through and long-plays!

Unsubtitled sequences

There are 3 dialogues without subtitles, they are not essential for understanding the plot but they are nice additions to the experience.

The missions where those dialogues are:

• M06: Ghost of the past
• M29: Betrayal
• 52X: Simon’s message

You can find the translated dialogues inside the folder “unsubtitled”, or you can watch Dfactor’s walk through with subtitles on! There are time codes on the video’s description.

Conclusion

We hope you will enjoy the game as much as we did in the past years working on this fan translation. This kind of work was driven by passion and love for the game.

It was a long journey and we are really happy with the final results, old and newer generations can now play this game that we loved to much.

Contacts

If you find any typo or error during the gameplay, you can get in touch with us by email at infrid@infrid.com or by using one of the social media listed in home page.