Right, so I contacted Radical R(maker of the original HRtP patch), and got some translations for the shot select screen.
select Reimu's combat style from the 3 options below
A Highly Mobile Type that doesn't use the Onmyou sphere
Defensive, balanced type
Offensive type that uses Onmyou sphere
First thing was that we take "Onmyou sphere" to refer to the Ying-Yang Orbs, as this is how they are referred to in the rest of the game's script. Second, the shot type descriptions are distributed on 3 different lines each, with minor edits to make them fit/improve readability(defense type in particular needs stuff added on so that it occupies 3 lines).
However, at this point in the transcription, I have a few options as for how to proceed with the wording: I've narrowed it down to two styles, the
first of which centers around the use of "that" as seen in the original translation, and the
second of which instead uses "which", with accompanying changes to the rest of the text to accommodate the change. Furthermore,
another possible variation was made for Defense Type. The screenshots show them as viewed by the English Interface T98-Next(top), and by Anex86(bottom). For reference, here is the
original appearance of the screen.
The reason I'm showing this to all of you is because though I have made several revisions to both styles and have compared them on several criteria, I'm still having some trouble deciding which to use, and would appreciate input from the eventual users of the patch.
When making your decision, keep in mind the ideal traits of an English transcription(in order of importance):
3 - Aesthetics: The appearance of the text and word choices should look good even when it is not being read, but just glanced at. Standardization of phrases, line-break usage and word choice are key.
2 - Faithfulness: The translated text should have closely matching content, alignment, and space usage to the original text. The change in appearance should be minor, overall.
1 - Flow: The text should sound good in your head. The choices of words, punctuation, capitalization and the placement of line breaks all have massive impact on the emotional tone and manner of speaking of the "voice" that you read it with in your mind. Being aware of this is absolutely essential to making the text feel and sound natural.
For those of you who wish to contribute their own variation on any of the above, keep in mind that each line holds precisely 22 letters; Japanese letters and spaces count as two letters, and Anex86 inserts a dot in the center of each "English" space.
So yeah, opinions? Preferences? This is your chance to directly affect the contents of the patch, so make it count!