A Sky Full of Stars AI Restoration Patch
Translation examples are provided at the bottom of the page!
Hello, Mel here. I've never done anything like this before, but one day, running on a productivity high from finishing a small Unity project in record time with the help of Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet, I felt in the mood to use AI for something more. The first idea that came to mind was translation, but I wanted to start small, and so this game came to mind. Since the other project seemed dead when I checked VNDB on March 8th, I got to work. A week and a half later, it's March 19th and it's done!
Download and Installation
Simply download and extract the archive from one of the links below then copy the +18 Version folder itself into your Steam installation. Then you can select +18 Version under Language Packs in the game launcher.
If you've previously disabled your launcher by selecting the "Don't display this dialog at next startup" option, run EnableMiazoraLauncher.reg to enable the launcher.
Patch v1.0: Mediafire (.7z) — Qiwi (.7z)
The patch folder should exist standalone in your game directory. DO NOT overwrite any files.
Patch Details
- This patch restores all cut H-scenes, complete with translation. Also restores sexual references that I found were cut or modified. There are probably instances of censorship that I missed though.
- Translation was performed using Anthropic's state-of-the-art Claude 3.7 Sonnet. Minimal editing apart from restoring nicknames and removing honorifics for consistency. Translation samples are at the bottom of this page.
- This does not restore the CG Gallery or Scene Replay Menu. This also breaks Steam achievements.
- Saves between patched and unpatched are NOT compatible.
- There may be lines that run off the screen, even outside of h-scenes; I have no idea why. I tried making an algorithm to fix most cases, but there may be some that slipped through.
- Choices display beside a number for some reason. I don't know how to fix it.
- If you tried the MTL patch that was posted on Fuwanovel back in 2017, this one doesn't have the broken animations issue.
Is the translation good?
Keep in mind that this is a translation; I had the LLM refrain from doing much localization. If you're ok with remnants of Japanese grammar, names sometimes used instead of pronouns, Japanese onomatopoeia, and slight inconsistencies in style between scenes, then I'd say it's more than good enough. To me, the translation reads smoothly and feels in-character.
I used Claude 3.7 Sonnet to translate each scene in a single pass instead of line-by-line, so it is far better than your typical shitty machine translation. However, since I prompted it to not do much localization, some parts might feel a tad too literally translated. While I could've experimented with prompting a bit, I didn't want to waste money when I already had something good enough.
As for the fan translation...
I feel a bit awkward about this patch now that the other project announced that they secured a new translator. But frankly, by that point I had already finished this translation and was 75% of the way through playing the game for the first time as my QA pass.
Special Thanks
Thanks to Anthropic for making Claude 3.7 Sonnet! It wrote all of the tooling I used for processing scripts and translations, allowing me to cut what would've taken weeks down to 3 days. And of course, it also did the translation itself, since it's so easy to jailbreak.
https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet
Thanks to marcus-beta on Fuwanovel for his original MTL patch. It sucks and was a pain to work with, but it's still respectable for something made in 2017. I used the script files from his patch to work out which lines were cut from the final game, and used his patch as the base for mine.
https://forums.fuwanovel.moe/topic/19691-a-sky-full-of-stars-18-restoration/
Thanks to morkt for GARbro and the various contributors of arc-unpacker, who allowed me to extract the original Japanese game scripts.
https://github.com/morkt/GARbro/releases
https://github.com/vn-tools/arc_unpacker
And most importantly, thank to DarthFly for the tools to edit the Japanese game scripts and repack them! I cannot imagine how cursed this patch would have been without his tools. Though I must say, fucking PHP? I didn't even know php could even run in the command line, but if it works, it works. Massive thanks!
https://github.com/DarthFly/advhd_ws2_tools
Small mention to kevlu123. I wasn't able to get his tool to work, but if they or someone else could, they could potentially get the CG gallery and scene replay menu working.
https://github.com/kevlu123/VN-Patching-Tools
Side Note
Magpie has been fantastic for realtime upscaling. Even upscaling to just 1080p looks far better than the original. I highly recommend trying it with either Anime4K or CuNNy.
Review
Since I'm here, may as well give a short review, even if I suck at writing them. The gist is that the girls are cute, common and Hikari's route are good, rest is mid. Minor spoilers ahead.
Common route is good. Our main character, Akito, has dealt with enough trauma to make me sympathetic, without going so far as to be some contrived sob story. The common route does a good job of showing what he's gone through, and how he heals.
Hikari's route I have no complaints about. I started with thus route and all I could say was 'I liked it'. It wasn't until I started doing the other routes that I could figure out why I liked it. Her route is the only one that has a plot structure I actually like: Get together, then work towards a major goal together, succeeding with the power of love and zero relationship trouble. While Hikari's route does start with love triangle drama, Akito isn't a wuss that gives up, it leads up to a climatic confession, and most importantly, it doesn't get in the way of their love afterwards. Then they work hard together(!) to pull off something really cool. It's clear that Hikari is the main girl in this game. Oh, did I mention that's she's cute af?
Korona's route is just moe fluff with little substance. If it weren't for the H scenes, it would've felt like a throwaway route. Not that that's a bad thing, since at least Korona is a cute little ball of energy.
Orihime's route actually has a bit of substance, but ultimately it's also moe fluff, and she doesn't quite have the Hikari energy that makes my neurons activate. The biggest problem though is the direction of the h scenes. Why the hell does every one have 3+ orgasms? Plus many more implied ones after the fade out. The sheer absurdity really ruins the intimacy for me.
Saya's route ... The only pass I can give Saya is that she's a stupid teenage girl. Unfortunately for her route, the confession goes smoothly, so that (completely self-inflicted!) love triangle drama can pull them apart later. The whole thing feels even weirder given they had already had loving sex at least twice by that point. There's basically no plot or anything other than angst. At least the h scenes are reasonable.
Overall, a pretty underwhelming visual novel, but Hikari is good enough to make up for it. I haven't played any other visual novels in months to compare this one against; I'd imagine my opinion would elevate if I played one with a dense protagonist. In this novel it's pretty clear Akito didn't really have time to think about love until after the events of the common route, so it's completely understandable that he doesn't realize how many girls have already fallen for him. And when he does fall for a girl, he isn't a wuss! He actually just confesses!
Final Thoughts
Honestly, for the most part, what I heard was right: This VN is perfectly fine without H scenes. It's arguably better without them. Reading H for a girl you’re not particularly interested in is always a bore, and boring it was after I finished Hikari. With four damn H scenes per route, if it weren't for my desire to properly QA this patch, I would've just ctrl skipped every other character's H scenes after their first time. It’s totally understandable to me why the other project hasn’t gone anywhere yet. But with this patch, I hope people can now appreciate having the option to skip H scenes, instead of having censorship forced on them.
I know it may seem like I just took some scripts and tossed them through an AI, and boom, low-effort translations done! But I burnt nearly 2 straight weeks of my life on this. I hadn't played this VN yet before this project started, and I knew that if I didn't have a prototype patch within a week, I'd lose interest. So, imagine my amazement when I managed to get the game playable within 48 hours, thanks to Sonnet 3.7 writing 95% of my code for me, and DarthFly making repacking the easiest thing in the world. Between that and playing it, I feel amazing for being able to get this patch out in less than two weeks.
All that to say, if you have any kind words to say, or major issues to report, I would appreciate receiving them on Discord. DMs are open.
Discord Handle: @hanaaa__
Translation Samples
Ignore the ゜at the end of the non-H lines. I used those during QA to know what lines were retranslated.
