What’s an extended script?

In the Japanese version, there are two versions of the game script. There is the regular script used in Normal Mode (known as Easy Mode in the English version) and a slightly longer, extended script used in Hard/Maniac Mode (Normal/Hard Mode in the English version). The extended script features several extra lines of dialogue in each chapter, with some scenes such as the interrogation in the final chapter of Part 2 being more fleshed out. Only the main dialogue is changed though – things like optional Talks, base conversations, boss conversations and special flashback scenes don’t show any changes.

Now, the English version only uses one version of the script, but for some reason, the localisers decided to use the shorter, regular script used in the Japanese version. Which means a significant number of lines were cut out, perhaps around 5% of the whole game (it doesn’t sound like much, but it equates to 2 or so chapters). It’s not all all bad news though, because the English version did add some extra lines of their own, fleshing out parts of the original story that were a bit weak in the Japanese version, like Micaiah’s plight in Part 1 and the whole deal with the blood pact, as well as adding four new base conversations.

What I’m doing here, is attempting to translate the lost lines from the Japanese version. It’s actually quite a lot of hard work, since the extra dialogue doesn’t always appear cleanly, sometimes appearing in the middle of the original lines or modifying them slightly. There are also lines in the regular script that were changed in the English version, such as Ike’s battle conversation with you know who in Part 3 Chapter 7. So, when you check out the extended script, you will see the extra lines from the Japanese version’s extended script and the original lines that were changed in the English version.