Snatcher (PlayStation) — English Translation Patch

Version 0.5 — 2026-09-07 — by pepa

Snatcher was released for the PlayStation in Japan only (SLPS-00154, Konami,
1996). This patch translates it into English. The PS1 port carries the
Sega CD's extra scenes and the uncensored script, and this is the first time
it has been playable in English.

What is translated

The complete script — all 39 scene banks, New Game to the ending
(12,004 strings). Every menu, verb, item and location label.
Voice subtitles — 1,042 of the 1,130 spoken lines are subtitled,
drawn in the game's own dialogue box, timed to the voice. The remainder
are jingles, sound effects and duplicated lines. The opening narration
and newsreel are subtitled too.
The keyboard and every typed puzzle — Latin key faces, Latin input;
the name search, the passwords and the videophone all work in English.
Graphics — the memo pages, the New Game disclaimer, the credit roll,
the opening's title cards and the Snatcher diagram, the intro movie's
burned-in captions and credits, and a translation card in the Konami
boot movie.
Names follow the Sega CD localization (Random Hajile, Benson
Cunningham, Chin Shu Ho, Oleen Hospital, Freddy and Lisa Nielsen).
The Sega CD script was used as terminology and tone guidance; the PS1
text has extra scenes and different line breaks, so it was translated
fresh rather than copied.

Play-test status

Act 1 and the start of Act 2 are fully play-tested by hand. Acts 2 and 3
are complete and were verified by automated playthroughs of every scene,
but have not yet had a full human play-test. Bug reports from those acts
are especially welcome.

Known issues (v0.5)

The videophone's NOT IN SERVICE card and the dossier panels are still
Japanese (baked images, later release).
The MX1_* in-game movies are not yet subtitled.
In a couple of rooms (B120/B140) a menu can open on top of a subtitle.
In the culture room the dialogue panel sits about 20 px below the text.
One subtitle in the final act (B250) is clipped on a cold open.

Not bugs: shootouts need SELECT to draw the Blaster — this is the
game's own control scheme.

How to apply

You need your own dump of Snatcher (Japan) in BIN/CUE form, matching the
redump.org entry:

Size   573702192
CRC32  d5475fac
MD5    b6b825a8c91fd9879553c8a4e6e791c8
SHA1   e6cd330feb594b3951089da866db1a400f0173f6

Apply the .xdelta with xdelta3, Delta Patcher (Windows), MultiPatch
(macOS) or any xdelta front-end:

xdelta3 -d -s "Snatcher (Japan).bin" "Snatcher (Japan) [T-En by pepa v0.5].xdelta" "Snatcher (Japan) [T-En by pepa v0.5].bin"

Put the included .cue next to the output .bin. The patched image is
larger than the original (relocated data is appended past the original
end); that is expected. Expected result:

Size   574064400
CRC32  348456d0
MD5    71194710a45ea58e4bdeaf747ceca973
SHA1   1ab3d4819e22419b6f2783e9b6de6a0345f00517

Do not apply the patch to a .iso (2048-byte sectors) or a .chd;
convert those to BIN/CUE first. The patch is ~21 MB because the intro
movie's frames were re-encoded.

Compatibility

Tested on DuckStation and Beetle PSX (RetroArch). The image is a plain
Mode 2 BIN/CUE and converts to CHD with chdman createcd. Real hardware
via an ODE should work; reports welcome. Save files from the Japanese
game are compatible.

Reporting bugs

Open an issue at https://github.com/pepasjc/snatcher-translated/issues.
Please include the scene or location, what was on screen (a screenshot
helps), and a memory card save if you can. Text that overflows its box,
a subtitle that lags or leads its voice, or any freeze — all wanted.

Downloads: https://github.com/pepasjc/snatcher-translated/releases.

Credits

Translation, tools and hacking: pepa
Terminology reference: the 1994 Sega CD localization (Konami)
Tools used: jPSXdec, DuckStation, Beetle PSX, PCSX-Redux, faster-whisper,
xdelta3, chdman

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