I think you could go for substantial fan-service and knock out "Tokimeki Memorial." Personally, I've never played the game, but seeing response from others towards it, I think you could actually do some people a favor.

I'd help out, if need be. I translate, I hack, I edit, etc.

Ok, so seeing as I can't really contribute with anything since my hacking skills are next to none and my translation skills are pretty horrible too since I don't know Japanese, although I'm trying to learn it (but if anyone wanna translate Bamse or the Elitserien games or anything else in Swedish, then I'm your man), my 2 cents might be worth less then that even. But actually, I'm thinking here that choosing Tokimeki Memorial might not be a bad idea.
First of all; I want it, so I'm not being 100% objective guy here.
Second: There are a lot are other people out there who wants it too so it shouldn't be too hard to find people who'd wanna help out.
Third: If you're thinking about bringing in multiple translators, this is a great choice. Seeing as most translators would have their own personal style, this would run the risk of being a bit "herkyjerky" in most games. However, in Tokimeki Memorial, if one assigned every translator with just one or two characters, which could be done since it's mostly one on one conversations, the break in style between translators wouldn't be a problem since it would just seem like differences in personality. Then you'd just have one translator or what not who's the main guy and oversees the whole process and makes sure that all the dialogue fits together and that no one gets completely out of line. All in all, Tokimeki seems like a great idea.

the saturn probably isn't the greatest idea. the emulators are just getting off the ground.. it seems very likely we're going to run into a situation where we're relying on people with the console and a modchip to verify that the bug we hit isn't related to the emulator. I suppose we could do a dreamcast game as there are a boatload of cheap dreamcasts out there and running a cdr is just a matter of popping it in..

I'm not opposed to doing a cd based system, but I'd prefer it be one that's been emulated for a while.. I'm not opposed to doing a psx game. pSX has a kickass debugger and not too many psx games have been tackled yet.. (and there's virtually no hacker documentation of exactly how to work with it).

Ok, here is my view on the system question:

Saturn: Very interesting but possibly problematic
DC: Great idea, I have one myself and could easily test stuff
PSX: Sure, very well documented

I think we should chose a CD based system, because there is a lack of documention on these compared to the 8 and 16 Bit cartridge systems, so we could help improve this along the way.

As for the game question, I'm strongly against any kind of remake or port. We should really do something unique here.

The only problem I see with the PSX is that it IS very well documented. Since documentation is part of the point of this, I think it would make more sense to do a less-documented system. Saturn is my first choice of course, followed by Dreamcast, and finally PSX. PS2 could be fun, but since that system is still alive and kicking I don't know that it would be a good idea to start in on it at this level just yet. Plus, any worthwhile project on it would be unbelievably massive. I'd prefer to stick with Saturn, DC, or PSX. The former two need the most love, while the PSX would be a decent fallback system.

I also agree with KaioShin in that we need to do a fresh game, and not a port of something that's either already been done, or has been released in English. I suppose I could go with it if the port has significant additions (like the PSX version of Front Mission 1st), but it would be nice to do something that hasn't been done before.

The PSX architecture is well documented, but methods of doing graphics and text hacking are not. Pointers, file structure, virtual file systems... if you have documents on that for the psx, I'd love to see them.

All four systems in your post there share the same malady. The ps2 is probably still off limits at the moment, partially due to being still (barely) alive, but mostly because the current emulator is primitive at best (and the fall back, the real system, would require a mod chip for testing)

I think picking a Saturn game at hopes somebody will better document the Saturn is a bad idea. I agree with Neil on that one. The few people who are even capable of improving Saturn hardware documentation and deciphering hardware and emulator bugs are few and far between. It will turn into the project of a few highly skilled people rather than a community project.

The Saturn is a hardware beast..