Retro Gaming Australia

A fan translation of the 1993 PC Engine classic Castlevania: Dracula X Rondo of Blood is now complete. Titled Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the patch translates the in-game text to English and replaces the games audio with the PSP remake’s English dub.

Castlevania: Dracula X Rondo of Blood was first seen outside of Japan in 2007 in the form of a 2.5D remake featured in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles for the PSP which also included an unlockable port of its sequel Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

The patch can be downloaded here.

Source: Retro Collect

A scan from next week’s issue of Jump has confirmed the rumours that Final Fantasy III is (finally) seeing a PSP release.

Final Fantasy III was originally released on the Famicom in 1990, and saw its first release outside of Japan in the form of a 2006 Nintendo DS remake which also made it’s way onto iOS and Android devices many years later.

Unlike the Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II remakes which graced the PSP, the Final Fantasy III DS remake wasn’t a mere graphical update but a complete visual overhaul featuring redesigned 3D character models. The scans (provided below) indicate that Final Fantasy III for PSP is a port of this Nintendo DS remake, and will include content from the iOS version and the option of playing with the original Famicom soundtrack.

Final Fantasy III for PSP is set for release on September 20 in Japan, and will be available in both digital and physical forms.

Source: VG24/7

Ys I & II Chronicles has made its way to the PlayStation Vita store, well for North America anyway.

Ys I & II Chronicles, originally released on the PlayStation Portable in 2009 (for Japan, and in 2011 in North America), is based on Ys I & II Complete and thus includes enhanced remakes of the first two Ys games (1989) with updated graphics and FMV sequences.

Ys I & II Chronicles allows players to select between two game modes – one displays character portraits from Ys I & II Complete (Windows, 2001) and the other uses new portraits created for the PSP version. Additionally, the soundtrack can be switched between that of Complete or the reorchestrated soundtrack of Chronicles.

Europe received Ys I & II Chronicles on PSN, but apparently this version isn’t compatible with the Vita. At this stage, no announcement has been made regarding a PAL Vita release for Ys I & II Chronicles – but we will keep you posted.

The range of PSone Classics available on the PAL PlayStation Stores has been nothing short of shameful. It’s mainly due to rights issues caused by major publishers not having a PAL region presence during the 32-bit era, or at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe in the past.

Anyway, it seems like that’s all about to change according to the PlayStation Blog. They announced today that NTSC-U and NTSC-J PSone Classics will be made available for release on the PAL stores. No titles, dates or prices have been announced yet.

Basically what that means now is that if a title is cleared for release on either the JP or the US store, SCEE can put it up unaltered for release on their stores unaltered – so long as they are approved by the ratings boards. They won’t have to be resubmitted for approval by SCEE (but they do have to be tested, so titles won’t be posted day and date with their US or JP releases), unless they actually want to release the PAL version.

More importantly, all of those games will run in 60Hz – no more paying extra for shitty slow and bordered PAL versions. If only Nintendo did the same.

Of course, anything held back by expired licenses is still not going to appear.