Retro Gaming Australia

For many years, the majority of the Ys series has been restricted to Japan. Fortunately, XSEED has been working hard to bring many of the remakes of the series into English via the PSP, PS Vita and PC. However, one title in the series had been overlooked – Ys V: Kefin, The Lost Kingdom of Sand.

Released on the Super Famicom at the end of 1995, Ys V had arrived much too late to be translated for Western audiences, many of whom were already turned off by somewhat terrible versions of Ys III for the SNES. Ys V was remade for the PlayStation in 2006, but again, interest in the West had already turned to a new generation of consoles, and again, had largely avoided the recent release of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. If fans were going to play Ys V, they would either have to wait for another remake, or create a translation patch for the SNES ROM.

Translation group Aeon Genesis has done just that. After a long period of work, the group recently released their patch for the game, effectively making the entire series playable in English. The game is quite a bit different than other games in the series – button based attack and defending make it feel a bit more action-based than its brethren, but it’s still pretty neat.

Cross another off the list of untranslated Famicom/NES games – the Tower of Druaga prologue Kai no Bouken has been translated into English.

Released four years after Tower of Druaga, but set beforehand, Kai no Bouken puts players in the role of Ki, a princess who is on a quest to take back the stolen Blue Crystal Rod from the demon Druaga. As you’d expect from a Druaga title, the game is ridiculously big with 100 levels of platforming action. It’s not particularly easy either, as Ki has no offensive attacks.

The translation project for this title stretches back to 2001, when the script was completed by Tomato, but abandoned by the group which started by the project. Another ROM hacker by the name of Zynk picked up the abandoned project in May 2013 and set about finishing it. In addition to an English translation, Zynk also released another patch which gives the game more detailed sprites.

You can get the patch here.

Konami’s all star video game parody Konami Wai Wai World for the Famicom is a crazy little piece of Japanese exclusive software, which series a hero called Konami Man journeying through a number of worlds from Konami games such as Castlevania, and teaming up with Konami heroes like Goemon, the Vic Viper and the ever-popular Moai head.

Thanks to the efforts of Zynk Oxhyde, Konami Wai Wai World can finally be enjoyed in English. Of course, to be able to enjoy the game, you’ll need the translation patch, a copy of the game ROM and either an emulator or a flash cartridge like the N8 or Power Pak.

You can get the translation patch here

In 1996, a small developer called Pandora Box teamed up with publisher Takara to release the Super Famicom RPG Arabian Nights: Desert Spirit King. As the name suggests, the game has an Arabian theme – territory not often visited in the traditional J-RPG.

Players take the role of Shukran, an orphan girl who finds a ring which just happens to play host to the Ifrit, the King of the Djinn. Ifrit was sealed in the ring by his former master just before death, as the Djinn had sworn revenge on his master’s murderer. Upon granting his 1000th wish, Ifrit was to be freed, but it just so happened that Shukran, whose wish was the 1000th, wished for world peace. The two embark on an adventure to make that wish come true.

A rag-tag group of translators came together to finally bring Arabian Nights to English speaking audiences earlier in the year. Previous attempts to translate the game had petered out without result, but this group picked up where they left off and had the patch out in 6 months after commencement.

You can read more about the project and get the translation patch here

It’s not widely known, but Nintendo updated Donkey Kong Land III from the black & white (or pea soup green, depending on your system) Game Boy to the Game Boy Color when they brought the game to Japan. While the Japanese had to wait an extra two years to play the game, they got to do so with a superior version.

And now you can too, thanks to the hard work of Blaziken257, who has prepared an English translation patch for the Japanese version of the game, known as Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong and Dixie Kong.

You can get the translation patch here

Source: Romhacking via RetroCollect

It was a heartbreaking moment for RPG fans last generation when the plug was pulled on official translation plans for the SEGA AGES releases of Phantasy Star: Generation 1 and Phantasy Star: Generation 2 on the PlayStation 2. The remakes were considered to be the only good thing to come out of the SEGA AGES project under the 3D AGES venture.

Thanks to the hard work of a young lady by the name of Kyence, you can now enjoy Phantasy Star: Generation 1 on the PlayStation 2 in English (on a modded system or emulator, at least).

Two versions of the patch are available – one using the Japanese character names, and one using the English character names. You can get the patches here.

Kyence plans to tackle Phantasy Star: Generation 2 next.

Translation group Vice Translations has released an English patch for the Famicom game Kyattou Ninden Teyandē, better known to us in the west as Samurai Pizza Cats.

Like a lot of early anime, Samurai Pizza Cats was heavily altered when it was brought to the west – the Japanese series is very different. Fortunately, Vice noticed this and produced two versions of the patch – one straight translation of the game, and one that’s more in line with the western version of the show.

The game itself is a straight up action platformer with a number of playable characters, which you can switch between on the fly.

You can get the translation patch here.

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

Pokémon Trading Card Game, titled Pokémon Card GB in Japan, is a video game version of the super popular tabletop trading card game based on the Pokémon video game series. Pokémon Trading Card Game released in 1998 (2000 outside Japan) for the Game Boy Color and was received well by both Pokémon fans and industry critics alike. It is no surprise that game received a sequel, entitled Pokémon Card GB2: Great Rocket-Dan Sanjō! (Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team Great Rocket!) – sadly, it was Japanese-exclusive and never saw a western release.

Enter Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!, an English fan translation of Pokémon Card GB2. ROM hacker Artemis251 has completed the patch which enables English-speaking fans to finally play the Pokémon Trading Card Game sequel, featuring a new group of baddies called Team Great Rocket, the ability to play as a female character and cards exclusive to Japanese vending machines.

All you need is the original ROM file for Pokémon Card GB2: Great Rocket-Dan Sanjō! and the fan translation patch which you can download here, and you’re good to go.

Source: Retro Collect

A revised translation patch has been released for the Famicom version of Jesus: Kyoufu no Bio Monster (or Jesus: Tale of the Dreadful Bio Monster), a text heavy adventure/RPG that involves a mission to a space station known as J.E.S.U.S. to investigate a returned Halley’s Comet, which is headed towards Mars with some form of life inside.

The game was developed by Chunsoft, a popular Japanese developer who was responsible for many of the earlier Dragon Quest games. In fact, Dragon Quest composer Koichi Sugiyama worked on the soundtrack. Originally released in 1987 on the PC-88, MSX and FM-7, the game was brought to the Famicom in 1989. Enix released a sequel in 1989 for the PC-98 in 1989, followed by an X68000 port in 1991.

While a translation patch was released five years ago, authors Pennywise and Niahak decided to revisit the game to clean up a few things. They claim that it’s an almost entirely different experience.

You can get the patch here.