Retro Gaming Australia

A fan translation of Ash Guine Story II: Citadel in the Void for the MSX2 has been released.

Ash Guine Story II is an action RPG released by in T&E Soft in 1987, for Japan only. However Ash Guine Story II, the second instalment in the Ash Guine trilogy, can now be enjoyed in English thanks to MSX Translations.

You can download the translation patch here, and preview it here.

Nakayoshi to Issho (Nakayoshi ‘n Me) was a beginner RPG released late in the Famicom era that uses characters popularised by Nakayoshi Magazine such as Sailor Moon.

Previously exclusive to Japan (due to licenses and general apathy towards anime in the West at that time), Nakayoshi to Issho has recently undergone the translation treatment courtesy of Frizzy. You can get the patch here.

You control a character who has recently started work at Nakayoshi Magazine and has to traverse the various worlds from the mangas featured in the magazine. It’s a fairly simplistic game with few of the RPG trimmings – no experience points or turn battles here. Rather, everything is decided by a slot machine.

There are two versions of the patch available, featuring original and localised names for the Sailor Moon characters for those who are picky about that kind of thing.

Akira is something of a tragedy when it comes to the video game treatment. Every single game based on the anime masterpiece has been utter shit.

Now you can experience the game that started the tradition of terrible Akira games – the Famicom version. Developed by Taito and released in 1988, around the time of the film, Akira for the Famicom is an adventure game, picking up just after the point at which Kaneda and his gang are captured.

It’s pretty bad – even the notoriously generous Famicom gave the game a pathetic 17/40.

Translation group DankTrans was behind this effort. The game ROM needs to be expanded for the patch to work (due to the English translation taking up a lot more space than the Japanese original), so applying the patch is not quite as easy as normal.

You can get the patch here.

Translation group Aeon Genesis have announced they are producing a translation of the RPG Shin Megami Tensei: if…, an installment of the popular Megami Tensei series released originally for the Super Famicom in 1994.

Rather than being a direct sequel, Shin Megami Tensei: if… is a side story to the Shin Megami Tensei series focusing on a “what if” scenario arising from changes to the final events of Shin Megami Tensei. Shin Megami Tensei: if… features gameplay similar to that of Shin Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei II, both of which were previously translated by Aeon Genesis, where players explore first-person dungeons and engage in turn-based random combat with demons.

The Shin Megami Tensei: if… translation will not be finished for some time, but many fans of the series (and RPGs alike) will be happy to know that the project is underway.

A joint effort between aishsha, DvD and Pennywise has yielded a translation patch for the obscure Famicom RPG SD Keiji Blader. It’s kind of a futuristic take on the classic J-RPG action offered by contemporaries like the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, with a bit of a Super Sentai streak.

According to the translation notes, SD Keiji Blader was meant to be a quick project for the team, but ended up taking them three years. We should all thank them for their dedication in knocking over another Japan only release.

You can get the ROM patch here.

ROM hacking/translation group Dynamic Designs has released their latest English translation patch. This one is for the Japan only Super Famicom RPG Nekketsu Tairiku: Burning Heroes, released by Enix in 1995.

Nekketsu Tairiku: Burning Heroes appears to be a very traditional 16-bit turn based J-RPG, which should please those looking for a fresh yet distinctly old-school RPG.

Although it was one of a handful of Japanese only SNES games that could be easily played without any language skill, someone has gone to the effort of creating an English translation patch for Super Back to the Future Part II.

Super Back to the Future II was released some four years after the film it was based on and never left Japan. Until the release of the Telltale-developed Back to the Future adventure game series, it was considered to be the only good game based on the trilogy.

You can get the patch here.

You probably know of Takeshi Kitano, or Beat Takeshi, through his movie roles or the ridiculous game show Takeshi’s Castle. In 1986, he teamed up with Taito to release Takeshi no Chousenjou or Takeshi’s Challenge, a damn near impossible game allegedly borne out of Takeshi’s spite for video games. It’s considered to be one of the worst games of all time in Japan.

And now you can play it and understand what the heck is happening thanks to the efforts of KingMike, who recently released a translation patch for the game.

Have fun.

Ever heard of a game called Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru? Perhaps under its translated name For Frog the Bell Tolls? No? Well there’s a reason for that. Before Nintendo were being jerks and not bringing over games you wanted to play on the Wii, they were busy developing Game Boy games they had no intention of releasing outside of Japan.

For Frog the Bell Tolls is an action-adventure game based on the same tech as The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. Unfortunately, the game was never released outside of Japan, but that’s no longer a concern as ryanbgstl has completed his translation patch for the game, making it fully playable in English. (continue reading…)