Fan translations: landmark breakthroughs

By John Szczepaniak

Page 1 (Intro)
Page 3 (non-Japanese translations)

The scene moves so quickly any article is only a snapshot; the “Community Graveyard” section on RHDN alone honours over 890 previously active individuals and groups (in 2006 it was 580), who are now retired, inactive, or simply untraceable. Seeking commentary on why the scene changes so rapidly I spoke with community leader Nightcrawler. His remarks are poignant, “A large part of the inactive group are ‘retired’ people so to speak. They left their mark in the community by contributing a translation patch, utility, document etc. and have since left, moving on to other hobbies and things in life. For many people this hobby started in their teenage years, and no longer have the time when they enter the real world after school. This community has been around for over a decade and it’s not surprising that people have moved on. I wouldn’t expect this to be a life long hobby for many people.” Nightcrawler also added, "Do NOT underestimate the amount of work that goes a translation. There is good reason that the number of abandoned projects to completed projects is probably around 20:1 or higher. It's alot of work, it often takes a long time, and we're all working for free and sometimes take a break for life or other projects." You can't fault Nightcrawler's passion for the movement, and recently he's worked to standardise procedures and make people's work easier. Though forever in flux, the fan-translation community has managed to create over 730 finished patches covering systems from the Famicom up to the Wii. Over the past decade that’s on average 6 translation patches every month. Whether it’s Capcom’s Sweet Home on the FC (a pseudo-prequel to Resident Evil), the Pinocchio-styled sim Wonder Project J on the SFC, Policenauts on PS1, English menus in Tales of Destiny 2 on the PS2 (not to be confused with Tales of Destiny II on the PS1, which was actually Tales of Eternia), or Mother 3 on GBA, you will never come close to experiencing the full potential of videogames without fan translations. When you consider games like Mother 3 were ignored by Nintendo, despite widespread demand in the fan community, it would seem we’re entering a new age where the translation community becomes an essential pillar in the gaming world. Anime and manga The translations themselves are also a delicate matter, much as they are in the anime/manga world. Hacker and translator Mr Ryusui describes the similarities. “Having respect for the target audience is the most important part of a great translation: it’s a delicate balancing act between the audience and the source material. Change too little, and you have something resembling the English anime dubs of Overman King Gainer (great voice talent but painfully bad writing). Change too much, and you have a different story entirely. A lot of stuff in Japanese comes out corny, goofy or stilted in our language and culture. Take my game (Sylvanian Families) for example. I changed a line where the main character is describing a loaf of bread, to a slightly out-of-character quip that “maybe I could take a bite while no one’s looking?” Perhaps in Japan it’d be perfectly within bounds for a girl to start waxing poetic over how her bread turned out perfectly, but in English, the slightly more mischievous reaction better conveys this.” Despite the greater comparative difficulty, game translations are analogous to and have much crossover with the anime and manga communities. For some, such as Matt La France, interest in the one leads to motivation in the other. He explained why he translates games, “I’m a big anime fan, and while that doesn’t earn me any points in a community plagued with requests for DBZ patches, one of my biggest goals is to enrich peoples’ experience of anime stories and characters, by translating games based on them. Japanese cartoons are popular in America now, but even so, games based on anime aren’t frequently localized and released here. It doesn’t help that a lot of the games are of poor quality, (Fullmetal Alchemist by the almighty Square/Enix was almost universally despised). I’ve worked on some non-anime games, but my primary interest has been the anime titles (Slayers, Maison Ikkoku, Bubblegum Crash, Magic Knights Rayearth, 3x3 Eyes). I wish to better understand the games’ content, since sometimes they really add something to the story universe they’re based on.” La France raises a good point, since while publisher MVM released the Yu Yu Hakusho anime in the UK, no companies have risked releasing the corresponding games over the years. Thanks to Aeon Genesis Translation Projects though, the SFC iterations should soon be available in English. Other examples include Tenchi Muyo!, Sailor Moon, and countless attempts at translating the DBZ games. Sometimes fan translations of great games will encourage people to check out the source material they were based on, such as Love Hina Advance on GBA. This persuaded several community members to acquire the original Love Hina manga which they’d been unaware of. Professionals hire the fans Large and established anime localisation companies have even hired those from the videogame fan-translation community, such as when FUNimation was offering contract work for translating and subtitling. This represents a significant cross-over between the three mediums, highlighting how a grass roots movement in one can lead to earning money and being recognised across them all. The head of FUNimation went on record stating that he respected the high-quality work done within the gaming community. Jeremy Blaustein has also spoken about hiring those involved in fan-translations. Another fantastic example is Deuce, whose fan-translation of Oath in Felghana was purchased by XSEED for an official PSP release. More games companies should consider the possibility of working with fan-translators, if not for contemporary titles then at least for re-releases of older games. The Wii, X360 and PS3 all have downloadable services which feature classic games, and all would benefit from including a few fan-translations. Today the community is stronger than ever before, with increasingly slicker releases (including dubbing). They’re also setting precedents by working on recent titles that have been ignored, and are dealing with progressively complex hardware. Seemingly unstoppable and infinitely valuable, forever may the fan-translation community succeed.

Sweet Home - FC Wonder Project J - SFC Tales of Destiny 2 - PS2 Mother 3 - GBA Bastard!! on SFC, reminiscent of Psychic Force, had its story mode translated Front Mission: Gun Hazard - SFC Illusion City for the MSX, by Microcabin, is a cyberpunk RPG set in post-apocalyptic Hong Kong Tsukihime - PC (doujin visual novel)

Ten titles of historical interest

Over a thousand translation patches exist, for nearly every single games system ever, all in various stages of progress. Some are significant for the precedent they set in terms of overcoming technology, or being the first fan-made dub, while others are simply great games which are really fun to play. These are 10 titles which, for various reasons, we feel people should know about. There are dozens of others which are equally important, such as the early translation work done on Giftpia, Front Mission V's completion, and the dubbing of Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys on the PC-Engine CD-ROM. This article on GamerTell looks at other notable fan-translations.

Tales of Innocence
NDS / Released – December 6 2007 / Translation – June 29 2010 / By – throughhim413

This is incredible - from a few years ago, when the scene struggled to move beyond FC and SFC titles, we now have teams tackling current gen hardware for big-named releases. If publishers don't start moving faster I hope we see some rivalry developing, because in this age of high speed connections and skilled hackers, you need to take your consumers seriously, otherwise they'll circumvent and eclipse your buisness model. Described as the 9th 'mothership' title in the 'Tales of' series, Innocence sold extremely well in Japan and garnered 35/40 in Famitsu. The translation took 'thousands of man hours' to create and features neat things like in-battle subtitles.

Fatal Frame IV
Wii / Released – July 31 2008 / Translation – January 17 2010 / By – Riivolution

With development by Grasshopper, and the release of previous installments in the west, it was thought almost guaranteed that Fatal Frame IV would reach the west. After several false hopes, it became clear we would never see it. And so, as always, stepping up to this task was the fan-translation community. This marks a phenomenal landmark in fan-translating, since it's not only on current-gen hardware but it's the first completed Wii fan-translation, and unlike many others it works with an original copy of the game. The team has insisted that the patch only functions with a legitimate retail copy of the import, which may upset some.

Mother 3
GBA / Released – 20 April 2006 / Translation – 16 Jul 2009 / By – Chewy, Jeffman, Tomato

The fan translation for Mother 3 didn't need to happen - there was enougn outcry from fans to prove there was a market for Nintendo to officially release it. But they didn't, and so fans had to do it for themselves, and as everyone agrees, it couldn't have been done any better or in a better spirit to the second Mother which did see official release. The translators say there was at one time some slight interest from Nintendo regarding licensing the localisation for official use, but then suddenly from within the company the idea was nixed outright. No one knows the reason, some speculate it was the presence of controversial characters such as the Magypsies with put Nintendo off, but regardless it doesn't matter any more - the patch is out and it is excellent. As a neat bonus, the fan community also created a beautiful strategy guide to coincide with the patch, and had it professionally printed.

Policenauts
PS1 (other versions not yet done) / Released – 19 Jan 1996 / Translation – 23 Aug 2009 / By – Slowbeef

Could there have been any other fan-translated title which has been more hotly anticipated than Policenauts? Over 6 years in the making, with numerous set-backs and difficulties, for a time it looked as if this wouldn't happen. And then Slowbeef came on board the project and things moved quickly. Released in 2009, Policenauts heralds a high-point in fan-translations, both in terms of technical expertise (subtitling the in-game movies is precision work), and attention to detail with the language and scientific terms (Kojima is infamous for technobabble). Unfortunately it also has to be said, in this author's opinion, that some corners of the fan-community reacted with a lack of respect and appreciation for all the hard work, and the translation team were lumbered with the criticisms which should have been aimed at Kojima. Policenauts, as an adventure game, wasn't the Earth-shattering experience import previews back in the day implied it would, certainly not on the same level as Snatcher, but that shouldn't result in negativity towards the translators.

Shining Force III
Sega Saturn / Released – 3 December 1998 / Translation – 22 Apr 2006 / By – Shining Force Central

A translation of the Premium Disc was first released in 2006, and since then there has been continued work on all three Scenarios (though the first was officially released in the US and Europe, SFC appear to be aiming to retranslate it to correct errors). This represents a phenomenal effort, and a landmark project, since the Saturn is notoriously difficult to work with. As of March 2010, there is also still ongoing efforts to add English dubbing to Shining Force 3. According to the official website, translations for for Scenarios 1 and 2 are playable, with 3 undergoing work to remove a freeze bug. With news developing so fast, you should keep an eye on their forum for updates.

Treasure of the Rudras
Super Famicom / Released – 05 April 1996 / Translation – 03 Jul 2006 / By – Aeon Genesis

Treasure of the Rudras (or Rudra no Hihou in Japanese) was one of the last SNES games by Squaresoft, released in 1996. It’s an interesting title to examine, specifically regarding rom-hacking and fan-translation, because of its unique magic system. Instead of acquiring spells at intervals you have to create them out of words, or 'mantras' as they’re called. Basically you type out a word in the status screen, then use it during battle. If an enemy uses a powerful spell (word) you can copy it verbatim, or simply make up your own once you’ve understood the underlying 'elements' structure of the system. With spells being meaningful words in Japanese, a fan-translation was difficult; it required not only text translation but also recoding the game's engine. It was Gideon Zhi who hacked and reworked the entire magic system, before his team set about translating a previous French attempt into English.

SD-Snatcher
MSX / Released – 27 April 1990 / Translation – 1993/1997/2010 / By – Dennis Lardenoye & Ron Bouwland

Regardless of your thoughts on the actual game (some loathe it due to horrendous balancing problems), it was the landmark release within the translation community. The very first translation patch from Dutch group Oasis, they worked using only a disk editor by loading modified character sets into VRAM and then looking for text to translate. They later had help from Xelasoft, which made the patch-disk and new copy protection routines. Mr Bouwland apparently wasn’t fluent in Japanese and often used a dictionary, making it more of a reinterpretation, and despite losing 40% of text due to space, overall it’s regarded highly. They even snuck some jokes in! In 1997 Whirlpool created standalone patches for legal distribution, and in May 2010 the patch was modified to fill out the intro.

Seiken Densetsu 3
Super Famicom / Released – 30 September 1995 / Translation – 27 Aug 2000 / By – LNF Translations, Neill Corlett, SoM2Freak

Purportedly never released in the US due to technical issues, Square decided to release Secret of Evermore - a decent game in its own right, but not the ones the fans had wanted. This made SD3 the only game in the series not to be released in English. Thankfully the translation community corrected Square’s grievous error. It was subsequently translated into a variety of other languages, including Spanish. There was controversy when unofficial English cartridges began surfacing on eBay, without the permission of Square or the translation group! The script is highly acclaimed, since SoM2Freak is described as an obsessive perfectionist when it comes to accuracy and authenticity.

Tales of Phantasia
Super Famicom, GBA, PS1 / Released – 15 December 1995 / Translation – 13 Feb 2001 / By – DeJap Translations, Topping Translations, Gemini, throughhim413

Prior to the first release in 2001, there had been at least two failed attempts at translating Tales of Phantasia. At the opposite end of the scale to SoM2Freak, people complained that DeJap takes too many liberties with its translations, ToP especially. Regardless, the game is stunning and well worth playing. It’s officially the biggest SFC game ever produced, weighing in at a massive 48mb. This is due mostly to digitised dialogue and a full vocal song in the intro. In late 2002 another patch was released by Topping Translations, dubbing all voices into English. While fan-translation dubbing is still in its infancy, it's caused a great deal of debate on whether to dub, sub, or simply leave well alone. The general consensus was, that while an interesting novelty the actual quality of the English voices was regarded as poor. Patches are available for both the SNES title (2nd version) and improved PS1 remake.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
MSX / Released – 19 July 1990 / Translation – 11 May 1997 / By – Maarten ter Huurne & Takamichi Suzukawa

An exceedingly magnificent game that was very much ahead of its time, yet Konami took 16 years to officially translate and re-release it (as part of MGS3). Holland unofficially did it in seven, highlighting the stark reality of fan-translations. Development time was three months and involved the legendary Takamichi, who is probably one of the best-known translators outside of the Netherlands. He strived for accuracy, researching correct military terms and even translated the manual. Takamichi sent translated script fragments which Maarten, unable to read Japanese, would label and insert into the ROM. For flexibility and saving data space, he also created a custom language, compiler, and compression algorithm.

THANKS
Special thanks to ROMhacking.net and MSX.org for providing resources and assistance. Many thanks to all those who answered questions, recalled events, and of course actually produce the translations! The gamers of the world are in your debt.