What are some of your favorite Fan Translated games? I KNOW I missed it. Big thanks to my firends Drew and Jordynne for helping me capture the insane amount of footage we needed to make this video a reality. Y'all da bes.
Back in the day, I played a ton of Tales of Phantasia, Mega Man and Bass, and more recently, some Shining Force games we never got. I remember playing Terranigma thinking it was fan translated too but it was just the PAL version with a 60 hz patch. I realized it when I went to play it again and noticed the game did actually come out in Europe and I was confused why it was so sluggish. I was young and stupid when it came to techy stuff like this. Also, I know it may sound dumb, but Live A Live is pronounced Live as in concert both times given how the title is said in Japanese. I found that out and was like, huh.. alright then. Still weird. That was another one I played a lot of too.
Thank YOU for the effort KillScottKill :) I thought I wasn't going to be able to play the Crossbell arc properly and yet here I am anxiously waiting for Saturday to play Ao.
Thank you and your team for your amazing work on those two Crossbell games, I was able to actually play the full story before getting into Cold Steel due to you and it makes such a difference even in the first game. *cough* also, your translations read much smoother than the 1st official Cold Steel game.
Serious question, KillScottKill: Why the decision to make Azure a translation of the Chinese version, despite Zero being based on the Japanese version? I was waiting to play both back to back, and the fact that I'd need to put in my credit card info on a Chinese website just destroyed my interest and has me willing to just skip them completely. (For anyone who doesn't understand why this is an issue, there's this big thing with Chinese Tech companies and all the backdoors the Chinese governments wants to everyone's data, so I refuse to put any personal information, especially not my credit card info on their sites. The last time I bought something from China, I started getting 57 scam calls a day. Never again. Oh, and before anyone says to just emulate it, the reason I was so hyped for this was because Zero was for the official Japanese version, ergo direct support for the devs when buying it on DLSite. I'm honestly really bummed that it calls for the Chinese version this time for that alone, even before getting into my issues with the Chinese element of it.) Are there any plans to port Azure's translation to literally any other version? At all? EDIT: Going to say this for full disclosure purposes because the internet loves to assume the worst: I'm not trying to demand anything, I'm just curious about the reasons and if there's any plans beyond that. I'll happily just pass and don't expect any special treatment. I just want to know why.
I'm so grateful fan translations exist, because of series like smt where some games just flat out don't get any western port, like the first smt game only having an ios western port, which isn't even available now, so these are really the only option for any western fan except just learning Japanese
@@thecompareablezombie I think the best way to go about searching is using the .net of hacking ROMs combined with the corresponding file you can find, you know, with no intro...duction, in the archives of the internet. You know. The archives that go way back. Machine.
The Mother 3 English patch is the only way I was able to play that masterpiece, so I can’t thank the dedicated fans who put it together enough. Shoutout to the peeps who translated FE Geanology of the Holy War, Thracia 776 and Binding Blade as well.
I would bet money that the English Patch is also the very reason we havent gotten it localized in the first place. Its a real double edged sword. Would it be as popular and have as much fan demand without it? Maybe not. But I can easily see Nintendo not wanting to bother officially localizing it exactly because its been played so much. The risk they see is "Well people have already stolen and played a fully translated version so many of those people might not bother buying it". Which is a legit concern. I still think it would be worth the risk, but Im not Nintendo obviously.
@@ComicCrossing The funny thing actually is that the dev team for the Mother 3 English patch actually offered to give the translation to them entirely for free, but Nintendo didn’t respond. I’m not really one for speculating about why Mother 3 hasn’t been localized, since I doubt we’ll ever get a concrete answer unless Reggie ever decides to come clean about it. But my main guess is that the Mother series just isn’t seen as a very profitable franchise for them, and they would rather just leave the game untouched than going through the trouble of censoring or altering it for a vocal yet relatively niche fanbase.
@@amirgarcia547 Because you cant do that. A company accepting a fan translation for free, or even paid would set a precedent that wouldnt be good for anyone. I cant imagine any of their official translation teams would be fine with that either.
While 776 has gotten a more modern translation, I still always chuckle at the fact that the older known fan translation decided to give one of the minor antagonists of that game the same speech quirk as Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged's Bandit Keith of, "...In America"
One of the biggest projects I followed i nthe day was the Spanish version of The World Ends With You. The game released completely in English in Spain, so a group of fans decided to translate the game. They even recorded all the voices for the characters, it was an enormous work and it was SO well done. Years later, with the release of the Switch version, the game had an official translation that changed many things (like translating Reaper or Reaper Creaper, or the nickname of Shooter...), more a localisation than a translation. It was SO well done as well, of course.
@Sandman Slim a hero is defined by a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. Translators bringing a potentially lifechanging game like Mother 3 to over a million people that would otherwise not get to experience it would fall under the outstanding achievement portion of the definition, and thus the literal version of hero is appropriate
So interesting story about Final Fantasy V's romhack. I used to work as a QA Tester for Sony and one of my co-workers was this guy whose name I literally can't remember, but he was this older dude who said he used to work at the US branch for Square Soft. One of his stories was that he was pitched a translation of Final Fantasy V for PC in the late 90s, and he had been a part of a decision to decline it largely because the Romhack had already come out. His mentality was that there was literally no purpose in translating it when a bunch of fans already had, and that because there was a fan translation there was no market for it. The modern move would've been a Cease and Desist letter, which made this story all the more interesting to me. Call it hearsay, but it was interesting to hear how the fantranslation community supposedly affected the video game market even in it's earliest days.
It's funny you mention that because one of the people in the Mother 3 translation team (I think it was Tomato/Clyde Mandelin) got an email at the time from someone who allegedly works in the game industry and mentioned that if the fan translation released it would forgo the need of Nintendo to do it themselves.
Yo it’s Laddy from Eyes on FF and jfc I had some (embarrassing) memories there and seeing one of my favorite youtubers namedrop a community important to me means a lot! :}
12:26 It's a small reference, but I'm the person who worked on Puchi Eva for the DS shown here. Thank you so so much for acknowledging it ;___; I wasn't expecting that
I think one fan translation that needed to be talked was the Digimon Re:Digitize . Thanks to this translation the interest in Digimon games came back to the point of wanting to have it's 2.0 version, Decoded for the 3DS, localized or ported. This interest in a official way to replay this japanese exclusive game was the reason Cyber Sleuth was released everywhere else and now it is Digimon's most selling game in its history.
@Sandman Slim When you've played Digimon World Dawn and Dusk for the DS get back to me until then, please shut the fuck up and learn what the phrase "entirely different gameplay" means.
I'm really glad you highlighted my buddy tashi's work on Marvelous. Such a good game that I would have overlooked if it weren't for he and I being coworkers at one point. I've also been active here and there in fan translation (currently as part of the Geofront), and I hope to continue contributing in whatever way I can to make Japanese classics more available to a wider audience. As someone who came into his teenage years just as romhacking was becoming a thing, I feel blessed to have witnessed fan participation evolve in the way that it has over the years. A big thanks to groups like Dejap, Aeon Genesis, and others who paved the way and helped me broaden my horizons; and a big thanks to you Austin for highlighting their efforts.
It's one of the only fan translations I've played, but yes, it's incredibly well done. There is no Japanese left in that game once you've patched it. Not only has the large amount of text been fully localised, but also the images where needed. Even the brief 'Objection!' voice clips have been re-recorded in English. And they nailed the writing style of the regular localisation team, with punny names galore (Jay Elbird is still a favourite of mine).
@@rendy1222 Yeah, something about him not doing jackshit with the translation for one of the games for I don't know how much time. He actually finished it I think, but after having a meltdown because other people started a new one because of his unwillingness to actually work on the translations.
@@editorgt8623 That's not possible because licenses, and even with the macross bullshit kinda over, there's still the budget blackhole that is Giant Robo license, if they manage to get it in the first place.
As someone who has translated a dreamcast game myself, it’s both a very trying and very fun process getting the script to all work together. I just wish more people were interested in doing the hacking part to install my text. I’m looking for people to do sakura wars 2.
A big THANK YOU for your kind words about my translation of Zangeki No Reginleiv for Wii! I'm thrilled to hear native-speakers be so laudatory about my humble work! I'll make sure to try some other patches you reviewed in this top-notch quality video. Have a nice day, and thanks again!
The first fan translated game I ever played was Super Robot Wars J and it got me into the series. I've actually imported some of the games for PS4 and Switch. I love it so much
the Tales of Phantasia fan translation is the bane of my existence, and I'm so glad they made it. The Tales of (Series) is my favorite RPG franchise, and I imagine that the popularity of this translation is probably a big reason the GBA version, and the follow-ups made it to the US.
My favorite thing about the DeJap translation of Bahamut Lagoon was they added a secret like midway through the game that gave you a few items, but also a message from DeJap. (Also Tomato worked on that one too before mother 3.)
Man I'm so happy to hear about games being worked on passionately by it's fans. Thanks Austin! PSP Translations are dope. Grand Knights History is amazing.
man i love that this is both an informative and interesting video while also a love letter to the communities that make it possible to even enjoy these games. fantastic video man, you are one of the most consistently great channels on youtube
In regards to the Crossbell games from the Geofront team it's a bit ridiculous that they haven't been officially brought over to the West considering their HUGE importance in regards to the story in the later Cold Steel games.
It really is absolutely mental. The first Cold Steel game was my introduction into the series and hoh boy, was there times I was confused, and it only grew as the series went on. I will admit they handle it well in most cases, as it seems like you are meeting characters for the first time, but having prior knowledge makes it sweeter. But the moment a giant ass blue tree grew in Cold Steel II and it is just casually mentioned that it disappeared.
@@ImagineABear Yeah, since CS4 is the cap of the series up until now that will happen. It's a bit frustrating that the inter connectivity of this series of games is both its biggest strength and weakness since it creates a massive barrier to entry. On the flip side those who become invested often become diehards which, again, makes me sad for the lack of an official release of the Crossbell duology. Thankfully the Geofront crew picked up that slack.
27:15 "One day some brave soul is gonna localize the entirety of the Yakuza spin-offs." Fan localization of Ishin's already being worked on, so he's not wrong.
I'm surprised that there wasn't a reference to Innocent Sin getting a fan translation since, at the time, it was the only mainline Persona game to never be localized (and was even featured in an official Playstation legacy video at one point) up until it got a PSP remaster, yet Eternal Punishment's PSP remaster, conversely, was unreleased outside of Japan and is currently in progress for a fan translation (supposedly)
i have to pause this immediately to comment and tell you that in the first 2 minutes of this video you have exactly described why i feel so disconnected from other gamers and i just never thought of it this way. you are a wordsmith austin thank you
Can we also talk about the efforts people have put into the most weirdly coded DS and 3DS games, the Digimon games from Bandai-Namco? Because even though the Xros Wars games haven't been released yet, the fact that people have been putting in that much effort and still working on it, quietly, is amazing.
Still so amazed that Geofront team looked at the beast that is Zero no Kiseki, with its MASSIVE script, and thought: we should translate this for free. Not only was their translation amazing, but then they carried on to translate Ao no Kiseki. May 22nd release date can't come soon enough! The Legend of Heroes series was incomplete without the Crossbell games.
Although not as popular as other games, I really love the Atelier series. What I really hope is there'll be more fan translation for their earlier games as I really want to play them but it doesn't look like Gust is interested in bringing those games over to the west.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is a huge miss in this video one of the best AA games of the whole franchise and the fan translation of it is spectacular.
Austin I’m fairly certain we were born in the same year so your channel always resonates with me. I remember my cousin bringing over a stack of CD-Rs loaded with Snes Roms- most notable being Bahamut Lagoon and Live a Live. I felt like I had tapped into some secret well of Japanese video gaming. It was only a few months later that I was patching the Tales of Phantasia English translation into the rom. Good times! Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
Damn, Austin. You are easily the most consistently high quality gaming content TH-camr on this site. Always happy to see new stuff from you. Thank you for all your hard work.
Every JRPG fan owes it to themselves to play Live-A-Live. It's a pretty simplistic game, but the plot twist near the end is one of my favorites in the whole genre
Because of this video, it made me think of an Anime I used to have as a kid called Record Of Lodoss War. Before tonight, I literally have been trying to remember that name for years and because of this video, I thought to scrounge around the internet once more to try and find it. Tonight was the night and I can go to bed happy.
The only thing that keeps me from crying is the fact that I'm watching this at work now. I have to hold it in, but this video alone overfilled me with the very passionate, exciting and awe-inspiring feelings towards these nameless giants who did all this amazing work. 🥺 And it's covered very neatly, so many titles in such a relatively short span.
Yakuza Ishin is currently being fan translated, and Life Bottle Productions recently released their beta for Tales of Destiny DC (PS2). What a time to be alive.
That's a new name for a team I've never heard of. That's good news really. I thought it was pathetic the way that the lead guy in the old Aeons Translations team just suddenly without explanation dropped out midway from finishing the script to the Tales of Destiny 1 or 2 game on the PS2 (Edited as I thought it was a PS1 game. But it's got PS1 visuals on PS2.). That Japanese only version actually had 2 story arcs to play through and was never localised. This game on the PS2 is not that game, but it's still good to know about, nonetheless.
I looked for information about that new team online, and the news around the TOD 2 fan translation has been springing up just this month of May 2021. Wow, that's breathtaking. The team has many good people, so this would be a reliable process this time around! And they will also work on Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut afterwards. That's the game that the previous Absolute Zero Translations guy was supposed to finish. The community is now no longer reliant on just one person to finish these translations, which is an issue in itself.
really cool that you even made a video on this topic but it is even cooler that you are showing respect and appreciation to all the people that were passionate enough to work on these games for free just so people could play them my hats off to you and them
Tools to play games that have been Japanese exclusives are always fun to explore and play with. I've played the translated copy of tales of phantasia myself as well as some others. I've really gotten into Dragon Quest X over the last year. And with brand new tools like the AHKmon it's easier than ever! Long live the fan translation efforts! You people are incredible
Zero and Ao No Kiseki (Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure). I''m so grateful with Geofront and everyone else who made the previous trnslations so that we can enjoy all the stories Zemuria has to tell :) Seriously, Geofront is an amazing team, their patches are amazing. If you haven't, go play Trails in the Sky 1 to 3 (official western release available), then Zero and Ao (Geofront's fan sub) and Trails of Cold Steel 1 to 4 (again, official localization)
Amen to that. I think I owned a copy on PSX (I could be wrong but I swear I remember that cover) but stupidly loaned it to someone. Before I even tried playing it. I’d love to see it on PSP though
Fan translators will always have my respect and admiration. For games, for anime for anything that people want and can't get officially translated or subtitled. And the fact these people do it's all for free and anonymously, tip of the hat 🎩
11:57 The answer is simple: US copyright law. All the music references, ESPECIALLY when the main title and main JoJo's stand reference Prince, add weight to this. While Part 3 still had music references, which Capcom awkwardly censored in the West with names like Iced and D.Bo, they were much more prevalent from P4 onwards with stand names going by a music motif rather than a tarot theme. It probably wasn't seen as financially feasible to come up with a new solution, since there were voice tracks saying the stand names. Capcom likely nixed it out of fear of lawsuits, especially with Prince involved and the series not really having a foothold around these parts yet.
The issue with the PSP fan translation of Type-0 wasn't the Fan Translation in itself (or rather, not ONLY that, since it was planned to come out on PS4, PC and XBox One), but also the fact that the patch was going to be distributed not in patch format, but he the author was distributing the translated full game, so it was piracy. And about Suikoden PSP, someone is working on editing and fixing the machine translation to actually make it and actual translation and not a machine patchwork.
Oh man this episode is speaking to _ME!_ In the early 2000's there was a very special _Angelfire_ site, I still can't find on the _Wayback Machine_ , that was the only oasis of translated Super Famicom roms that you could find at the time. Mostly of the licensed anime titles you covered here too. It was called _Motoko's Game Center_ , and it was the best! Granted, it's a pale joke compared to what's available today, but I'm glad to see you feature many of those games. I have games available to play now thanks to these talented and dedicated fan translation teams (or individuals, I'm looking at you Aeon_Genesis) that years ago were a distant dream. It's really an amazing time for new experiences on classic platforms. Speaking of which, my newest and most favorite fan translation has been of the much awaited, more than two decades untranslated, Game Freak's _Bushi Seiryuuden - Futari no Yuusha (Warriors of the Blue Dragon Legend - The Two Heroes)_ on Super Famicom. An action adventure RPG with young Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori on board...yes please! Great episode man!
super robot wars really appeared in this video for 5 seconds when it's like a giant crossover series that the fanbase struggles for years to get a translation of a single title from it (that isn't a modern one), the scripts are massive due to the amount of text, specially for other routes for the game, but the crossover aspect is really cool, and recently a team translated Super Robot Wars OG for PS2, check it out.
And he probably didn't cover anything from the fabled fan translation team, Dynamic-Designs. Did he? I couldn't find any mention in this video. He must have a thing against them. It's a big pity.
The work it is put on these games is really big, like you don't want to translate it literal on Google, if you want a decent translation you also one a little of localization: adapting the way a character or another speaks or maybe giving aclarations on terms that you wouldn't know because they're a part of Japanise culture. What I'm triying to say is thanks to all of the translators, thanks to you all I was able to play games like Ace attorney investigations 2, Valkyria chronicles 3 and now tales of destiny DC with the new patch and of course much more games that I still have not tried, and can only try them someday thanks to these hard workers who are
This is why I watch your channel! You put me up on so many great looking games. Have you ever played or heard of Ring of Red, Chaos Legion (not for everyone) or Lunar: Eternal Blue/Silver Star? I never hear anyone talk about these classic games
Man I remember playing Genealogy of the Holy War, loving it to this day, but I finished it with the fan translation and it was incomplete. the last few cutscenes had text rubbish, not even Japanese. I malded about it for like a full week. Ah the memories.
13:28 Don't remind me... finding out that the GameCube game wasn't the first in the series almost broke me. And don't think that I didn't see those Legend of Dragoon clips that you sprinkled in. I'll be waiting for your video on it.
Great Topic! If you wanna go one step beyond, you can use ztranslate to automatically translate any game on the fly. It uses a translation algorithm similar to google translate but you can get the gist of what's going one.
Y'all definitely need to check out the fantastic Wii games translated by Brand Newman! Takt of Magic is a sequel to one of my favorite DS games and it's just so good, and that Earth Seeker never came out over here was a crime because it's *chef's kiss*
Here are some fun facts about fan translators that I know. The lead translator behind Mother 3, Tomato is actually a professional translator who has worked on anime like Dragon Ball and games like Kingdom Hearts. He has a blog and he wrote a series of articles about Final Fantasy VI's translations (the Ted Woolsey version, the GBA, a fan translation, and google) that is really interesting to read about if you want to learn more about Final Fantasy VI. One of the guys who was a part of Policenauts fan translation is slowbeef, the guy who invented video let's play. He put a reference to another let's player, Dave_o in the translation.
I actually just recently finished legend of heroes trails from zero on my journey to catch up on the series and Jesus it was so good it’s sad a lot of people will be skipping over it since it’s such a gem and now one of my favorite games of all time
Seeing Terranigma pop up again and again makes me so nostalgic. It's one of the best RPGs I have ever played and it was actually released officially in Europe for some reason. If I recall correctly it was even on of those fancy releases that included a guide book and a huge box like Secret of Mana got. Might be wrong there. I miss playing that game. The only game I ever played as a fan localization was the incredible Sailor Moon RPG. So good.
Sailor Moon Another Story is one of my favourite game of all time and I will never thank enough the team that translated it! (And I own it as well as Tenchi Muyo, Slayers and Magic Knight Rayearth on original cartridge so I can play them patched on my retron 5 and I'm really proud of it!)
Last English translation project to the date i know is Sol Trigger English Translation for PSP the last time they posted something on their website was in march or february
Thank you for talking about this. My favourite games of all time are Mother 3, Final Fantasy V, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, so this subject is very near to my heart.
As a Shin Megami Tensei fan, i am extremely sad, like...SMT Devil Summoner, SMT NINE and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for PSP are games that i wanna play SO BADLY but the fan translations just never release.
I just got into this series and it's good, but it sucks how many of the games are either unavailable in English, or are old and therfore harder to get. I really hope for the anniversary they port and translate some of them.
YEEEES. As a Suikoden fan, even just the couple of seconds of the Japan PSP only release is appreciated. Dedicated teams are working on a translation and I’m very excited to play the one game in the series I never got to.
What are some of your favorite Fan Translated games? I KNOW I missed it.
Big thanks to my firends Drew and Jordynne for helping me capture the insane amount of footage we needed to make this video a reality. Y'all da bes.
sonic before the sequel
ur lame
(glad to help buddy ~)
another treasure was heavly inspire by lords of the fly's
Rhythm tengoku ez
Back in the day, I played a ton of Tales of Phantasia, Mega Man and Bass, and more recently, some Shining Force games we never got. I remember playing Terranigma thinking it was fan translated too but it was just the PAL version with a 60 hz patch. I realized it when I went to play it again and noticed the game did actually come out in Europe and I was confused why it was so sluggish. I was young and stupid when it came to techy stuff like this.
Also, I know it may sound dumb, but Live A Live is pronounced Live as in concert both times given how the title is said in Japanese. I found that out and was like, huh.. alright then. Still weird. That was another one I played a lot of too.
Lead editor of the Geofront's Trails to Azure here. Thank you for the shout-out, Austin!
Thank YOU for the effort KillScottKill :) I thought I wasn't going to be able to play the Crossbell arc properly and yet here I am anxiously waiting for Saturday to play Ao.
You guys are the best. Zero is amazing, huge thanks. AND THE CHESTS SPEAK
Thank you for everything you guys have done. It will be great having the entire series up to Cold Steel 4 and beyond available in English!
Thank you and your team for your amazing work on those two Crossbell games, I was able to actually play the full story before getting into Cold Steel due to you and it makes such a difference even in the first game. *cough* also, your translations read much smoother than the 1st official Cold Steel game.
Serious question, KillScottKill: Why the decision to make Azure a translation of the Chinese version, despite Zero being based on the Japanese version? I was waiting to play both back to back, and the fact that I'd need to put in my credit card info on a Chinese website just destroyed my interest and has me willing to just skip them completely.
(For anyone who doesn't understand why this is an issue, there's this big thing with Chinese Tech companies and all the backdoors the Chinese governments wants to everyone's data, so I refuse to put any personal information, especially not my credit card info on their sites. The last time I bought something from China, I started getting 57 scam calls a day. Never again. Oh, and before anyone says to just emulate it, the reason I was so hyped for this was because Zero was for the official Japanese version, ergo direct support for the devs when buying it on DLSite. I'm honestly really bummed that it calls for the Chinese version this time for that alone, even before getting into my issues with the Chinese element of it.)
Are there any plans to port Azure's translation to literally any other version? At all?
EDIT: Going to say this for full disclosure purposes because the internet loves to assume the worst: I'm not trying to demand anything, I'm just curious about the reasons and if there's any plans beyond that. I'll happily just pass and don't expect any special treatment. I just want to know why.
I'm so grateful fan translations exist, because of series like smt where some games just flat out don't get any western port, like the first smt game only having an ios western port, which isn't even available now, so these are really the only option for any western fan except just learning Japanese
Which place do you get them, A place which has Romance for CDs?
@@thecompareablezombie The Romance Music is good for the fan translations, Vimm’s Fish Net caught the ps1,ps2, and psp games
@@amfram Yo, I love Vimm's Fish Net.
Yeah, Atlus seems to have a weird aversion to the western market. Seems like that may be changing though, which is a good thing.
@@thecompareablezombie I think the best way to go about searching is using the .net of hacking ROMs combined with the corresponding file you can find, you know, with no intro...duction, in the archives of the internet.
You know. The archives that go way back. Machine.
ace attorney investigations 2 the GOAT i really hope they actually localize it because god it's such a good game
Best game in the series
Definitely also shout out to Scarlet Study translating The Great Ace Attorney when we thought we'd never get an English release
I would never have thought we would get The Great Ace Attorney collection, so here's hoping we get an Investigations collection as well!
Im currently playing ace attorney 3 translated on the gba and enjoying it a lot! :)
Maybe they'll remake both of the Investigation games and release it as "Ace Attorney Investigations Duology" or something
The Mother 3 English patch is the only way I was able to play that masterpiece, so I can’t thank the dedicated fans who put it together enough.
Shoutout to the peeps who translated FE Geanology of the Holy War, Thracia 776 and Binding Blade as well.
I would bet money that the English Patch is also the very reason we havent gotten it localized in the first place. Its a real double edged sword. Would it be as popular and have as much fan demand without it? Maybe not. But I can easily see Nintendo not wanting to bother officially localizing it exactly because its been played so much. The risk they see is "Well people have already stolen and played a fully translated version so many of those people might not bother buying it". Which is a legit concern. I still think it would be worth the risk, but Im not Nintendo obviously.
@@ComicCrossing The funny thing actually is that the dev team for the Mother 3 English patch actually offered to give the translation to them entirely for free, but Nintendo didn’t respond.
I’m not really one for speculating about why Mother 3 hasn’t been localized, since I doubt we’ll ever get a concrete answer unless Reggie ever decides to come clean about it. But my main guess is that the Mother series just isn’t seen as a very profitable franchise for them, and they would rather just leave the game untouched than going through the trouble of censoring or altering it for a vocal yet relatively niche fanbase.
@@amirgarcia547 Because you cant do that. A company accepting a fan translation for free, or even paid would set a precedent that wouldnt be good for anyone. I cant imagine any of their official translation teams would be fine with that either.
I've seen a bootleg Game Boy Advance game cartridge of Mother 3 available for purchase on the Aliexpress website.
While 776 has gotten a more modern translation, I still always chuckle at the fact that the older known fan translation decided to give one of the minor antagonists of that game the same speech quirk as Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged's Bandit Keith of, "...In America"
One of the biggest projects I followed i nthe day was the Spanish version of The World Ends With You. The game released completely in English in Spain, so a group of fans decided to translate the game. They even recorded all the voices for the characters, it was an enormous work and it was SO well done.
Years later, with the release of the Switch version, the game had an official translation that changed many things (like translating Reaper or Reaper Creaper, or the nickname of Shooter...), more a localisation than a translation. It was SO well done as well, of course.
Fan translators are some of the blessed people there are. Literal heroes. May they all have the best in their lives.
I wouldn’t call them heroes. But they’re cool.
@Sandman Slim a hero is defined by a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. Translators bringing a potentially lifechanging game like Mother 3 to over a million people that would otherwise not get to experience it would fall under the outstanding achievement portion of the definition, and thus the literal version of hero is appropriate
Amen to that. Raise one to 'em every now and then.
@Sandman Slim the can said non-toxic
Someday I will finally my translation of doko demo issho toro, pls give me strong!!
I also love how a majority of these efforts were people saying "f**k it, I'll do it myself!"
So interesting story about Final Fantasy V's romhack. I used to work as a QA Tester for Sony and one of my co-workers was this guy whose name I literally can't remember, but he was this older dude who said he used to work at the US branch for Square Soft.
One of his stories was that he was pitched a translation of Final Fantasy V for PC in the late 90s, and he had been a part of a decision to decline it largely because the Romhack had already come out. His mentality was that there was literally no purpose in translating it when a bunch of fans already had, and that because there was a fan translation there was no market for it.
The modern move would've been a Cease and Desist letter, which made this story all the more interesting to me. Call it hearsay, but it was interesting to hear how the fantranslation community supposedly affected the video game market even in it's earliest days.
The fan translation is better than the one that came out on PSX...
It's funny you mention that because one of the people in the Mother 3 translation team (I think it was Tomato/Clyde Mandelin) got an email at the time from someone who allegedly works in the game industry and mentioned that if the fan translation released it would forgo the need of Nintendo to do it themselves.
that ridiculous “in america” joke from the fire emblem: thracia 776 fan translation still enters my consciousness a few times a year
It enters mine every other week when I see Kempf's stupid face in pawns of loki >:(
I read "in america" and ALL I can hear is YGO Abridged
@@nejishadow eww
Yo it’s Laddy from Eyes on FF and jfc I had some (embarrassing) memories there and seeing one of my favorite youtubers namedrop a community important to me means a lot! :}
Surprised that you didn't mention Famicom Detective Club. It's one of the rare titles that gets a global release after years of waiting.
Years being several decades 😭
especially when the Super Famicom remake of The Girl Who Stands Behind got a really good fan translation
The project Naga release in 2020 of fire emblem 5 was an event. Took just over 20 years for a good translation of that game.
Project Naga was for FE4, FE5 was Project Exile
@@EmperorEmblem lol you right
@@TARDISES a working fe5 translation has been the white whale of the fire emblem community for 20 years
You could finally play Thracia 776...
IN AMERICA
12:26 It's a small reference, but I'm the person who worked on Puchi Eva for the DS shown here. Thank you so so much for acknowledging it ;___; I wasn't expecting that
I think one fan translation that needed to be talked was the Digimon Re:Digitize . Thanks to this translation the interest in Digimon games came back to the point of wanting to have it's 2.0 version, Decoded for the 3DS, localized or ported. This interest in a official way to replay this japanese exclusive game was the reason Cyber Sleuth was released everywhere else and now it is Digimon's most selling game in its history.
@Sandman Slim When you've played Digimon World Dawn and Dusk for the DS get back to me until then, please shut the fuck up and learn what the phrase "entirely different gameplay" means.
@Sandman Slim Everyone knows pokemon is bootleg shin megami tensei. :P
I'm really glad you highlighted my buddy tashi's work on Marvelous. Such a good game that I would have overlooked if it weren't for he and I being coworkers at one point.
I've also been active here and there in fan translation (currently as part of the Geofront), and I hope to continue contributing in whatever way I can to make Japanese classics more available to a wider audience.
As someone who came into his teenage years just as romhacking was becoming a thing, I feel blessed to have witnessed fan participation evolve in the way that it has over the years. A big thanks to groups like Dejap, Aeon Genesis, and others who paved the way and helped me broaden my horizons; and a big thanks to you Austin for highlighting their efforts.
Treasure of the Rudras, the SaGa games, and Live a Live were all my sweet golden babies
The Atelier Marie + Elie: The Alchemists of Salburg 1 & 2 fan translation is fantastic and a great way to play the first two Atelier games
OMG! that NEWS for me!!!
how come i missed it 3 years, thanks you so much for the info.
this will be busy weekend for me xD
Any links you can send here?
I was about to coment this, glad to see another atelier fan
Ace attorney investigations 2 is my favorite fan translated game!
It's one of the only fan translations I've played, but yes, it's incredibly well done. There is no Japanese left in that game once you've patched it. Not only has the large amount of text been fully localised, but also the images where needed. Even the brief 'Objection!' voice clips have been re-recorded in English. And they nailed the writing style of the regular localisation team, with punny names galore (Jay Elbird is still a favourite of mine).
The fact he didnt mention it and it being one of those games that people would not stop talking about a few years back is baffling!
It’s up there with Mother 3, if not being better than it, as being one of the best fan translations ever made.
I really appreciated when they corrected/improved a lot of those poorly translated or misleading lines old RPGs were notorious for.
I wanna thank the countless visual novel translators that have put their work up. Thanks for making me love VNs!
Super Robot Wars Z and Z2's story is something I've desperately wanted for years to be translated
Same but with alpha.
Dammit Gideon, it's been on 65% for a decade already!
yo i heard people complained gideon on smt fandom
@@reinweissritter at this point our only hope might be if banpresto releases a port collection with English language options like T & X.
@@rendy1222 Yeah, something about him not doing jackshit with the translation for one of the games for I don't know how much time. He actually finished it I think, but after having a meltdown because other people started a new one because of his unwillingness to actually work on the translations.
@@editorgt8623 That's not possible because licenses, and even with the macross bullshit kinda over, there's still the budget blackhole that is Giant Robo license, if they manage to get it in the first place.
As someone who has translated a dreamcast game myself, it’s both a very trying and very fun process getting the script to all work together. I just wish more people were interested in doing the hacking part to install my text.
I’m looking for people to do sakura wars 2.
A big THANK YOU for your kind words about my translation of Zangeki No Reginleiv for Wii! I'm thrilled to hear native-speakers be so laudatory about my humble work! I'll make sure to try some other patches you reviewed in this top-notch quality video. Have a nice day, and thanks again!
The first fan translated game I ever played was Super Robot Wars J and it got me into the series. I've actually imported some of the games for PS4 and Switch. I love it so much
the Tales of Phantasia fan translation is the bane of my existence, and I'm so glad they made it. The Tales of (Series) is my favorite RPG franchise, and I imagine that the popularity of this translation is probably a big reason the GBA version, and the follow-ups made it to the US.
My favorite thing about the DeJap translation of Bahamut Lagoon was they added a secret like midway through the game that gave you a few items, but also a message from DeJap. (Also Tomato worked on that one too before mother 3.)
All hail the dedicated fan translators out there. If it wasn't for them I'd never gotten into super robot wars.
Still waiting the 4th and final super famicom srw.........
God bless them and their latest deliver, ps2 OGs
Man I'm so happy to hear about games being worked on passionately by it's fans. Thanks Austin!
PSP Translations are dope. Grand Knights History is amazing.
8:23 I cannot look at that Jojo's Bizarre Adventure game the same way again without thinking about Joel from Vinesauce and Jotaro spinning.
(You hear a strange sound echoing in the distance)
_"SpEEeEeeeeEEeN!"_
man i love that this is both an informative and interesting video while also a love letter to the communities that make it possible to even enjoy these games. fantastic video man, you are one of the most consistently great channels on youtube
Thank you so much!
Having worked on some of these 20-25 years ago, I'm amazed people still talk about them.
Thanks for the mention @Austin Eruption
In regards to the Crossbell games from the Geofront team it's a bit ridiculous that they haven't been officially brought over to the West considering their HUGE importance in regards to the story in the later Cold Steel games.
It really is absolutely mental. The first Cold Steel game was my introduction into the series and hoh boy, was there times I was confused, and it only grew as the series went on. I will admit they handle it well in most cases, as it seems like you are meeting characters for the first time, but having prior knowledge makes it sweeter.
But the moment a giant ass blue tree grew in Cold Steel II and it is just casually mentioned that it disappeared.
@@ImagineABear Yeah, since CS4 is the cap of the series up until now that will happen. It's a bit frustrating that the inter connectivity of this series of games is both its biggest strength and weakness since it creates a massive barrier to entry. On the flip side those who become invested often become diehards which, again, makes me sad for the lack of an official release of the Crossbell duology. Thankfully the Geofront crew picked up that slack.
27:15 "One day some brave soul is gonna localize the entirety of the Yakuza spin-offs."
Fan localization of Ishin's already being worked on, so he's not wrong.
Fun fact: for the brief time I worked support at NOA, they warned us to not ask Reggie about Mother 3 if we met him around campus.
Even if you’re lying I’m just gonna pretend that this is true because that’s incredible funny.
I'm surprised that there wasn't a reference to Innocent Sin getting a fan translation since, at the time, it was the only mainline Persona game to never be localized (and was even featured in an official Playstation legacy video at one point) up until it got a PSP remaster, yet Eternal Punishment's PSP remaster, conversely, was unreleased outside of Japan and is currently in progress for a fan translation (supposedly)
Eternal Punishment PSP is done now.
Glad to see Live A Live in a video its one of my favorite games
i have to pause this immediately to comment and tell you that in the first 2 minutes of this video you have exactly described why i feel so disconnected from other gamers and i just never thought of it this way. you are a wordsmith austin thank you
I'm still waiting for a Tokimeki Memorial translation (Not the reverse ones. I know those get translations)
same here, i just want to romance cute girls just like i romanced cute boys on the ds
Can we also talk about the efforts people have put into the most weirdly coded DS and 3DS games, the Digimon games from Bandai-Namco? Because even though the Xros Wars games haven't been released yet, the fact that people have been putting in that much effort and still working on it, quietly, is amazing.
Still so amazed that Geofront team looked at the beast that is Zero no Kiseki, with its MASSIVE script, and thought: we should translate this for free. Not only was their translation amazing, but then they carried on to translate Ao no Kiseki. May 22nd release date can't come soon enough! The Legend of Heroes series was incomplete without the Crossbell games.
I was literally gonna comment about this. Geofront did a really good job
@@jovanni1676 one could say the overcame their barriers
A reality without an English fan translation of Mother 3 is one I would have to experience
Although not as popular as other games, I really love the Atelier series. What I really hope is there'll be more fan translation for their earlier games as I really want to play them but it doesn't look like Gust is interested in bringing those games over to the west.
27:26 Magical Drop 2 has had a official SNES version which will be released for the first time next week.
Ace Attorney Investigations 2 is a huge miss in this video one of the best AA games of the whole franchise and the fan translation of it is spectacular.
Austin I’m fairly certain we were born in the same year so your channel always resonates with me. I remember my cousin bringing over a stack of CD-Rs loaded with Snes Roms- most notable being Bahamut Lagoon and Live a Live. I felt like I had tapped into some secret well of Japanese video gaming. It was only a few months later that I was patching the Tales of Phantasia English translation into the rom. Good times! Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
The PSP game Digimon Re:Digitize and its 3ds remake Decode are amazing fan translations as well. Big props to the team behind Operation Decoded.
Thanks for talking about the Tenchi game! Played that a ton way back!
Tenchi Muyo was absolutely one of the first games I ever emulated. Same age too! Finding all of these games at that age was seriously magical
Damn, Austin. You are easily the most consistently high quality gaming content TH-camr on this site. Always happy to see new stuff from you. Thank you for all your hard work.
Every JRPG fan owes it to themselves to play Live-A-Live. It's a pretty simplistic game, but the plot twist near the end is one of my favorites in the whole genre
The editing on this video is fantastic. Great video really enjoyed it thanks.
Because of this video, it made me think of an Anime I used to have as a kid called Record Of Lodoss War. Before tonight, I literally have been trying to remember that name for years and because of this video, I thought to scrounge around the internet once more to try and find it. Tonight was the night and I can go to bed happy.
Knew I was in for a good video when I saw Terranigma at the start, great taste man.
Amazing work as always Austin, you're on a roll!
I'm pretty certain Vento Aureo PS2 didn't release in the West because of Prince threatening legal action and Araki refusing to let them change names
@Sandman Slim correct. Did you know that 100% of women climax during demon rapè
The only thing that keeps me from crying is the fact that I'm watching this at work now. I have to hold it in, but this video alone overfilled me with the very passionate, exciting and awe-inspiring feelings towards these nameless giants who did all this amazing work. 🥺 And it's covered very neatly, so many titles in such a relatively short span.
So happy you mentioned Treasure of the Rudras, I love that game to death and was praying you'd talk about it
Fan translations are something I'll always be thankful for, just the sheer effort put into them without pay is mind-blowing.
Yakuza Ishin is currently being fan translated, and Life Bottle Productions recently released their beta for Tales of Destiny DC (PS2). What a time to be alive.
That's a new name for a team I've never heard of. That's good news really.
I thought it was pathetic the way that the lead guy in the old Aeons Translations team just suddenly without explanation dropped out midway from finishing the script to the Tales of Destiny 1 or 2 game on the PS2 (Edited as I thought it was a PS1 game. But it's got PS1 visuals on PS2.). That Japanese only version actually had 2 story arcs to play through and was never localised.
This game on the PS2 is not that game, but it's still good to know about, nonetheless.
I looked for information about that new team online, and the news around the TOD 2 fan translation has been springing up just this month of May 2021. Wow, that's breathtaking.
The team has many good people, so this would be a reliable process this time around!
And they will also work on Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut afterwards. That's the game that the previous Absolute Zero Translations guy was supposed to finish.
The community is now no longer reliant on just one person to finish these translations, which is an issue in itself.
really cool that you even made a video on this topic but it is even cooler that you are showing respect and appreciation to all the people that were passionate enough to work on these games for free just so people could play them my hats off to you and them
Tools to play games that have been Japanese exclusives are always fun to explore and play with. I've played the translated copy of tales of phantasia myself as well as some others. I've really gotten into Dragon Quest X over the last year. And with brand new tools like the AHKmon it's easier than ever!
Long live the fan translation efforts! You people are incredible
Zero and Ao No Kiseki (Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure). I''m so grateful with Geofront and everyone else who made the previous trnslations so that we can enjoy all the stories Zemuria has to tell :)
Seriously, Geofront is an amazing team, their patches are amazing.
If you haven't, go play Trails in the Sky 1 to 3 (official western release available), then Zero and Ao (Geofront's fan sub) and Trails of Cold Steel 1 to 4 (again, official localization)
I'm still waiting for the persona 2 eternal punishment psp translation.
Amen to that. I think I owned a copy on PSX (I could be wrong but I swear I remember that cover) but stupidly loaned it to someone. Before I even tried playing it. I’d love to see it on PSP though
Fan translators will always have my respect and admiration.
For games, for anime for anything that people want and can't get officially translated or subtitled. And the fact these people do it's all for free and anonymously, tip of the hat 🎩
As sengoku badara fan... Life is truly painful 🤧🤘
My favorite is Metal Max Returns for the Super Famicom. A post-apocalyptic JRPG with a focus on vehicles? It’s like it was made specifically for me.
I wish you'd list all the games featured in your vids. There are quite a few games that flash by and I'm all like "Nani, Sono gemu wa nanidesu ka???"
なに、そのゲームは何ですか？
Same here. Still waiting for that one champ to just drop a list of all the featured games
I wish you would have used that Final Fantasy Quest battle music when you mentioned it. Great video!
Man you unlocked a deep forbidden memory when making me recall GameWinners holy hell that place was the jam
11:57 The answer is simple: US copyright law. All the music references, ESPECIALLY when the main title and main JoJo's stand reference Prince, add weight to this. While Part 3 still had music references, which Capcom awkwardly censored in the West with names like Iced and D.Bo, they were much more prevalent from P4 onwards with stand names going by a music motif rather than a tarot theme. It probably wasn't seen as financially feasible to come up with a new solution, since there were voice tracks saying the stand names. Capcom likely nixed it out of fear of lawsuits, especially with Prince involved and the series not really having a foothold around these parts yet.
This coming out the same day Geofront announces their translation for Trails to Azure is sus in a good way
The issue with the PSP fan translation of Type-0 wasn't the Fan Translation in itself (or rather, not ONLY that, since it was planned to come out on PS4, PC and XBox One), but also the fact that the patch was going to be distributed not in patch format, but he the author was distributing the translated full game, so it was piracy.
And about Suikoden PSP, someone is working on editing and fixing the machine translation to actually make it and actual translation and not a machine patchwork.
Bless my grade school teacher for showing me Ranma 1/2 in the early 2000s during "Japanimation" Club
Oh man this episode is speaking to _ME!_ In the early 2000's there was a very special _Angelfire_ site, I still can't find on the _Wayback Machine_ , that was the only oasis of translated Super Famicom roms that you could find at the time. Mostly of the licensed anime titles you covered here too. It was called _Motoko's Game Center_ , and it was the best! Granted, it's a pale joke compared to what's available today, but I'm glad to see you feature many of those games. I have games available to play now thanks to these talented and dedicated fan translation teams (or individuals, I'm looking at you Aeon_Genesis) that years ago were a distant dream. It's really an amazing time for new experiences on classic platforms.
Speaking of which, my newest and most favorite fan translation has been of the much awaited, more than two decades untranslated, Game Freak's _Bushi Seiryuuden - Futari no Yuusha (Warriors of the Blue Dragon Legend - The Two Heroes)_ on Super Famicom. An action adventure RPG with young Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori on board...yes please! Great episode man!
super robot wars really appeared in this video for 5 seconds when it's like a giant crossover series that the fanbase struggles for years to get a translation of a single title from it (that isn't a modern one), the scripts are massive due to the amount of text, specially for other routes for the game, but the crossover aspect is really cool, and recently a team translated Super Robot Wars OG for PS2, check it out.
I still seethe because of that cursed 65%. Why Gideon, why?
And he probably didn't cover anything from the fabled fan translation team, Dynamic-Designs. Did he? I couldn't find any mention in this video.
He must have a thing against them. It's a big pity.
The work it is put on these games is really big, like you don't want to translate it literal on Google, if you want a decent translation you also one a little of localization: adapting the way a character or another speaks or maybe giving aclarations on terms that you wouldn't know because they're a part of Japanise culture.
What I'm triying to say is thanks to all of the translators, thanks to you all I was able to play games like Ace attorney investigations 2, Valkyria chronicles 3 and now tales of destiny DC with the new patch and of course much more games that I still have not tried, and can only try them someday thanks to these hard workers who are
God every time i see Genealogy i get so frickign exited
i glad i bought it in-box in thailand bc that game *really* slapps
This is why I watch your channel! You put me up on so many great looking games. Have you ever played or heard of Ring of Red, Chaos Legion (not for everyone) or Lunar: Eternal Blue/Silver Star? I never hear anyone talk about these classic games
Man I remember playing Genealogy of the Holy War, loving it to this day, but I finished it with the fan translation and it was incomplete. the last few cutscenes had text rubbish, not even Japanese. I malded about it for like a full week. Ah the memories.
13:28 Don't remind me... finding out that the GameCube game wasn't the first in the series almost broke me.
And don't think that I didn't see those Legend of Dragoon clips that you sprinkled in. I'll be waiting for your video on it.
Now this is a good comment section.
Recommending great fan translations.
Great Topic!
If you wanna go one step beyond, you can use ztranslate to automatically translate any game on the fly.
It uses a translation algorithm similar to google translate but you can get the gist of what's going one.
RIP Near
2:12 Clock Tower!!!!! I can't believe this!!!!
Y'all definitely need to check out the fantastic Wii games translated by Brand Newman! Takt of Magic is a sequel to one of my favorite DS games and it's just so good, and that Earth Seeker never came out over here was a crime because it's *chef's kiss*
Here are some fun facts about fan translators that I know.
The lead translator behind Mother 3, Tomato is actually a professional translator who has worked on anime like Dragon Ball and games like Kingdom Hearts. He has a blog and he wrote a series of articles about Final Fantasy VI's translations (the Ted Woolsey version, the GBA, a fan translation, and google) that is really interesting to read about if you want to learn more about Final Fantasy VI.
One of the guys who was a part of Policenauts fan translation is slowbeef, the guy who invented video let's play. He put a reference to another let's player, Dave_o in the translation.
Eyes on Final Fantasy AND GameWinners getting mentioned, that takes me back.
I actually just recently finished legend of heroes trails from zero on my journey to catch up on the series and Jesus it was so good it’s sad a lot of people will be skipping over it since it’s such a gem and now one of my favorite games of all time
Azure translation is almost here!
I Really Need To Get Around To Playing That RPG Goemon Game.
Seeing Terranigma pop up again and again makes me so nostalgic. It's one of the best RPGs I have ever played and it was actually released officially in Europe for some reason. If I recall correctly it was even on of those fancy releases that included a guide book and a huge box like Secret of Mana got. Might be wrong there. I miss playing that game.
The only game I ever played as a fan localization was the incredible Sailor Moon RPG. So good.
Yusuke Murata art is godlike
Policenauts, Berwick Saga, Samurai Showdown RPG, so many cool games.
Sailor Moon Another Story is one of my favourite game of all time and I will never thank enough the team that translated it! (And I own it as well as Tenchi Muyo, Slayers and Magic Knight Rayearth on original cartridge so I can play them patched on my retron 5 and I'm really proud of it!)
Eyeshield 21 is also my favorite manga! You have great taste
Last English translation project to the date i know is Sol Trigger English Translation for PSP the last time they posted something on their website was in march or february
Been waiting for a youtuber to tackle this topic. Thanks Austin!
Oh man, I played through all of Live a Live. That was such an interesting game.
Thank you for talking about this.
My favourite games of all time are Mother 3, Final Fantasy V, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, so this subject is very near to my heart.
As a Shin Megami Tensei fan, i am extremely sad, like...SMT Devil Summoner, SMT NINE and Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for PSP are games that i wanna play SO BADLY but the fan translations just never release.
I want Devil Summoner in particular soooo bad
I just got into this series and it's good, but it sucks how many of the games are either unavailable in English, or are old and therfore harder to get. I really hope for the anniversary they port and translate some of them.
YEEEES. As a Suikoden fan, even just the couple of seconds of the Japan PSP only release is appreciated. Dedicated teams are working on a translation and I’m very excited to play the one game in the series I never got to.