Thanks for popping in guys! Make sure to leave any fan translation recommendations here in the comments. You should also check out David's channel where he talks about kickass RPGs (www.youtube.com/@davidvinc). I know I've been absent for a while, but I appreciate you guys being patient with me while i get things sorted. Things are back in production now, and we've got some awesome stuff in the works. So keep your eyes peeled!
just wanna hijack this and tell you that persona 2 eternal punishment (part 2 ) also had a psp translation in recent years, please notify the peoples c:
Gio Gio's Bizarre Adventure (JoJo part 5) - PS2 Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza: Black Panther) (Like A Dragon: Black Panther) - PSP Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku 2 (Yakuza: Black Panther 2) (Like A Dragon: Black Panther 2) - PSP
The switch is a hand held PS3. It dunks on the psp, vita, and gba, even if you grade them on a curve based on what they offered in their respective times
I have always been grateful to the people who go to the effort to translate this stuff. Most of the anime I watched as a teen were only possible thanks to fan translations. They were often better than the official translations that came later as they provided a lot of helpful notes on culture or jokes that I wouldn't have understood without them. The recent Geofront fan translation was how I got to play Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Had to go to the trouble of buying the games off some random Chinese website and then apply the patch, but it was worth the effort. It was honestly incredible how good the translation was. All of the dialogue was understandable and flowed well. They did such a good job that they got hired to do the translation for the game's official release to the west.
@@AvalancheReviewsand some of the entitlement(some douchebags comment,like asking them to translate them faster for them lol) I've seen from other people in the community is bit demotivating despite some of us in the translation community is trying the best to translate them
@zero tester, Or they'll get mad and try to ruin a person's reputation and sicc their followers on a person who was passionate enough to do a translation on their own valuable time, all because they used a single, accurate word that they consider "offensive". Sick, disgusting individuals, these people..
Hey man, thanks so much for having me on! I love the fan translation scene and I could gush about older Japanese only games for days! So thanks again for letting me spread the love for Treasure of the Rudras! 🎉🎉🎉
Such a pleasant surprise seeing u here David!! Have had rudras sitting on my hard drive for a couple months now, will probably get to it once I’m done w Lunar 🎉
Without fan translations us westerners would’ve missed out on so many amazing games. My favorite has always been Fire emblem genealogy of the holy war, which honestly has one of the best stories of any super famicom game.
I've been enjoying fan translations for the past 20 years but my God, things are moving at the speed of light now. Props to the incredible people who have the drive to bring us translations and mods/hacks.
The world of fan translations I do love to see what we can get our hands on that we missed over the years and it's always more titles to add to the list
Hearing the boat song from Lunar Silver Star Story Complete in this video was a surprise and almost got me a little misty-eyed. Reminded me of when I was a teenager.
Ar Tonelico 2 Relocalization Project deserves a spot in this series. Fans did an immense work of not only making a better translation, but straight up fixing a ton of the game and making it actually completable. It's discord would have more information about it, but you can see the list of changes via wayback machine.
1:29:35 when you describing about frequent missed attacks in Feda. It's pretty much the whole Front Mission series. In 15 minutes of gameplay, the word "miss" popping up about 12.000 times.
I am so very glad to have you mention Sakura Wars! I've managed to play all the mainline games by utilising the over decade old translation guides (before the release of fan translation of Sakura Wars). I hope you get around to playing Sakura Wars 2 and 3, they're some of my favourite games of all time (The Skies of Arcadia team worked on Sakura Wars 3 and elements from SW influenced Skies of Arcadia and nowadays the Yakuza games and Valkyria Chronicles). The Sakura Wars games were very popular back on the Saturn and Dreamcast in Japan and were top sellers on the consoles, it's a big shame SEGA didnt much with it (Working Designs tried to bring over the games TWICE, both attempts were thwarted by SOA and SOJ, not to mention when Sony denied releasing Sakura Wars 1+2 because it was a "text novel") Who's your favourite girl in Sakura Wars 1? (Mine would be Sumire) For the next fan translation video, I highly recommend Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden) and the just translated Linda Cubed Again. Far East of Eden being the AAA RPG series on the PC Engine CD (which was conceived by the guy who created Sakura Wars!), whereas Linda Cubed Again is made by the one of the designers of Tengai Makyou, its a cult classic RPG with very shocking content (it was one of the only 18+ games when it was originally released on the PC Engine) And here's hoping we get to experience Konami kino when we get the other Tokimeki Memorial games translated! Have a nice day.
@@AvalancheReviews Oh yeah, the intro is iconic in of itself and you'll see it performed on Japanese music shows and even sport shows. You'll see it and Sakura Wars 3's opening being mentioned on JP boards talking about "Best openings in video games" The opening for Sakura Wars 3 itself was even rumoured to supposedly cost 300,000,000 yen to animate (which was later debunked though it was stated cost more to animate the cutscenes in the games cost more than typical). It was lovingly animated by Production I.G (known for GiTS of course) Kohran is a great choice! I always enjoyed playing Koi Koi even though most couldn't be bothered to learn the rules lol
NISA did more for Sakura Wars in West than Sega himself (they localized Sakura Wars 5: So Long My Love in 2010 on PS2, and also tryed publish Sakura Wars 1+2 on PSP, but as you mentioned Sony banned localization along with SMT Devil Summoner PSP).
I'm glad that E.X. Troopers (the Lost Planet spin-off) got a fan translation, since it was never officially released in English. It ended up being a surprisingly solid game, while tonally completely different from the main series.
Die Hard Arcade aka Dynamite Deka also lets you overfill your health and I agree it's a really cool mechanic that more beat-em-ups should take advantage of. The bosses can have multiple health bars, so why can't we?
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :( The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love. Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :( The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love. Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :( The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love. Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
@@AvalancheReviews I love the entire series, it took awhile with the combined work on XSEED and Geofront/NIS, but I think everything that's come out of the 'Legend of Heroes' series has now been localized. (Except for maybe the latest title and the first three, the first three being part of an entirely different world) Geofront is currently in the proces of translating the very first game too (original PC release).
Ayyy, awesome seeing David in the video, been watching him for such a long time now after searching for a playthrough of English translated SaGa 2 for the DS
It made me so happy listening to you talk about the Lunar games. Those PS1 games have meant a great deal to me growing up. And will always hold a special place in my heart. It was interesting learning about the increased difficulty of the first one.
One fan translation I have always been grateful for was the Valkyria Chronicles 3 fan translation. For me VC3 is one of if not the best VC game and it never came over to the US. Then those fine folks went and answered my prayers. I bought the japanese version of the game , ripped the iso, and patched it just so I could play it as legit as possible and it was well worth it.
I sure as hell wasn't expecting this video but I am incredibly glad you made it since this is a big part of why I love your channel. I'll be watching this one on the living room TV. Also I know you are joking but some of us actually rewatch and binge your videos just so you know.
I know you're humble and we're just making a joke. But I really do watch your videos multiple times. Often let them just run while I fall asleep. Specially your jrpg content. Great taste in games good sir. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the great video! Just wanted to make sure you are aware of the Tales of Destiny Directors Cut English patch by Life Bottle Productions. Just dipped my toes in recently, cool stuff.
What about Tengai Makyo? That is one of the most popular JRPGs that literally just recently got a translation. It was one of the first JRPGs with with voice acting. Great video and it was great to see a PC Engine game on the list.
My first experience with fan translations was playing the original fan translation of Final Fantasy V on real hardware in 1998 via a Super Wild Card. 😌👌 9:58 Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Guts' sword the _Dragon_ Slayer, not the _Demon_ Slayer? 🤔 16:20 As soon as he mentioned the magic system as the barrier to translation, I knew it was Rudra no Hihou. 😌 1:27:52 Heck yes, Wachenröder! 1:29:24 A very interesting twist on such a 'rescue' mechanic shows up in the really outstanding PC roguelike Heat Signature. When your player character is 'killed', you can then play as someone related to them whose goal is to find the previous character. Also, your missing character can randomly show up in rescue missions in games of people on your Steam friends list. (How cool is that?!) 😃
so they've finally finished that sakura wars translation project, huh? i was like in highschool when i was following this project closely then progress slowed down to a grinding halt and i just forgot about it, that was like 15 years ago... goddamn, i'm getting old, but i'm really looking forward to picking this one up
They now also finishing translation for Sakura Wars 2 (Saturn version) and started translate Sakura Wars 3 (Dreamcast version). So it is only matter of time, when allmain games will be avalaible in english (and also in french - SW3, spanish / portugal - SW1).
Nekketsu Oyako - Sega Saturn was one of the first japanese games i had for my Saturn. Never knew it was patched. I enjoyed the game while being oblivious to the story.
It's incredible that they're so many fan translations of every Japanese only video games that never gotten a Western release. Goes to show how much effort it takes just to localize these games.
1:03:00 I recommend the Deluxe edition box set of the manga as it's hard cover and each volume is the size of the size of a regular book. I wished Last Order received this treatment as I want it in hard cover too.
16:45 great magic system. No other system gives you access to powerful magic right from the beginning. A powerful single target fire mantra is giga-Ka-ig-god.
Loving this video so far mate. I may stick with this over the weekend rather than checking out what happened in your Silent Hill stream. I feel like I'm better off not knowing with that one.
@@AvalancheReviews as a former Sega CD owner I can tell you that all your beliefs are correct. I'm glad I had a few minutes between getting mega laid to watch up to this point and let you know.
I think the first fan translation I played was Seiken Densetsu 3. Mizzurna Falls (from what I know of it, Deadly Premonition/Twin Peaks for PS1) is something I plan on checking out.
I'm a big fan of SNES RPGs, and the Super Robot Wars series - without fan translations I would never have played the majority of my all-time favorite games! Fan translators are the unsung heroes of the gaming community! Doing God's work while staying relatively anonymous. A big thank you to all the people dedicated to bringing us games that were never released in English! ❤
Fun Fact - Sakura Wars 1 (and 2 if I remember it correctly) were localised exclusively in Russia by Akella. However, the localisation quality is so bad as if the publisher decided to use machine translation to speed up the release in Russia just to start selling ASAP. I laughed so hard at horribly translated text. Good thing a proper fan translation arrived at a certain point of waiting. Gonna try it out as soon as I can. P.S. can’t wait for the sequel’s fan translation already.
I have great deal of respect for fan translators. and not just for games. for anime and manga as well. they put far more effort in their translations than official ones.
Regarding what you say at the beginning.... yeah, Japan had a presence. For me though they were far from the dominant one. I recall having a PC as well as consoles growing up so I got to play a lot of American and European games as well. And simply put, I can't imagine living in a world where I never got to play Wizardry, Space Quest IV, Might and Magic, Warcraft II (one of my favorite games of all time), Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Myst, and this little thing you may have heard of called Doom. No comment on modern gaming though, I honestly kinda think both Japan and the west have gone downhill, and have gotten obnoxious for different reasons.
I'm kinda surprised Sega never localized the old Sakura Wars games cause as far as I know people do really like the latest one that came out on the PS4.
Even Working Design's President has said he regrets the Pay XP to Save in Eternal Blue. Sadly he's holding the games, and their correct font edition hostage in the US. When the Sega Mini 2 came out with the Lunar series on it in Japan, he offered to not only re-release Lunar and Lunar: Eternal Blue on the system, but with the correct font casing. They just had to pay him enough. NGL I imported the Japanese Sega Saturn Lunar: Silver Star Story back in the day. I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but was able to play through the entire game without an issue due to playing the original (US) Sega CD version. When I got the PS1 Working Designs version, I just felt bored playing through it though... as much as I love the game and series. (And it IS one of my favs, and the reason I love RPGs so much. Why couldn't we get Lunar: Magic Guild in the us!)
I love your RPG videos. I just have to say, you really should read the Battle Angel Alita manga. It’s surprisingly short and goes by like a flash. It’s really good too. I’ll keep watching your videos for the foreseeable future!
It's unbelievable how many Japanese games there are, it's like the ocean where majority of it is unknown but to us westerners. I wish I could pay these translators loads of money to work on specific games and speed up the work process but I understand it's not exactly legal to make profit from this.
The Sailor Scouts are in middle school. The core cast is 14 at the start and 15 at the end. Berserk´s high mark is also when Guts gets his party, so the 20s when it comes to volumes.
I don't know if you like "Tales of" game, but Life Bottle Production (Tales of fan group) did a lot of work recently. Tales of Destiny DC English Patch is available. Also now they are working on Rebirth and a lot of other project (HD version of game like Abyss and Innoncence R). 😁
I keep hearing about the Working Designs reworks, but honestly never felt the need to try any of them... I do love me some Popful Mail though, might try it with that one and see how I like them.
"I also think the switch is a piece of shit" Me: looks up confused because he's playing persona 3 on his switch while testing out his neat snes styled nitro grip 🎮
now I wish a bunch few of the groups would get down and maybe work on the Sword World RPG series of games. (Which cover the semi-titular "Sword World" line, that consists of primarily two games for SFC, one for PC98), along with a bunch of the Record of Lodoss War games that is set in the same world. (also anything relating to Crystania) From what I know, only one of these games was fan translated. the two officially translated ones being Advent of Cardice for Dreamcast and Deedlit in the Wonder Labyrinth. Not actually counting "Sword World 2.0 Game Book DS" or "Tanodan", or even the equally obscure "Go! Adventurer" which are more VNs then anything.
from this list, Sakura Wars(in SRW 30) and Magic Knight Rayearth(in SRW T and SRW 30) has appeared in Super Robot Wars games b4. and Sakura Wars has also appeared in Project X Zone. The fully translated SRW W that came out 1(maybe 2?) years ago, man, watching that game playthru on YT was long man.
25:27 - Not just "very cool", those are HOMARE DOU'S level cool! ^, ^ 1:24:32 - Even though it's clearly a Shining Force rip-off, it looks cool enough) All in all, thanks for the video! Now I'm pretty much hyped for the sequel 'cause of some games showed up in the intro (like the Cardcaptor Sakura one, the Puyo Puyo spin-off or that one where dude said that guns are useless against ghosts, duh, hehe). Keep up the good work!^^
I actually found a physical copy of the Berserk Dreamcast game in a second hand shop, and it was in good condition. The only reason i didnt buy it was the $200 price tag lol
i can never forget the experience of playing star ocean 1 or tales of phantasia on the snes(and the tales of phantasia on the psx, which is my favorite tales game)
a series about fan translations? alright Jared I'll wait for my call : p. But oh man David covered treasure of the rudras already. that was my ace in the hole haha. I guess I'll have to recommend marvelous another treasure island then.
This is such a complicated issue... The owners of the IP don't do anything with them and let them be forgotten with the time and at the same time some people want to translate these games but this takes a lot of time and some are never completed
As someone who has played both Popful Mail it it's original American release and the UnWorking Designs version, it's difficult to overestimate how much better the UnWorking Designs version is. Popful Mail is easily one of the best games of the generation, but Working Designs version makes it far more challenging than what it should be to the point where it can just be flatout unfun.
Oh man, I thought I wouldn’t be familiar with most of the PS1 English translations you’ve brought here beyond Code Veronica, but I was wrong. I didn’t know there was a PS1 game of Gunnm? I’d love to play that in my channel someday. I also never knew of the original manga of Gunnm until the live-action adaptation of James Cameron brought me to that. However, I did remember in my childhood days that I did see a title called Gunnm and Gally herself with the cyborg arms. I really have a deep fascination of automatons and robots until now, but not to the point of obsession and lunacy. Maybe the Gunnm OVA was not popular in our country because I haven’t seen it air here, but there were some dubbed shows of almost the same genre that did, like Angelic Layer and Code Geass, the last probably reignited my love for mecha anime nowadays like 86 and currently I’m watching Metallic Rouge. I just learned right now that this game actually inspired Yukito Kishiro to continue the story of Gunnm through Last Order and Mars Chronicle, and man, I’d love an anime adaptation for the entire series if only it is possible. Not yet done reading the manga, but the art is really amazing and the lore is deeper than I thought. Looking at random pages but not spoiling myself, I’m already thinking the world-building in this series is ever-growing and really interesting, given how it is still ongoing after so long. So playing this game is definitely one of my future gameplay goals now😂❤ I might belong in this niche category you mentioned.
Records of the Lodoss War games, Tensei no Uta, SD Knight Gundam Monogatari 2, the Momotaro Densetsu series, Tengai Makyo 2, Dragon Knight series, Sword World, Riglord Saga, Neorude, Twinbee RPG, and Slayers 2. And why not throw in Spectral Towers just for how bad it is. Also a bunch of PC-98 games, but I am not to familiar with that library
Seeing Working Designs pop up in the comments, I should mention a somewhat older Saturn fan translation - Dragon Force II. With multiple perspectives on the story and a style of gameplay rarely seen, it's quite a treat. The Verve team was also able to pull it off at a time when Saturn emulation was not exactly reliable. It does have voice acting, but Verve did not dub that in any way. (:
I'm still baffled that original Sakura Wars game never get an international release but it sequel series does Thank god for the fan translation at least
They tryed release games from this series multiple times: - Sakura Wars 1&2 Dreamcast ports (by Working Design) - rejected by Sega - Sakura Wars PS2 Remake (by Working Design) - rejected by Sega - Sakura Wars 1&2 PSP (by NISA) - rejected by Sony NISA finaly got green light from Sega & Sony to release Sakura Wars 5: So Long My Love in West, but game was released 4-5 years to late, on dead platform in 2010 (PS2). NISA also ported game on Wii, but still game sold not that good like NISA wanted.
The Yakuza spinoff game on PSP, Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen, has a great fan translation and AFAIK the first game is currently being translated as well.
Thanks for popping in guys! Make sure to leave any fan translation recommendations here in the comments. You should also check out David's channel where he talks about kickass RPGs (www.youtube.com/@davidvinc). I know I've been absent for a while, but I appreciate you guys being patient with me while i get things sorted. Things are back in production now, and we've got some awesome stuff in the works. So keep your eyes peeled!
just wanna hijack this and tell you that persona 2 eternal punishment (part 2 ) also had a psp translation in recent years, please notify the peoples c:
Gio Gio's Bizarre Adventure (JoJo part 5) - PS2
Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza: Black Panther) (Like A Dragon: Black Panther) - PSP
Kurohyo: Ryu ga Gotoku 2 (Yakuza: Black Panther 2) (Like A Dragon: Black Panther 2) - PSP
holy shit those yakuza games flew straight under my radar, my man@@scottfisher1311
Im never going anywhere when you hit us with content like this❤
The switch is a hand held PS3. It dunks on the psp, vita, and gba, even if you grade them on a curve based on what they offered in their respective times
I have always been grateful to the people who go to the effort to translate this stuff. Most of the anime I watched as a teen were only possible thanks to fan translations. They were often better than the official translations that came later as they provided a lot of helpful notes on culture or jokes that I wouldn't have understood without them. The recent Geofront fan translation was how I got to play Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Had to go to the trouble of buying the games off some random Chinese website and then apply the patch, but it was worth the effort. It was honestly incredible how good the translation was. All of the dialogue was understandable and flowed well. They did such a good job that they got hired to do the translation for the game's official release to the west.
Absolutely. It's a really thankless job, but it does so much good!
@@AvalancheReviewsand some of the entitlement(some douchebags comment,like asking them to translate them faster for them lol) I've seen from other people in the community is bit demotivating despite some of us in the translation community is trying the best to translate them
@zero tester, Or they'll get mad and try to ruin a person's reputation and sicc their followers on a person who was passionate enough to do a translation on their own valuable time, all because they used a single, accurate word that they consider "offensive". Sick, disgusting individuals, these people..
Hey man, thanks so much for having me on! I love the fan translation scene and I could gush about older Japanese only games for days! So thanks again for letting me spread the love for Treasure of the Rudras! 🎉🎉🎉
My pleasure!!! It's was great having you on.
Such a pleasant surprise seeing u here David!! Have had rudras sitting on my hard drive for a couple months now, will probably get to it once I’m done w Lunar 🎉
Without fan translations us westerners would’ve missed out on so many amazing games. My favorite has always been Fire emblem genealogy of the holy war, which honestly has one of the best stories of any super famicom game.
Glad to see a space on youtube celebrating fan translations. They are extremely important and more jrpg youtubers should talk about them
Special shoutout to K4L team for translating both Kurohyou games for the PSP
What do you mean they're translated? I've been playing them in japanese like a moron
@@Xx1devilgod1xX you can find patched roms easily especially on cdromance
Honestly one of the greatest things to happen was the Fate Extra CCC fan translation being done
Exactly. Hyped for the Tsukihime remake this year too.
What is CCC?
@@grayfilsylvestre3423 a sequel/alternate timeline to Fate Extra
I've been enjoying fan translations for the past 20 years but my God, things are moving at the speed of light now. Props to the incredible people who have the drive to bring us translations and mods/hacks.
The world of fan translations
I do love to see what we can get our hands on that we missed over the years and it's always more titles to add to the list
One of the reasons I like making videos like this is it helps me cross a bunch of items off my own list like that.
@@AvalancheReviews a great way to get fans interested and cross off items on your back log lol
Hearing the boat song from Lunar Silver Star Story Complete in this video was a surprise and almost got me a little misty-eyed. Reminded me of when I was a teenager.
When I hear that song I can tell you the exact clothes I was wearing when I first heard it!!!!
@@AvalancheReviews Yeah? What were they?
Ar Tonelico 2 Relocalization Project deserves a spot in this series. Fans did an immense work of not only making a better translation, but straight up fixing a ton of the game and making it actually completable. It's discord would have more information about it, but you can see the list of changes via wayback machine.
Thanks for these man! I always discover new games to play! Keep it up man! Awesome job!
1:29:35 when you describing about frequent missed attacks in Feda. It's pretty much the whole Front Mission series. In 15 minutes of gameplay, the word "miss" popping up about 12.000 times.
Hey Davidvinc! 😂
That guys channel is great, glad ya got him on 😮
He's a true badass
I am so very glad to have you mention Sakura Wars! I've managed to play all the mainline games by utilising the over decade old translation guides (before the release of fan translation of Sakura Wars). I hope you get around to playing Sakura Wars 2 and 3, they're some of my favourite games of all time (The Skies of Arcadia team worked on Sakura Wars 3 and elements from SW influenced Skies of Arcadia and nowadays the Yakuza games and Valkyria Chronicles). The Sakura Wars games were very popular back on the Saturn and Dreamcast in Japan and were top sellers on the consoles, it's a big shame SEGA didnt much with it (Working Designs tried to bring over the games TWICE, both attempts were thwarted by SOA and SOJ, not to mention when Sony denied releasing Sakura Wars 1+2 because it was a "text novel")
Who's your favourite girl in Sakura Wars 1? (Mine would be Sumire)
For the next fan translation video, I highly recommend Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden) and the just translated Linda Cubed Again. Far East of Eden being the AAA RPG series on the PC Engine CD (which was conceived by the guy who created Sakura Wars!), whereas Linda Cubed Again is made by the one of the designers of Tengai Makyou, its a cult classic RPG with very shocking content (it was one of the only 18+ games when it was originally released on the PC Engine)
And here's hoping we get to experience Konami kino when we get the other Tokimeki Memorial games translated!
Have a nice day.
I never really thought I'd enjoy Sakura Wars, but I'm a big fan now. That intro song is iconic. I'd say Kohran Li is my favorite.
@@AvalancheReviews Oh yeah, the intro is iconic in of itself and you'll see it performed on Japanese music shows and even sport shows. You'll see it and Sakura Wars 3's opening being mentioned on JP boards talking about "Best openings in video games"
The opening for Sakura Wars 3 itself was even rumoured to supposedly cost 300,000,000 yen to animate (which was later debunked though it was stated cost more to animate the cutscenes in the games cost more than typical). It was lovingly animated by Production I.G (known for GiTS of course)
Kohran is a great choice! I always enjoyed playing Koi Koi even though most couldn't be bothered to learn the rules lol
NISA did more for Sakura Wars in West than Sega himself (they localized Sakura Wars 5: So Long My Love in 2010 on PS2, and also tryed publish Sakura Wars 1+2 on PSP, but as you mentioned Sony banned localization along with SMT Devil Summoner PSP).
I'm glad that E.X. Troopers (the Lost Planet spin-off) got a fan translation, since it was never officially released in English. It ended up being a surprisingly solid game, while tonally completely different from the main series.
That description of Sakura Wars will forever live rent free in my head because it just makes so much sense to me.
That Internal Bleeding shirt at 8:55 is amazing. Easily the best Slam band
I remember having bought the soundtrack CDs of Feda. It has one of the best osts in the SNES library.
Die Hard Arcade aka Dynamite Deka also lets you overfill your health and I agree it's a really cool mechanic that more beat-em-ups should take advantage of. The bosses can have multiple health bars, so why can't we?
Give a honourable mention to Racing Lagoon fan translation too!
I've been wanting to play that one for a long time. It's on the list for sure.
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :(
The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love.
Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :(
The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love.
Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
Put like 200 hours into it. Great game I just wish the chill first chapters lasted longer. I liked the viibe of early competitive races more than later chapters, and the aesthetic takes a hit when the music gets more ominous later on.. wish thr composer of the over world tracks did the race music too. Inconsistency in music wmsy be tge worst part. Makoto :(
The extra cut scene a end. Damn so much to love.
Would be nice if there was more info online in our language.
Geofront's work on Trails of Zero and Trails of Azure! I can't thank them enough to do the bulk of the work and working with NIS to bring it to Steam.
That's so fucking cool!!!
@@AvalancheReviews I love the entire series, it took awhile with the combined work on XSEED and Geofront/NIS, but I think everything that's come out of the 'Legend of Heroes' series has now been localized. (Except for maybe the latest title and the first three, the first three being part of an entirely different world)
Geofront is currently in the proces of translating the very first game too (original PC release).
Ayyy, awesome seeing David in the video, been watching him for such a long time now after searching for a playthrough of English translated SaGa 2 for the DS
Energy breaker on snes is missing in this video. The translation took 12 years and they deserve credit for this outstanding work
Great video! Really informative and super interesting!
Thank you very much!
It made me so happy listening to you talk about the Lunar games. Those PS1 games have meant a great deal to me growing up. And will always hold a special place in my heart. It was interesting learning about the increased difficulty of the first one.
Honestly, a number of Working Designs' versions probably would be better remembered as "hard mode" or "challenge mode" versions of their games.
I'd like to think this is righting historical wrongs and fighting against an Evil Empire of "Localizations"
Ha! That's a valid take.
@@AvalancheReviews Which reminds me, did you ever check the Bulk Slash fan translation AND English fan dub?
Perhaps we can call this phenomenon as “The Culting”? :>
One fan translation I have always been grateful for was the Valkyria Chronicles 3 fan translation. For me VC3 is one of if not the best VC game and it never came over to the US. Then those fine folks went and answered my prayers. I bought the japanese version of the game , ripped the iso, and patched it just so I could play it as legit as possible and it was well worth it.
I sure as hell wasn't expecting this video but I am incredibly glad you made it since this is a big part of why I love your channel. I'll be watching this one on the living room TV. Also I know you are joking but some of us actually rewatch and binge your videos just so you know.
I appreciate the hell out of every binge homie!
There's also Doctor Hauer (3DO) - JP to EN translation. Survival horror/adventure, Pre-RE game even have boulder trap, paintings room puzzle
I kind of HAVE to cover that one. It's too perfect
I know you're humble and we're just making a joke. But I really do watch your videos multiple times. Often let them just run while I fall asleep. Specially your jrpg content. Great taste in games good sir. Keep up the great work.
Forgot about a lot of these games and discovered so many more! Thanks AR~
Thanks for the great video! Just wanted to make sure you are aware of the Tales of Destiny Directors Cut English patch by Life Bottle Productions. Just dipped my toes in recently, cool stuff.
What about Tengai Makyo? That is one of the most popular JRPGs that literally just recently got a translation. It was one of the first JRPGs with with voice acting. Great video and it was great to see a PC Engine game on the list.
It was first RPG released on CD-ROM (in 1989).
great idea for a video
Let's hope everyone agrees. Because I've got like another 3 video's worth of translations already captured.
Loved the video! Japan is THE only source of retro console games I enjoy. But the US's best retro games were on DOS, and they're amazing.
"I was somehow able to convince a woman to marry me."
*Speech 100*
He must've also gotten the Lady Killer perk.
As a huge fan of Hellnight, I long for the day someone makes a translation patch for deSPIRIA on Dreamcast. Probably never.
My first experience with fan translations was playing the original fan translation of Final Fantasy V on real hardware in 1998 via a Super Wild Card. 😌👌
9:58 Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Guts' sword the _Dragon_ Slayer, not the _Demon_ Slayer? 🤔
16:20 As soon as he mentioned the magic system as the barrier to translation, I knew it was Rudra no Hihou. 😌
1:27:52 Heck yes, Wachenröder!
1:29:24 A very interesting twist on such a 'rescue' mechanic shows up in the really outstanding PC roguelike Heat Signature. When your player character is 'killed', you can then play as someone related to them whose goal is to find the previous character. Also, your missing character can randomly show up in rescue missions in games of people on your Steam friends list. (How cool is that?!) 😃
Did I say Demon Slayer?? Damn, my bad. Now I feel like a dummy.
so they've finally finished that sakura wars translation project, huh? i was like in highschool when i was following this project closely then progress slowed down to a grinding halt and i just forgot about it, that was like 15 years ago... goddamn, i'm getting old, but i'm really looking forward to picking this one up
They now also finishing translation for Sakura Wars 2 (Saturn version) and started translate Sakura Wars 3 (Dreamcast version). So it is only matter of time, when allmain games will be avalaible in english (and also in french - SW3, spanish / portugal - SW1).
Nekketsu Oyako - Sega Saturn was one of the first japanese games i had for my Saturn. Never knew it was patched. I enjoyed the game while being oblivious to the story.
It's incredible that they're so many fan translations of every Japanese only video games that never gotten a Western release. Goes to show how much effort it takes just to localize these games.
1:03:00 I recommend the Deluxe edition box set of the manga as it's hard cover and each volume is the size of the size of a regular book. I wished Last Order received this treatment as I want it in hard cover too.
Shout out Phantasy Star Online Infinity 2 was my GameCube childhood in handheld given to me 11 years after graduation but such a treat 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I am so excited to play the ones I don't know about. These translators are doing so much for game history and preservation!
16:45 great magic system. No other system gives you access to powerful magic right from the beginning. A powerful single target fire mantra is giga-Ka-ig-god.
Loving this video so far mate. I may stick with this over the weekend rather than checking out what happened in your Silent Hill stream. I feel like I'm better off not knowing with that one.
You made the right choice dawg
@@AvalancheReviews as a former Sega CD owner I can tell you that all your beliefs are correct. I'm glad I had a few minutes between getting mega laid to watch up to this point and let you know.
I think the first fan translation I played was Seiken Densetsu 3.
Mizzurna Falls (from what I know of it, Deadly Premonition/Twin Peaks for PS1) is something I plan on checking out.
God just thinking about that Seiken Densetsu 3 translation, brings back memories of downloading a million arcade and snes roms on the family computer.
Napple Tale!! I am so glad that the game with the greatest OST ever is playable in English now!!
That's definitely on the list
Ace combat 3. The japanese version is great and it was translated to English and Spanish by fans.
I LOVE Lunar Silver Star Story Complete! I have so many memories of watching my older cousin play it!
I'm a big fan of SNES RPGs, and the Super Robot Wars series - without fan translations I would never have played the majority of my all-time favorite games! Fan translators are the unsung heroes of the gaming community! Doing God's work while staying relatively anonymous. A big thank you to all the people dedicated to bringing us games that were never released in English! ❤
Fun Fact - Sakura Wars 1 (and 2 if I remember it correctly) were localised exclusively in Russia by Akella. However, the localisation quality is so bad as if the publisher decided to use machine translation to speed up the release in Russia just to start selling ASAP. I laughed so hard at horribly translated text.
Good thing a proper fan translation arrived at a certain point of waiting. Gonna try it out as soon as I can.
P.S. can’t wait for the sequel’s fan translation already.
I have great deal of respect for fan translators. and not just for games. for anime and manga as well. they put far more effort in their translations than official ones.
I KNEW David was going to say Treasure of thr Rudras. I said it aloud.
Regarding what you say at the beginning.... yeah, Japan had a presence. For me though they were far from the dominant one. I recall having a PC as well as consoles growing up so I got to play a lot of American and European games as well.
And simply put, I can't imagine living in a world where I never got to play Wizardry, Space Quest IV, Might and Magic, Warcraft II (one of my favorite games of all time), Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Myst, and this little thing you may have heard of called Doom.
No comment on modern gaming though, I honestly kinda think both Japan and the west have gone downhill, and have gotten obnoxious for different reasons.
I'm kinda surprised Sega never localized the old Sakura Wars games cause as far as I know people do really like the latest one that came out on the PS4.
Appreciate the round up, thanks! The takeaway here though is clearly “industrial-strength lubricant” 😂
I would like to confirm that is the intended takeaway.
I wasn't prepared to see a guy on roids with the voice of a children's cartoon character...
Even Working Design's President has said he regrets the Pay XP to Save in Eternal Blue.
Sadly he's holding the games, and their correct font edition hostage in the US.
When the Sega Mini 2 came out with the Lunar series on it in Japan, he offered to not only re-release Lunar and Lunar: Eternal Blue on the system, but with the correct font casing. They just had to pay him enough.
NGL I imported the Japanese Sega Saturn Lunar: Silver Star Story back in the day.
I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but was able to play through the entire game without an issue due to playing the original (US) Sega CD version.
When I got the PS1 Working Designs version, I just felt bored playing through it though... as much as I love the game and series.
(And it IS one of my favs, and the reason I love RPGs so much. Why couldn't we get Lunar: Magic Guild in the us!)
I love your RPG videos. I just have to say, you really should read the Battle Angel Alita manga. It’s surprisingly short and goes by like a flash. It’s really good too. I’ll keep watching your videos for the foreseeable future!
It's unbelievable how many Japanese games there are, it's like the ocean where majority of it is unknown but to us westerners. I wish I could pay these translators loads of money to work on specific games and speed up the work process but I understand it's not exactly legal to make profit from this.
A lot of translators have started making patreons so people can show appreciation.
The Sailor Scouts are in middle school. The core cast is 14 at the start and 15 at the end. Berserk´s high mark is also when Guts gets his party, so the 20s when it comes to volumes.
Lemme guess, Western Localizers aged to them.
I don't know if you like "Tales of" game, but Life Bottle Production (Tales of fan group) did a lot of work recently. Tales of Destiny DC English Patch is available. Also now they are working on Rebirth and a lot of other project (HD version of game like Abyss and Innoncence R). 😁
That ToD DC translation has had my eye for a while now. I've wanted to play that game for so damn long now!!!
@@AvalancheReviews it's really good. 😁
Great video! Definitely subbed!! I’m curious what game is at 1:51 and at 2:22. Thanks!!!
I keep hearing about the Working Designs reworks, but honestly never felt the need to try any of them... I do love me some Popful Mail though, might try it with that one and see how I like them.
I had this video as background sound, until you made me start singing "Teikokukagekidannnnnnnnn" (27:03)
The link to your wife's channel in the description gives a 404 error. I did find it by manually searching PB and Jo 👌🏻
"I also think the switch is a piece of shit"
Me: looks up confused because he's playing persona 3 on his switch while testing out his neat snes styled nitro grip 🎮
Ikr
Add to list: Tengai Makyou Ziria (PC Engine) and Linda 3 Again (PSX version) also got fan translation patch few months ago.
now I wish a bunch few of the groups would get down and maybe work on the Sword World RPG series of games. (Which cover the semi-titular "Sword World" line, that consists of primarily two games for SFC, one for PC98), along with a bunch of the Record of Lodoss War games that is set in the same world. (also anything relating to Crystania) From what I know, only one of these games was fan translated. the two officially translated ones being Advent of Cardice for Dreamcast and Deedlit in the Wonder Labyrinth.
Not actually counting "Sword World 2.0 Game Book DS" or "Tanodan", or even the equally obscure "Go! Adventurer" which are more VNs then anything.
DAVID! HELL YEAH! The most infectious enthusiasm on TH-cam!
from this list, Sakura Wars(in SRW 30) and Magic Knight Rayearth(in SRW T and SRW 30) has appeared in Super Robot Wars games b4.
and Sakura Wars has also appeared in Project X Zone.
The fully translated SRW W that came out 1(maybe 2?) years ago, man, watching that game playthru on YT was long man.
Started video. On alert watching for: Cotton, Cotton 2, and Rainbow Cotton
25:27 - Not just "very cool", those are HOMARE DOU'S level cool! ^, ^
1:24:32 - Even though it's clearly a Shining Force rip-off, it looks cool enough)
All in all, thanks for the video! Now I'm pretty much hyped for the sequel 'cause of some games showed up in the intro (like the Cardcaptor Sakura one, the Puyo Puyo spin-off or that one where dude said that guns are useless against ghosts, duh, hehe).
Keep up the good work!^^
I actually found a physical copy of the Berserk Dreamcast game in a second hand shop, and it was in good condition. The only reason i didnt buy it was the $200 price tag lol
i can never forget the experience of playing star ocean 1 or tales of phantasia on the snes(and the tales of phantasia on the psx, which is my favorite tales game)
a series about fan translations? alright Jared I'll wait for my call : p. But oh man David covered treasure of the rudras already. that was my ace in the hole haha. I guess I'll have to recommend marvelous another treasure island then.
oh man I remember playing that sailor moon game all the way back, thanks jared
This is such a complicated issue... The owners of the IP don't do anything with them and let them be forgotten with the time and at the same time some people want to translate these games but this takes a lot of time and some are never completed
As someone who has played both Popful Mail it it's original American release and the UnWorking Designs version, it's difficult to overestimate how much better the UnWorking Designs version is. Popful Mail is easily one of the best games of the generation, but Working Designs version makes it far more challenging than what it should be to the point where it can just be flatout unfun.
man i want an english remaster of berserk millennium falcon arc.
Oh man, I thought I wouldn’t be familiar with most of the PS1 English translations you’ve brought here beyond Code Veronica, but I was wrong. I didn’t know there was a PS1 game of Gunnm? I’d love to play that in my channel someday.
I also never knew of the original manga of Gunnm until the live-action adaptation of James Cameron brought me to that. However, I did remember in my childhood days that I did see a title called Gunnm and Gally herself with the cyborg arms. I really have a deep fascination of automatons and robots until now, but not to the point of obsession and lunacy. Maybe the Gunnm OVA was not popular in our country because I haven’t seen it air here, but there were some dubbed shows of almost the same genre that did, like Angelic Layer and Code Geass, the last probably reignited my love for mecha anime nowadays like 86 and currently I’m watching Metallic Rouge.
I just learned right now that this game actually inspired Yukito Kishiro to continue the story of Gunnm through Last Order and Mars Chronicle, and man, I’d love an anime adaptation for the entire series if only it is possible. Not yet done reading the manga, but the art is really amazing and the lore is deeper than I thought. Looking at random pages but not spoiling myself, I’m already thinking the world-building in this series is ever-growing and really interesting, given how it is still ongoing after so long. So playing this game is definitely one of my future gameplay goals now😂❤
I might belong in this niche category you mentioned.
We desire Sakura Wars retrospective now.
Next time can you do a list about Japanese games You want to have an English patch for?
Records of the Lodoss War games, Tensei no Uta, SD Knight Gundam Monogatari 2, the Momotaro Densetsu series, Tengai Makyo 2, Dragon Knight series, Sword World, Riglord Saga, Neorude, Twinbee RPG, and Slayers 2. And why not throw in Spectral Towers just for how bad it is.
Also a bunch of PC-98 games, but I am not to familiar with that library
Battle Angel Alita is a small part of a larger story? News to me.
Good to see it wasn't just me.
didnt lunar SSS have the bosses HP and attack scale with the main character? or am i miss remembering?
Next time check out Planet Laika and Shadow Tower Abyss!
I have both of them loaded up and ready to go. They'll show up in one of these videos for sure.
Seeing Working Designs pop up in the comments, I should mention a somewhat older Saturn fan translation - Dragon Force II. With multiple perspectives on the story and a style of gameplay rarely seen, it's quite a treat. The Verve team was also able to pull it off at a time when Saturn emulation was not exactly reliable.
It does have voice acting, but Verve did not dub that in any way. (:
Here's me hoping deSPIRIA ever gets a fan translation.
I'm still baffled that original Sakura Wars game never get an international release but it sequel series does
Thank god for the fan translation at least
They tryed release games from this series multiple times:
- Sakura Wars 1&2 Dreamcast ports (by Working Design) - rejected by Sega
- Sakura Wars PS2 Remake (by Working Design) - rejected by Sega
- Sakura Wars 1&2 PSP (by NISA) - rejected by Sony
NISA finaly got green light from Sega & Sony to release Sakura Wars 5: So Long My Love in West, but game was released 4-5 years to late, on dead platform in 2010 (PS2). NISA also ported game on Wii, but still game sold not that good like NISA wanted.
The Yakuza spinoff game on PSP, Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen, has a great fan translation and AFAIK the first game is currently being translated as well.
I've wanted to play that game for a while! Consider it on the list!
Amazing showcase.
I'll need to try Nekketsu Oyako
It's super fun!
Another great video!
Sakura Wars is a blast! SW2 is my favorite, but they're all good.
Btw PC versions SW1 and 2 were officially released in Russian as well.
My fav is SW3. Erica is too damn funny.
Death Crimson's 2 ENG on Dreamcast is coming out any day now. Puro kusoge
nice bro i need more like this
Fire Emblem is super fun, so I think I should give Sakura Wars a try.
Monster Hunter DOS ps2 is fully translated too by the way. Before it was just quests, but now all dialogue is in english :)