I can read that!

Tecmo and Grasshopper Manufacture's scare-fest Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse still isn't officially coming out in the West; Nintendo, holder of the title's publishing rights in North America, still doesn't want to bother, relegating it to the same territorial fate as Disaster: Day of Crisis and Captain Rainbow.

To keep non-Japanese-speaking gamers hopes and dreams from staying completely crushed, a group of fans have taken it upon themselves to translate the game into English. And wouldn't you know it if progress is moving along swimmingly.

As announced on the (un)official translation Web site (via Infendo), the project is floating around the 93% completion mark. Huzzah!

It's an interesting patch, too, and one that doesn't seem to need the Homebrew Channel. Instead of hacking and burning the .ISO onto a new disc, the patch is intended for use with an original Japanese retail copy of the game and will be applied by being read off an SD card on-the-fly. The patchers are taking this route to encourage legal purchase of the game, develop a re-useable patching system and also to allow them to override any file on the disc: textures, sound, even gameplay mods. Despite region locks and all that jazz, the goal is to have the patch able to work on any Wii — yes, even non-Japanese ones.

If they get around to it, the end result might even include bonus features, with the Web site naming soundtracks, a walkthrough, maps, videos and fan art as potential extras.

Check out some translated gameplay video below, although "dark and creepy" don't really need a patch to come across.

Direct link

[source infendo.com]