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Mario isn't just a plumber, he is a man of many talents, including home wrecking. The literal kind, not the 'steal your girlfriend' kind that remains a Bowser exclusive gig. During his brief demolition stint at Wrecking Crew not only did he use his magic hammer to bring the house down, he also met a new nemesis: Foreman Spike.

If you live outside of Japan you might believe that Mario's time with his magic hammer was a one off affair, but the series actually gained a proper 16-bit sequel in 1998. At first sold at Nintendo's kiosks where you could use a blank, re-writable Super Famicom cartridge to take the games home, Wrecking Crew '98 eventually had a full standalone proper cartridge release when everyone already had their minds set on the Nintendo 64. As such, it really never had any chance to be released outside of Japan; the sun had already set a couple of years before on the mighty Super Nintendo.

Wrecking Crew '98 is actually a 2-in-1 affair: It includes the original 100 level demolition puzzle adventure of the original Famicom Wrecking Crew along with the brand new 16-bit sequel. More than just an upgraded remake the game feels more like Puzzle Bobble with a platforming twist. The Story mode sees Mario reacquainted with his trusty Magic Hammer and take on Bowser's minions (and even Foreman Spike!), unlocking them as playable characters in the game's Versus mode. It is a solid and polished affair as one might expect from Nintendo handling SNES hardware at such a late date, and presentation was right up there with the finest efforts: cut-scenes with text heavy narratives played out before and after each round, something that was lost to Westerners... until now.

ShadowOne333 and his team have made an impressive collective effort to translate every single bit of Japanese text in the game, releasing a patch that will make the game far more appetizing to English fluent audiences. You can sample the changes in the following gameplay video.

Like previous fan translation patches, if you own the original Super Famicom cartridge you can readily use the patch with your RetroN 5 or Retro Freak clone consoles and experience one of the very last untranslated Super Mario games still left in relative obscurity.

Bring the hammer down in the comments section below if you completed all 100 levels of the original Wrecking Crew.

[source romhacking.net]