When you say Westone, you think Wonder Boy. The recently-defunct Japanese studio created a series of amazing action-RPG titles for Sega which have since become legendary slices of retro gaming, but outside of that particular franchise the company's work is somewhat less well known - at least in the West.
Thankfully, due to the hard work of fans, English-speaking gamers can now become acquainted with one of the firm's most unusual titles. The 1996 Super Famicom RPG Dark Half - which was published by Enix - never got a release outside of Japan, and ranks as one of the most unique games to be produced by Westone. You can read a detailed description here, but in short, you get to play as both the hero and the villain, and the connection between these two characters offers up some innovative gameplay mechanics. It's also one of the most mature and dark games to be made by Westone.
Translation group AGTP has recently released an English patch for the game, finally making it fully playable for those who can't read Japanese. You can view the game in action below - as well as listen to its amazing soundtrack.
Thanks to Gonçalo Lopes for the tip!
Comments 53
All those people who play games illegally will sure find that interesting...
@Tempaura Do you know of a legal way to play this title in English, then?
If a game isn't copyrighted outside of Japan, then I don't believe it is illegal. Basically if a company wasn't going to release a game outside of their home country to begin with, do you think they are going to care if folks translate it and make it available to other countries and other languages? Especially 20 year old games?
I'm freakin' loving this game. The whole duality aspect is extremely well done and Gideon Zhi from AGTP has warned me that in order to achieve the best possible ending, you have to be really bad with the bad guy so in the end the good guy can win. I'm gonna save this game for Summer vacation since I am still enjoying "Super Shell Monsters Story".
@Tempaura I would have bought this game and many others that had come out in Japan for the Super Famicom only if there was a legal way to purchase them in English. Thanks to impossible to navigate copyright issues, there is no way any of these games will ever make it to the Virtual Console either. Sadly I am unable at this time to learn Japanese. And on a more personal opinion... isn't a bigger crime to let such masterpieces be lost to the immense potential of the western audience? My life would surely be poorer had I not played and understood "Seiken Desentsu 3".
@Damo You could simply learn some Japanese if you are really interested in that kind of games... that's what I did.
Anyway, this is not legal and could actually reduce the chances of a proper localization.
@Tempaura There is zero chance of this game ever being localised. I'm as much against piracy as the next man, but your negatively in this case is totally unfounded. We should be grateful that an English version of this game now exists.
Some people would say it's not piracy if one owns the Japanese game, but I don't think one should buy a Japanese game if one intends to play it in English.
At first, the visuals kinda irritated me, but I gotta admit, this kind of resource management (one resource for everything) is mighty interesting!
@Tempaura Are you for real? People should "simply" learn Japanese to play 20 year old games that are not and will never be localized?
Looks interesting. I'll have to check it out at some point.
@CaviarMeths
I prefer other people learn and I reap the benefits of their hard work
I agree, we aren't ever going to see a localisation, a pirate one is better than none.
Come on...I'm against piracy as much as the next guy, but I mean come on....can you legitimately re-read your comments and not realize you're being just a teensy weensy little bit extreme here?
@CaviarMeths Yeah I'd love to learn it myself, but come on that's easier said than done lol. I mean I know some people can pick up new languages more easily than others, but for most that's no small feat and requires quite a time investment.
@Damo I've heard that story for quite a few games that later DID get released eventually, but I guess you folks have already contacted the copyright holders or made a petition about it... Illegal is illegal, period.
I'm all for learning Japanese as it is a lovely language, however
A) this game is a SNES game and the company that made it went under so it is NEVER going to be localized.
B) even if you know Japanese the amount of time and money it would take to find and import this game (hope you have a working super famicon as well) would be nuts because again its a REALLY old game.
C) Also most people don't have the time to learn a language from scratch.
I'm not even going to get into the lack of a western copyright....
Anyway good for those that want to play it. I may try to find the JPN version.
@Damo It's entirely possible to patch a real life cartridge, so it's not really an issue as long as you only link to the patch and not a game. Though technically, the text within is protected by copyright lawsnas well, translated or not.
Japanese isn't like other languages... it's highly context dependent and the articles themselves often aren't even separated by spaces. It's probably the hardest language in the world to learn... being fluent in it takes 10 years or more of constant practice. Completely unreasonable to expect most people to learn it.
@Damo @Shiryu @Tempaura
As @Siskan pointed out, it's perfectly possible to play these translation patches without resorting to illegal emulation. If you have a Retron 5, for example, you can apply the patch to the legitimate cartridge, negating any need to pirate the ROM. I am very against playing video games illegally, and this method has let me play games like Mother 3, Seiken Densetsu 3, and Treasure Hunter G without feeling guilty.
@ParSnake Good point.
AGTP have given us translations of so many great and obscure games; Shin Megami Tensei (and II and if...), Metal Max, a pile of Super Robot Wars...
They are a god send.
@ParSnake But doing this STILL means it is not done without permission basically. After all the patch was hacked, therefore I personally would wait for the day it eventually re-releases. That is of course hoping.
I saw in looking over old Nintendo Powers that Enix had considered this for North America before they shut down.
Though from what I've heard of the theme, it sounds pretty unlikely NoA would've let it pass without major censorship.
@ParSnake
Retron5 is itself an emulator. There are device to allow you to get a ROM from a legitimate purchased copy for use on other "illegal" emulators. Can't say more I don't think. (it's been said Retron5 is actually more illegal because it used PC emulators without respecting their licensing terms, but that's a different topic.)
@Ryu_Niiyama Just because a game an older import doesn't mean it's expensive. Some JP games are actually much cheaper than their US counterparts. Dark Half is dirt cheap at japangamestock and ebay. It's also very easy to mod a US SNES for imports (just remove two tabs from the cart slot), so no need to buy a SFC. That said, I stick mostly to shmups, action games, pinball, etc since they don't require reading JP text to play.
I'm also excited to see a game that wouldn't get a translation otherwise get a fan translation.
This article has stirred keen discussion and debate.
@brianvgplayer Wait, it's sadly not that easy. You need some soldering to bypass the CIC chip because most of late generation cartridges have built in region lock outs that prevent them from running and instead displays a message mentioned the cart is to be used in another regions. "Dark Half" was released in 1996, so I am unsure it would work without a bypass or at least a bridge adapter (my weapon of choice is my Action Replay Mark 3 cart).
That's interesting that the Retron5 allows you to patch games with translation patches. I have a ton of SFC games I'd love to patch into English (Seisen no Keifu and Live-A-Live especially). Is this really true? I knew the Retron 5 had some neat patching tools but that was something I was totally unaware of.
Cool! I like that NL is giving some news time to some of the latest fan translations available. I myself am enjoying Tales of Vesperia on my PS3 thanks to a fan translation that I had waited years for them to finish. I'm only 5 hours in but I'm greatly enjoying the game so far, it was well worth the wait. I'm really liking the characters I've met so far, unlike in Tales of Hearts. But in any case, yay fan translations!
@Shiryu As far as I know, that's not correct. As far as I know, the lockout only applies to NTSC games on a PAL system, vice versa, and systems with modchips. I heard some games won't work if you bypass the CIC. Even games with a special chip like Kirby Super Deluxe work fine on a US SNES. I have early and late imports and they all work on US SNES. I also heard on the shmups forum that Chatting Parodius works fine on US systems.
Legal, illegal... If the developers didn't support you, what should you care about them? They're not losing on a market they didn't bet on anyway.
If I were to make a game and found out that after 20 years fans translated a hacked rom of it, I'd be happy it's not in the pile of forgotten games, and honoured some people made the effort the publishers didn't want to make.
Playing current gen games hacked that were available in your region for a fair price within an acceptable time after initial launch elsewhere, that's a different story. Anything else is fair play I'd say. Region hacking, homebrew, fan-translated roms,... As a collector I used to still get the original copies anyway, so I gave them more than they gave me.
I hope to God @Tempaura doesn't think the same about Mother 3 because I just played a fan made English translated version of that game on emulator recently and it was one of the greatest video game experiences I've ever had. Mother 3 is an utter classic and seminal moment in gaming imo that achieves something most games can only dream of, which I won't go into but it's worth playing to discover it for yourself, that I would recommend to anyone and especially Nintendo and/or Mother/Earthbound fans, yet I certainly wouldn't have had the opportunity to enjoy it and experience something so brilliant if it was only the original Japanese version that was available and I had to go out and buy it then learn Japanese just to play it.
Sometimes I think it would be fair of someone to call me a total douche for pirating/emulating certain games but other times I actually think it's a perfectly reasonable/acceptable thing to do under certain circumstances and I actually believe those acceptable circumstances are far more broad than many people think; especially in today's world.
PS. I am a video game developer myself and I say you are all welcome to go and copy/pirate/distribute any of my own games as much as you like:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=iNCEPTIONAL
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/kirk-johnston/id908692477
Have at it!
Fair's fair
@brianvgplayer Ah, well I only own a PAL SNES and as such, this is my reality. I shall investigate further, but the American SNES is just so ugly... I might be better off getting a Super Famicom.
@Shiryu The American SNES is a bog beast.
@Kirk Ah, didn't know you make video games. Well played! Wow , you're the guy who made "Light Hero"! I remember you now! From Kotaku maybe!? Still would like to play it on Nintendo consoles...
@Shiryu Well Cheers!
I have no idea where you saw Light Hero but it would be interesting to find out and/or if it's actually the game you are thinking about lol
@Kirk Yes, I am sure of it, I remember you posting about it somewhere in a comments section and I mentioned I would love to play a shmup like that on Nintendo consoles. Not sure if I even mentioned I would like to make music for a shmup...
@Shiryu We probably chatted on a forum or something, maybe even in here, but I have a terrible short term memory so I'd have little recollection of such a conversation lol
Do you have any sample music maybe online or somewhere that I can check out?
I'm not working on anything just now but I'll give it a wee listen
@Kirk Yeah, but don't try to listen it all at once, you will go insane: http://shiryumusic.no.sapo.pt/ Feel free to pirate it as well! ^_^
@Shiryu Cool. I'll check those out.
@ParSnake The Retron 5 is just an emulator inside a machine. The games run off this emulation software. No difference to an emulator running on a PC.
The games don't run directly off the hardware.
Wonderrr boy, what is the secret of your powerrr.
I do agree the SNES isn't as pretty as the EU model or the JP SFC, especially my SNES, which I had since launch. Still works well, though.
I'm a little curious to know why Nintendo Life is reporting on illegal products
@Tempaura do you need a ladder to help you down from your high horse?
Just get it, play it, enjoy it, and DONT WORRY ABOUT IT. Cuff me! Yikes
@KeeperBvK I realize the Retron 5 is an emulator, but emulators are completely legal, as far as I am aware. When I referred to "illegal emulation" in my initial post, I should have said, "emulation of illegal ROMs," because the downloading of copied ROM images is what is illegal, not the actual playing of them through emulation. What is great about the Retron 5 is that it emulates the legitimate ROMs from actual cartridges, meaning no pirating of ROMs is necessary.
Seems interesting, may check it out someday.
@ALinkttPresent Because game mods aren't actually illegal.
@Tempaura You got a big mouth
@ParSnake You feel guilty shame on u games are meant to be played the companys are rich dude lol ohhhh u feel guilty ohhhh
Ugh... @Tempura ~ yet another uppity snoot. Blah blah blah, how dare those people fan translate this game. Why don't you just import the game and play it in Japanese? Yeesh... you sound like every snobby elitist weeaboo on Fukktasu / Batsu who complains about fans who download J-Rock albums. SD3 wouldn't have had a fan following in the states without fan-translation. Dir en grey wouldn't have had a fan following in the states without someone having first shared their music on the net. And do you really think the alternative is better? Saying that "well, if we just leave it alone, eventually the companies might re-release it stateside" is as stupid as thinking that Dir en grey would have gotten U.S. releases of their albums if nobody had ever downloaded their music and increased their western visibility.
Case in point... Tales of Phantasia got a fan-translation... and later it got a re-release on the GBA... do you think that the company looked at the fan trans and thought "Hmm, well, we may as well not bother, since they've already got a translation of it for SNES / SFC." ~~ Everyone I knew in the online J-Rock communities had downloaded mp3s of Dir en grey's album, Withering to Death (and their other stuff prior to it), way before it was even announced (back on the old Free-Will America website / forums) that it was getting a U.S. re-release through Warcon. Warcon didn't think "Oh, well since they've already go MP3s, we may as well not even bother." ~ and how many times has something we ~already~ got in the U.S. got a re-release? Chrono Trigger DS re-release... Secret of Mana for iPhone.
"I'm a little curious to know why Nintendo Life is reporting on illegal products." ~~~ Product... how is a .IPS patch an illegal product? Is AGTP asking you to pay them MONEY for that .IPS patch? Jeezus H. Crispy Christ... go wage a moral crusader war against VHS tapes for being able to record movies, or something. If you don't like fan-translated games, don't play them. Simple as that. But don't go around crucifying everyone else who appreciates the fan-translation community and what they do for us.
"My life would surely be poorer had I not played and understood "Seiken Desentsu 3." <~~~ Ditto. And Tales of Phantasia, and Teranigma, and Star Ocean, and Rudora no Hihou, and Gunman's Proof and every other fan-translation I've had the great fortune of being able to play. You expect these games to make it onto the Virtual Console with no impetus? We're just supposed to be good little boys n' girls and wait for Santie Claws to answer our letters? Good luck waiting... SD3 still isn't on the Virtual Console and there hasn't been a ~good~ Mana game in ages.
Actually, I'd put more stock in a company like Wayforward (the guys behind Ducktales Remastered) buying the rights like they did for the Ducktales characters and doing their own Mana game. Hell, they could do a wacky crossover between Chrono Trigger and SoM and have some storyline where the characters of SoM get sent to the CT world somehow (maybe Thanatos casts a spell on the trio and sends them through a dimensional vortex?) and then the SoM cast have to learn how to battle in a Menu-based RPG, and later the CT gang have to go back and help fight Thanatos and they get to learn how to fight in a Real Time Action RPG.
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