Eiji Aonuma's First Game Recieves A Fresh English Language Patch

Awesome - I wasn't aware of this game previously. I think I'll have to dig in. Thanks for bringing it to our attention Damien!

@Churchy If it's Japanese and it's obscure, there is probably a good chance I once dreamed of playing it looking at import previews on either Super Play or Super Power magazines in the early 90's. Worth the wait for this one!

Interesting. The English text patch would be helpful. Now if only a translation for popful Mail on snes found its way to light

Fan translation roms are the best. Playing the games we never got.

@RadioShadow Too bad that its illegal though.....otherwise I would have loved to play Genealogy of holy war and this game as well......

Releasing the patch file (the file to change the rom data) isn't illegal however. Heck, Nintendolife themselves could easily host the file themselves. Due to the fact the file just contains random no copyrighted data.

Plus as long as these people aren't making money from it, I don't have a problem using these fan translations. In fact, I actually brought Puyo Puyo 15th Anniversary and Puyo Puyo 7 before I used the translated roms, so SEGA (well Japan Sega) were making profit from the game.

This looks rather neat and charming! The look and atmosphere definitely have a very ALTTP feel to them, although it also strongly reminds me of Link's Awakening.

@Shiryu: Aha, good man! Awesome stuff - I had to go back in time with SNES as I had more home computers at the time. Your knowledge is most impressive sir!

@Churchy The reason that my YouTube channel has (currently) 3,697 videos is because one day I fear I start forgetting all I know.

Looks Great - I would love an official translation!!

I've seen footage of this before but I've never played it. Might either give it a go at some point or wait for someone to do a full playthrough of the English version.

@vitalemrecords Often with these dedicated fan translations they are as good as anything Nintendo might do anyway. The English fan translation of Mother 3 is as good as anything Nintendo might do itself, and I even suspect it might end up being slightly better than Nintendo's own translation--when it surely eventually comes--because of the little details the fans decided to fix that Nintendo would probably just ignore in a bid to simply get the game out there. When real passion/love is combined with truly dedicated and talented fans, you can get some genuinely amazing stuff out of it.

Example: http://www.mother4game.com/

Interesting...I've never heard of this game.

Cool, you learn something new every day!

Cool, you learn something new every day!

The movement and sound effects remind of Zelda Link to the Past.

Nice!!! I have the Super Famicom cart, and a Retron 5. Finally it is my time to shine.

I was looking for this game earlier and couldn't find the name of it.

@Shiryu It is a scary thought isn't it? But at least it's there for posterity!

@Churchy Or YouTube dies... or they close my account. Wonderful modern world we live in.

I had a subscription to Nintendo Power back around 1995 and remember there being an article about this game in there. Always wanted to play it since then. Another classic I would love to try is For Frog the Bell Tolls on the Game Boy but I don't believe anyone has translated it.

@Shiryu Now you're just trying to scare me.

Huh. I honestly had no idea this game even existed. Alright. Guess I'll try it out.

@Socar I've already played Genealogy of the Holy War emulated o: In fact, I have for ALL FE games except Awakening and VC games.

woah,english patch available i can finally understand and beat this game without cheats.

@xPH03N1Xx86 Don't you feel guilty for playing such amazing Fire Emblem games....especially Genealogy of Holy War? I would love to play the whole of it but its so good that I just couldn't feel like playing it without supporting the hard earned cash it deserves........

I don't get why people are fine with playing fan translations......I honestly feel like its not worth doing it if it makes a lot of loss for corporate.

@Socar
When it comes to Japanese games that were never released in the west, you either don't play them (and they make no money off you) or you play a fan translation (and they make no money off you).

So, ya. Either way makes no difference. Might as well just enjoy some great games. And if they ever want to officially translate and release in the west, I'll be happy to support it day one. But that day may never come, so may as well take advantage of the excellent translation patches put together by fans.

This is amazing! Thanks for the heads up!

I'll get a Retron 5 eventually... I hope...

...he just had to check on more time if there's anything "in her pocket"

It looks and sounds a lot like Secret of Mana though, in my opinion. Well like a mix of that and Zelda.

@Socar: It's not like the game is available anywhere outside of Japan. Even if you bought a copy secondhand, that money would not be going to Nintendo. If you absolutely want to play the game legally (although laws may be different in your country), your best bet would be to buy a secondhand copy from Japan, use a device to copy the ROM data, patch the ROM data, and play the games on an emulator. As long as you don't distribute the ROM files with friends or something, at least in the US, it's legal.

This looks super fun and a game I would defiantly play, might have to check it out!

@Socar It's fine with me because I will never have the opportunity to play Genealogy or Thracia 776 otherwise. I don't have the funding to order old consoles just for two old games (albeit from my favorite series). But I decided that I wanted to experience the entire series, but getting physical of everything just isn't feasible. Furthermore, any old game I'd buy now would be secondhand, so Nintendo still wouldn't make any more money from it. So, I'd only be supporting the seller on say eBay. That's why emulating works for me, I can play the out of print games I never could have played before.

The title sounds like sarcasm from a world where pirate games are as prevalent as Call of Duty is in ours.

Not cray about making an account there to download it, but I guess i don't have a choice.

@antipop621 There -is- a translation! Go play it, it's great!

@JaxonH Doesn't it ruin the morality here......you playing a game for free that workers have worked hard to make money out of it.

@Socar
No, I mean it's not like intentionally circumventing payment. If they localized the game and sold it here I'd buy it. It's just a situation where they never sold the game to this part of the world. But I see no reason to allow that to keep me from playing it.

They are more than welcome to my money- whenever they want it they can have it- localize the game and allow me to buy and I'll buy

@Kirk The main translator of the fan-translation of Mother 3 actually works as a professional translator of anime. While that's still technically a fan translation due to it being done on his free time, I don't think it's a level of quality you're bound to see often. Setting the bar really high, in other words.

Never heard of it, looks kinda like the SNES FF2 and Chrono Trigger.

This is great news. And thanks to Nintendolifes recommendation I will totally go and hunt down a retron 5 and a physical copy of this particular super famicom game and apply the patch in a 100% legal way rather than just download an emulator and rom because that is 100% illegal, free and so much more convenient which is precisely why I will only go about in the legal way

Having watched the video I wouldn't be surprised if the creator of One Piece Eichiro Oda played this game when it came out. There are some similarities to the premise of one Piece like it being named after a great treasure left behind by a legendary pirate and with the protagonist being a kid wearing a similar looking hat who advances by making friends/allies by helping people out. This game was released two years before one Piece began in Japan so it's not impossible that it could have been a small influence.

"Receive"
I before E, except after C...

Sorry. Pet peeve

@theBluntKnight The Retron 5 is running on emulators itself, many of which they didn't ask permission to use. Also, how legal is it to modify a game's code? Nintendo reserve the right to brick your system if you modify one of their consoles. You could modify a game for instance to cheat, so I'd imagine it's equally shady to them. You may have purchased the game, but you're not doing something entirely legal with it.

@antipop621 Actually For the Frog Bell Tolls has had an english rom translation for quite a while, I've played the game and it was pretty great experience, also the overworld theme is sooo good.

@Kirk I don't play emulators unless absolutely necessary - so that is why I would like an official translation. And if they find success with translations = maybe mother 3 will come out on the wii u. And maybe we can get Bahamut Lagoon. or Alcahest. Or Live a Live. (I love my SNES Squaresoft games)

@MagicalDreamer I'd wager a lot of these fan translations are probably far higher quality that we might expect.

I remember reading about and wanting this title back in a 1995 issue of Nintendo Power's Epic Center! Even though many of the titles featured in that section never officially left Japan (including a significant segment on Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War in the August 1996 issue, which I still have), I appreciated Nintendo Power's features that told us Westerners about other things that were out there. It made gaming seem bigger than what we could immediately perceive, that there would always be something more to discover. Of course, with the internet, pretty much everything has been cataloged (though not necessarily with a lot of reliable information), but there is still a bit of mystique today in the form of design history. There are many stories yet untold, such as Aonuma's experience with this game, and how it helped him open the door into Nintendo.

@Kirk The Mother 3 translation work is a masterpiece in itself, that's true. There are other seminal translations which paved the way for others, such as the AeonGenesis Shin Megami Tensei 1 & 2 full translation, and even fully redone translations that fixed previously broken ones, such as Watercrown's Breath of Fire 2 retranslation.

Since they're not affiliated with any of the big companies, these translators also have some ability to criticize the big guys when they miss something or screw something up. But they can be generous, too.

The Radical Dreamers is another fan translation I hold in high regard.

@supa @Asaki

Thanks for letting me know, gonna give it a shot

Nice! Wii u vc please!

By the way: According to Aonuma this was one of the inspirations for Zelda Windwaker!