Project Justice's Japanese-Exclusive Board Game Mode Has Been Translated into English

Despite Capcom's Project Justice: Rival Schools 2 being one of the pricier Sega Dreamcast games, that hasn’t stopped fans from finding other ways to experience its 3D brawling action. These days, it can be enjoyed for a far more reasonable price by picking up Capcom Fighting Collection 2. For those who want to keep it strictly Dreamcast, the much cheaper Japanese version (known as Moero! Justice Gakuen) is an option.

Players who did pick up that Japanese release for their Dreamcasts will have encountered an exclusive “board game” mode that was stripped from Western versions, likely due to the extensive work it would have required to localise. This mode lets players create their own character and explore a giant game board, occasionally getting into bouts determined by their character's stats.

Recently, a fan translator known as Billy Monks announced he was working on translating this unique mode into English, and has released the first version of their patch today. Some text and textures are still to be worked on, but the mode has been translated to a state that is easy enough to play through for those who want to finally give it a try. Of course, this is the only part of the game Billy has translated into English, but if you want to play any of the other modes, you can simply switch to the US or PAL version.

To play this translation, simply head to the project's GitHub page, download the patch, and use Derek Pascarella's Universal Dreamcast Patcher to apply it to your existing Japanese disc image of Project Justice.

New Dreamcast Fan Translations: Macross M3 and Hello Kitty Games Now Playable in English

A few new English fan translations of Japanese Sega Dreamcast games slid across my desk over the Christmas/New Year period. I acknowledged them, nodded my head. “That’s cool,” I thought, then went back to tucking into leftover turkey sandwiches and tubs of Celebrations (I swear they've made those tubs smaller, the cheap bastards). Now I'm nicely rested up, let's take a look at them.

Macross M3

First up, we had a patch for Macross M3 drop on Christmas Eve from NetsuiAya. I know little about Macross, really, but I do know that the fans are very passionate. The beauty of fan communities like Macross's, is that in their efforts to consume every piece of media associated with it, they’ll work their arses off to bring translation projects like this one to life — even if they don’t necessarily have much interest in the Dreamcast to begin with.

Developed by Shoeisha, Macross M3 is a flight/mech combat game that has players assume the roles of various pilots from across the franchise's vast timeline, gunning down enemies across eight different episodes. All of this is interspersed with plenty of character dialogue, which is the main reason why you'll be wanting to get NetsuiAya's patch, as the flying sections are completely playable without having to know Japanese.

Anyway, if you want to give this translation a go, you can download the patch here. Use the Universal Dreamcast Patcher tool to apply it to an existing disc image of the game. There is also a "colour accuracy mod" available for the true Macross heads, which swaps the colours of two of the mechs that for some reason were incorrect in the original release.

A Trio of Hello Kitty games

If you’re a raging fan of Japan’s favourite mouthless feline, then you’re in luck: not one, not two, but three Hello Kitty Dreamcast games are now playable in English. All three were developed by Sega themselves, and while they may be basic puzzlers, they're bloody charming. They are Lovely Fruit Park, Magical Block, and Waku Waku Cookies. Thanks to blashy101 for the translations.

Lovely Fruit Park is an adaptation of Colony, a puzzle game created by Midnight Synergy, that was later reskinned for older audiences into Get!! Colonies. Magical Block draws inspiration from the arcade classic Pengo, and sees Hello Kitty flinging blocks at ghosts. Finally, Waku Waku Cookies doesn't seem to be based on any specific puzzle game, but focuses on Hello Kitty stacking up and matching cookies.

She ain't afraid of no ghost.

To grab these translations, just head to their respective repositories (Lovely Fruit Park, Magical Block, Waku Waku Cookies) and follow the instructions to patch each one. There is an issue with playing Magical Block on real hardware using the current main download, so look for Derek Pascarella's fix in the issues section.

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What a lovely way to shake off those January blues. Thanks go out to our pal Derek for making us aware of all of these translations. Credit to CDRomance for all the screenshots.

Sega Dreamcast Visual Novel "Di Gi Charat Fantasy" has been Translated into English!

Hey kids! Do you like visual novels? …What’s a visual novel, you ask? Honestly, I don’t blame you for not knowing. When it comes to video game genres, these things are nicher than even the Sega Dreamcast itself. Well, Di Gi Charat Fantasy is a visual novel, and it's the latest English fan translation project to come our way from hacker extraordinaire —and good friend of the Junkyard— Derek Pascarella, along with a team of other talented individuals. 

Di Gi Charat Fantasy will be the the second officially released Dreamcast visual novel to receive an English fan translation patch, the first being Nakoruru: The Gift She Gave Me (also released by Derek et al) which received its updated 1.3 patch back in June.

Originally released exclusively in Japan on PC in early 2001, with a Dreamcast port following later that year, Di Gi Charat Fantasy presents an alternate storyline to Di Gi Charat, an anime and manga series I remember being fairly prevalent in the late-90s to early 2000s. The game was then ported to PlayStation 2 with some additional content as Di Gi Charat Fantasy Excellent. This PS2 port received an English fan translation back in October from Gopicolo, and serves as the basis for Derek's patch for Dreamcast.

Here's a little background provided by Derek on Di Gi Charat, and what you can expect from the plot of the game...

"The early anime [of Di Gi Charat] is set inside Gamers, a real retail chain in Japan that sells character goods and pop-culture media, with the main store in Akihabara. Dejiko, Puchiko, and their floating companion Gema work at Gamers, trade barbs with rival idol La Vie en Rose, and lean into running gags like Dejiko’s signature eye beam attack.

"In 'Di Gi Charat Fantasy' on Dreamcast, players will find themselves pulled from the familiar Gamers setting into Etatia, a separate fantasy world. During a spat at Gamers, Dejiko fires her eye beam, a portal opens, and the whole group is swept away. The player character wakes in a forest with Dejiko, who now has amnesia and a gentler demeanor. From there the story follows a visual novel structure with voiced scenes, character banter, and route-shaping choices as the cast explores Etatia, meets new allies and foes, and works toward restoring Dejiko’s memories and returning home."

Di Gi Charat Fantasy is a pretty standard visual novel. Lots of cutesy anime characters and text to read, with a wide variety of choices to be made that effect the direction of the narrative — with eight different character routes in total. There are also plenty of anime cutscenes in this one, so it's definitely good for existing fans of the series. Despite this, it is still accessible enough for those who haven't engaged with the franchise before.

If you fancy giving Di Gi Charat Fantasy a try, you can head over to its GitHub repository to download the patch. Instructions can be found in there on how to patch an existing GDI of the game. Another handy download that can be found in the repository is a fully completed VMU save. The game locks its "Extras" section until the player has completed all eight story routes, so this downloadable save file will give players immediate access to a cutscene gallery, a video gallery, and a music jukebox. Again, instructions can be found in the GitHub on how to transfer the save to a VMU.

Download Patch (1.0)

I always love to see Japanese Dreamcast games get translated for English-speakers, making them accessible to a whole new audience. Let us know if you'll be giving this one a go in the comments...

Definitive English Translation of Capcom Vs SNK 2 releases for Dreamcast!

The Sega Dreamcast just went from being the only sixth-generation console to not have an English localisation of the excellent fighter Capcom Vs SNK 2, to having the best English translation the game has ever seen. This brand new patch comes courtesy of scene stalwart Derek Pascarella, as well as translators Duralumin, Jesuszilla, Tortita, Justin Gibbins, hasnopants, with graphics by rob2d.

This brand new translation patch goes above and beyond simply lifting existing translations from the English PlayStation 2 version. Many of those translations have been fixed and cleaned up, with some replaced entirely for the sake of accuracy. Some character names have also been changed to a combination of Japanese and Western variants, for example, the well-known "Vega", "Balrog" and "M. Bison" mixup has been reflected here to conform with the Western naming conventions we're familiar with. Later-established Western naming conventions for mechanics have also been implemented too, so "blocking" and "original combo finish" have been changed to the much better "parrying" and "custom combo finish" respectively.

But this patch also includes translations for something that never made it outside of the Japanese version: post-battle dialogue. All 48 characters had unique interactions with their team-mates or opponents upon winning a battle. There are around 5,100 instances of this dialogue which were left out of the official English translations in favour of several generic quotes for each character instead.

Of course, because this is a Derek patch, it has to include a "bonus" section. Replacing the now-defunct "Network Mode" on the menu, it will launch a modified version of the Dream Passport web browser where you can find some extra goodies, including a 100% unlocked save file that can be downloaded directly to your VMU to unlock all special characters, modes, etc. There's also an original Japanese TV commercial to watch, which is fully subtitled in English. Then finally, you can read some interviews with the development team that worked on the game, which have been translated into English by Benjamin Roodberg. Neat!

If you've downloaded any of Derek's patches before, you know the drill by now, but if you don't, it's as simple as going to the GitHub repository to download the patch and using his Universal Dreamcast Patcher tool to apply the patch to an existing GDI file of the game. Instructions are there for CDI too. It's all there in the ReadMe. Once patched, you can put it on your Dreamcast's ODE or burn it onto a CD-R.

While I appreciate Capcom Vs SNK 2 is a game that is easily playable without knowledge of Japanese, 2025 is truly a year of turning "what ifs?" into reality for the Dreamcast scene, and we should've got an English localisation of this game for the Dreamcast back in 2001, dammit! Well, better late than never, as they say, and this patch is so good that I've even heard rumours that it may become the de facto version of the game used in tournament circuits... Maybe Capcom should push the May release of their Capcom Fighting Collection 2 back to ensure this version is included!

Dreamcast Light Gun title Death Crimson 2 has been Translated into English!

For a console that famously championed peripheral use, the Sega Dreamcast sure had slim pickings when it came to games that utilised the light gun. Most notably, the console received arcade-perfect ports of both The House of the Dead 2 and the severely underrated James Bond 'em up Confidential Mission; but what else was there? Those who dared to discover were met with Silent Scope without light gun support, a port of Virtua Cop 2 that was stuck on a disc with a load of poorly emulated Genesis games (unless you imported the standalone Japanese release), a hidden light gun mode in Demolition Racer: No Exit (yes, really), and the Death Crimson series.

Developed by Ecole and released exclusively in Japan in 1999, Death Crimson 2: Meranito no Saidan has the very distinct privilege of being the sequel to a game so notoriously bad that it had a particularly masochistic set of Japanese fans gluing the game's disc into their Sega Saturn so as to make sure the console could never play any other game. Luckily, Ecole did improve, and Death Crimson 2 was received better than its predecessor. Perhaps the most intriguing part about this sequel was the inclusion of a full story mode with almost Resident Evil-esque free-roaming sections where you explore in a third-person perspective outside of the light gun gameplay. While an "improved" version of Death Crimson 2 called Death Crimson OX did receive a Western release (in the USA, at least), it completely dropped the story sections, meaning non-Japanese speakers never got a chance to experience this weird mishmash of gameplay in the English language. 

Well, fret no more, as a fan translation of Death Crimson 2 has just released today! And who translated this Dreamcast light gun oddity, you ask? Well, it's the same guy who did the last English Dreamcast fan translation, too, and many before that! That man being - of course - the ever-busy Derek Pascarella.

With Derek's patch, everything in the game is now translated into English. This includes everything from the story sections, to cutscenes, to textures and graphics; with misspelled English place names (such as street signs) also being corrected to match the official Western release of Death Crimson OX. 

As always with Derek's releases, he's gone above and beyond with extras and enhancements. First up, Derek has added a VMU icon for the game, because Ecole were too lazy to implement one themselves. Next, he added a cheat function, which can up your lives and reset any countdown clock with a simultaneous press of the Dreamcast controller's left and right triggers. The reasoning for this is to allow players to experience the game's story without having to endure going through numerous difficult stages repeatedly.

Then you have the bonus content section, which is accessible from the game's main menu. Utilising a modified version of the Dream Passport browser, players can access a variety of extras from the series, including a video of composer Kunitaka Watanabe tearing it up on the keyboard as he plays the original Death Crimson theme, along with an archive of fan support messages from Ecole's now-offline official Death Crimson 2 website, which have been machine-translated into English.

So, to download Derek's fan translation patch for Death Crimson 2, just head to its dedicated GitHub page to download it. For detailed steps on how to apply the patch for your desired method of play (i.e. burning to a CD-R, playing on an ODE), see the patching instructions section of the README. While the game does support the standard controller, if you're going to be using a light gun I recommend consulting the section on light gun compatibility. Make sure you report back to Derek if you experience any issues with a particular light gun setup, as he will aim to try and resolve such compatibility bugs in the future.

Are you going to crack out the light gun and give this English fan translation a go? Let us know in the comments below, or by hitting us up on one of various social media channels!

Dreamcast shooter Trizeal has been Translated into English!

Only days after reporting the news that an English fan translation patch has been released for one Dreamcast shoot 'em up (Under Defeat), we've already received another, and this time it's for Triangle Service's 2005 vertical-scrolling shmup Trizeal. The patch was created by the one and only Derek Pascarella, and I must say, I'm feeling a bit of deja vu...

Fact about this game: the head of its tiny development team begged fans to purchase it upon release because the arcade game it is a port of didn't do that well financially. Despite this, Trizeal is definitely not a title to sniff at. While it isn't often brought up in conversations about Dreamcast shmups, and lacks some of the gimmicks seen in other more acclaimed DC shooters, it is still a high-octane romp that can be enjoyed by any seasoned genre fan.

While the game doesn't have anything in the form of a storyline, Derek's patch translates all Japanese in-game text/graphics, and even improves some instances of English text. Something cool that Derek has also added to this patch is a new unlimited continues option that can be toggled on and off during gameplay by pressing the L and R Trigger buttons simultaneously. A small asterisk will appear next to "1P SCORE" during gameplay to indicate unlimited continues is on.

To download Derek's fan translation patch, just head to its dedicated GitHub page to download it. For detailed steps on how to apply the patch for your desired method of play (i.e. burning to a CD-R, playing on an ODE), see the patching instructions section of the README.

Are you a fan of Trizeal, or are you going to give it a go now this patch has been released? Let us know in the comments below, or by hitting us up on one of various social media channels!

Dreamcast shooter Under Defeat has been Translated into English!

Thanks to TapamN, who previously brought us a whole slew of helpful VGA patches, comes an English translation of the shoot 'em up Under Defeat.

Under Defeat was what we in the West would call a "late release" for the Dreamcast. Considering the Dreamcast was cancelled in 2001, it's mindboggling to acknowledge that over in Japan, games like this one were still coming out for many years. This one even came late enough to be acknowledged on this very blog upon release! 

Developed by G.rev, Under Defeat has been praised for its smooth controls and challenging but fun gameplay. Most notably, however, are its excellent graphics: with attractive 3D throughout, the level of detail on display in this game is astonishing. It's not one for genre fans to overlook, and now with TapamN's translation patch, English Dreamcast fans can now have some insight into the game’s plot too.

Here's a list of everything translated in this patch:

• Opening text 
• Ending text 
• The tutorial 
• End of level results screen 
• VMU selection text 
• Menu descriptions 
• VMU Save file descriptions (seen in the console's BIOS)
• In-game VMU text translated 

To download the patch, head over to the Dreamcast Talk forum post, and if you have an account, be sure to thank TapamN for this translation! Also thanks to Derek Pascarella on Twitter for the heads up.

Have you played and enjoyed Under Defeat before? Are you excited to get a chance to experience its story in English? Let us know in the comments below, or by hitting us up on one of various social media channels!

Cool Cool Toon has been Translated into English!

For years, Cool Cool Toon, a Japanese-exclusive rhythm title from SNK, has been considered a must-have for import Dreamcast gamers everywhere due to its easily accessible gameplay (which many have compared to that of Space Channel 5) and zany cel-shaded comic visuals by illustrator Ippei Gyoubu (of Gundam fame). But despite its gameplay being so accessible, many who cannot read Japanese have had to miss out on the game's delightful storyline... until today, because community workaholic Derek Pascarella and his talented team have finally released their English fan translation patch for Cool Cool Toon!

Completed over the span of a year, this project's team was comprised of the following individuals:

• Derek Pascarella - programming, editing, playtesting
• rio de popomocco - translation, editing, playtesting 
• Cargodin - translation, editing
• James Tocchio (GGDreamcast) - editing, playtesting
• Yuvi - graphics

While I am not familiar with the translation work of rio de popomocco, Cargodin's work on Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream is stellar, with that project standing as one of the very best Dreamcast translations, so I have no doubt that this game's script will be of similar quality.

Everything in the main game has been translated - from menus to cutscenes to graphics - meaning that Cool Cool Toon is now fully accessible to English speakers. To get a taster before you play, check out this trailer for the project put together by GGDreamcast.

As seen before with Derek's other hacks, he's made sure to go above and beyond when it comes to bonus content. The option on the main menu titled "INTERNET GATE" is inaccessible to those who've never configured ISP settings on their Dreamcast, so Derek has removed this in favour of a Bonus Content page, powered by the Dream Passport browser, in a similar fashion to that seen in his previous translation project Nakoruru: The Gift She Gave Me.

This bonus content page contains all kinds of extra goodies. As per usual, Derek offers a downloadable save file that unlocks all in-game content. "On-Disc Extras Page" grants you access to artwork which was originally part of a webpage that could be accessed when putting the retail GD-ROM into your computer, including character portraits, artwork development pieces, title screens, wallpapers, and a lot more. As a cool bit of history, you can also access Cool Cool Toon's original Dricas website, preserved in its untranslated form. Finally, Derek has included some instructions on how to use the Dreamcast maracas with Cool Cool Toon. It turns out the game is actually compatible with this shakin' peripheral, so much so that the developers actually included instructions on the disc explaining how to use them with the game, which is what you see fully translated here!

Another awesome extra that has been preserved and translated for this patch release is the functionality that allows the game to connect to Cool Cool Jam for the Neo Geo Pocket Color using the Dreamcast's Neo Geo Pocket link cable. Points earned in Cool Cool Jam can be transferred to Cool Cool Toon on the Dreamcast, allowing players to unlock more costumes and characters, and vice versa. This is definitely niche as heck, but still appreciated nonetheless, as I love me some Neo Geo Pocket Color! Paying upwards of £100 for that cable, on the other hand...

Cool Cool Toon's Neo Geo Pocket Color link cable functionality in action, as shown by Derek.

So, without further ado, head over to the dedicated GitHub page to download the Cool Cool Toon translation patch. As always, for detailed steps on how to apply the patch for your desired method of play (i.e. burning to a CD-R, playing on an ODE), see the patching instructions section of the README.

Download Patch (v1.1)

A big thank you goes out to all involved with the creation of this translation. Your hard work is helping to keep the dream alive!

Have you played Cool Cool Toon before? Are you excited to give this English translation a go? Let us know in the comments below, or by dropping us a line on one of our social media channels!

Nakoruru: The Gift She Gave Me - Samurai Shodown Spin-Off for Dreamcast Translated into English!

After nearly two years of hard work, I am absolutely elated to inform you that a team consisting of Derek Pascarella, Duralumin, Marshal Wong and myself have completed our English translation of Nakoruru: Ano Hito kara no Okurimono for the Sega Dreamcast, and today you will be able to play it.

Being a fan favourite character of SNK’s beloved Samurai Shodown fighting franchise (known as Samurai Spirits in Japan), it’s only natural that Nakoruru would get her own spin-off game. SNK granted developer Inter-Let's the privilege of crafting a story that explored her character in finer detail, with the result being Nakoruru: The Gift She Gave Me (as we’ve decided to dub it), a Japan-exclusive visual novel game released for Windows in 2001, with an improved Dreamcast version releasing a year later in 2002. To take a source material known for its intense arcade fighting thrills and adapt it into a quiet, heartfelt text-based adventure was definitely intriguing, so much so that it made us want to produce an English translation almost two decades later! 

To translate the game into English was no small feat, however. With over 12,000 lines of text, our translation of Nakoruru was going to take us more than a year to produce. But it honestly feels like that time has flown by, because the more we worked on translating the scripts, the more we fell in love with the game's plot and characters.

Mikato meets Nakoruru for the first time.

The game’s story is told from the perspective of seven-year-old Mikato, an orphan who is taken in by the people of the snowy village Kamui Kotan. She is selected by the village's chief to serve as assistant to the shrine maiden Nakoruru, somebody the people of Kamui Kotan admire for her strength, dependability, and outward positivity. Mikato soon realises, however, that deep down, Nakoruru is harbouring an intense sorrow. 

While Nakoruru is based in the world of Samurai Shodown, it can be played without any prior knowledge of the franchise, but if you are a Shodown fan, there are quite a few playful references to other characters in the franchise sprinkled throughout the game's script.

Nakoruru's childhood friends Yantamu and Manari.

The gameplay of Nakoruru is simple, and familiar to those who have played a visual novel before. Advance the story with a button press, and occasionally make choices, some of which greatly affect the game’s narrative.

Also included throughout the story are several basic but charming mini-games. These include quizzes, fishing, dodging enemy attacks, playing music, and more. 

While Nakoruru may lack the 3D graphics and arcade action many associate with the Dreamcast, it still boasts gorgeous, crisp, hand-drawn 2D artwork, and its beautiful coming-of-age storyline will pull at your heart strings as it deals with topics of friendship, loss and insecurity. The Dreamcast received over 100 visual novel titles in Japan, and in terms of quality, Nakoruru is up there with the best the system has to offer. For those new to the visual novel genre, you can learn more about them in this fantastic video by Bowl of Lentils.

Combat training mini-game where you dodge left or right to escape attacks.

We adopted an assembly line process to translate the game’s script. First, dialogue for an individual scene would be translated by Marshal and Duralumin, then the editors - both myself and Derek, would check over the translations for any spelling or grammatical errors, but primarily to ensure they read as naturally as possible in English. Once the script edits were complete, Derek would insert them back into the game. Working together and seeing the story come to life, and by our own making, was incredibly rewarding. 

Making an important decision in the heat of combat.  

But our translation would have been for nothing if it wasn’t for Derek’s hacking wizardry. The Dreamcast is still in an immature state when it comes to debugging and hacking, unlike other systems, such as PlayStation, which is more streamlined. A project like this for the Dreamcast required a slew of different tools to achieve. Along the way, Derek had to make many tweaks to the game so it worked with our translation, such as modifying mini-games, ensuring the character’s voice audio persisted across multiple textboxes, reallocating where RAM data was written to make room for larger text data, and more. But the biggest challenge Derek faced was implementing a half-width font (as Japanese characters are wider than English ones), which took him months, but felt incredible when he finally pulled it off. The end result of Derek's hard work is fantastic-looking English text displayed in game.

Rent-A-Hero No. 1 has been Translated into English for Dreamcast!

The beauty of the Dreamcast is that when you think you've played everything the console has to offer, something new lands in your lap. These days, that often comes in the form of a brand new indie game, or in the case of what we have here today: a Japanese game from back in the day being playable for the first time in English on the Dreamcast thanks to the hard work of fans.

Many of us had a good feeling about Rent-A-Hero No. 1, some possibly even since the early 2000s, when muddling through the game with a translation guide was the way for non-Japanese speakers. Those wanting to truly experience the game were thrown a bone in 2008 when an unreleased officially-translated Xbox prototype leaked onto the internet, but those wanting to experience the game on its original platform, the Dreamcast, were still stuck with guides and translation apps... until today.

Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of VincentNL and his talented team of "Rent-A-Modders", Rent-A-Hero No. 1 is now fully playable in English on the Dreamcast! But this is no ordinary fan project, because the lengths this team had to go to in order to bring us this high-quality translation is an entire topic of conversation in and of itself. Before we go into all that, though, a bit of background on the game first...

The first Rent-A-Hero was developed by Sega-AM2 and released exclusively in Japan for the Mega Drive in 1991. The Rent-A-Hero character next saw an appearance as an unlockable character in 1996’s Fighters Megamix for the Sega Saturn. The game we’re talking about today, Rent-A-Hero No.1, released for the Dreamcast in Japan in May 2000. A remake of the Mega Drive original, it shares the same quirky and humorous tone of the game it is based on, but brings the gameplay into the world of 3D. The game is effectively an action-RPG that has you assuming the role of 16-year-old Taro, a budding hero for hire. As Taro, you run around town doing odd jobs and missions assigned by SECA to build his way up the ranks of herodom. The game also has beat 'em up style combat that uses the same fighting engine as that used in Sega's arcade game Spikeout.

Rent-A-Hero No. 1 looks and plays great on the Dreamcast, and if it wasn't for the incredibly eccentric Japanese humour that it wears like a bejewelled bangle on its sleeve, questions about the game's lack of a Western Dreamcast release would definitely be flying around. Oddball humour is this game's strongest suit, and with an abundance of Sega references throughout, Rent-A-Hero No. 1 is a game every fan of the house of hedgehog should spend some time with. Whether it be the inclusion of Segata Sanshiro or the "Creamcast" console you access in the game, the tributes to our favourite ex-console manufacturer throughout are hardly subtle.

So, back to the translation. This translation patch required many heavy lifts to get to what you’re seeing in this final release. A deep analysis and understanding of numerous original Katana SDK libraries was needed in order to reverse-engineer and interact with a slew of the game's already-compiled assembly code.

Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 has been Converted into English

Samba de Amigo is that monkey game with the maracas. 

What that rather inelegant opening serves to say, is that Samba de Amigo needs no introduction. Not only is it beloved by Dreamcast fans for its colour-soaked rhythm hijinks that made use of the delightful maraca peripheral (which required a significant amount of space to store on your gaming shelves), but it is also well known for a port it received on the Nintendo Wii; one which appeared at the right time to slot neatly into the motion control hype of the seventh console generation.

This Wii port is actually important to our topic today, because it incorporated many of the additions that were introduced as part of the Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 package, a Japanese-exclusive upgrade for the Dreamcast. While this DC release was never brought to the West, it was still an easy import for many gamers (including DCJY's very own Andrew Dickinson) due to it lacking any significant language barrier to its gameplay.

Photo nicked from Mike's @DreamcastPics account. Sorry, Mike.

This didn't stop hacker dukeblooders from converting Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000 into English, though. The reason I refer to this as a "conversion" is because what has been done here is effectively a similar process to what we've seen previously with community projects that made Space Channel 5: Part 2 or Resident Evil Code: Veronica Kanzenban (Resident Evil Code: Veronica X) accessible to English speakers, by taking content seen in later Western ports (in this case, the Wii port) and inserting it into the Dreamcast version with some kind of wizardry that I will never be able to comprehend.

On dukeblooders' project page on GitHub, they explain that there isn't technically any text in this game, only images. The majority of images and audio were replaced with those from the English Wii versions, although some images had to be reproduced by dukeblooders.

If you want to give this English conversion a go on Dreamcast hardware, you will have to play it on an ODE like a GDEMU or a MODE, as currently it is not able to be burnt onto a CD-R. Otherwise you can still play it via emulator using the Type A controller mode, sans maracas. Just head over to the GitHub page to download the patch, which can easily be applied to an image of the game using Derek Pascarella's Universal Dreamcast Patcher.

English Translation Demo of Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka Kenzan released!

I have often heard repeated online that the Dreamcast library was lacking when it came to RPGs... well, I guess that's kind of true, especially in the West. While we received standouts like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II, along with a few other titles, there's plenty of Dreamcast RPGs that remained relegated to Japan. Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka Kenzan was one of those titles. Today, however, I come bearing great news, as a translator known as SharkSnack has released a partial translation patch that will allow players to experience the game's first region.

Shiren the Wanderer is a series of roguelike RPG titles by Chunsoft (now Spike Chunsoft) that spawned from the Mystery Dungeon franchise (probably most famous for containing the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series of games!) The first Shiren the Wanderer game was released for the Super Famicom in 1995. The series didn't see a Western release until 2008, when that original game was ported to the Nintendo DS.

The Dreamcast entry, Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka Kenzan, was released in 2002, and was developed by Neverland. This title provided players with a side-story to the main series that focused on the character Asuka, a close friend of Shiren the Wanderer. Like other titles in the series, Asuka Kenzan features traditional roguelike gameplay. Graphically, the game looks similar to the series' second entry on Nintendo 64 (which also uses a top-down perspective with pseudo-3D looking sprites), but with an added Dreamcast sheen.

Talking to your sidekick, a ferret called Koppa.

SharkSnack started working on their translation of Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka Kenzan back in May of last year. While it's mostly been a solo effort, they have also had some technical assistance from VincentNL and Derek Pascarella, Ozidual helped look over some of the translation dialogue, and testing was provided by TheKitchenSunk, Harpu and DocHikari.

Speaking with SharkSnack, I was intrigued to know what inspired them to translate this particular game:

"I think Shiren the Wanderer is a charming, underrated series with great gameplay, and Asuka Kenzan is said to be one of the best in the series within the Japanese communities (people still host events and speedrun the PC version of the game on YouTube and Twitch, despite it being such an old game), so I wanted to make it available for players to experience first-hand in English. 

"I also hope that it increases interest in the series and people purchase the official releases to support the series, because the Shiren community would like to see a new release. The most recent release is Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, which released in 2020 for Switch and Steam.  

"Prior to this, I also completed a fan translation of Shiren the Wanderer 2: Oni Invasion! Shiren Castle! for Nintendo 64, working as a team with Ozidual."

Someone get that dragon some Antacids!

As stated before, what SharkSnack has released today is a partial translation of the game, a "demo", if you will, that allows players to experience the first region called 'Tenrin'. For players who have previous experience with roguelikes or Mystery Dungeon-style games, SharkSnack reckons the demo could take about three hours to finish. If it's your first time, however, the demo could instead take you upwards of six hours or more. If you get stuck, SharkSnack has been working on a strategy guide that you can use. Regardless of your skillset, though, there's a lot of game to experience here. 

SharkSnack elaborated on the overall progress of the translation:

"In terms of overall translation progress, the game is fully translated up to the first end credits (after clearing the second dungeon of the first region, Tenrin). The story continues into a second region called Sairai and there's a lot more game left after that (12 dungeons total), but since none of the dialogue is translated in that region yet, the demo patch is locked to Tenrin areas. 

"If players are determined to continue playing, they can load their save on an unpatched version of the game, travel to Sairai, and switch back to the patched game. The reason I locked it like that is to ensure people wouldn't have to start over from the beginning to experience the rest of the game once it's fully translated."

Being turned into an onigiri by a boss… or should I say a “jelly-filled donut”?

If you enjoy what you play, stay tuned for the full patch at some point in the future. We'll be sure to update you when that time comes. SharkSnack also let us know about some other Shiren the Wanderer translations they have in the works:

"I'm also working on fan translations for Shiren the Wanderer 4 Plus for PSP (with Arc Impulse), and Shiren the Wanderer DS2 for Nintendo DS as well, so basically the long term goal is to have most of the Japanese-exclusive Shiren games in English."

Checking the menu inside a dungeon.

To download the patch, just follow this link to the translation's announcement trailer. Check that video's description to find a link to get the patch, and be sure to subscribe to SharkSnack's channel while you're visiting! The patch can easily be applied to an image of the game using Derek Pascarella's Universal Dreamcast Patcher. The v0.16 build can be played on both real hardware and emulator.

Thanks again to SharkSnack for their hard work on this patch, and for providing me with information and screenshots. Let's hope this is the first of many Japanese-exclusive Dreamcast RPGs we get to see translated into English! Will you be playing Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka Kenzan? Let us know in the comments!

RUN=DIM as Black Soul is now Translated into English!

Despite being a Dreamcast super nerd, I must admit I wasn't aware of the Japanese-exclusive "RUN=DIM as Black Soul" until community stalwart Rolly announced that an English fan translation was in the works for it. Today, I am reminded of this game yet again, because late yesterday we learned that that very translation patch had finally been released.

For those unaware, Rolly (along with frequent collaborator RafaMGam) has been involved in many translation projects for some really cool Dreamcast games, such as The Lost Golem, Karous, L.O.L.: Lack of Love, and probably most notably, Blue Submarine No. 6: Time And Tide. Rolly has also been responsible for some translations of DC games into Polish too.

So, back to RUN=DIM as Black Soul. Peculiar name, but it's essentially a turn-based strategy RPG with mechs. It was developed by Yuki Enterprise and published by Idea Factory in 2001. It appears to be part of a wider franchise (Run=DIM) which includes an anime series, as well as titles for the PlayStation 2 and the WonderSwan Color. Those who worked on the translation recommend the game to fans of Front Mission, Rayblade or Super Robot Wars.

Writing about Run=Dim as Black Soul in his A to Z of Dreamcast games guide, fellow Junkyarder Mike explains that the game "has a fairly large amount of Japanese text interspersed with its stat heavy presentation, which is rather daunting, and it's not exactly clear what is going on to anyone who can't understand the language." He finishes his blurb by saying "I just wish I knew what was going on." Well, Mike, today's your lucky day! With this translation patch, Run=Dim is now penetrable for English speakers. I will definitely be giving it a go. 

Anyway, enough from me, you can download the translation patch here. The translation is playable on real hardware, ODEs (GDEMU/MODE) and emulation. Thank you to Rolly, RafaMGam and EsperKnight for their hard work and dedication bringing this to us.

Puyo Puyo~n English Fan Translation released!

I’m partial to a bit of Puyo Puyo. Precise Museum, however, really love Puyo Puyo, as evidenced by the plethora of independent Puyo-related English translations this talented team of megafans have completed over the years. Their translation efforts span multiple different types of Puyo media - games, comics, drama CDs, light novels, and more. The reason we’re talking about them today is because they’ve finally added a Dreamcast release to their catalogue: an English translation of Japan-exclusive Puyo Puyo~n (also known as Puyo Puyo 4).

While the classic gameplay of Puyo Puyo doesn’t require a knowledge of Japanese to be enjoyed, Puyo Puyo~n has a lot of story elements that will be missed out on unless you understand the language. Precise Museum’s translation has finally solved this issue for English speakers, so a big thanks goes out to them for all the work they’ve put into making this project a reality.

Anyway, that’s enough talk from me. Here’s a link to get the translation, which is playable on both real Dreamcast hardware and emulators. Also, the team put together a cool trailer for this project, so check that out below.