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.

An English Fan Translation of Cool Cool Toon is in the works!

SNK's Japanese-exclusive rhythm romp Cool Cool Toon has long been considered a top title for gamers looking for import-friendly Dreamcast games, not only due to how accessible its gameplay is, but also because of how fun and colourful its crazy-looking characters and cel-shaded aesthetics are.

Despite all this, if you're looking to make much sense of the story and can't speak Japanese... well, you're splat out of luck. I guess you could use that Google Translate app, but that's immersion breaking, dammit! Phew. Anyway, Derek Pascarella, who previously brought us English fan translations of Sakura Wars Columns 2 and Rainbow Cotton (along with many others), has announced today that he has an English fan translation patch in the works for Cool Cool Toon.

Also joining Derek on his translation journey is Cargodin (whose previous work on Dreamcast includes the excellent Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream fan translation) and Popomocco. Along with this announcement, Derek has posted some early work-in-progress footage to his YouTube channel, which you can watch below.

To keep track of this project as it progresses, you can follow Derek on Twitter, or keep an eye on the project's Dreamcast Talk forum thread.

Have you played Cool Cool Toon before and are excited for this translation to be released? Let us know in the comments below on our social media pages!