More Videogame Translations

I had posted about videogame translations before. While searching for German language versions of Super Nintendo games I rediscovered a website I used to frequent for English Translations of Japanese games, and emulators. The site is called Zophar‘s domain. They have over forty fan translations of SNES games that you can use to patch your ROMs with. As well as patches for almost any other language. I should note that these files are not the games themselves, but simply the files to change the language.

Official German translations of Games can be hard to find sometimes. PAL versions of SNES games are worth two to three times as much as their North American counterparts simply because of their limited distribution. RPG games, which depend on a storyline, and rich dialouge tend to also be valued by collectors. This means somebody has to have the money to purchase the more exspensive PAL (RPG) game, and the know-how to dump the memory of the game onto a computer, compile it as a ROM, and then distribute it. It does not help that this all exists in a legal gray area. One also takes the risk of depreciating the value of the game cartridge now that it will be avaiable for free download.

Still, the online game translation community is a stomping ground for budding computer-savy translators to build their translation portfolio (same link as above). Sometimes there are parts of the games that can be glitchy, or untranslated, but if you’re trying to learn a new language or understand a game you want to play you really can't go wrong.