In September of 1994, Illusion of Gaia made its North American debut. Known for being much darker than the other RPGs Nintendo was allowing at the time, it left players with a lot to think about… but unfortunately, the localization was often incomprehensible.

Now, thanks to the efforts of L Thammy, the game has received a new fan translation 30 years after its western release. The GitHub project page for this translation can be found here.

Key points:

  • The new translation aims to make the English script more comprehensible and closer to the original Japanese dialogue.
  • A demo is available on GitHub, including the translation up to South Cape location.
  • In addition, the patch improves load times by decompressing all assets in the game.

Do you remember being confused by the original localization?

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      The game is not by Nintendo. Also, it’s a patch. They can’t takedown a patch.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        And emulation is legal as long as you don’t share copyrighted content, doesn’t prevent Nintendo from going after emulators!

        • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          Nintendo mainly goes after Switch emulators, since that’s their current system. Also, their legal angle is that certain emulators circumvent DRM (like cg/wii or switch emulators). Rom patches for 30 year old games should be fine, as long as you don’t distribute copyrighted content.

            • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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              1 month ago

              I don’t have faith, I try to unnerstand their actions and tactics. And I dislike nonsensical arguments mainly informed by gut intuitions rather than thinking for a second.

              Illusion of Gaia/Time is not a Nintendo IP. No copyrighted material is being distributed. They can’t even legally takedown decompilations of Zelda and Mario. What makes you think they’ll go against a completely and unquestionably legal romhack of a 30 year old Quintet game?

              company that hates its customers.

              You’re describing every company.