Fan Translation and Emulation Catch-Up
Jul. 10th, 2022 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroHoly Umbrella: Dondera no Mubou!! (SNES, Played on PocketSNES on RG350) - A fan-translation of a fairly ridiculous action-rpg hybrid, that actually reminds me a lot of Gargoyle’s Quest in its execution. It’s much kinder, mind you, as you have infinite lives and dying just drops you at the beginning of the section or boss battle. But it splits out segments of talking to people and searching for hidden items in a ¾ view and side-scrolling action segments that get more complex as you gain both special umbrella abilities (freeze, wind, fire) and characters who join your party (a bird that can double-jump and fit in small spaces; a girl who can wall-jump and slide). The controls aren’t the greatest which makes the action sequences unnecessarily hard, and it’s a goofy plot without a lot of depth, but playing through half of it entertained me for a few hours.
Taloon’s Great Adventure (SNES, Replayed on PocketSNES on RG350) - A “kind” roguelike that I replayed using save-states (and still took about eight hours and a dozen runs to complete). I re-read my original review and I don’t think I really have much more to add. I definitely retain the opinion that the Belly Ring is the most important item in the game.
Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass D-Pad Patch (DS, Replayed on DraStic on RG552) - I own a copy of this and had played the first dungeon or two years ago, but the stylus-based control scheme never won me. This hack replaces a bunch of the stylus controls with classic d-pad and a-button…but not enough of them. You’re still constantly hitting the touchpad to push blocks or use items. I’d love more 2D Zelda (I should really replay Link Between Worlds...) but I suspect I’ll need to wait until Nintendo properly ports this to a non-touchpad system.
Breath of Fire: War of the Goddess (SNES, Played on SNES-9X) - Another attempt at being a “definitive” version of the game, this time based on the SNES version. It was unfortunately colored by the fact that I played an updated hack of the GBA version less than two years ago, and it does a lot of the same things. This admits that the new translation is more of a “reimagining” and adds a lot of personal choices rather than trying to stay perfectly accurate (though it also tries to stay consistent with Ryusui’s excellent Bof2 retranslation hack), and it changes very little in terms of game mechanics (mostly rearranging Karn’s fusions). I like the expanded story and character personalities, and I may return to it the next time I get the urge to play classic Breath of Fire, but that may be another 5 years out.
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade, Played on X40 Pro) - An excuse to try out a new cheap toy, this is a pretty standard side-scrolling beat-em-up, except there are a couple of driving sequences and there are sometimes dinosaurs wandering around. (The dinos don’t seem aggressive most of the time and you can leave the screen without beating them, unlike human enemies—I think they’re supposed to be neutral.) I found that the inputs were kinda weird and I was often doing the health-reducing special attack even when I didn’t want to; I’m not sure if this was the game’s problem or the device. This was apparently a tie-in to a cartoon series based on a comic book (I’d never heard of either) and so has a complicated plot about fighting an evil geneticist gang leader in the 26th century.
Final Fantasy 4 Ultima Hack v25 (SNES Emulator, Replayed on SNES-9X on RG552) - Over the course of two dozen iterations, this “enhanced” version of the SNES game managed to address some of my initial concerns but aggravate others. Pretty much everything from my original review remains accurate. They added more mid-game secret areas and challenge bosses (which reward you with earlier access to better equipment). They also added new abilities (like custom white magic for Kain and a selection of Tools for Cid), more new equipment, new summons, and the ability to switch characters (on the Big Whale; you don’t need to go back to Mysidia!) in the endgame. On the other hand, there seem to be even more additional bosses in the main story path, and every one of them is a mountain of HP that hits harder than anything around them. (There’s also an extra form of Zeromus you need to fight to get the real ending.) I still can’t comment on the postgame bonus bosses because I still can’t get past the Goddess boss that unlocks them, even with a level 99 party who otherwise has the best equipment. This remains a fun experience for FF4 old hats like me, but it’s far too much of a challenge hack to give to a casual player.
Taloon’s Great Adventure (SNES, Replayed on PocketSNES on RG350) - A “kind” roguelike that I replayed using save-states (and still took about eight hours and a dozen runs to complete). I re-read my original review and I don’t think I really have much more to add. I definitely retain the opinion that the Belly Ring is the most important item in the game.
Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass D-Pad Patch (DS, Replayed on DraStic on RG552) - I own a copy of this and had played the first dungeon or two years ago, but the stylus-based control scheme never won me. This hack replaces a bunch of the stylus controls with classic d-pad and a-button…but not enough of them. You’re still constantly hitting the touchpad to push blocks or use items. I’d love more 2D Zelda (I should really replay Link Between Worlds...) but I suspect I’ll need to wait until Nintendo properly ports this to a non-touchpad system.
Breath of Fire: War of the Goddess (SNES, Played on SNES-9X) - Another attempt at being a “definitive” version of the game, this time based on the SNES version. It was unfortunately colored by the fact that I played an updated hack of the GBA version less than two years ago, and it does a lot of the same things. This admits that the new translation is more of a “reimagining” and adds a lot of personal choices rather than trying to stay perfectly accurate (though it also tries to stay consistent with Ryusui’s excellent Bof2 retranslation hack), and it changes very little in terms of game mechanics (mostly rearranging Karn’s fusions). I like the expanded story and character personalities, and I may return to it the next time I get the urge to play classic Breath of Fire, but that may be another 5 years out.
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade, Played on X40 Pro) - An excuse to try out a new cheap toy, this is a pretty standard side-scrolling beat-em-up, except there are a couple of driving sequences and there are sometimes dinosaurs wandering around. (The dinos don’t seem aggressive most of the time and you can leave the screen without beating them, unlike human enemies—I think they’re supposed to be neutral.) I found that the inputs were kinda weird and I was often doing the health-reducing special attack even when I didn’t want to; I’m not sure if this was the game’s problem or the device. This was apparently a tie-in to a cartoon series based on a comic book (I’d never heard of either) and so has a complicated plot about fighting an evil geneticist gang leader in the 26th century.
Final Fantasy 4 Ultima Hack v25 (SNES Emulator, Replayed on SNES-9X on RG552) - Over the course of two dozen iterations, this “enhanced” version of the SNES game managed to address some of my initial concerns but aggravate others. Pretty much everything from my original review remains accurate. They added more mid-game secret areas and challenge bosses (which reward you with earlier access to better equipment). They also added new abilities (like custom white magic for Kain and a selection of Tools for Cid), more new equipment, new summons, and the ability to switch characters (on the Big Whale; you don’t need to go back to Mysidia!) in the endgame. On the other hand, there seem to be even more additional bosses in the main story path, and every one of them is a mountain of HP that hits harder than anything around them. (There’s also an extra form of Zeromus you need to fight to get the real ending.) I still can’t comment on the postgame bonus bosses because I still can’t get past the Goddess boss that unlocks them, even with a level 99 party who otherwise has the best equipment. This remains a fun experience for FF4 old hats like me, but it’s far too much of a challenge hack to give to a casual player.
