Tecmo and Grasshopper Manufacture's scare-fest Fatal Frame IV: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse still isn't officially coming out in the West; Nintendo, holder of the title's publishing rights in North America, still doesn't want to bother, relegating it to the same territorial fate as Disaster: Day of Crisis and Captain Rainbow.
To keep non-Japanese-speaking gamers hopes and dreams from staying completely crushed, a group of fans have taken it upon themselves to translate the game into English. And wouldn't you know it if progress is moving along swimmingly.
As announced on the (un)official translation Web site (via Infendo), the project is floating around the 93% completion mark. Huzzah!
It's an interesting patch, too, and one that doesn't seem to need the Homebrew Channel. Instead of hacking and burning the .ISO onto a new disc, the patch is intended for use with an original Japanese retail copy of the game and will be applied by being read off an SD card on-the-fly. The patchers are taking this route to encourage legal purchase of the game, develop a re-useable patching system and also to allow them to override any file on the disc: textures, sound, even gameplay mods. Despite region locks and all that jazz, the goal is to have the patch able to work on any Wii — yes, even non-Japanese ones.
If they get around to it, the end result might even include bonus features, with the Web site naming soundtracks, a walkthrough, maps, videos and fan art as potential extras.
Check out some translated gameplay video below, although "dark and creepy" don't really need a patch to come across.
[source infendo.com]
Comments 26
I seriously thought they gave up on this game. It seems that this translation has been taking foreveeeeer. Great to hear they are almost done. Finally!
I want it, I want it, I want it.
Fantastic. This should be a model for all homebrew projects: do everything possible to encourage use with an official, legitimate copy of the game. They ought to even embed hidden bits of code here and there to crash it if loaded from a WAD instead of a disc. When this arrives, if all reports indicate it's well made and safe, I'll set out to import a copy of the game at once.
Standing ovation. If this is completed and does as it says, that is, fully translates from the SD with no need for HBC or a Japanese Wii, then I'll definately be importing my copy and getting the patch. Can't wait!
I wouldn't be getting your hope up to high its been at about 90% done for about 2 months now it was suppose to be done at the end of august and with all the news its getting i wouldn't be surprised if nintendo squashes it.
Nice. Maybe when it is cheaper to import they'll be 100% complete and released
i wouldn't be surprised if nintendo squashes it.
I would, they don't seem to touch fangames or translations (probably due to translations raising too many questions). The most notable one of recent being the Mother 3 translation.
It's an interesting patch, too, and one that doesn't seem to need the Homebrew Channel
Don't be mistaken it is homebrew (you don't need the homebrew channel to run any homebrew, you can just bannerbomb/smash srack/Indiana pwns every time if you like*) and wouldn't be possible without those achievements (so if you're anti-homebrew you better booing at this translation).
*-In fact Sean Aaron did it like this.
this wouldn't need to exist if Nintendo would just bring this game here in the first place
only if noa wasn't run by a douch that hates bringing good games over we would get this and capitan rainbow
Interesting. Too bad I don't have any money to buy an import copy. Muramasa is next on my list to buy anyway.
Perhaps if the fan translations is successful, maybe it might encourage Nintendo to finally release the damn game here in the US. Then again Disaster and Another Code R did had official English translations but never see the light of days. Somebody need to kick Reggie in the nuts and bring these games state-side. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Fragile are already on schedule to be release internationally, Nintendo had no reason not to release their games here.
doesn't make any sense that it's just not released here. It's not like they've firmly stood against adult or scary games, so theres no reason not to do this one.
I think I played some version of this on a friends' 360; it was ok, but not the greatest game ever. It was some kind of special edition import that he was all geeked about but I didn't really understand the hype, just seemed like another Resident Evil thingy, and they're all the same after a while. If it comes here legit someday I'll give it a whirl but I'm not going to spend an arm and a leg importing it and stuff.
@Koto: It seems like you just stated the obvious for the sake of saying something bad about Nintendo.
I'm surprised there's very little backlash on this story considering the feedback on all the other homebrew stories on this site. Maybe people think it's ok to hack something as long as you're not adding the HBC to your Wii.
Interesting Note: If this patch will only work on a Japanese Wii, you can use the HBC to boot up imports. I just thought I'd make the topic a little more compelling.
Lol, the hypocracy on these boards. People supporting this but not HBC is ridiculous.
Knowing Nintendo they will find a way to patch over all of this team's hard work just to be royal asses to their US consumers. (No Fatal Frame 4 for you! updates to 4.3)
If it’s easy to get working and I don’t need to mod my Wii then I may get myself a copy from play asia in the near future.
I believe the greater support for this type of homebrew activity is due to the fact that it the creators say "You will need to buy the game to play it, like with every other game" on their site, and have been setting it up not as a patch you can apply to a game image, which would be easier for them, but as a patch that requires reading the retail game from the Wii's disc drive, meaning you'll need to buy it.
In other words, they're going well out of their way to make this patch something that avoids contributing to the distribution of ripped images of the game. If other homebrew efforts went to those lengths, they'd be more credible. I'm sure it's well within the abilities of Team Twiizers and others responsible for the Homebrew Channel to stick in various protections that will lock up your system if using a WAD file, etc, but they haven't even thought about putting barriers in place. While they aren't encouraging piracy in their speech, they're enabling it with their tech work, and they should be responsible for doing everything in their power to make sure their creations won't load illegal images.
@warioswoods
Point taken, but there are legitimate uses for piracy. Also, I'm sure you'll still be able to use a burned image when this patch comes out. I do like the fact that these guys are holding to a high standard though, and I'm sure Nintendo's public stance on modifying the Wii or its software (directly or indirectly) will still be a negative one. Still, I'm surprised that the users who bash people for utilizing homebrew and modifying their console are not, even on a lesser level, coming to aid the stance that illegal activities on a console are wrong and should not be tolerated under any circumstances.
IF they can work out a way to make this work without any console hacking whatsoever as they seem to be aiming for, I vote somebody latch onto the programming and do the same for Captain Rainbow. I'd love to play that game.
@retro_player_22: Thanks for reminding me of Trace Memory 2...Glares at NoA And do I even have to mention NPC Pikmin 2 anymore? Dammit, NoA, GET WITH IT!
Being fairly familiar with fan translations in general I know full and well that those last 5% take up atleast 75% of the time spent... But good to see them chuckin along, wish them all the best.
FANTASTICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope to play Fatal Frame 4 pretty soon!
Wait...Disaster: Day of Crisis and Captain Rainbow aren't coming to the U.S.?! I've been waiting around for nothing?!D= Please tell me Minion: Everyday Hero is coming...right?!?!?!O_o
@Mickeymac: I can't tell how much if any of your post was meant to be sarcastic, so I'll just give you a straight answer: No, Minion: Everyday Hero probably isn't coming. I've never even HEARD of the publisher (I don't think they publish in America), the Metacritic score isn't too good (only 57), and I have no idea what the sales were (VGChartz didn't have the game listed), but I doubt they were very high.
All I can say is: The sooner everyone finally adopts Sony's new "region-free console" stratagy, the better. Meanwhile, we're all stuck giving our "hate NoA" muscles a REALLY good workout.
Am I supporting this, am I f**k! Am I disappointed NL are reporting this, very! Am I gonna get involved in another argument with the HB fanboyz, no!
@Machu: As you may already know, I'm no HB fanboy. But isn't this GOOD news? If they can manage to work this out with a retail disc and no system modding whatsoever, I don't see what the problem is. It can only be a good thing, IMO.
@Stuff: I'll just wait for the PAL release thanks, whether it surfaces or not. But anyway, I've banned myself from talking or thinking about any kind of modifications anymore. Tired of it now ,and instead of kickin' off like usual, I will just ignore any future articles relating to it. Ug!
I thought there was an announcement a few months back that this game wasn't coming to the EU?
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