

In fact, the scene was still new, period. Members of that team include several high-profile fan translators, including Clyde "Mato" Mandelin, known for his sublime work on the Mother 3 fan translation, Neill Corlett of Seiken Densetsu 3 fame, and Dark Force, who worked on the Tales of Phantasia fan translation, though at the time they were still new to the scene. * * *Ī couple of years after Near's first attempt at a translation, another group of fans working under the team name Dejap completed their own English localization of Bahamut Lagoon. This fifth and final time finally felt right, as though there was nothing more I could do to improve upon it. The same thing goes for my fourth attempt in 2009. My third attempt in 2007 was successfully completed, but I was not happy with the quality of the work: I knew that I could do better. My second attempt in 2001 failed due to a lack of a translator. I taught myself programming, Super Nintendo assembly, and reverse engineering specifically to have another go at the game. My first attempt in 1998 failed due to a lack of experience.

In fact, this was my fifth time working on the game. What's it like returning to the game after so long? “I fell in love almost immediately with the graphics, music, and gameplay.”Īidan: You were originally part of a Bahamut Lagoon fan localization project over 20 years ago, but that eventually stalled out. I was inspired by another fan translation group named RPGe that was translating Final Fantasy V, and I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of as well. This led me to Bahamut Lagoon, and I fell in love almost immediately with the graphics, music, and gameplay. I have a particular fondness for tactical RPGs such as Shining Force and Warsong. Near: As a child, I fell in love with Japanese role-playing games, and I began importing Super Famicom games. To help me tell this story, I caught up with Near to chat about Bahamut Lagoon, their tireless pursuit of perfection, and how fan localization has evolved over the past two decades. This is the story of one fan's pursuit of the ultimate fan localization. Several attempts and 23 years later, they’ve finally finished. Back in 1998, before they were known for their standard-setting work developing game emulators, they took it upon themself to bring Bahamut Lagoon to English-speaking players.
NEAR CREATOR HIGAN BSNES DIED SOFTWARE
One of those fans is a Tokyo-based software reverse engineer named Near.
NEAR CREATOR HIGAN BSNES DIED FULL
But gaming is a passionate fandom full of skilled people, and around that same time intrepid fans began working on unofficial fan translations for games like Final Fantasy V, Seiken Densetsu 3, and. There's absolutely no excuse for it - it costs you absolutely nothing to be considerate of others' feelings.As the 16-bit era transitioned into the emerging 3D technology of the PlayStation, I got swept up in games like Final Fantasy VII and Grandia, and gave up hope of ever playing those games locked behind a language I didn't speak.

I have no time for people who harass and are cruel to others. Sometimes you can see why people get angry online, but this is different - it's not losing your temper, it's deliberate cruelty. I often see people go out of their way to laugh at someone or dismiss something they're going through or struggling with. The particular bullies Near was dealing with are extremists motivated by bigotry, but even everyday "non-extreme" people can treat others horribly sometimes, particularly online. It sounds like there was a community of people dedicated to harassing them for no reason other than being "weird" and I think that's a very frightening and depressing thought. It's horrifying how common it is to harass people simply for being neurodivergent, trans/nonbinary, or otherwise being perceived as "different". I think it's deeply upsetting that so many people went out of their way to bully Near, who was by all accounts a kind, gentle person.
