Introduction
When it comes to Fire Emblem's long history, something that I find to be a bit overlooked is the history behind its fan translations. Since the series didn’t have much of an official foothold in the West until relatively recently, you’d imagine that a lot of the fandom lived and died based on the fan translations available to them. Despite that, there isn't much comprehensive coverage or documentation that pertains to the full history of these fan translations online.
That's a bit of a shame because a lot of the history of these translations is interesting in their own right. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that a lot of the drama regarding some of these translations rivals a lot of the internal drama regarding the development of the games themselves. That’s why I wanted to take it upon myself to document the numerous fan translations that exist for the series in one comprehensive blog post. So sit back and I hope you enjoy!
I'm sure that if you're reading this, you may know this already, but for the person who got here by accident, Fire Emblem is a series that debuted in Japan in 1990. The series never left Japan until November 3rd, 2003 when Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade was released worldwide due to the popularity of the characters, Marth and Roy, appearing in Super Smash Brothers Melee. In addition, the popularity of Advance Wars also justified this worldwide release, as the two genres were similar enough for Nintendo of America to have confidence in Fire Emblem. Among the fanbase Blazing Sword is commonly referred to as 'FE7', and because of this, you can hopefully assume that it is because it's the seventh game in the series. Meaning that there were six games before it that never left Japan. Furthermore, there was even a Satellaview side game, a trading card game, books, manga, and other media that we never got here in the West.
While people enjoyed the content that we did get at the time and they’d form their own niche followings, other people wanted more. There were some dedicated fans who wanted to learn of the series’ roots, see where this Marth guy came from, learn about references made in future games, and so on. This is where some of these dedicated fans would work to translate this content and make it accessible to fellow fans.
Brief History of Fan Translations
I’m sure if you’ve played Fire Emblem, or other Japanese series that lacked global releases like Final Fantasy, you probably know what a fan translation is, but just so we're all on the same page, a fan translation is an unofficial translation of various forms of written or multimedia products made by fans, usually into a language that it is not yet available in. Some of the most popular fan translations that exist are Mother 3’s fan translation spearheaded by Clyde Mandelin, and Ace Attorney Investigation 2’s fan translation led by Aurynn, both with a vast number of contributors.
Dye-Young Hospital is still one of the funniest jokes I’ve seen in a video game, ngl.
I generally make it no secret how much I despise the Fire Emblem community, but one thing I do love is how passionate the small portion of the community is. In particular, this passion has resulted in every mainline game in the series being accessible and fully playable in English, which isn't something a lot of more niche fanbases can say. This, in turn, has resulted in introducing more and more people to the series, fostering sub-communities, and inspiring a wealth of creative contributions. Some of these include fan art, ROM hacks, fan games, and fanfiction, and all of this occurred even before the series gained even more widespread recognition through Awakening or Heroes.
That said, while contemporary perceptions of fan translations are predominantly associated with video games, the origins of fan translations can be traced back to the 1980s, specifically within the context of anime fansubbing. In Minako O'Hagan's insightful article, Evolution of User-generated Translation: Fansubs, Translation Hacking, and Crowdsourcing, she notes that the inception of fansubbing can be attributed to a form of protest against the significant alterations made in anime dubs during that era. Notable instances of such changes include stuff like Speed Racer, Voltron, or Robotech. A more topical example though would be something like the 4Kids One Piece dub. A lot of early fansubbing and fandubbing efforts involved manipulating VHS tapes, and this was often seen as tedious and time-consuming.
Man, I frickin’ love lollipops.
The mid-90s saw the emergence of video games in the fan translation scene. Among the pioneers of early English video game fan translations were members of a group known as Oasis, which included Dennis Lardenoye and Ron Bouwland, both avid fans of the MSX. In their efforts, they translated Konami's RPG SD Snatcher, making it accessible to English-speaking audiences in April 1993. Additionally, their translation work extended to Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes, which became available in English in 1995.
An old 2009 interview, re-published by ‘Project Melancholia‘ (A group who made an authentic English re-translation of SD Snatcher - MSX2), in a Finnish magazine with Oasis goes into more depth regarding their fan-translation project for SD Snatcher on MSX2.
They also worked on several other projects that contributed to the early fan translation scene. These projects included titles like Fray, Rune Master 3, Xak - The Art of Visual Stage, Xak 2, Xak - The Tower of Gazzel, Ys, Ys II: The Final Chapter, and Wanderers From Ys.
During this period, fan translations were made possible primarily due to games being distributed on floppy disks. This format made it comparatively easier to modify and distribute these translated versions to users, particularly before the widespread use of emulation on personal computers.
The 90s however was the birth of the emulation age. And with that, fan translations of video games had a huge boom at the time as well. Starting this boom was a group called Kowasu Ku that stated plans to translate Final Fantasy V. However, like many projects, it fell flat. A fellow member of the emulation scene, known as Demi, decided to jump in and pick up the effort to translate Final Fantasy V. And this was when he formed one of the first significant fan translation groups, Multiple Demiforce.
Unfortunately, once again this effort to translate Final Fantasy V would fall flat, once again, in favor of Final Fantasy II. Since that was a Famicom game, it was a much more manageable project. And he’d team up with Som2Freak to complete the project.
Using Pasofami (the only NES graphical debugger released at the time), Demi would release four screenshots of his WIP translation for Final Fantasy II to the then-popular emulation site, Archaic Ruins. And for the first time ever, fans saw the results of the ROM hacking involved in this fan translation. This proved that commercial-quality game fan translations were possible and sent the underground translation scene into a frenzy.
Spotting Demi and Som2Freak's work on Archaic Ruins's "PiƱa Consolada" page, two users, Derrick Sobodash (Shadow) and David Timko both contacted Som2Freak expressing interest in translating Final Fantasy V. He then provided each with some basic tools, BiGWeirD's X-Char 2.0, X-Late 1.0 and a tbl (table) file for Final Fantasy V, and for the next few months, Shadow and Timko worked against one another. Which generated interest from other onlookers.
Eventually, the two of them essentially said “Hey, why don’t we just work together?” This decision, at around 8:43 PM EST on July 8, 1997, was when the group RPGe was born as one of the first major fan-translation groups. After this, FFV’s fan translation was completed and it gained notoriety for being the first JRPG game to ever receive a proper and complete fan translation. The birth of RPGe inspired many other groups to form within the following months, and groups like Translation Corporation, DeJap Translations, and Starsoft Translations are all notable groups that formed at the time.
Since then, the fan translation scene has only grown and grown over the next few decades. If there’s a popular series that you enjoy, and one of the games in that series has not been released in English, the game has likely received a fan translation. Even though games are mostly released worldwide nowadays, there are still fan translation efforts that do things like revert localization changes or just rudimentary patches to play in anticipation of a game’s worldwide release.
What Goes into a Fan Translation?
Creating a fan translation for a video game might seem like a simple task—after all, you just need to be a fan who knows how to translate, right? Well, that's far from the truth. In contrast to other fan-driven efforts like manga scanlations or fansubs, fan-translating video games is an immensely complex endeavor. It demands a unique skill set. Not only must you be proficient in Japanese, but you also need expertise in game graphics manipulation, text modification, and in many cases, even assembly language programming.
Consider an official translation process for a game. It typically involves a team of professionals, each excelling in their respective areas. There's someone fluent in Japanese and well-versed in cultural references; a team of skilled writers; a marketing expert offering insights on adaptational changes; and a group of programmers capable of modifying in-game text and data. Add to that a graphic designer adept at tweaking game visuals, and you have a relatively swift translation project.
Whereas, a fan translation is often done by some dude, who at most has some background knowledge in programming, and has to learn how to do everything else by themselves. A lot of early fan translations are often criticized for being shoddy but considering the circumstances, it’s not hard to imagine why they would come off as 'low effort' compared to an official project.
Still one of the rawest lines ever spoken by an FE antagonist to date
There’s a lot that goes into a fan translation, but going into depth about the different programming aspects and difficulties warrants a separate write-up and a half. Instead, this article will only cover relevant topics as they arise.
Another noteworthy aspect to note is that fan translations, like all forms of fan work, vary a lot from person to person. When translating text from one language to another, the words that the original author expresses can be interpreted in many different ways by the fans, especially when they lack contact with the original writers. This means that a translator or translation team's thought process will inevitably manifest through the text and terminology used in a game or translation.
Different individuals may translate terms or interactions differently; one might prioritize consistency with other localized entries in the series, while another may lean towards staying faithful to the original Japanese text as much as they can. Yet, another translator might aim to enhance elements where the original Japanese game fell short to better portray the original intent. Even translations that aim to be completely faithful are often just one person’s subjective perspective of what is considered faithful.
The Dark Ages
Despite popular belief, Fire Emblem actually did have a following before the localization of FE7. It was very small, granted, but it existed. There were Jugdral forum sites and FE3 forum sites where people would talk about and discuss all things Fire Emblem. A lot of the fans were mostly hardcore otaku who just enjoyed niche RPGs, and a lot of the rudimentary English patches came out at this time. Albeit, they were difficult to understand.
Despite this, it’s not as if there was absolutely no FE content ever released to the West before 2003. In 1996, there was a two-episode OVA based on Book 1 of FE3, produced by Studio KSS and Studio Fantasia. In 1997, this OVA would be dubbed into English by ADV Films, making it the first licensed Fire Emblem media to see an official release outside of Japan.
Apart from the OVA, the Nintendo Power August Edition of 1996 makes mention of the series in Japan, with FE4, the newest game released at the time, being heavily promoted.
The full image gallery can be found here, this is where funny romanizations like Zigludo and Serlis originated from
During this era, however, we got the first publicly released fan translation of a Fire Emblem game, that being one of FE3 back in 1999. This translation was done by a group aptly referred to as Fire Emblem Translations. This fan translation only translated dialogue up to chapter 5, and none of the menus were touched. However, this was one of the few FE3 fan translation patches (and one of the few SNESFE patches in general) that included a modified title screen.
It’s unclear whether or not this group knew that they’d be the pioneers for a long history of passionate fans translating these games over to English at the time, but even if much wasn’t modified too much, I’m appreciative of the floodgates this team opened up.
Later on, in 1999 Fire Emblem Gaiden received a fan translation of its own, this one was done by J2e. This patch is commonly joked around in online spaces for the names used such as “Kreb” for Clive (emulating the Japanese romanization of the name) and “Bird” for Robin (Used as a shorthand since Robin exceeded the name limit. For some reason, they refused to use “Robn”) Because of this, this patch would commonly be known as “The Bird Patch” in online spaces.
In the absence of official localizations, the game used straight translations or interpretations of Japanese terms for naming, resulting in terms like 'Armor Knight' instead of just 'Knight,' 'Swordfighter' in place of 'Myrmidon,' and 'Knightkiller' instead of 'Ridersbane,' all of which were condensed and truncated to fit within the game's constraints of course.
This translation, like a lot of older fan translations at the time, had a lot of bugs and glitches and even crashes on occasions, however in 2006, a user by the name of Starwolf released an addendum patch that fixed some of the bugs. Fun fact, j2e translations did fan translations of a lot of games from 1998 to 2004, with games including Final Fantasy IV and Super Puyo Puyo 2.
In 2000, the first game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (FE1) received a fan translation by Gaijin productions. The group was made up of users Musashi, Bokudono, recluse, Rom/Unicorn, Dave, and Look4sheep, and they even had their own website here. This patch featured a spiffy unique text font, and it translated all the menus and most of the battle text. Unfortunately, in terms of dialogue, the text was only translated up to chapter 2. The original translator of this project would end up disappearing off the face of the internet, and interest in this project would end up dying out.
In 2002, there was another FE3 patch released by Fallen StarTranslations, unfortunately, this project died very early on and it didn’t translate much outside of some menus. This patch was notable considering it was the first, to my knowledge, that was released after the release of Super Smash Brothers Melee.
Marth’s name is displayed as “Mar” in this menu because ćć«ć¹ takes up three character slots, and when he
gets the Fire Emblem in Chapter 5, the icon for that takes up the fourth character slot. It took hackers up to 2016 to find out how to get the Emblem icon to appear in the sixth slot, so that “Mar” could be extended to “Marth”
Sometime later in 2002, Fire Emblem Genealogy of the Holy War received its first fan translation, by j2e translations, once again. This project was originally conceived in 2000, but it never reached completion until December 2001. This one is pretty notable: FE4 was much more text-heavy compared to previous games. Despite that, the translation was surprisingly polished. This patch is also interesting in the fact that its development has been recorded. The user, bookofholsety, another translator which will be mentioned later, managed to get access to the readme from the original patch before it was lost to time and mentioned it on his blog along with other FE4 patches.
According to bookofholsety, the project started as a six-person project, but over time, the project was eventually worked on by just one guy, named Jay. Later on, someone else by the name of Boo joined the project and became the head translator of the project and they formed their own branch group called j2e renegade in 2001.
❝Jay put out a call for ROM hackers to assist him with the project which promptly went unanswered, so this leg of the journey basically ended around December 2001. Their last release was eventually put up on their site (mirrored on RHDN in October 2002), and while i can't find any surviving archives of the page to verify this, multiple sources say it was accompanied by a warning saying it was "not to be enjoyed" because of its incomplete state.❞
The development of this first FE4 patch was very rough, but it miraculously managed to get released. It is also important to note that Jay and Boo’s script and hacking tools became the foundation for future FE4 patches, before the Project Naga patch, by Bookofholsety in 2016.
An interesting aspect of this patch is that Boo, while working on the script, predominantly drew character, location, and item names from the Fire Emblem Treasure artbook from 1999, resulting in names such as Siglud, Skasaher, Leaf, and Celice.
Interestingly, the older J2E builds didn't use Treasure as a reference, and because of that the interpretations of the names were mostly a mixed bag. You had names like Leif and Ares which were more sensible and would later become their official names. Then you had more quirky interpretations like Couple, Sukasa, Deu, and "Jolaver.
A bit later there was another FE3 patch made by Blaxor. Like the one made by Fallen Star, this one doesn’t have much to show. This one lacked menu translations, and it only translated dialogue up to chapter 3.
After this in 2003, the fifth game of the series, Thracia 776 got its first fan translation. Released by Luxifer Angel, with the help of lehung, asdfgh, and Summer Wolf. Before recently, Thracia 776 was known as a game notoriously difficult to hack, so this was impressive at the time. This patch mostly focused on translating menus and did none of the dialogue. This patch also had both English and Vietnamese fonts, and is known by a lot of people as the “Big Iron” patch. It was referred to as such because Iron Blades were referred to as Big Iron, but later changed to Claymore in v.0.2
The text font appeared like this in an older version,
but was changed to the one used in the first image in an update
Two years later in 2005, Thracia 776 received yet another translation project with a translated script, but untranslated menus. This one was done by a team called, uh, Thracia 776 Translation Project. The dialogue is translated up to Chapter 5, but it’s important to know that this patch uses the same font used in a later popular patch referred to as the Shaya patch. Looking at the romhacking.net profile of this team has the following description:
❝The Thracia 766 Livejournal was organised by ‘VincentASM‘ from the UK, an administrator at Serenes Forest, and ‘angeling‘, but was ended in Sept 09, 2005 before their translation work on that SFC strategy game would be completed. It was passed onto another unknown person. That script was then shared online to the old FESS (’Fire Emblem: Sanctuary of Strategy’ Forums).❞
The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages, a term coined to describe the period between the releases of FE7 and FE13, marked a somewhat uncertain time for the Fire Emblem series in the West. While the games were gradually being localized into English officially, the overall popularity of the series experienced a noticeable decline, which started with FE9 and continued until Awakening.
During this period, around 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, introducing a significant amount of content referencing the Japanese-exclusive side of the Fire Emblem series. This content took the form of stickers and trophies in the game. While the Tellius games received a substantial portion of representation, given their recent release, there was also a noteworthy presence of content related to the Archanea and Elibe continents, even though Roy, a character from Elibe, did not make an appearance in the game.
The influx of newcomers to the Fire Emblem series, especially through Super Smash Bros. Brawl, played a pivotal role in revitalizing interest within the fan translation community. As the community expanded, so did the curiosity about the non-localized titles.
One particular game that garnered significant attention was Roy's homeland, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. With Roy being featured as a character in Melee and making a cameo appearance in FE7, fans had hoped for the worldwide release of FE6. However, as time passed, it became increasingly apparent that FE6 wouldn't receive an official localization outside of Japan.
❝People hoped for years that Nintendo would deign to release Fire Emblem 6 Fuuin No Tsurugi (FE6) on shores outside of Japan.
They didn't.❞ - The DTN Translation Division
As such, ROM Hackers got to work and developed an English patch for FE6. This patch was done by Dark Twilkitri Net Translation Division, which was made up of users Twilkitri, PrinceLeaf, DarkSlime, kyuusei, Eaichu, and Jey Enduro with Firelizard and Rosa Aquafire providing the translated script.
This patch wasn’t perfect, but at the time it was notably impressive, and many patches for other games that were released afterward aimed for the same level of polish.
This project was first released in 2005 under the name “Sword of Seals”, with development continuing up until 2007 when the members found less and less time to work on the project and motivation died out.
After this in 2007, FE1 received another fan translation, this one by DarknessSavior and KingMike (Who I found out is actually a moderator on the romhacking.net forums). This one only translated the menus, but it also featured a unique text font and a double line patch implemented by KingMike in order to allow more text to fit in a single text box. It’s a bit of a shame that this patch didn’t go too far considering the pretty font and the interesting method of rendering text.
I find it weird how the class roll uses “Agi” for Speed while the main game uses “Speed”, likewise, the main game uses “Tech” while the class roll uses “Skl.”
On March 2nd, 2008, FE5 got a third fan translation. And this one is probably the most infamous one here. If you’ve played FE5 before 2019, there’s a good chance that you played using this patch. In fact, this patch is how I first played FE5. This patch is referred to by most people as the Shaya patch named after its creator, Shaya. This patch uses a script written by FireLizard, while Shaya did the insertion work and hacking.
The Shaya patch gained notoriety due to its questionable level of polish. While many other patches lacked refinement and were objectively inferior, the Shaya patch was the only one that was actually playable to completion in English. It had enough polish for players to understand the game's story, albeit with some errors. As a result, since many people played the game using this patch, its issues are more widely recognized compared to others.
This patch suffered from numerous untranslated text segments, notably within the menus and epilogue. It also exhibited errors such as text displayed in the wrong locations, dialogue presented incorrectly, and even instances where the game would outright crash when hovering the cursor over specific Mercenaries in chapter 24.
In modern times, FE5 hacking has advanced significantly, and now the Shaya patch is relegated to being the subject of memes and jokes. However, it undeniably played a pivotal role in the progression of FE5 hacking, and its creator's insights were invaluable. Nevertheless, it's common nowadays for people to recommend newer patches over the Shaya patch.
On my PC, I have this image saved as Forklauncher.png
Many of the FE5-related memes come from the Shaya patch due to the abundance of garbled text and inappropriately placed references incorporated into the dialogue. The funniest example is Kempf, an enemy boss, referencing Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged. Apparently, there were rumors of an update patch that aimed to rectify these errors, which was supposedly uploaded on a now-defunct website. However, there is no evidence to support this outside of word-of-mouth.
According to the readme file of the patch, Shaya, the creator, began his university studies (and has presumably graduated by now) and has not actively worked on FE5 since the initial patch release.
I hope Abridged series make a comeback on YouTube, I really enjoyed GWS’s Gundam Abridged
On August 8th, 2008, a user known as aznanimefreak1 on GBATemp released a basic menu patch of FE11 in anticipation of the release of the localized game. There isn’t really much else to say about it, however.
The left image is the menu translation, while the right image is the official localization. Image taken from the FE Wiki
Shortly after, FE3 finally received an English patch that had its full story translated. This patch was made by RPGuy96 and VincentASM. There were some notable issues, like Abel’s recruitment with Est not being translated, the opening crawl is completely garbled, and a bug that prevents the “Naga’s Tapestry” theme from playing during Jagen’s dialogue at the end of Book 2 Chapter 7, but the game was still playable and the major details were still understandable enough in English. Similar to the Shaya patch, this was the patch I used when I played FE3 for the first time and was many people's first way of playing FE3.
Many of the names and terms in this patch were derived from either direct romanizations of the Japanese names or names found in Japanese artbooks. Examples include Biraku, Ellis, and Oguma. It's worth noting that this patch also uses Commonwealth English spellings, such as spelling 'Armor' as 'Armour' and 'Defense' as 'Defence.'
Certain changes were also made to enhance the fluency of the dialogue, although these are relatively infrequent. For instance, Luke's ending, mentions that he became a 'playboy,' whereas the Japanese version simply used “Jobless Man.” It’s kind of amusing since there are other instances where the text feels like it was just translated directly so it feels very choppy in comparison.
Nonetheless, VincentASM's script laid the groundwork for all subsequent FE3 patches, served as a reference for Quirino's later FE1 patch, and became a valuable resource for Polinym's FE1 patch.
Caesar looks really handsome in this game
Around 2009, FE2 would get another English patch through the efforts of Artemis251. Like the previous FE3 patch, this was the first time FE2 got a fully functional English translation translating both the dialogue and menus. This patch uses a script written by Shimizu Hitomi and reuses j2e’s font.
The script used in-game unfortunately was a bit rough around the edges due to the fact that there is a very small amount of available space in FE2’s ROM. This disallows very in-depth strings for conversations, resulting in a lot of the dialogue being truncated and potentially sounding awkward. However, this patch did use some techniques which made it easier to insert text.
One of these techniques is Character Scrunching. Text characters are stored in 8x8 blocks within a game's ROM. Since there are fewer English characters than Japanese characters, the remaining unused Japanese character slots are repurposed to store condensed letters as single-character blocks.
For example, take a look at the 'ig' in 'Knight.' It's actually two letters compressed into a single character block, rather than having 'i' and 'g' as separate characters. This allows the name to fit within 7 characters instead of 8. In most games, this technique is predominantly used for slimmer characters like 'il,' 'll,' or 'li.' In the case of FE2, this method was virtually essential, as playable character names can't exceed four characters, and class names can't go beyond about six characters without causing issues in text boxes.
Another technique used is using Icons as Item Names. In the image above, you can see Zeke with a Magic Shield. In Japanese, this item is called ć¾ć»ćć®ćć¦ (Mahou no Tate) or Magic Shield, which takes up seven characters. In English “Magic Shield” takes up 12 characters, which goes far beyond the character limit. So, to get around this, the patch has “Magic” written in English text, and uses one of the unused extra slots to make the little green shield icon to signify that it’s a shield to get around this limitation.
That aside, the patch also had more fluent interpretations for a lot of the more awkward names like Paison being rendered as 'Python,' Fols being rendered as 'Force,' and Clea being rendered as 'Claire.'
This patch for the most part used names that were consistent with the previous localized games at the time like Swordfighter -> Myrmidon (Myrmid in-game), and Knight -> Cavalier (Cavalr in-game). I say “for the most part” though because classes with longer names like the Revenant class, retained the Japanese name, being “Zombie.” Similarly, the boss Lawson, was renamed Loso in the game for space reasons.
There are also some issues where some class names would be outright wrong, like the now renamed Fiend class, which was called “Majin” (Demon Man) in Japanese being translated as “HiKnight” (Short for High Knight) which removes the nuance of the it being some kind of evil or demonic entity. Although, this appears to be the result of a mixup of name strings, as ćć¤ćć¤ć was the name of an unused class.
.
Because this last line of dialogue exceeds the line limit of 16 characters, the text kind of shifts to the right, cutting off the “d” in “reverted”
There was also another mistake where you’d get an error message saying “Area claimed, [item] reverted.” when you tried to open a chest when your inventory was full, which, as you’d expect, is supposed to be a message telling you that your inventory is full.
Errors aside, this patch would serve as the foundation for all two of the future patches FE2 would get and is also the most complete FE2 patch that exists. Also fun fact, in 2012, Artemis251 also did the fan translation for the Gameboy Color game, Pokemon Trading Card Game 2.
Later in 2011, FE1 received a completed fan translation as well. This patch translated all the menus and most of the dialogue. This patch was done by Quirino. This Quirino person stated that he wanted to play through every FE game, but as he couldn’t read Japanese, and there were no completed patches at the time, he took it upon himself to translate FE1, which I respect.
At the time, Quirino had no hacking experience and learned what to do along the way. The project was started in April 2010, but was originally canceled due to a lack of motivation, then revived again and released in January 2011. As an untranslated Famicom game from the '90s, FE1 had a lot of the same issues regarding ROM space that FE2 did (albeit, FE1 was a bit more lenient in terms of free space in the ROM). And both the techniques mentioned before were deployed in this patch.
Image taken from the Fire Emblem Wiki. These icons were used in the sense
that an item would be called “Iron” since “Iron Sword” didn’t fit within the seven-character limit
While this patch primarily used FE3's patch as a reference for text translation, there were notable differences between the games that required some translations to be done from scratch. These differences were the maps that were removed in FE3, as well as certain removed character recruitments, alternative recruitments, and various house dialogues.
However, the patch did have its share of issues, including typos, mistranslations, and untranslated text. For instance, the text informing you that you can't afford an item is completely untranslated resulting in mojibake, the text that displays if you break your weapon in the arena is untranslated, and the Chapter 24 narration mistakenly reads "Thanks through Marth" instead of "Thanks to Marth."
Interestingly, Quirino worked on this patch while still in high school, with English as his second language, which is barely relevant, but I just find it to be really cool.
Following the trend with other games, in 2012, FE4 received a more complete fan translation done by Dark Twilkitri Net Translation Division, the same team that did the FE6 patch previously mentioned. If you first played FE4 before 2016, chances are this is the patch you used (Either this or the Gharnef patch, but the Gharnef patch was built off of this one). As I mentioned before with the j2e translation, this patch uses Jay and Boo’s script and improves upon it, or to quote the page:
❝This project is an attempt to take Jay’s Fire Emblem translation and make it actually playable. It looks great, though it’s difficult to tell from the site exactly what is finished and what is not.❞
A general point of interest from the page is the fact that Twilkitri admitted that he’s a programmer, not a writer, so a lot of the changes were technical rather than anything script-related. The changes he did make to the script were mostly tweaking it to use Commonwealth English spellings. Another revision was the removal of all-caps that were meant to portray yelling, which makes sense, I can see how to a reader it can come off as hamfisted or out of place.
Another big change was the change to the text font, whereas the fat blocky text font was used for about six years' worth of patches and respective revisions, this one used the slimmer font used in the NTSC version of FE7, and this helped with fitting more dialogue in a text box.
A small tangent, but when it comes to specifically dialogue text, in SNES games they natively use VWF or Variable Width Font. And by that, I’m going to post another FE1 example.
In this screenshot, there’s no apparent issue with this, but if you wanted to change the amount of space each letter takes up. That’s where VWF comes in. Instead of having each letter take up a unified 8x8 block, you can instead have the size of the blocks vary between different letters. For example, the “l”s in Palla would take up a 3x8 block while the rest of the letters take up larger blocks, which in turn would result in saving a lot of space in each text box.
Since FE1 is a Famicom game, it can’t take advantage of VWF without some major workarounds, (It's not impossible, but just difficult to implement) but dialogue for SNES and later games don’t have to worry about all that. That’s why more modern SNES patches will usually opt to use thinner and thinner fonts in order to take better advantage of space and to overall look nicer.
The left image is from the oldest J2E Renegade patch, while the one on the right is from the Dark Twilkitri Net Translation Division patch. Notice how much slimmer the font is from the latter.
This next section, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include this, but in 2012, FE9 received an English patch. You’re probably wondering, “Why did FE9 get an English patch? Was it not already released in English?”
Well, the Japanese version of FE9 had an extra difficulty mode called “Maniac mode,” which was removed in the worldwide releases of the game. I assume this was because the localizers simply thought it wouldn’t appeal to English audiences, and well, they were right.
This patch, made by shadowofchaos, was a simple translation that made this removed difficulty mode playable in English.
In the year 2012, the first Tear Ring Saga patch came into existence. This patch was done by a group known as ayashii gamesubs. This patch was originally started as a project by alamone in 2008, but there was very little progress until 2010 when they restarted the project as an open translation. The first half of the game was translated by FireLizard, the person responsible for translating the dialogue of FE5 and 6. The second half was translated by users Oboro and Runan, and in 2012 the whole game was translated, and a beta patch was released.
This patch was very rough and had a ton of errors, such as inconsistent character names between scenes, broken line text, and some dialogue that was straight-up incorrect. For example, an early game cavalier, Kriess, refers to themselves as “Ezekiel’s wife.”
What’s interesting is that in the readme file, they say they’re aware of all the bugs present in this patch and they hoped that this patch could merely stir up interest in Tear Ring Saga to bring in people to fix these issues, and in that sense, it was successful in doing so.
In late 2012, the final Japanese exclusive game, FE12, received a fan translation. This patch was done by the Heroes of Shadow hacking group. This patch translated the game in its entirety and has very few bugs. Like the FE6 patch, this patch was considered very polished. And even to this day, it’s the patch that most people use.
This patch uses FE11 as a reference, resulting in having consistent terms and names, for returning characters and items. FE11 was known for its ornate and more elegant way of writing, so one of the few complaints about the FE12’s fan translation was it felt plainer with a much less decorated script.
This patch was originally created by Blazer (the guy who created The Last Promise) on July 13th, 2010 with the aim to create a simple menu patch until an official localization came out, similar to the previously mentioned FE11 menu translation. After a year and no localization in sight, Blazer formed a team called “Heroes of Light and Shadow” to make a comprehensive English Patch for FE12. Eventually, VincentASM would spearhead this translation project as Blazer had to deal with the classic enemy of these fan projects: Real Life Circumstances.
For the most part, fan translations typically take very little liberties when it comes to translating terms and concepts. Usually, changing things tends to rile up a lot of the fans, and in particular, when it comes to character names people especially get angered. In fact, the act of getting angry over character names was so commonplace that it would end up coining the term 'namewanking.'
I mention this now because one of the first instances of namewanking came from one character named Belf. On the serenesforest project thread for the translation project of FE12, one of the people working on the team proposed an idea of possibly renaming 'Belf' to 'Vergil,' and believe it or not, this very minor character sparked one of the biggest argument in serenesforest’s forums’ history. In fact, this whole argument resulted in the team exclusively posting updates on their blog rather than Serenesforest.
This controversy is so infamous that even to this day, people still mention it. It’s kind of hilarious
considering Belf is such a nothing character otherwise.
The Awakening Era
The Awakening Era marked a pivotal moment, not only for Fire Emblem but also for the official translation of content related to the series. The immense popularity of Awakening, coupled with its representation in Super Smash Bros., not only propelled Fire Emblem to new heights of recognition for future titles but also reignited interest in the older games.
Following Awakening's success, it seemed like new Fire Emblem content became an annual occurrence. This started with FE Cipher, followed by Fates, the introduction of Amiibo figures, the mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes, and the remake Shadows of Valentia, among others. Such a continuous flow of Fire Emblem content was unprecedented in the series' history.
This is my own personal collection š
When it comes to English content, both Awakening and Heroes significantly influenced the fan translation communities. These games made numerous references to older Fire Emblem content and provided official names for previously unnamed terms and characters.
One of the first patches that came out in this era was Gringe’s FE6 patch in 2013. Gringe, being an experienced manga translator at the time, aimed to release something on the same level of quality as an official translation. This newer patch polished up the dialogue, fixed up the menus, and made sure character names were consistent with what was present in FE7 and 13.
With the release of Fire Emblem Heroes and more content receiving official English names, this patch was once again updated in 2021 to version v1.1.3 which includes changes, like renaming Wendy to Gwendolyn and Milady to Melady. This update would also tie up some missed loose ends like fixing a glitch involving the recruitment of Hugh that appeared in the old versions as well as localizing the Link Arena text. This update would also add a new Support Rereader option.
The next patch is the Gharnef patch, and despite its name, it’s not a patch of an Archanea game, but it’s actually an addendum to DTNT’s FE4 patch made by a user named Gharnef in 2013-14. This addendum mainly focused on updating the terminology to be consistent with the terms and phrases used in Awakening, for example, the character known as Serlis would be renamed to Seliph, Lachesis would be renamed to Raquesis, and Scathach would be renamed to Ulster…
Anyways, before Project Naga was released, this was the patch that most people used while playing FE4, and it served its job well as an improvement over the DTNT patch. Funnily enough, Twilkitri of DTNT wanted to make an update patch themselves to match the names used in FE13, but Gharnef beat them to the punch. You just can’t win against Gharnef, huh.
After that, in August of 2014, Quirino came back again to release an update to the FE3 English patch done by RPGuy and VincentASM. This patch was merely going to be a patch that took advantage of the Variable Width Font used in the game’s dialogue, by slimming down the text font, but over time more things were added to the patch to make it look and feel more professional.
This patch would use the localized names for characters to stay consistent with Awakening and FE11, and since the creator was from a PAL region, this patch used PAL names, like “Shiida”, “Nabarl”, and “Doluna”. For the characters who didn’t have official localized names at the time, like Marisha, Arlen, and Phina, Quirino used the names that were present in the Heroes of Light and Shadow patch for FE12. Which used “Malicia”, “Elrean”, and “Feena” respectively.
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Apart from names, it would also implement the modified title screen used in the very first FE3 fan translation I mentioned in this write-up, it would translate the popup menus telling you that you got an item or leveled up, and fixed Marth’s name on the menu allowing his name to display as “Marth” and not “Mar.”
As a whole, this patch was a big step up from RPGuy and VincentASM’s patches, but this patch wasn’t perfect. It still had a lot of bugs and glitches which wouldn’t be fixed until 2019 when Robert of Normandy released a bug fix to this patch.
Another persistent issue, even in the present day, is the large blocky text found in menus and during battles which forced item names and menu options to be truncated to fit in text boxes. Hackers have been grappling with this for quite some time, but despite their efforts, it's proven to be a significant obstacle for those looking to create patches that utilize the same text systems used in more modern translations.
As a result, FE3’s current patch is seen as the patch with the lowest quality, as it’s stuck with the fat blocky text system unlike FE4 and FE5’s current patches. As if that wasn't bad enough, this patch is also a PAL version patch, with no plans for an NA equivalent.
I really love Bantu’s lines here.
In 2014, a basic menu patch was released for Fire Emblem Archanea Saga- The Capital Falls, the first game of the BSFE Archanea Series of games. BSFE was a series of four one-chapter-long games for the Broadcast Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom, available for a short time in Japan only, who would have guessed. These games served as prequels to the events of FE1/Book 1. This translation patch was worked on by js394 (formerly known as joesteve1914) and reused font assets from VincentASM and RPGuy’s FE3 patch.
Through updates, aspects like character dialogue would be translated as well, and work would begin on the second BSFE game, The Red Dragoon, but in February of 2017, these plans would be officially canceled.
In 2015, Fire Emblem Fates came out in Japan, and as the game was taking several months to be localized, a fan translation project was created by the group called Team If. When Nintendo revealed that some features would be cut from the game in localization (like the funny skinship minigame), or certain controversial name changes (I’m looking at you 'Arthur') Team If reaffirmed its commitment to releasing a complete faithful English patch for Fire Emblem Fates. Unfortunately, this project was canceled in March of 2016 and was picked up by a different team also going by Team If in December of 2016. Sadly, this new team also canceled this project in August of 2017. R.I.P.
On May 14th, 2016, the 20th anniversary of FE4’s release, the Project Naga patch was released for FE4, and it would serve as one of the most prominent English patches for the FE fan translation scene. As opposed to other FE4 patches that used Jay and Boo’s script, this one was retranslated from the ground up by Bookofholsety, Gringe, and Amielleon. Like the Gharnef patch, this patch updated the names to match the ones used in Awakening like the aforementioned Raquesis and Ulster...
Similarly, classes were renamed to match names with the same or equivalent classes in other games, especially from Tellius and Awakening. For example, Classes like “Free Knight” and “Arch Knight” were changed to match their Tellius counterparts which were called “Sword Knight” and “Bow Knight”. Classes like “Mage Fighter” and “Thief Fighter” were changed to similar classes from Awakening and Sacred Stones, “War Mage” and “Rogue”.
In addition, like previous patches, PN took advantage of the Variable Width Font to make the text look a lot smoother and to fit more text in dialogue, but unlike other patches, this was the case for the game’s menus as well. In particular, they used Earthbound’s text font but stylized it to have a black outline around it to make it pop out more. This patch also fixed bugs present in the game like the Sylvia event in chapter 4 no longer crashing the game, and Seliph’s Authority no longer being bugged.
Previously, I mentioned the concept of namewanking with Belf, and that kind of controversy pervaded especially surrounding the Jugdral games in this era. During the process of translating FE4, many people caused a ruckus surrounding the renaming of the character Fury/Ferry to Erin. (For anyone who doesn’t know Furys were goddesses of vengeance which are also referred to as Erinys.)
While the controversy itself was a dumb but funny piece of history, especially factoring BoH’s response to the matter, this was also one of the more prominent instances of the debate between translation vs. localization, in regards to fanworks like a fan translation.
BoH had expressed plans to also work on FE5 and released notes on his blog regarding it, but unfortunately, BoH would end up falling off the face of the planet with all his tools and documentation. As such, this FE5 patch would never see the light of day, and FE4 wouldn’t be updated past Beta v7 so like the FE3 patch, there isn’t a version of FE4 with the updated names used in Heroes. And at this point in time, it’s more likely that FE4 will be localized officially than it is for a Beta v8 to come out.
Later on, a guy named Aethin released his patch of Tear Ring Saga which aimed to make the game coherent in English. I found the way Aethin tackled this project pretty interesting. According to him, the text in Tear Ring Saga’s ISO was terribly organized, the pre-map dialogue for one map would be in one place, then the post-chapter dialogue would be a few planets over, weapon names were scattered everywhere, and you know, the works. To get around this, he followed a screenshot Let’s Play by CVE on LP Archive to understand the game’s story and make heads and tails out of everything.
During this Let’s Play, CVE expressed their feelings about a lot of the flaws in the game. And the game happened to have quite a bit of flaws and plot holes, especially in regards to the timeline. For example, there was a big oversight regarding Lionheart’s age. At this point, a lot of the changes Aethin made to the script for his future patch were just things to make the plot more consistent/fix these flaws. But controversy with this patch would arise as he would make bigger leaps when altering aspects of the story.
He details this more in his apology thread on Reddit, so check that out if you’re not bothered by spoilers. Aside from story stuff, I also find this patch interesting because with this patch, and a few other patches you can see more clearly what kind of philosophy the translators had when working on these projects. And while a lot of official localizations aim to appeal to a general Western audience to get them to purchase the game, with fan translations like this, the aim can vary a lot.
With Aethin's Tear Ring Saga patch, it's evident that he aimed to make the game more accessible to people coming in from FE. Consequently, various terms underwent alterations; for instance, "Scissor Axe," "Rook Knight," and "Potion" were changed to "Killer Axe," "Cavalier," and "Vulnerary," respectively. Similarly, certain terms received adjustments in an attempt to maintain the game's immersion within its setting. Beyond the aforementioned story-related changes, terms like "Brenthunder," "Gatling Bow," and "Mamluk" were changed into "Dire Thunder," "Chu-Ko-Nu," and "Nomad."
I’m not a huge fan of those changes at all, but I understand the idea behind them, and I think I made my stance clear, that as a non-profit fan project, people can really do whatever they want with a patch and they don’t really have a moral obligation to be totally accurate.
Anyways, this game and its patch served as a great entrance to the Kaga Saga rabbit hole and completed what the old 2012 patch originally set out to do.
In 2016, when Echoes was announced an addendum patch for Artemis251’s patch was released by a user known as Gaiden Guy, but this patch kind of flew under the radar. This patch aimed to use the updated names for the characters that appeared in Echoes, but it never got too far.
In 2017, js394 worked on an update to the Heroes of Light and Shadow patch of FE12. This patch aimed to fix certain typos and errors, and it also aimed to update the names to the names used in Awakening, Heroes, Echoes, and Warriors. However, this patch didn’t receive updates past Beta 2, and some things still use outdated names.
After the Japanese release of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, the ROM for the game was leaked online, so a menu patch was released on April 3rd, 2017 by SciresM. Once the game was officially localized, this patch was seen as obsolete, but I do remember playing through this patch on my modded 3DS while waiting for Echoes to come out officially in English, so I could purchase it.
Going to the download page now brings you to this error page, and as of now, this patch is considered lost media.
In 2017, FE1 would once again receive an updated patch by… well... myself. In this patch, my primary goal was to align it with the localized names introduced in FE11. During this process, I dedicated efforts to rectify numerous typos and untranslated text segments that were present in Quirino's patch. However, as an inexperienced programmer still in high school at the time, I wasn't able to fully optimize the available space within FE1's ROM to enhance the game's dialogue further. Regrettably, I also ended up introducing new typos while attempting to fix existing ones. For example, in Chapter 13, I inadvertently misspelled "persevere," resulting in the game inquiring whether Marth could "preserve" against an army of Ballisticians.
Additionally, I made several other changes, such as replacing the font featured in Quirino's patch with the font found in Earthbound Beginnings. ...I received numerous complaints about this little font change. I also revamped the title screen, made adjustments to certain weapon icons (like changing the staff icon to an actual staff and replacing the Vulnerary icon, originally a wine glass, with a potion), and aligned the text in the stat screen to appear as it does in newer games. As I grew older and gained more experience, I wanted to update this translation patch. However, around the time I started getting back into the groove, the official localization for FE1 on the Switch was announced, lol.
It took me forever to change the title screen graphic from “Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light” to
“Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light”
In June 2017, ChimeraHardline posted a new menu translation patch for FE5 on the Fire Emblem subreddit. This patch, like Project Naga, had a VWF implemented for all the menu items. In addition, this patch also added a 2-RN script into the game, changed the palettes for some map sprites, and made it ignore the checksum on save files. Chimera even included a separate patch to restore the 1-RN script.
One major issue with the patch was that a lot of the text rendering was throttled and didn’t appear instantly. Furthermore, there was some flickering in some unusual situations as a result of DMA/HDMA conflicts with the gradient window backgrounds.
Half a year later, ChimeraHardline would return, renaming this project to the Unified Thracia patch, which included a translated script in addition to his old menu translation. The script was translated from the ground up and the dialogue in the game goes up to chapter 6.
In 2018, Aethin would come out of the gates swinging with another Kaga Saga fan translation, this being of Berwick Saga. The idea for the translation was conceived in 2016, but Aethin couldn’t do much until 2017 when he collaborated with Lightgazer who had access to the tools used in the Chinese fan translation.
Like with the Tear Ring Saga patch, Aethin made it a point to keep track of character aspects, timeline information, and jot notes from interviews and whatnot to keep the story clear and concise. He even went through the effort of posting a timeline of the backstory on the translation patches’ thread.
Similarly, Aethin again used a lot of terminology from Fire Emblem in order to make the game more accessible to people coming from FE like in Tear Ring Saga. So, terms like Charis Sword (which referenced goddesses of beauty, nature, creativity, and fertility in Greek Mythology) was renamed to Ladysword, things like Light Spear, and Spear were changed to Iron Spear and Steel Spear, and classes like Sargeant Knight became Cavalier. In addition, when Vestaria Saga was officially localized in 2019, a few of the terms from that game were used in Berwick’s fan translation, like Xyston and Crooked Axe.
Some story aspects were changed to seem less off-putting to a general audience, like one of Faramir’s interactions mentioning that Faye “can’t defeat Chaos because of the limitations of her sex” being changed to just “You can’t defeat Chaos because of your limitations,” and just leaves it at that.
Certain liberties were also exercised when it came to character names. For example, Estobar was changed into Esteban, and Olwen was changed to Owen. It's worth noting that the katakana for FE5 Olwen (ćŖć«ćØć³) and Berwick Olwen (ćŖć«ć¦ć§ć³) do show slight differences. In hindsight, I might have opted for a name like Ćowyn for the handsome bishop character, especially considering that Shouzou Kaga mentioned in an interview that both he and Faramir were intended as references to characters from "The Lord of the Rings.
That aside, in this project though, Aethin’s made it a point to document a lot of the changes he’s made on both his Tumblr and Serenesforest accounts, and reading about the process is an interesting read in itself.
With this patch though, it’s clear to see that the patch takes a page out of Shadow Dragon’s localization, and similarly goes for a more poetic way of storytelling, it’s not perfect, but it’s still pleasant to read the game’s dialogue. Another thing that I like is that the game uses the “Using icons for item names” technique I mentioned before with FE2, but this game does it slightly differently.
In Berwick Saga, units have weapon skill points that are displayed at the bottom of their stat screen. These weapons are represented in kanji, which is a logographic writing system, and means they can represent entire words and ideas using a single character, similar to an emoji or something like that. In this case, it means a character limit of two. With that strict limit in place, Aethin decided to represent the different kanji as weapon icons seen below.
As of now, the patch is currently at version Release Candidate V2 and was last updated in January 2021.
Now, Project Exile is a patch for FE5 which was worked on by a large team, spearheaded by Cirosan in May 2019. Before that, Cirosan had worked on FE11’s Full Content patches, an English patch of a PS1 game called Mizzurna Falls, and an addendum to the Megaman Battle Network: Operate Star Force English patch that removes the voice acting.
That aside, this patch was picked up in 2017 and wasn’t completed until 2019, and it got a handful of updates later on fixing bugs and glitches. This patch was notable for being the first completed fan translation of FE5, everything was finally in full English with no stone left unturned. This patch was made using a script translated from the ground up by himself, while also using Zane Avernathy and Kirb’s patches as a foundation.
This initial release also came with Robert of Normandy’s Unit Ordering Patch which allowed you to deploy your units in any starting location, similar to newer games in the franchise.
For the most part, this patch used terminology that was used in localized games at the time. For example, items like Light Sword became Light Brand a la FE7, character names like Dagda became Dagdar a la Awakening, and factions like the Fiana Militia became the Fiana Freeblades also a la Awakening. This patch also followed the same ideology BoH did by renaming certain classes to similar classes in games that were officially localized like Free Knight -> Sword Knight, Bow Fighter -> Archer, and Galzus’ class which was called Mercenary -> Hero, since it’s a promoted class.
Other liberties came from the script itself, where a lot of the dialogue would be changed, exaggerated, or spruced up for the sake of fluidity, Ciro citing 8-4’s work on Shadow Dragon, Project Naga, and Clyde Mandelin as inspirations. Like a lot of the civilians having the same kind of “Thanks for saving us, here have [X item]” being changed to admittingly more entertaining dialogue, like one guy in Chapter 10 telling a story about how he used Pure Water to grow a tree, which became a Barrier Staff or a guy in a chapter talking about how he wishes he could use a Silence staff to shut up his crying kid. There’s also giving accents to certain characters like Fergus, and giving names to the NPCs and Armor Knights in Chapter 18 to make it clear who talks to whom.
While this made the dialogue fun to read for some, a lot of people were angered by a lot of the changes because of how much it embellished the Japanese script. And a lot of rage posts and complaints were inevitably made.
The image above shows a house in Chapter 7, the left being from the Shaya patch and the right being from Project Exile. This house caused a lot of ire from people, but this actually wasn’t an intentional liberty, but a genuine mistake. This mistake resulted from the fact that Cirosan did all the dialogue scripting (including which portraits to load) from scratch for PE, rather than just editing the existing dialogue or using a reference. This means that he didn’t decide "which portraits to change," but "which portraits to use" based on all available options, including unused portraits. So Ciro mistranslated the house’s dialogue and stuck a portrait that he thought matched this mistranslated dialogue.
Anyways, errors aside, this patch received a lot of notoriety from YouTubers and even online news articles, and was more hyped up even more than Project Naga, in fact, Project Exile was seen as “The FE Community’s white whale” by some, and had a few articles written about it.
Similar to Aethin with his Berwick Saga patch, there are pdf documents of the localized script with translation notes, which too is an interesting read.
In December 2019, another FE5 patch came out, this one being called Lil’ Manster. This patch was created by PE’s lead editor, Miacis, and was originally released as Project Exile: Editor’s Cut before being renamed. This patch aimed to fix a lot of the inconsistencies, errors, and mistranslations present in Project Exile, as Miacis expressed that the original script didn’t go through a full review before release. In addition, many members of the server claimed that Cirosan was, in layman's terms, hard to work with, as he frequently ignored feedback and suggestions, and was generally seen as pretentious.
According to Miacis, when it was clear that PE wouldn’t get a final update anytime soon, PE: Editor’s Cut was released using the script fixes that were prepared for the French version of PE. Aside from script edits, it also included a lot of QoL changes like HP Bars, in-depth item descriptions, and displaying hidden stats like FCM, the hidden Immortality skill, and growth rates. Aside from that, since LM is still being updated, the patch has been able to update names presented in Heroes, Engage, and other media. Unfortunately, though, there was a lot of internal conflict with this patch and the drama surrounding it is some of the most well-known regarding a fan translation in the community.
When PE: Editor’s Cut was released, Cirosan was enraged that his script was used as a base. On the serenesforest thread, he ominously stated:
❝You didn't have my permission to release this! This is uncalled for, I'm still working on the final version [of Project Exile] right now, and I even gave a deadline of the 15th of next month! You have no right to release a project using my script without my permission or knowledge!❞
It should be noted that the internal conflict with Cirosan and Miacis wasn’t just over the release of this project, there was also drama surrounding the Discord server, but I wasn’t there at the time, and this isn’t a gossip table or YouTube channel, so I don’t really want to talk about the drama any further.
Cirosan was livid to the point where he requested for the mods to remove this patch from both SF and r/FE. His request on SF was ignored, while on r/FE, the mods requested Miacis to change the name, which is when the name of the project was changed to Lil Manster. (A dumb play on “Little Monster”)
Not too long after this release, Cirosan stopped progress on Project Exile and left the community altogether due to alleged prolonged harassment. Later on, on March 21, 2020, Lil Manster was briefly removed from the original download page on Dropbox. It later turned out that it was because of a DMCA claim from Cirosan, which obviously caused further uproar.
As of today, Miacis and their team are still updating Lil Manster, and at the time I’m writing this it’s currently on version 1.08, likewise, the team has contributed to other projects like translating FE5 to other languages (including the French version that was released in January of 2023 with the efforts of Miacis and The_Elfangor), Super Thracia’s menu translation, and just general FE5 ROM hacking. Meanwhile, Cirosan has moved on by now and is working on other non-FE-related projects.
This pic is mostly unrelated, I just needed something funny to put here.
With a whiplash in tone, I’ll discuss another patch that kinda flew under the radar in 2020. This patch is for all of the BSFE Satellaview games. These patches were done by Darrman, a user who helped me a bit when working on my FE1 patch, as well as working on a few other translations on his own, like the menu translation of the FE4 Binary hack, the menu translation for the GBC FE bootleg game Fire Emblem: The Reincarnation of Light and Dark, and a menu translation of Biraku Emblem… yeah, he was pretty epic.
The patches for the BSFE games are fairly simple; since the original broadcast with CG artwork and voice acting is unreplicable, all there is to translate is the stat screen, death quotes, villages, and boss quotes. Interestingly, with a lot of Darrman’s works, he often prefers to use Japanese names or outdated spellings from older fan translations, so he’d use names like Biraku, Doga, and Chiki over Vyland, Draug, and Tiki even in works he’s released now, which is honestly funny.
Anyways, this patch for BSFE came out of nowhere as the Satellaview games aren’t games talked about much outside of passing conversations and jokes. As well as the fact that FE12 featured updated versions of these games in English via its fan translation, it was a pleasant surprise to see the original games get some attention.
The next patch is another FE1 patch done by Polinym in 2021, which was retranslated from the ground up, rather than being built up from previous patches. This translation aims to be more accurate to the original Japanese dialogue and terminology and uses FE3 Book 1’s text as a base.
However, a criticism I have is the fact that while the words are the same, I feel the intended Japanese meaning isn't transferred as well as it could be. For example, the name Doga spelled backward in Katakana is Gado, the Japanese pronunciation of the English word Guard, which is why his name is Draug in English. There's also the fact that Polinym is insistent on using the name 'Mars,' rather than 'Marth' but the name Marth is a corruption of the name Mars, in reference to how the Japanese name ćć«ć¹ (Marusu) is an uncommon spelling/corruption of the more common way to spell Mars, ćć¼ćŗ (MÄzu). Not to mention that Marth is the common Romanization. Additionally, I feel if they want to use Mars, they should also be consistent with other characters, like Elice (a corruption of Eris), who is just translated as Ellis, as that's the common Romanization.
Aside from that, the big selling point is the fact that Polinym uses ASM in order to expand the text boxes to display more text on the screen at a given time. This allows for up to 23 characters to be displayed in a line over the measly 16 and leaves less room for any abridged or cut text that was prevalent in older NES patches. As such, Polinym’s patch is usually the goto base patch used for people wanting to make some kind of translation for another language or hack.
What’s also interesting is that Polinym would later release other FE1-related projects like a new randomizer for the game, and a full ROM hack called Time For Tom - Thomas and Jake's Excellent Adventure.
In December 2021, a user known as Rotted_Fish announced a new retranslation project for Fire Emblem Fates. This translation sought to restore the altered and cut content in the original Japanese game and also aimed to fix the errors or mistakes found in Team If’s latest release.
In addition, his patch also added new scenes based on the official manga. Other new features were added like new weapons, supports, and adding Lilith as a playable character.
On January 18th, 2023, a user by the name of Lopo made an update patch for FE2 which set out with a similar goal as Gaiden Guy’s patch, though this one is a bit more complete. This patch, like all Gaiden patches, unfortunately, flew under the radar, but it’s an impressive patch in itself, considering in terms of text space, FE2 is way more limiting compared to FE1.
Speaking of FE1, I actually provided the Mother 1 text font that was used for this patch, which further sets it apart from other FE2 patches. This patch is still in its early beta stages though, and still has some errors and terms that aren’t fully updated. I don’t know if it’s still receiving updates, but I hope it does receive updates in the future.
This is the only chance I have to flex my rigged 35 defense Ttiana
As of the present, even the latest installment, Fire Emblem Engage, has received a retranslation mod. Upon its release in January 2023, this game generated significant controversy due to the localization changes it underwent. These modifications primarily fell under the umbrella of "alterations made to ensure the game's appeal to a broader consumer audience," a common practice in the industry.
The matter of translation versus localization has long been a topic of debate, extending beyond the realm of Fire Emblem and encompassing the gaming community at large. Some individuals are indifferent to such changes, while others strongly object to them. In response to these changes, a user by the name of cris1010, who was dissatisfied with the alterations, took it upon themselves to create a mod aimed at preserving the game's faithfulness to the original Japanese script. This patch became known as the Engage Uncensored Patch.
It's important to note that this patch did not set out to retranslate the entire game; rather, its focus was on restoring character supports, wake-up sequences, and a selection of battle conversations to their original form.
The creator of this patch has claimed that they wish to make this patch available for other languages, but as of now, they’ll need people who speak those languages to aid them. However, ironically enough, this uncensored patch had to be censored with its v1.2 update as a moderator from Gamebanana demanded it be changed due to S-supports and wake-up conversations regarding Anna and Jean, characters who are very clearly underage.
Due to this, the full uncensored patch was only available on Loverslab briefly, but then it was removed promptly for the same reasons. As you’d expect, people were enraged by this. And while I don’t think it’s professional to call out specific people, if the sole thing that had to be censored in this uncensored patch was the fact that you can’t romance two characters that are around 11 years old, and you’re still angry about it, I think that speaks volumes to what your intentions are...
The last patch I wish to talk about is another FE5 patch, which was released on March 4th, 2023 (The week I wrote this initial draft). It was a patch made by user Lethyrs, I don’t know if this patch was made previously but they decided to upload it much later, or if this is an entirely new project, but this is an addendum to the FE5 Shaya patch, which removes the garbled and Japanese characters from the menus and makes them legible
A lot of the work for the menu screen was borrowed from the Big Iro—er, the Luxifer Angel’s menu patch of the game, and honestly, if you’re nostalgic for the Shaya patch, but don’t want to play the Shaya patch, I guess this is an alternative.
Ongoing Projects
As of the time of me writing this, there are a few other ongoing translation projects. For one, there is a very slow but existent translation update attempt for FE3, called Project Emblem, which ironically is being spearheaded by the same guy who did the 2021 Fates Retranslation, Rotten_Fish. For FE3, as of right now, the biggest hurdle is the battle text, since that’s programmed in a very different way from the other text in the game.
Lil Manster is still being reviewed and updated to this day. There’s been an ongoing script review where many users in the Discord contribute changes or suggestions to better make the game read more faithful to the original Japanese script, fix mistakes, and add new QoL mechanics.
As you know, FE1 would receive an official localization for the series’ 30th anniversary, but considering it was sold for a limited time, patches were still made for that game until people found out how to make it possible to port the Switch version of FE1 to PC or make it available to download still (since that version isn’t actually just an NES ROM, but a modified ROM with an internal emulator that patches the game on the fly).
As previously mentioned, the disappearance of bookofholsety has casted a shadow over the prospect of future English translations for FE4. Unless someone with the requisite skills and knowledge can replicate the necessary tools and proficiently modify FE4's text, the English translations for this game are likely to remain in a state of dormancy.
However, ongoing Spanish translations for Fire Emblem 4 and 5 are currently in development, building upon Project Naga's script as a base. This collaborative effort is led by Horrabin and Xabierin, with contributions from DarkAdvent and Miacis. The translation introduces name updates inspired by Heroes and also includes additional name localizations by ThePsyShyster. While the script for Fire Emblem 4 is fully translated, the challenge that remains is the process of actually integrating it into the game.
Supplemental Media
Even though most of the attention on fan translations is towards the games themselves, there’s a lot of supplemental media that’s also received fan translations. Ranging from interviews from the developers, mangas, TCG games, and novels.
I won’t be able to describe everything, but I will bring attention to what I believe are the most relevant details. And firstly, that will be Hakoda Maki’s FE1 manga. Fire Emblem: Ankokuryuu to Hikari no Ken, the manga I actually read.
The manga itself has 13 volumes with about 5 maps (or chapters) in each volume. The first three volumes were translated by a group called SnoopyCool. But, in 2012, a user named Crazy Foxie (or Jeorge) set out to translate the remaining volumes.
In May of 2012, the project was split between two teams where Jeorge did translations from volumes 3-6 while users Dokutayuu, Darros, and Ike-Mike did proofreading and editing. For volumes 7 onward, Jeorge and CalculusWhiz did the translations. If you enjoy Archanea, this is a good read for sure, it gives a new breath of life and layers to a lot of the characters in the game.
This manga also has an accompanying CD Drama that spans 4 volumes, but it’s not translated. But if you’re interested, it can be found here.
The next manga is the Mitsuki Osawa FE4 manga, also known simply as the Oosawa manga. This manga was a retelling of FE4’s original story, but with various characters and stories expanded upon more. When this manga was initially released, it had three different releases, a SC deluxe version, and two MF (Media Factory) versions. The only real differences were the different color pages and the sizes of the volumes. This is relevant because when this fan translation was picked up in 2009, by Tomoyo, it used the Media Factory versions as a base, but included some SC Deluxe Bonus pages that weren’t in the Media Factory version.
Tomoyo translated volumes 1-5, which spanned from chapters 1-35, as well as chapters 36, and 37. Later on, after a lack of updates, another user named Jugdral Defender would pick this project back up, and translate the remaining chapters, and efforts in this translation still continue to this day. As of right now, the most recent chapter uploaded was chapter 70.
Speaking of FE4, it also received a novel adaptation by Ginichiro Suzuki, and I’m mentioning it here because it received a fan translation by LeifOfLeonsterTranslations in 2019. This book addresses backstory details that aren’t fully fleshed out in the games, like Loptous’ meeting with Galle, the story of the 12 Crusaders, and Arvis’ upbringing. This is also another interesting read if you’re interested in Jugdral lore.
The artwork by Rika Suzuki is also really beautiful
In February 2021, LeifOfLeonsterTranslations also did a translation of Takase Mie’s FE8’s novelization. This novelization is split into two books and shines a new light on Magvel, one of the more forgotten continents in the series. I definitely want to read this eventually.
Rika Suzuki is back again with the killer artwork.
Next is the next FE4 Manga, the Fujimori Nattsu's Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu manga. This fan translation was done by French user, AceNoctail, in 2009. This manga is based mostly on FE4’s first generation, and it’s a lot more light-hearted and comedic compared to other FE4 manga. Like, this manga has a moment where Sandima and Batou are accused of being lovers cheating behind the Queen's back by Jamke, it’s out there.
Anyway, this manga was translated in both English and French and is another interesting read if you’re a fan of the Jugdral saga.
The last FE4 manga translation is Fuyuki Nea's FE: Light Inheritor manga translation, done by TheEnd in 2011. This manga focuses on the second generation, spans from chapters 6 to 9 in-game, and has five volumes with four chapters each. As of right now, the download links on the original thread don’t work, but you can still read the manga in English through Mangadex.
The next most notable manga is the FE6 manga, Hiroshi Izawa’s Fire Emblem: Hasha no Tsurugi manga. This manga was fan-translated by TheEnd back in 2009, and is a side-story of the events of FE6 and instead of Roy, it follows some guy named Al. This is where Al’s Sword in FE6 gets its namesake. His story spans through 11 volumes with four chapters each. One notable thing I remember from the manga was the characters Jemmie and Zeed since they appeared in Super Thracia. The two also received cipher cards, and Jemmie especially received a lot of fan art.
Al was actually featured on the cover of the Monthly Shonen Jump issue #200112, he’s the blue guy on the right.
Also, Jemmie is really pretty in this panel.
In June of 2011, TheEnd would once again translate another FE manga that being M. Sano & K. Watanabe’s FE2 manga. This manga was short and “of poor quality”, so according to TheEnd, a lot less effort was put into this translation compared to their other works. And sadly, like everything else involving FE2, it didn’t get much love or attention.
I actually remember reading the manga briefly in high school but never finished it. Since the download link was removed from the original thread, I thought I could never finish reading it, but to my surprise, it, too, is on Mangadex.
This is that one manga where they put Desaix’s head on a pike after killing him.
Back in the realm of novelizations, in 2019, LeifOfLeonsterTranslations would translate Takashi Umemura’s Thracia 776 novelization. There are twelve chapters altogether and are split into two books.
LeifOfLeonsterTranslations would also translate Makasa Kazuyoshi’s FE7 novelization. But, there isn’t much else to say here, considering I haven’t read these.
Another written literature project I wanted to mention was the Thracia 776 Comic Anthology Manga, a manga adaptation of FE5 that had various authors. A user by the name of DarkAdvent has released a translation of the first chapter, and it’s a good short read that I’d recommend. Aside from this, Advent had started work on the FE5 Instruction Manual, a number of 4Komas, and is in the process of a ROM hack called Forseti’s Cut, an improvement patch for FE5 aimed to add to the story, including new items, and amp up the gameplay.
The last manga translation I want to discuss is the Berwick Saga Anthology Manga done by yours truly. However, I should clarify that when I say 'done,' it's a bit of a misnomer—I've completed the translation for the first chapter, with more chapters on the horizon, albeit in the distant future. The initial chapter unfolds a tale centered around the Lord character, Reese, and his deep camaraderie with Larentia, a Wyvern Knight who joins his army. While the quality of the scans isn't ideal, I'd recommend giving the manga a look if you have an interest in Berwick Saga lore—assuming I manage to finish the remaining chapters.
And since I can’t mention this anywhere else, I’d also like to mention that Berwick Saga’s User Manual also received a fan translation recently by MousouMute. It outlines a lot of the game’s mechanics, and some story information within the game, including character profiles. Some of the names are inconsistent with the names used in Aethin’s patch, but if you know the Japanese names, it shouldn’t be jarring at all. I’d definitely recommend checking it out, even if you are already familiar with Berwick’s lore.
Aside from novelizations and manga, there also exist developer interviews that exist that have been translated by fans. A lot of these interviews have been archived on the website Kantopia, a really useful resource for gaming (mostly Fire Emblem) information regarding development, general trivia, and translations. A lot of other interviews can be found translated on Serenesforest.
Moreover, the Cipher Trading Card game has garnered substantial attention from the fan community, resulting in a plethora of fan translations for individual packs and cards. A dedicated sub-wiki resource has been established to centralize this fan-translated content alongside the original Japanese material.
Proof of concept English trading cards courtesy of Kantopia.
Fan translations don’t even stop at that either, there have been a lot of Japanese ROM hacks that have found their way into the Western world and have received fan translations, a lot of which are menu translations.
These include:
A full localization of Vyland Emblem by brandnewscooby which includes menus and dialogue
A Genealogy of Tordo menu translation by Darrman
An FE4 Binary menu translation by Darrman
A Fire Emblem: The Reincarnation of Light and Dark (also known as Bootleg Emblem) menu translation by Darrman
A Super Thracia menu translation by Miacis and the Lil Manster team
An English option in the Blume Pat- er, New Theory of Thracia Hack by fe5_ai
English menu patches for FE: Midori and FE: Girls by Tequila
And an English version of the PC Fire Emblem Gaiden remake by VincentASM and vonretic
While there are numerous other projects beyond the scope of this discussion, the ones mentioned here are some of the most prominent, either through personal experience or recommendations from fellow enthusiasts. The key takeaway is that the world of fan translations extends far beyond official releases, offering a rich tapestry of fan-created content and adaptations.
Conclusion
Something that I hate a lot about the community is how so many people seemingly have a lack of passion and interest in the series they play. It feels as if no one unironically likes the series, and any type of discussion is just complaining about core mechanics or arguing about the identity of the series. When I engage with other fanbases, they feel much more like a community of people with a common interest compared to FE where it's just an active warzone, where people, at most, like one game in the series and then fight people who like other games in that same series as if they're the reason their parents divorced or something. I just can't understand the level of hatred some people have towards games in the series that they claim to be fans of. However, the numerous amount of fangames and fan translations, show that there is at least some semblance of love for these games.
When it comes to Fire Emblem, and most video games in general, its history isn't written solely by the developers themselves, but also by the people who play them. Fanworks have always played a vital role in shaping the way we look at and interpret games, and this is something that I feel is a bit underappreciated. Aside from just recounting the translation history, I also wanted to remind people of the relevance of these projects and how they shaped the player base.
You—yes you—the reader, can make a significant impact by expressing your genuine pride and passion for what you enjoy. Think back to those individuals from the past who, with limited resources and documentation, uprooted the community through their sheer determination and love for the series. If they can do it, so can you.
You don't need to be a coding wizard with decades of experience or a fluent Japanese speaker either. Your contributions can take many forms. Commissioning or drawing fan art, creating ROM hacks or fan games, producing content like unit analyses, or writing fanfiction—all of these expressions of love and passion can inspire others and foster a vibrant community.
Remember, love and passion are the driving forces of life. Even a small dose of them can go a long way. Thank you for reading. ❤️
References
Bookofholsety. (n.d.). Genealogy of the Holy War Script & Other Data. Dreamwidth. https://bookofholsety.dreamwidth.org/57162.html
Data Crystal. (n.d.). Fan Translation Community History. RHDNWiki. https://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Fan_Translation_Community_History
Kantopia. (n.d.). https://kantopia.wordpress.com/
Serenes Forest. (n.d.). https://serenesforest.net/
Four-loose-screws. (n.d.). Tumblr. https://four-loose-screws.tumblr.com/
ROMhacking.net (n.d.). https://www.romhacking.net/
O'Hagan, M. (2014). Evolution of User-generated Translation: Fansubs, Translation Hacking and Crowdsourcing. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277945017_Evolution_of_User-generated_Translation_Fansubs_Translation_Hacking_and_Crowdsourcing
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