A while ago I came along some English translation patches for Pulseman and Dynamite Headdy on a site by a guy who seems to be dedicated to making translations for certain Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games. All credit for these translations goes to M.I.J.E.T. Check out his website here. For those of you familiar with Pulseman, the game was never published outside of Japan, so all the dialogue in the game is in Japanese. As for Dynamite Headdy, it was one of those great games that unfortunately went through a process known as localization. As a result, nearly all the dialogue was removed, and what little remained was changed. Furthermore, many of the graphics were modified and the difficulty level was pumped up significantly. This is comparable to Ristar, since most of the sprites, title cards, and cutscenes were altered in the US version. The Ristar JPN/US differences can be seen here. First off, you must download the MIJET Patcher in order to apply these patches, since they're specifically made to be applied only by it. I'm only providing the patches, you have to get the ROMs on your own. Here's the complete English translation for the Japanese version of Dynamite Headdy, which only works with the Japanese versions, not the beta or US/European versions. And here's the translation patch for Pulseman. Hope you guys get a kick out of this! Enjoy!
I thought Dynamite Headdy was already in English? I haven't played it in a long time...does the EU/NA version completely lack text boxes or something?
Yes, that. All story was removed from the international version. I'm sure Pulseman was released on Sega Channel, was it not? I knew about the MIJET translations before now; there are several others that are probably worth looking at, and he just released some enhanced emulators (I think).
The game was heavily altered for overseas release, removing and changing a ton of random things. Almost every single character received a name change. The antagonist Maruyama was made to look angry and given a palette swap that affects several other characters. He was also renamed to Trouble Bruin. All of the cutscene dialogue from the JPN version was completely removed from the US/EU version. The stage selection allows you to choose sub-stages in the US/EU version. You start with 2 continues in the JPN version, 0 in the US/EU version. Additionally, when you're on the Continue? screen, the JPN version shows the number of continues remaining on the Try again! box. The program on the background that lists the first few levels also changes accordingly in both versions.
Yeah, I really like the enhancement patch he made for the US version of Shinobi 3. Here's the info and patch for it. I really wish he'd do more of these for other games too, cause I get irritated when I see those glaring English misspellings or the lack of grammar by the Japanese. The translations are a real plus too.
I saw someone playing a translated version of Dynamite Headdy a couple years ago, I really do prefer the english names though
I just think Dynamite Headdy is the perfect example of localization gone wrong. On the other hand, the changes Ristar went through outside of Japan made it way better.
I still remember the first time I played through Dynamite Headdy right after release... Even if I enjoyed it immensely, I kept having these mixed feelings like "Wait, what's this robot? Where's the geisha?" and "Wait, what's this robot? Where's the creepy porcelain doll?", but kept thinking "Maybe they'll get unlocked for a second quest or something". Then I was disappointed when I finished the game (extra boss and good ending included) and they just weren't there. The only thing I don't like much about the translation is the font (the localization got that one better) but yeah, it's currently the "definitive version". I secretly hope SEGA gives it a proper translation now they've done Monster World IV.
Really? Wording on the intro story aside, the sprites are worse (RARGH RISTAR MUST BE ANGRY ALL THE TIME, aka Kirby Syndrome) & the start/ending had unnecessary spriting changes.
Well yeah, Ristar being angry all the time is the real drag to it, but I was referring more to the enemies in the game. They were tweaked around and turned out to look better than before, particularly the first two (the bird and the flying squirrel, which was changed into a bat) and the green Operatic Bird. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks so, but the angry look really gives them the look of an enemy. However, Ristar should have kept his happy expression, with the angry expression only occurring during his waiting stance.
To be fair the whole point of localisation is so that North Americans prefer the North American version. The problem arises when you start axing things for political reasons, and there was a lot of that in the early 1990s. Also a lot of the reasons for localisation were a bit unfounded, like the whole "NO RPGS FOR THE WEST" thing before Final Fantasy VII showed up. And of course the localisation for the US doesn't always work well for Europe. Neither Ristar or Dynamite Headdy feel as if they were ruined by localisation. Streets of Rage 3 though...
I knew about the patches for these games for a couple of years now, hell I have the patched roms for them right now. I'm not really annoyed but most localisation changes when it comes to games, though for Dynamite Headdy, a game I've always enjoyed when I was a kid, I was disapointed to find out they removed the story in-game. Also they really should have kept the difficulty the same for the US/EU version of the game, the version we got is A LOT harder, if they wanted to have a more difficult mode why not have a hard mode? As for Ristar, I don't mind the "Angry Kirby Syndrome", it changes things up which isn't a bad thing. Bonk had the same syndrome if I'm not mistaken. Now SOR3 however is a strange one, if they wanted to have the Robot Copies plot instead of the Wood Oak Bomb plot fine whatever (though I do find the original story as it's a lot more interesting), but the color changes and outfit additions however are just strange, we are used to the characters having those colors (though Skate's US colors don't look too bad), and since when did they care about revealing clothing, hell the ladies of SOR1 and 2 are bound in leather and tight outfits, there was no real need for it. But I don't think the game is ruined by it, just changed up a little too much, regardless what version you play it's still fun. Also another thing about the difficulty, why not just ad another hard mode if you wanted things to be more difficult?
It's disappointing that the Genesis doesn't get a lot of translations, but when it does, they're wonderful!
