A new English fan patch has just been released for the PS1 fighting game Genei Tougi: Shadow Struggle.
This is a game from Snowboard Kids developer Racdym that was released exclusively in Japan for the PlayStation console back in 1996 and featured character designs from the manga artist Ryōji Minagawa (best known at the time for his work as an illustrator on the sci-fi manga Spriggan and later for his own creations such as Project Arms and D-Live!!).
Its story focuses on a group of competitors who all enter a grappling competition called the "Power of Solid" (which has been set up by a mysterious company called the Phillips Foundation) in the hopes of bringing home its grand prize of ten million dollars.
It features three modes to pick from (Normal, VS, and Arena), with the last of these letting the player earn credits to spend on unlocking new moves for their favourite character:
The patch comes courtesy of hacker Hilltop and the translator Cargodin, who have previously been responsible for bringing a large number of Japanese games to a wider audience through their high-quality fan translations. It translates much of the game's previously unlocalized story text, and, according to Hilltop, opens up the door for a translation of the game's 1997 sequel Critical Blow that boasts "an entire high-effort cinematic story mode" and "a weird deckbuilding mode".
The patch is available from Hilltop's Patreon now and doesn't require a membership to download.