Soul Blader
Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

A fan-made relocalisation of Quintet & Enix's action role-playing game Soul Blazer has just been released.

Released in 1992 in Japan & North America (PAL territories would have to wait until 1994 for an official release), Soul Blazer is often considered the first game in the unofficial trilogy (sometimes also referred to as the Gaia trilogy, the Quintet trilogy or the Heaven and Earth trilogy), which also includes Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma.

It focuses on the story of a Master's servant, who is called into action to undo the work of a corrupt ruler and an entity called the evil Deathtoll, who have imprisoned the people of Friel and transformed the world into a haven for monsters.

In the game, players travel from town to town, destroying monster lairs by beating dungeons to bring life back to different parts of the world, with the ultimate goal being to confront Deathtoll once and for all and put a stop to his evil ways.

At the time of its release, the game received mostly positive reviews from critics, including an Editor's Choice Award from Electronic Gaming Monthly's Review Crew, who compared it favourably to Nintendo's first-party title The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. However, in recent years, it's been argued that the game's original translation is a bit clunky and a product of its time, filled with awkward text cramming and typos, prompting fan patches to improve its quality.

Back in 2018, Steppolo Steppi released a retranslation to try and correct this. But this revised version of the game's script would also come under criticism for its own "oddly phrased and pretty awkward" text, with some even preferring the original translation over the changes made.

Now, however, another set of fans have taken up the task of making the game's text more natural and readable, releasing what they are dubbing a "relocalisation" of the original game.

The patch is the work of Ballz, ChronoMoogle, and Lightbulbsun and has apparently been in the works on/off for the last 8 years. It is meant to be applied to the US version of the game and isn't intended as a full retranslation of the original Japanese or an extensive graphical overhaul to revert regional differences, such as changes to Lisa's sprite. Instead, its creators ask players to think of it more like "moderate copy-editing to make the game's story more presentable."

As they note, "It still retains much of that early-90s Japanese-to-English 'charm,' if you want to call it that. Things are just now spelt correctly and make more sense."

You can download the patch here, if you want to give it a try.

[source romhack.ing]