English translations, ROMs, re-pro carts, etc...

[sloan11]

i don't know much about this scene because I always turned a blind eye to emulators and things of that nature..

i have become interested in some fan-made carts lately, though. There is one game I would love to get on a cart, and I think the English patch exists but I can't find a cart for sale (or even mentioned) anywhere online.

remember, i know nothing about this...   can that english patch be put on a SFC or SNES cart fairly easily by someone who knows what they are doing? (not me) if there are people out there who do that kind of thing I'd pay for it to be done

feel free to make fun of me

[mrfoxhound]

i don't know much about this scene because I always turned a blind eye to emulators and things of that nature..

i have become interested in some fan-made carts lately, though. There is one game I would love to get on a cart, and I think the English patch exists but I can't find a cart for sale (or even mentioned) anywhere online.

remember, i know nothing about this...   can that english patch be put on a SFC or SNES cart fairly easily by someone who knows what they are doing? (not me) if there are people out there who do that kind of thing I'd pay for it to be done

feel free to make fun of me

Yes, there are websites and sellers on eBay that sell various English translated cartridges of games such as Mega Man and Bass for SNES and Mother 3 for GBA. Try to avoid sellers from China, from personal experience and from reading other experiences people have had with them, the quality isn't the best. I'm sure you'd be able to find a US seller on eBay who sells what you want if you do some searching and if they don't have exactly what you're looking for, try shooting them a message to see if it could be done for you.

[sloan11]

I think I just found a place that will do what I'm looking for:

http://www.shopflashbackgames.com/custom-snes-game-of-your-choice-p-314.html

and the price is about what i expected..

but i'd still be interested in any comments you guys have!

[sloan11]

i don't know much about this scene because I always turned a blind eye to emulators and things of that nature..

i have become interested in some fan-made carts lately, though. There is one game I would love to get on a cart, and I think the English patch exists but I can't find a cart for sale (or even mentioned) anywhere online.

remember, i know nothing about this...   can that english patch be put on a SFC or SNES cart fairly easily by someone who knows what they are doing? (not me) if there are people out there who do that kind of thing I'd pay for it to be done

feel free to make fun of me

Yes, there are websites and sellers on eBay that sell various English translated cartridges of games such as Mega Man and Bass for SNES and Mother 3 for GBA. Try to avoid sellers from China, from personal experience and from reading other experiences people have had with them, the quality isn't the best. I'm sure you'd be able to find a US seller on eBay who sells what you want if you do some searching and if they don't have exactly what you're looking for, try shooting them a message to see if it could be done for you.

hey thanks for your advice.. i even have a local shop that carries some re-pro stuff but its all the usuals: metroid redesign, more zombies ate my neighbors, etc..

[maximo310]

There's also an option, for Retron 5 owners, that allow you to load up English patches onto a SD card.  This allows you to play a SFC game with an English translation on a Retron 5, and you can save money that way for those games.

[sloan11]

There's also an option, for Retron 5 owners, that allow you to load up English patches onto a SD card.  This allows you to play a SFC game with an English translation on a Retron 5, and you can save money that way for those games.

whoa thats a great idea.. my friend has a Retron 5, we may have to play around with that. thank you

[maximo310]

There's also an option, for Retron 5 owners, that allow you to load up English patches onto a SD card.  This allows you to play a SFC game with an English translation on a Retron 5, and you can save money that way for those games.

whoa thats a great idea.. my friend has a Retron 5, we may have to play around with that. thank you

Yeah, the feature is great, and you could probably do the same thing with the other systems on the console (although a few may require extra steps), and support is very good for most translation patches. To me, its the biggest reason why I'll buy one down the road.

[sloan11]

There's also an option, for Retron 5 owners, that allow you to load up English patches onto a SD card.  This allows you to play a SFC game with an English translation on a Retron 5, and you can save money that way for those games.

whoa thats a great idea.. my friend has a Retron 5, we may have to play around with that. thank you

Yeah, the feature is great, and you could probably do the same thing with the other systems on the console (although a few may require extra steps), and support is very good for most translation patches. To me, its the biggest reason why I'll buy one down the road.

yeah we need a new reason to love that console because we were really looking forward to ripping save data back and fourth between cartridges,,, suffice to say, we don't do that anymore =( lol

[zenimus]

I've bought from http://www.ocdreproductions.com/ and the games were of good quality.

Watch out for eBay though. There's a weird phenomenon that a reproduction of a rare expensive game will also be priced high. Repros are basically bootlegs that "anyone" could make, so beyond the cost of parts and labor, it's still a fake and should have no collectible markup.

[sloan11]

I've bought from http://www.ocdreproductions.com/ and the games were of good quality.

Watch out for eBay though. There's a weird phenomenon that a reproduction of a rare expensive game will also be priced high. Repros are basically bootlegs that "anyone" could make, so beyond the cost of parts and labor, it's still a fake and should have no collectible markup.

ok great, i'll check this place out

[trinisete]

Just an advice. Try looking in the internet for the said translation. If it’s full, partial, half-away done… and test it on an emulator on your PC. Just to make sure you buy exactly what you’re looking for.

[sloan11]

Just an advice. Try looking in the internet for the said translation. If it’s full, partial, half-away done… and test it on an emulator on your PC. Just to make sure you buy exactly what you’re looking for.

good point. I try to check youtube and stuff usually because that is pretty quick and I can do it from anywhere,, but sometimes its hard to tell which version i'm watching so your point is well taken

[desocietas]

Didn't really want to start a new thread on this, but I saw a post about Fullmetal Alchemist: Stray Rondo getting a translation patch, and it piqued my curiosity. I don't know anything about romhacks or anything like that, so I just had some basic questions:
- does this require some sort of hard/soft-mod of an existing GBA/DS?
- if so, how hard is that to do?
- is the actual game required for play? (I prefer to have the actual game, so that's not an issue. Not interested in getting free games, just want to be able to play them without knowing Japanese.)

The patch I have an eye on is a .xdelta file in case that's of any help.

Like I said, I don't know anything about this stuff, so layman's terms preferred 

[abe]

- does this require some sort of hard/soft-mod of an existing GBA/DS?

Nope.

- if so, how hard is that to do?

Much more difficult to do for the GBA than something like NES or even SNES games, and even then you still need some extra gear and donor carts to make a repro.

- is the actual game required for play? (I prefer to have the actual game, so that's not an issue. Not interested in getting free games, just want to be able to play them without knowing Japanese.)

No, unless you decide to use the Retron 5 and play it patched that way instead of using official hardware.

You're really better off just getting a GBA flash cart, like Krikzz's new EverDrive GBA X5 or hoping some cheap bootleg repros for the patched game you want show up on AliExpress or eBay.

[desocietas]

- does this require some sort of hard/soft-mod of an existing GBA/DS?

Nope.

- if so, how hard is that to do?

Much more difficult to do for the GBA than something like NES or even SNES games, and even then you still need some extra gear and donor carts to make a repro.

- is the actual game required for play? (I prefer to have the actual game, so that's not an issue. Not interested in getting free games, just want to be able to play them without knowing Japanese.)

No, unless you decide to use the Retron 5 and play it patched that way instead of using official hardware.

You're really better off just getting a GBA flash cart, like Krikzz's new EverDrive GBA X5 or hoping some cheap bootleg repros for the patched game you want show up on AliExpress or eBay.

Ah, thanks so much, Abe!  I've avoided roms and such for so long (last one I played was probably like 15 years ago - Earthbound about 40% through or so) since I'm not super techy, especially with paranoia of downloading files from the internet. Used to be so carefree back in the day!

Sounds like the easier options are to get a Retron 5 and the cart or a flash cart/repro. The R5 and the cart may likely be the way as I prefer having the original game if possible. Thanks again! Everything I searched was just a mess of terminology that I wasn't familiar with, and I didn't want to get too deep into it if it'd require a lot of work in the end.

Edit: Funny, did you know people also sold repros on etsy? Never would've guessed...