Prolific fan translation patch maker Exxistance kicked off what he calls his “summer of Saturn” today with an English patch for the Saturn port of SNK 2D fighting game Shinouken, aka Ragnagard.
“The Summer of Saturn kicks off with the pre-rendered 2D fighter, RAGNAGARD!” Exxistance posted on social media this morning. “Released for Saturn in JP as Shinouken, this new patch features all-new English graphics and text throughout. Please enjoy!”
The patch can be downloaded from Exxistance’s GitHub page for the project. It’s an XDelta patch that should be applied to track 1 of Shinouken.
Shinouken originally released for the Neo Geo in June 1996. Its Neo Geo CD port that came out that August was the basis for the Japan-only Saturn port in April 1997. The game’s never been ported to any other platform. The Saturn version adds a versus mode, a combo counter display and an auto-guard mode that weren’t in the Neo Geo editions.
Exxistance said they brought the official English translation from the Neo Geo version over to the Saturn. The patch features:
- New localized title graphics
- New English sprites for character names
- New English UI round sprites, such as Round 1/2/3, Fight!!, Time Up, and Draw
- Translated win quotes and character endings
- Translated configuration menu
- Translated “save warnings”
The GitHub page points out a few helpful things about Shinouken/Ragnagard, too:
- Play as the bosses
- Contrary to most English-media sources, the bosses are playable in Arcade mode in the Saturn version! This tip came to me in a fever dream where the angel of Sega Saturn romhacking, Bo Bayles, handed me a stone Sega Saturn with the following engraving on the bottom:
- To play as Lucifer, highlight Susano, hold START and press any button
- To play as Behemoth, highlight Syuten-Dozi, hold START and press any button
- To play as Eelis, highlight Benten, hold START and press any button
- Contrary to most English-media sources, the bosses are playable in Arcade mode in the Saturn version! This tip came to me in a fever dream where the angel of Sega Saturn romhacking, Bo Bayles, handed me a stone Sega Saturn with the following engraving on the bottom:
- Move lists
- During gameplay, if you press Start to pause, and then press the A, B, or C buttons, the move list for your character will be displayed. In Versus Mode, move lists for both players will be displayed.
- Character Colorways
- During character select, pressing any of the six face buttons will select a different colorway for each character.
He thanked wonder-inc and Small Nerd for playtesting the patch before release.
Summer of Saturn
In the SHIRO! Discord server, Exxistance said this is the first of three translation patches he plans to release this summer. He teased his “summer of Saturn” a couple weeks ago with a fun graphic using the old “it’s out there” North American advertising.
“Something I’ve been cooking up,” he said when posting the graphic. “Three months = three translations.”
Anyone who’s hung around the server’s translation patches channel lately will have noticed that he’s been teasing what those other two patches might be. Exxistance has shown off screenshots of in-progress translations for two more fighting games: Dead or Alive and Astra Superstars, the latter of which he entered an incomplete patch for in the SegaXtreme Showcase last month.
Exxistance has been involved in quite a few translation patches since last year, including Shinrei Jusatsushi Taroumaru, Willy Wombat, Di Gi Charat, Delisoba Deluxe, Segagaga and Ninku.
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