Light your fuses, Saturn fans — the English fan translation of 3D isometric battler “Saturn Bomberman Fight!!” is finished and available to the public.
Lead patch developer Malenko uploaded the patch to SegaXtreme on Christmas Eve in SSP format — its ZIP file comes with a special version of the Sega Saturn Patcher for use with it. He was assisted by:
- SoloNerfHerder, who translated the game from Japanese into English.
- BlueMoon95, who did extensive beta testing and did some English text injection.
- Derek “ateam” Pascarella, who helped make Nansh1’s tools more user friendly.
- Shadowmask, who added subtitles.
He also wanted to acknowledge Nanash1 for developing the first set of tools, Bo Bayles for unlocking some bonus items in the game, Knight0fDragon for helping to locate the story mode drawing routine, and this reporter, who contributed by drawing an English title screen and inserting it into the game.
Shadowmask created a short trailer to celebrate the patch’s completion:
The patch took more than two years to finish. “Everything was an obstacle,” Malenko told SHIRO!, “from multiple drawing routines, multiple locations for the same tiles, to most of the programming being hidden in multiple files. The only thing that went right was the graphics being uncompressed on disc.”
The team documented their progress in a thread on SegaXtreme as they made their way through the unique story modes for each of the game’s 15 characters, plus its survival and tutorial modes.
Malenko said his favorite character is Kotetsu because “he’s just a fun spoof of a samurai. Pump is a close second because of her dialog.”
In-progress versions of the patch as well as the final one were made available periodically to SHIRO! Patreon supporters. One in-progress patch was made available to the public late last year.
The patch does more than translate Bomberman Fight!!, too — it also includes access to three bonus levels normally only unlockable with a special Hudson controller.
That access was first released as a bespoke patch by Bo Bayles in January.
Saturn Bomberman Fight!! released by Hudson only on the Saturn in December 1997 exclusively in Japan. Rather than a classic Bomberman-style game, Fight!! features an isometric perspective with level design that includes slopes and characters with health meters who can jump over obstacles. Its 15 playable characters each have a unique story mode complete with voice acting. While its battle mode doesn’t support 12 players like the earlier Bomberman entry on the Saturn, it does support four players by way of the 6Player multiplayer adaptor.
Fun fact: Bomberman Fight is the game advertised in the Japanese TV commercial in which Segata Sanshiro famously throws a person who explodes upon landing on the ground.
Malenko just released an English translation patch for another Saturn game in October: Logic Puzzle: Rainbow Town. He’s also headed up translations of Firepro Wrestling Gaiden Blazing Tornado, Fire Pro Wrestling 6 Men Scramble and Drift King 97. He’s been working on a translation of Terra Phantastica with SoloNerfHerder for more than two years that is not finished yet.
Malenko said he decided to work on a translation of Saturn Bomberman Fight!! because it looked like a fun game.
“This started out as just a game to pick apart for the Saturn graphics tutorial and I thought it would be a quick and easy game to do while waiting for tools to get done for Terra Phantastica,” he said. “It is a neat 3D take on the Bomberman formula so I hope people give it a try.”
Ateam is no stranger to Saturn hacking, either, after working on translation patches for Rabbit and Jung Rhythm earlier this year, among other projects.
Meanwhile, this was BlueMoon’s first translation project. “I always wanted to try my hand at making an English patch (or at least learn something from it) after playing so many other translation patches over the years,” he said.