GBA Japan-only Zero One SP Getting Fan-made Translation!
Last Updated on September 14, 2023
We owe a lot of our admiration towards fans that can keep niche games alive, whether that’s through ports, emulation or preservation. One such individual has undergone the mighty task of translating the “Largest Adventure Game” on the Game Boy Advance.
That game is Zero One SP, a Japanese-only release that was a remake of its predecessor Zero One. This visual novel prides itself on claiming that it is the “Largest Adventure Game” on GBA. The translator and hacker known as TraceyTrace has started on a fan translation for the game that was announced over a week ago (3rd September) on the GBATemp forums.
The game will have much to translate due to it being a visual novel and there being many routes to take in game with the dialogue changing according to what the player chooses. TraceyTrace has asked for suggestions for edited Japanese-to-English dialogue phrases via a Google Sheet they have created. They motioned the following regarding this:
“As I said, this game has a colossal amount of text, not to mention all the menus and miscellaneous things that need translating. As such, this is a marathon and not a sprint. If you want to support me in completing this project, I urge you to make use of the Google Sheet I created to suggest edits if your English is excellent, suggest translations if your English AND Japanese is excellent, and if you cannot or choose not to do either of those, a coffee would go a long way over at www.ko-fi.com/traceytrace.”
The game itself features many different weird and wonderful characters, throwing in many Sci-Fi and Supernatural genre tropes to make it one heck of a crazy adventure. TraceyTrace expressed the grandiose nature of the project and explained the following:
“In total there is about 60,000 lines of dialogue, so quite hefty in terms of content. Branching story paths massively increase the amount of different conversations that can be had, and that is clear from playtesting I’ve done thus far.”
So far they have let us have a sneak peek of a demo they have translated via YouTube and it looks like they did an awesome job!
I am a media and pop culture enthusiast and love Nintendo and indie games, particularly Zelda and Stardew Valley. When I’m not gaming you’ll find me writing, creating fanart, and playing music covers of my favourite games!
