Fan translations are a grey area of sorts for gamers. Technically they are not illegal as the patch breaks no laws simply by existing. The illegal activity comes from the fact that you have to use the patch with a copy of the game it is for. Many will claim that the law allows for the owner of a game to make one copy (provided they have the hardware to do so). So far, there have been no court cases to prove, or disprove, this defense so it is accepted by the populace. Anyhow, there are some fans that are taking on the challenge of fan translating Shadowrun for the Mega CD, a Japanese exclusive that many reading this probably had no idea even existed. This is not Shadowrun like we saw on the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis (or even the recent remakes). This version is more like Snatcher, which we did see in North America, mixed with a strategy game for battles. It doesn’t stop there though, there are more mechanics that are unique to this game and not seen in many others.

Shadowrun for the Mega CD apparently uses both the Sega Mega Drive and the Mega CD to make the game work, this has complicated the translation team’s efforts. Similar to King of Fighters ’95 on the Sega Saturn which used the cartridge slot and the CD drive collectively to create the game, Shadowrun makes use of all of the hardware available to it. From the NeoGaf forum thread for this we can see that work is continuing at a slow pace. The first scenario is also apparently translated and the team are working on re-inserting the text back into the game, with varying levels of success so far.

This is an interesting fan translation considering the recent success on Kickstarter, the somewhat popular retro titles on the SNES and Genesis and the similar genre formatting (Snatcher and strategy role playing games). I will keep my eyes on this one and bring more as it develops.

Source: NeoGaf.com forums

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