In September of 1994, Illusion of Gaia made its North American debut. Known for being much darker than the other RPGs Nintendo was allowing at the time, it left players with a lot to think about… but unfortunately, the localization was often incomprehensible.
Now, thanks to the efforts of L Thammy, the game has received a new fan translation 30 years after its western release. The GitHub project page for this translation can be found here.
Key points:
- The new translation aims to make the English script more comprehensible and closer to the original Japanese dialogue.
- A demo is available on GitHub, including the translation up to South Cape location.
- In addition, the patch improves load times by decompressing all assets in the game.
Do you remember being confused by the original localization?
Illusion of Gaia is one of those games that holds a magical place in my heart, so much so that just hearing or thinking of the name…even all these years later, still gives me goosebumps.
Such a fantastic game. and such a fantastic story
It was the first rpg-type game I ever played and it awoke a passion in me I still have 30 years on.
I still have the cartridge. Don’t have an SNES to play on anymore (I’d just emulate anyway). But I keep that and ff8 on display, for being formative titles.
FF8 was such an underappreciated title. I think the negative backlash that it got really did a disservice to the entire franchise. . Which is a shame, cause it stands, to this day, as my favorite Final Fantasy.
The SNES and the PS1 were like, the epicenter of amazing, mind blowing RPG games.
I guess I got lucky that I never played 7…? Everyone hypes the hell out of 7, and you almost never hear about 8…
For me, though, 8 was more than the story, it was more than the game. It was the absolute most frustrating experience of my entire gaming life, thus far.
See, I fucked up. I fucked up and saved my game when I came across a save spot. I fucked up and saved my game right before the end boss. I fucked up and saved my game right before the end boss with a very nearly empty inventory.
Because it’s not a short game, I wasn’t willing to re-play it. That would have been faster, but less fulfilling. Nope, instead I spent about 72 hours over the span of two weeks, replaying the final boss with 2 heal items, one resurrection, and that’s about it. I did no other gaming in that time. That boss was the only thing I did for days and days.
I beat that bitch. I whooped her after hours upon hours of trial and failure. Different starting lineups, different item use, different summon use pattern… the works.
The day I beat it I learned that I could, if thoroughly motivated, do whatever I set out for, even if it took a while. (No, this definitely has not translated to real life but that’s because I have no motivation left to put forth in actual life… made a big difference in gaming tho!!) I also learned to never run low on items even if I never use them, and to create a backup save file and alternate which one I save to.
SNES and ps1 were really pushing the limits of what could be done. A lot of games from that era are super hard to play now, though, because the controls are just sloppy. I’m not even concerned with the graphics, but the controls… ungh and that was also the time of non-remappable inverted camera controls and shit…
7 was a great and brilliant game, with an enormous world and an incredible story… It certainly deserves a lot of hype for what it did and achieved, but I also think its telling that instead of just giving it a graphical update and releasing it for modern systems, Square is doing…whatever horrid shit they are doing with the remake thats basically killed it for me forever.
8 did a lot different. Not just different from 7, but also different from Final Fantasy in general. I think thats why it doesnt have as much love, that, and it it had the misfortune of having to follow 7. But I think that chance it took is what makes it special. Genuinely special.
Unfortunately a lot of people didnt seem to think so, which made Square go back to the classic airship fantasy world that most other final fantasy games used with FF9. They started taking chances again with 10, which was more well received and really blew open the flood gates
Its incredible that you managed to pull that off, though, lol. I wouldnt have. then again, I’m the obsessive hoarder “I cant use this, what if I’ll need it later?!” type.
I think games were great cause the limits they were made in. Limitations that are long gone, and games suffer as a result.
I am also the obsessive hoarder… now. Like as a direct result of that experience I never go below some arbitrary threshold of items (based entirely on the early portion of the game where you have no money but enemies are easy, and the max stack), even if I have to buy them. I used to never spend currency as a matter of pride. I still won’t buy gear if it drops, but I will stock consumables.
I guess I’m not really that familiar with it being different, I went from 8 to 10/10-2, to 13/spins, so it seemed pretty in-tune overall with the vibes and stuff of what I played. Each game was pretty standalone and tried different unique things to see what worked. I’d be interested to hear more of what was different tho!
I’ve heard… things about the remake… my partner played the first and couldn’t be bothered to buy the second when PS+ made the first a free game for cheap subscriptions a couple months after getting it for Xmas… but that seems… like a lot. I mean final fantasy games are looooooong and the mechanics are usually complicated af. I honestly haven’t been able to get into a ff game in a long time, they are just really involved… I can’t imagine needing to play through… what is it supposed to be 3 of them to get the full story? At least 10 and 13, it was the same story just differently applied and expanded… you didn’t -have to- play the next ones, they were still final fantasies (I know that’s not where the name came from, but it’s appropriate)
I’d be into a remaster of 8 (the graphical-only update doesn’t count, and isn’t that updated - I tried to play it and it was still grindy af), but not a fully redone game like 7… I’d like them to cut out most of the random encounters, scale the XP so it’s much less grindy, upgrade the graphics, and do literally nothing else, leave it alone. I’d totally play it again even tho turn based games aren’t my jam anymore. And it probably wouldn’t cost much for them to do that.
I have 7 on switch but I can’t get through it. I’m bored very early on every time I try. Too many random encounters and they take too long with the intro, combat, and victory animations. It’s the whole reason I gave up on most turn based games; they used to totally be my thing. You can’t explore because you get turned around with the constant combat. I want to play it, but I can’t. I’d like that to also get a straight remaster treatment like I want for 8. No real change, just quality of life improvements.
I wonder why they opted not to do that… and -then- the remake…
I immediately started hearing the music when I saw the title. I tried playing this game as a kid, but had a fairly hard time with it. Went back in the past decade and finally beat it. Am I remembering correctly that the instruction booklet had an entire strategy guide in it?
The script was a little rough at times for sure, like plenty of the other localized games of its era, but I don’t remember it being especially bad. Terranigma was definitely worse, though, possibly due to not getting a North America release. Would love to see a project tackle that one.
I really want to play this game. Been looking at reproduction carts of it cause that’s all I can find. I’m not really good at setting up emulators so I tend to stick to consoles when it comes to 4th-5th generation games.
I don’t know how well it’s aged for a new player, but I found it very notable at the time for being dark, if not outright macabre, at times. We had very little of that in the 16-bit era.
Drawing from real-world locales and cultures was interesting, too. Ys is another series that does that to good effect.
Are SNES load times are a big concern for emulators today?
Not for emulators, but with Everdrives for example it is possible to play it on native hardware and there load times matter. So improving loading times is a great feature
