Zukkoke Yajikita Onmitsudoutyuu (ずっこけやじきた隠密道中 if you know how to read it), an MSX2 RPG by HAL, was translated to English recently and published earlier today on DJANGO's blog. Perhaps DJANGO's incentive is to let another translator continue where he left off. If it's not and you don't mind playing an unpolished partial translation, Djanglish will be your favourite word of today.

French users that can't understand most of this newspost without Google's help will be happy to see that DJANGO is also working on French translations of Konami's Uşas, King's Valley II, and King Kong 2.

Relevant link: DJANGO's blog

Django has provided a new translation for fans of the RPG genre: the 1990 game Devil Hunter is now partially translated. Despite being an MSX1 game, the graphics look very detailed and colorful. The gameplay and the controls may lack behind a bit for those who've been spoiled by famous MSX2 RPG's such as Xak, Dragonslayer, Ys and SD Snatcher. Now that the game is a bit more playable, brave adventurers may give it a try.

Relevant link: Passion MSX - Devil Hunter

Some time ago translations for Goemon and Woody Poco were released. Goemon - being MSX Translations' first release - didn't feature a Turbo mode. But now that feature has been added. Woody Poco had a minor bug in it. Saving to PAC in R800 mode appears to cause data corruption as BiFi pointed out (FM-PACs don't suffer from this flaw). This has now been addressed so you don't need to manually switch back to Z80 mode in Woody Poco. So if you want to experience Goemon in R800 mode or happen to have a PAC, you might want to check this out.

Relevant link: MSX Translations

M.I.J.E.T., known in the game hacking and translation scene for his quality Mega Drive game translations, published his first MSX work, a surprise translation of Pack-In-Video's Silviana.

Silviana (also the name of our hero in the game) is a 20 year old cute action RPG for the MSX2 that doesn't take itself too serious, sporting colourful graphics and FM-PAC music. It's easy to get into and your goal is simple: find a medicine to cure Silviana's mother. It's up to us MSXers to help her out. Here's hoping that we will actually play this game now, unlike last time, judging from the massive amount of reactions.

Like most of M.I.J.E.T.'s releases, this one is dual-language (Japanese and English) and includes several small improvements as well. He also provides us with a handy general patching utility on his website to make sure that the correct disk image gets patched.

Relevant link: M.I.J.E.T.

Becky-chan, the coolest tomboy on the block, just had her game translated by hap and Rikusu. It's a simple 1983 platform game similar to Lode Runner, but unlike that classic, not worth playing unless you're an Audrey Tautou fan.

The patch can be obtained from hap's website, which has recently been relocated to http://tsk-tsk.net/.

Relevant link: hap's stuff

In the past years more and more people started to delve into games to make content out of them. MSX Solutions focused on good old maps, a handful o' people make enhancements like MSX2 versions for MSX1 games, or even smooth versions of Konami's shooters. Other people make textual walkthoughs with screenshots and recently various people have started to upload walk through videos to YouTube. On the edge of 2009 the French MSX fan Django, another one of those content providers, continues to keep us busy with partial translations. His most recent one being an old Micro Cabin game from 1987: AshGuine 3.

Relevant link: PassionMSX - Goodies

It's only five days until Christmas and to spread the holiday cheer, MSX Translations treat you to a small patch for the MSX2 ball throwing game Penguin Wars 2. Fans of penguins and arcade action may want to check it out. Aside from the translation (though there isn't that much text), the patch features:

• a bug fix so the internal MSX-Music will be recognised on MSX2+ and Turbo R computers as well
  
• a bug fix so you can save to the (FM-)PAC's S-RAM on MSX2+ and Turbo R computers
  
• a feature to enable R800 mode for all you guys who thought the Emperor Penguin was a pushover

There's also a separate patch if you only want to apply the bug fixes to the Japanese version.

Relevant link: MSX Translations

Django has provided the MSX world a new partial translation, to be found in the goodies at Passion MSX: Laplace's Evil Spirit. This game was published in 1989 by Humming Bird Software, a now defunct Japanese video game company that not only focused on MSX, but also on our digital neighbors from the 80's and early 90's like the Sharp X68000, the Famicom, the FM-Towns and finally the 3DO. Another Japanese game made playable!

Relevant link: Passion MSX

Scaptrust's MSX output hasn't turned out to be vast, only four games can be found in Generation MSX, of which Starship Rendez-Vous is without doubt the most famous one. Deep Dungeon II is one of their other games, and thanks to Django, there's now a partial translation for this Japanese MSX1 RPG from 1988.

Relevant link: Passion MSX - Django translations

Today's the day hardcore Woody Poco fans such as Hydragon have been waiting for. Not long after the announcement a few days ago, the translation by Tsunami, Max Iwamoto, with a bit of help from Vampier, is done. Like their previous translation, it's very polished, and contains a couple of bugfixes and features not available in the original game, notably:

• Created a variable width lowercase font and the means to display texts that span more than one text window.
  
• Completely recoded keyword system. Now all keywords can use English letters and numbers.
  
• Added support for (FM-)PAC SRAM.
  
• Added a feature to enable or disable the R800 mode on MSX Turbo-R computers.
  
• Added a special password as was intended to be in the game.
  
• Added Dedicated ROM Loader for English translation of Woody Poco.
  
• Optional +3 trainer patch.

To be able to play this translation, apply the IPS patch to the Japanese ROM. Some emulators, like openMSX, allow you to skip this step through soft-patching. Be sure to read the included documentation for background information on this translation. Enjoy!

Relevant link: MSX Files - Translations