Back in the mid 2000s, the gaming scene saw a whole slew of exclusive games released for portable cellphones, with a wide variety of them running under a build of Java for mobile phones, and in the case of Mega Man, the franchise saw quite a handful of titles exclusive to these now forgotten mobile devices.

The Mega Man franchise saw 8 releases on feature phones, with the titles specifically being Rockman Pinball, Rockman GP, Rockman Panic Fire, Rockman Bug Sweeper, Rockman Dash: Great Adventure on 5 Islands, a trial version of Rockman 1 (Mega Man 1 on NES) with the feature to add as Roll in the game, and lastly, the two titles that we'll be focusing on today, Rockman EXE: Phantom of the Network and Rockman EXE: Legend of the Network, which follow a very similar play style to that of the GBA Battle Network titles, with completely new characters, stories and settings.

These games originally came from a Panasonic P-06C phone, and thanks to a very thorough debug cable technique, these games have been properly preserve for posterity at the end of 2023 by SciLab Secrets, with the games being fully playable through the DoCoMo Java (or DoJa) emulator, with the SquirrelJME emulator being planned to support these titles later on.

Now thanks to the collaborative effort of talented hackers and designers from The Rockman EXE Zone, people outside of Japan can fully experience these long-forgotten titles in the Mega Man franchise with a full English localization, which they didn't only localize the entirety of the games, but also added some extra features, updates and changes:

• Added Buster MAX Mode, similar to Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.
• Restored the online ranked virus battle mode in Phantom of the Network.
• Restored the animated backgrounds from the EZweb version of Legend of the Network.
• Added in-game methods to obtain BattleChips required to 100% the game, which were previously Chip Trader-exclusive.

Those interested in trying out the English localization for these titles can do so from the blog post released on the Rockman EXE Zone. Be mindful that you are required to obtain the original Japanese i-appli game files for both games in order to do so and to play them through an emulator.

The credits for the full English fan localization are as follows:

• MegaRockEXE: Logo Design
• MidniteW: Editing, Promo Artwork
• Midori Woodley: Translation
• Prof. 9: Programming, Editing

Source

 

[Guacaholey]

Can the AI translate like a human would?

Japanese to English is drastically different and that's why we don't see it happening too often for old games, sometimes it takes year till someone picks it up.

Example... Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden.

Probably not. Despite people touting AI as being able to do basically anything right now, it really can't. ChatGPT can't even play a game of hangman correctly.
At best you can get an awkward machine translation and then rewrite it.

 

[Flame]

@Prof. 9 is a legend of the scene low key

Congrats to the team too

 

[AnimeIsDead]

Can anyone send me what their twitter/x says because I don't have an account

 

[Guacaholey]

Hopefully someone takes the script and does a fan remake of the game. IIRC there's no over(real)world sections.

 

[hybori]

Would be cool to see someone ripping the game assets, translation and putting it on the GBA emulator. I still need to finish Battle Network 4 then go to 5 and 6. I can wait.

 

[ZeroFX]

I really hope you're not trying to slander the work these people are doing because their work is top notch and honestly some of the best and most dedicated I've seen.

I just see this term "localization" with bad eyes nowadays, that's it.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Can anyone send me what their twitter/x says because I don't have an account

We could see it before without an account, but now guests (no account) can barely do much. Hell, even comments are hidden.

And oh, there are two X's so it can confuse a person which is the X to close that window.

Thanks, Elon Musk.

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

Oooooooh, now I just need to figure out Java phone emulation and finish MMBN2.

 

[ATKOtter]

I just see this term "localization" with bad eyes nowadays, that's it.

Localization is just a term that makes it easier to understand what the purpose of translation is. All translation is inherently localization because translating from one language to another necessitates changing the way things are spoken about and described to make sense in a completely different language.

And the negative view of localization is itself a result of misunderstandings and fearmongering.

For a language like Japanese, a lot of subtext and character mannerisms and personality come through in the way things are worded and how characters are addressed that don't exist in English. English is way more rigid in its grammar than Japanese is, so you can't just have a 1:1 equivalent to any literal words that were said because it would lose any and all subtext and personality (which is another reason machine translation will never be good)

For a minor example, if a character says only one or two words in Japanese, but it's longer in English, it was changed to better reflect the character's personality in English because all of the subtext that would come across in Japanese grammar across an entire piece of media is lost.

Translators don't change things just because they want to, there's always *always* a complex series of judgments and discussions with other people on the team. Official translations have teams of people checking and determining what can and can't be done with a work, both on the English and Japanese side of things.

 

[SolidSonicTH]

in todays age with AI tech I am hoping that one day soon we will see english translations of every JP game

I would only agree if that just makes the translation job easier, not takes the place of it.

It'd be like decompilation with something such as Ghidra, if you understand the analogy. Feed a Japanese script into a translation AI and get back a rudimentary but readable English script. Then go in and parse out the meaning and tone by using the original script to craft something that feels natural to the English-speaking player.

 

[ATKOtter]

I would only agree if that just makes the translation job easier, not takes the place of it.

It'd be like decompilation with something such as Ghidra, if you understand the analogy. Feed a Japanese script into a translation AI and get back a rudimentary but readable English script. Then go in and parse out the meaning and tone by using the original script to craft something that feels natural to the English-speaking player.

That would be far less efficient and far more work to fix a machine translation than to translate it from scratch. Companies are already doing that and it leads to worse products.

 

[ZeroFX]

Localization is just a term that makes it easier to understand what the purpose of translation is. All translation is inherently localization because translating from one language to another necessitates changing the way things are spoken about and described to make sense in a completely different language.

And the negative view of localization is itself a result of misunderstandings and fearmongering.

For a language like Japanese, a lot of subtext and character mannerisms and personality come through in the way things are worded and how characters are addressed that don't exist in English. English is way more rigid in its grammar than Japanese is, so you can't just have a 1:1 equivalent to any literal words that were said because it would lose any and all subtext and personality (which is another reason machine translation will never be good)

For a minor example, if a character says only one or two words in Japanese, but it's longer in English, it was changed to better reflect the character's personality in English because all of the subtext that would come across in Japanese grammar across an entire piece of media is lost.

Translators don't change things just because they want to, there's always *always* a complex series of judgments and discussions with other people on the team. Official translations have teams of people checking and determining what can and can't be done with a work, both on the English and Japanese side of things.

You're either very naive, very sarcastic or flat out dishonest. I've played quite a few games in their japanese and english versions in my life and recently I've been baffled on how much the translations (or so called localizations) worsened in a stratospheric level for medium-big japanese companies or western distributors like marvelous (xseed, biggest offender), bandai namco, square enix, atlus, 505 games... The very complex series of judgements and discussions they have is where they're going to insert the next political or cheesy """humorous line""", even LLMs can come with a better translation in that regard and let's pray it can replace them one day =}}}.
I've seen fan translators wanting to follow the localization path as well that's why I asked, if they don't do that kudos to them, like I said I'll check it out some day, although I think I already played ryuusei using something they did and if it is (SFDX) it was nice.
And about the japanese language, no need to try to discuss that with me.

 

[Ligeia]

Can the AI translate like a human would?

Japanese to English is drastically different and that's why we don't see it happening too often for old games, sometimes it takes year till someone picks it up.

Example... Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden.

As a guy who's doing TV show subs, I can tell you that while IA translations have definitely improved these last few years, human intervention is certainely needed to correct mistakes and polish things up, lol.

An IA-translated subbed show left as is can be watched and you can understand what's going on, but it's really not pleasant to fill in the blanks and mistakes as you watch.

IA is just generally very overrated. It sure helps but it can't replace human minds.

 

[AndorfRequissa]

Can the AI translate like a human would?

Japanese to English is drastically different and that's why we don't see it happening too often for old games, sometimes it takes year till someone picks it up.

Example... Dragon Ball Kai: Ultimate Butōden.

AI cant do anything on its own. It can do most the heavy lifting making it easy for humans to clean up and finalize the rough draft AI creates.

Ive seen my fair share of fanmade translations with errors in them. sometimes they are fun additives to the game and make u laugh. not necessarily a bad thing. AI cant be that much worse and id rather have some translation than no translation.

being its 2024 ill wait until at least 2030 to start griping about how bad AI is at translating video games. It will get better and better with time and the sooner this starts happening the faster the community can move at achieving fun homebrew

 

[ATKOtter]

You're either very naive, very sarcastic or flat out dishonest. I've played quite a few games in their japanese and english versions in my life and recently I've been baffled on how much the translations (or so called localizations) worsened in a stratospheric level for medium-big japanese companies or western distributors like marvelous (xseed, biggest offender), bandai namco, square enix, atlus, 505 games... The very complex series of judgements and discussions they have is where they're going to insert the next political or cheesy """humorous line""", even LLMs can come with a better translation in that regard and let's pray it can replace them one day =}}}.
I've seen fan translators wanting to follow the localization path as well that's why I asked, if they don't do that kudos to them, like I said I'll check it out some day, although I think I already played ryuusei using something they did and if it is (SFDX) it was nice.
And about the japanese language, no need to try to discuss that with me.

I'm speaking from a place of knowing how the industry actually works rather than blindly believing fear mongering from right winger twitter chuds who do nothing but stir controversy because they have nothing better to do, or thinking that translation between languages is really as simple as copying down words.

 

[ZeroFX]

I'm speaking from a place of knowing how the industry actually works rather than blindly believing fear mongering from right winger twitter chuds who do nothing but stir controversy because they have nothing better to do, or thinking that translation between languages is really as simple as copying down words.

I'm speaking from a place of actually playing multiple versions and knowing the japanese language if you haven't been able to understand due to your dishonesty. I don't use twitter so I don't "follow" these people you follow from this left/right wing American view you have...

 

[RetroNerdGamer]

I'm speaking from a place of actually playing multiple versions and knowing the japanese language if you haven't been able to understand due to your dishonesty. I don't use twitter so I don't "follow" these people you follow from this left/right wing American view you have...

Look all Im gonna say is you can trust the people who translated these games because they do good work. Lets all calm down.

 

[SolidSonicTH]

If we're going to argue about localization I need to know which side you stand on with regards to Ace Attorney.

Because there are definitely people out there who say even that series has been butchered by its localization.

 

[ShadowLuigi]

MEGAMAN BATTLE NETWORK LETS GO!!!

> You will need to obtain the original Japanese i-αppli game files for Rockman EXE Phantom of Network & Rockman EXE Legend of Network in order to apply the patches.

And how the hell is this even achievable without getting the game through other means? I don't even know anyone that even has the original on them unless they're living in Japan that surprisingly had the game when it was released during that time period.

Right? Who are they kidding, what, is Capcom going to go after you for pirating* (Is it even pirating if you can't buy the game anymore? Don't we call that abandonware?) flip phone game roms now?

From what I've heard, Legend of network might have a better story than some of the main series GBA games.

That's interesting, I didn't really care much for the story in like the later battle network games than I did MMBN3 blue. Might be worth it for me to play this one then.

 

[DragonMals]

what, is Capcom going to go after you for pirating* (Is it even pirating if you can't buy the game anymore?) flip phone game roms now?

Nah but this place will if you share the details to which I won't do.

Besides, even if I were to somehow obtain this game, I don't know if I'll get hooked on it or not. Not saying this for the worst though, cause I have all Battle Network and Starforce games on my Backloggd.