RGN Feature Article:
Playing Japanese Only Games with RetroArch's AI Translate Feature - PART II
It has been a long time since I wrote the first part of this article, so I thought that it’s high time I finally got around to writing the second part as it’s long overdue now. In the first part we had a look at a couple of Japanese-only exclusive games for the BS-X Satellaview system for the Super Nintendo. In addition to reviewing some really interesting titles I also explained how to setup RetroArch to translate these Japanese-text games. In this half of the article I will talk about how to setup RetroArch to play Satellaview games and how to play and translate the BS-X games that won’t work on RetroArch. So make yourself a tea, coffee or your preferred beverage for relaxing, sit back and get comfortable in your PC gaming chair (or whatever you sit on while using your PC) and get ready to read some informative and entertaining information that will improve your retro gaming capabilities and enjoyment.
Satellaview Japanese-Only Games
Alright, in the first half of this article I reviewed two awesome BS-X Satellaview Japanese games: Super Family Gelande, the only ski resort simulator game I’m aware of and Famicom Bunko – The Unknown Forest, an extremely unique adventure game (which actually is a Nintendo Power game not a BS-X game). Those were the best Japanese only games that I had come across at that time, luckily I now know of some more unique and interesting titles that are worth your time if you are the type of retro gamer who likes unique and obscure Japanese games. If you are a veteran of retro gaming than you would be very aware that Japan gets many games that we never see in the west and a lot of them are hidden gems (meaning they are excellent but unknown titles). Some of these hidden gems end up getting an English transalation that can be accessed by applying a patch to the ROM via a BPS or IPS file. However because of the sheer volume of games that are produced in Japan the majority of these games never receive an English translation and these are the titles that we will be looking at. The purpose of this article is to provide a means of enjoying these Japan exclusive games via a translation service or program.
BS Marvelous: Time Athletic Course 1
This is one of the Satellaview games that was available in episode installments that would come out each week and be broadcast at the same time. There are four episodes or “courses” were released and all of them have been dumped however the only one that is available in a playable form is Course 1. This is because it is the only ROM that has been modified to work without the Satellaview framework in place as originally it was only able to be played on the live service during broadcast hours and so had limitations programmed in based on the broadcast time and the BS-X hardware, etc. Fortunately Course 1 had been redumped after being fixed to work as a standalone ROM.
Unfortunately I could not get it to work on RetroArch for some reason, it just doesn’t like certain Satellaview ROM files for some reason. Even though it loads as a Satellaview game it still doesn’t show up when you try to load the data in the BS-X overworld interface. Therefore this game must be played in Snes9x (or other emulator) and a different means of translation is needed. I used UGT or Universal Game Translator, instructions to set it up can be found further down in the article.
The game itself is an exploration of an outdoors camp course, requiring you to find camp staff that are in charge of stamping. In addition to collecting 12 stamps in order, there are 25 luck rocks to collect and unique items that need to be found to solve puzzles. The main objective is collecting the stamps, the other objectives are optional. To get maximum enjoyment from the game you have to replay it and learn how to get all the items as well as the luck rocks in addition to the stamps in the alloted time.
Gameplay Genre: Adventure (with exploration and puzzle elements)
Gameplay Length: 50 minutes (timed), up to 5 hours replay value
Game Console: Super Famicom Satellaview
Mini Review Score: 87% "Awesome mini sequel to Camp Marvelous"
Hensei Shin Onigashima - Zenpen (New Onigashima of the Heisei Era – Part 1)
This is a game that started it’s life on the Famicom, then a sequel was produced for the Satellaview. Later a cartridge version that improved on the BS-X version and made it playable without the Satellaview was released. This is the version that is being reviewed.
The game’s plot is a modernized retelling of the classic Japanese folktale “Momotarō” (The Peach Boy), blended with elements from other myths and original characters created by Nintendo’s adventure game team. The story begins in a small mountain village during Japan’s Heisei era. Two children, Donbe (boy) and Hikari (girl), live peaceful lives until strange events unfold — demons (oni) re-emerge, animals begin behaving violently, and villagers start vanishing. One day, their parents mysteriously disappear, leaving behind only cryptic clues.
Guided by a talking dog, monkey, and pheasant — echoes of Momotarō’s legendary companions — the siblings embark on a quest across ancient shrines, enchanted forests, and “Onigashima” (Demon Island) itself. Their journey mixes mystery solving, puzzle dialogue, and supernatural folklore, as they uncover that their destiny is tied to a centuries-old battle between humans and demons.
This is an excellent text adventure, with catchy and lively music paired with cute and attractive, classic Super NES pixel-arts with detailed and cartoony Japanese styled sprites. This game is truly a delight and a pleasure to play, with a timeless and emotional storyline and endearing characters that you will fall in love with. Like the book that it’s based on the game is split into chapters, fans of adventure games will be rewarded with great sense of achievement each time they progress to the next chapter. This experience is well worth going through the work of having to interpret the vague and inaccurate poorly translated AI text.
Gameplay Genre: Graphic Adventure
Gameplay Length: 4-8 Estimated Hours
Game Console: Super Famicom / Super Nintendo
Mini Review Score 92% "Delightful and Colorful Timeless Tale!"
Loading Satellaview Games in RetroArch
The first thing you need to do in order to run Satellview games in RetroArch (apart from having the SNES cores installed) is to copy the BS-X BIOS to the “RetroArch \ System” folder, the file must be named “BS-X.bin”. If the BIOS file you have is named something else you can simply rename it and as long as it’s the Satellaview BIOS file it will work.
Satellaview ROM files are usually .BS format files however they are sometimes found renamed as .SFC (Super Famicom) format ROM files. They usually work even if they are in the .SFC format but you can rename them so that they have their proper .BS extension to avoid confusion between regular Super NES / Super Famicom ROMs.
The very first time that you load a BS-X format ROM you should be taken to a screen where the Satellaview mascot (an anthropomorphized satellite) welcomes you and asks you to input your name and select a boy or girl sprite. This happens for every BS-X ROM that you load but only the first time you load it, after the first time it will remember your name. The next thing you will see will be an overworld, much like that of an RPG, which was a very clever decision by Nintendo. Your chosen boy or girl sprite will be spawned right in front of a house in a town filled with many different buildings. During the Satellaview broadcasts each of these buildings would let you access different broadcasts or buy items.
None of the buildings work when loading your ROM through an emulator except for the house that you spawn in front of. Enter the house via the front door and you will be taken to a menu screen where you can select to start ROMs that have been loaded into the memory. The .BS ROM file that you have selected in RetroArch should have loaded itself into this menu, it may be in English or Japanese. Simply click the data file and the BS-X interface will load the game for you.
Translating Games That Won't Load in RetroArch using UGT
Unfortunately some games just won’t load in RetroArch and this includes some Satellaview games. One example is BS Marvelous: Time Athletic Course 1, specifically the fixed ROM that is floating around on the internet. So in order to be able to play games like this and understand the text you need a solution that doesn’t use RetroArch’s in-built AI-Translation program. There are a lot of different translation programs out there but they can be complicated to use and setup, sometimes they can even cost money. The best one that I have found is called “Universal Game Translator” or UGT, it’s a desktop translation utility for Windows. It works to translate any text that’s on your desktop including text that comes from programs that are loading video games. They have designed it especially to use the right analogue stick button to translate the text on the screen. So, just like RetroArch’s translate program, you must press a button to activate the translation which in this case is the right analogue stick. Unfortunately no translation utility that I know of is capable of translating in real-time, they all need user activation.
So to get this to work you need a suitable game pad – one that has a right analogue stick. I use a Nintendo Switch gamepad, it connects by USB, has a very long cable and is instantly recognized by my PC (Windows 10) when I plug it in without having to download any drivers. The program needs to opened and running whenever you want to translate a game that you are a running in Windows. An emulator works just as well as a game, as far as the program can tell there is no difference between the two. When you first install the program it won’t work without having to manually set it up which isn’t all that complex. The hardest part is having to obtain an Google “Cloud Vision” API translation key which looks something like this “AIzaSyAvhMEcxpKSBD25ze06p5AlU_IuYtZ2b_g”. In order to do this you have to sign-up for one using Google by visiting this website https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/api/translate.googleapis.com. Once you have it open the config file in the UGT folder and paste it in the correct location, then rename the file to “config.txt”.
Once you’ve done that, you should be all setup to start translating games. One thing to note is that Google technically charges for this “Cloud Vision” translation service however that’s only when a certain amount of data has been used. There is a pretty sizeable buffer that you can use without being charged. I have never been charged and when the buffer limit was exceeded it just stopped working, but just be aware you may be charged. It’s all a bit complicated to understand when setting it up, at least for me.
Relevant Links
- Satellablog Website [https://superfamicom.org/blog/category/general-information/bs-x-bios/] Download link for the BS-X BIOS file
- Seth Robinson’s Github [https://github.com/SethRobinson/UGT] Download link for Universal Game Translator
