Fan translations of The Legendary Starfy series
Fan translations of video games are unofficial translations of video games by fans which change the dialog/texts in the game from one language to another. This can include both the editing of the game script as well as images to translate or adjust the text within them.
Fan translation work often also involve more technical edits to the game, such as the addition of a new character set or font, or edits to the way text is displayed like (in the case of the first Densetsu no Starfy game) how many times the player has to scroll the text in a single conversation.
While the fifth game in the The Legendary Starfy series is the only one to have been officially translated by Nintendo, some fan translation work on other The Legendary Starfy games has been done, however no The Legendary Starfy game is known to have been fully translated by a fan.
The fan translation of video games is a legal gray area. While Nintendo own the copyright to the Game Scenario (which refers to the game's script) and the ROM images of the games, many fan translation projects choose to release a file such as an IPS patch of the game which requires already having a copy of the ROM to be patched. The downloading of ROMs from the Internet is illegal, however choosing to dump (a word which refers to extracting a digital copy of the game from an existing cartridge or other medium) an existing copy of the game for backup purposes is more of a gray area in US state.
Fan translation of Densetsu no Starfy
Fan translation work on Densetsu no Starfy had began in 2012 or earlier, with Normmatt's work on a variable width font (VWF) and text insertion tool based on a program called Atlas. Blackmage907 had also attempted to work with the game, but stopped working on it at a later date.
Fans of the The Legendary Starfy series Star_Light (Talk) and Torchickens (Talk) were also involved in covering the Japanese games in English for Starfy Wiki.
While a few videos have been uploaded on the Internet with live translation attempts of the game, actual translation of the script on a ROM had not been attempted until 2013 with Torchickens translating part of the intro and Normmatt applying it to see how it would look.[1]
Torchickens later uploaded a video of an English version of the game's opening on YouTube in November 2015.
After a delay in progress, Torchickens announced on Starfy Forum on May 1, 2016 that she had cancelled the project due to fear of legal action.
However at a later date on June 20, 2017 pablitox (game code) and Jamie (game text) would continue working on fan translating the game. Torchickens decided to join the team and resume work on the game again one week later on June 27, 2017 with updates on her "Torchickens" Youtube channel and Google Sites page.
Fan translation of Densetsu no Starfy 2, Densetsu no Starfy 3
In 2010, Autumchild uploaded gameplay videos of Densetsu no Starfy 2 covering what some of the text means. This was followed by a playthrough of Densetsu no Starfy 3 in 2012.
Fan translation of Densetsu no Starfy 4
On January 6, 2018 Autumchild began a series for a playthrough fan translating Densetsu no Starfy 4. These videos show the text as annotations on the screen, unlike her previous fan translations attempts for Densetsu no Starfy 2 and Densetsu no Starfy 3.
Fan translation of Densetsu no Stafy: Taiketsu! Daīru Kaizokudan
While it is not known whether there were any fan translation attempts for the fifth game before its official localization into The Legendary Starfy, as expected the game was covered by fans overseas. The game's title was translated by some as "Legend of Stafy"/"Legendary Stafy: Confrontation! Dire Kaizokudan". Like the translation of "Densetsu no Stafy", the romanization of ダイール (Daīru) is debatable, as it refers not to the word "dire" but the main antagonist (officially known as in the English versions as Mashtooth).
