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Shaq-Fu
Shaq-Fu (1994)
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Shaq-Fu's notoriously low quality resulted in the creation of a website known as shaqfu.com in 2001, devoted to the mission statement of destroying as many copies of Shaq-Fu as possible, with their "Reasons for LIBERATING" being listed as

•You prevent other generations from feeling the corruption of this game and its evil.
•You clear up the enormous copies of Shaq-Fu lying on the shelves in used console game stores. By doing so, you remove it from public display so that people will not be reminded of the game's existence.
•Purchasing many copies of the game shifts the demand schedule, consequently raising the price. Even though it costs you more money, it reduces the incentive for a non-liberator to buy the game; a worthwhile sacrifice.
•By getting it from another person, you remove the burden and embarrassment they feel.

The website contains stories, told through photographs, of site users visiting second-hand game shops to aqcuire copies of Shaq-Fu, a page with links to other anti-Shaq-Fu content, an archive of hate mail circa 2008, and was even updated to coincide with the announcement of Shaq-Fu: A Legend Reborn, announcing protest against the new title.

The popularity of shaqfu.com would result in the creation of a response site, www.saveshaqfu.com, devoted to purchasing and protecting copies of Shaq-Fu from the users of shaqfu.com, containing anthropomorphized bios of "rescued" Shaq-Fu cartridges.
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Complaint, Game Collecting, In-Joke, Meme, Real Life, Website
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month September 30, 2023
comment Comment (0) | Source
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shaqfu.com website Mission Statement:
https://shaqfu.com/ourmission

Save Shaq Fu website:
http://www.saveshaqfu.com/
Eternity's Child
Eternity's Child (2008)
subdirectory_arrow_right Eternity's Child (Game)
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Eternity's Child features the first video game credit for DidYouKnowGaming creator and VGFacts co-founder Shane Gill, who contributed art and animation to the game.
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Credits, First, General, Real Life, Website
person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 14, 2024
comment Comment (1) | link Source
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy V (1992)
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Attachment The translation group RPGe's 1998 English translation of Final Fantasy V is considered to be one of the most widely-played and influential fan translations in video game history. It gained this reputation because it released before Squaresoft's first official translation in Final Fantasy Anthology in late 1999, and despite RPGe primarily consisting of inexperienced teenagers, it was regarded as a better translation than the official one, leading many Western players to first experience the game through it.

The first translation attempts stemmed from widespread confusion over Squaresoft not releasing three FF games in the West: Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, and FFV. Their decision to release Final Fantasy VII internationally under its original numbering after Final Fantasy VI was released in the West a few years earlier as the "third" game in the series also contributed to this.

The co-creator of RPGe, named Shadow, was inspired by an incomplete FFII fan translation by users Demi and Som2freak (the latter having later lent Shadow tools to work on FFV), and started translating FFV by making flashcards for which hex code corresponded to each Japanese and English character in the game's data. He promoted his efforts online using photoshopped FFV images and recruited other users to create RPGe, including translator David Timko, and a computer engineering major named Hooie who also asked Japanese instructors at his university to help translate some enemy names. RPGe's plan was to directly edit their English script into the text files of a ROM of the Japanese version, but their work was slow and tedious due to them having little experience with fan translations and being out of touch with fledgling emulation communities. This led to technical issues with their text and sprite editing software, and English characters being poorly displayed under conditions that were originally designed for larger Japanese characters. The group also suffered from internal factionalism, and since Shadow promoted himself as the public face of the project, he found that he could not handle the attention and controversy that came from how seriously he took the project and RPGe itself, seeing the translation effort as a vital service to the Squaresoft fan community. After Demi published a lengthy post parodying Shadow, he "snapped" and left RPGe. The other founders of RPGe would also eventually step down, but other users would take over and start their own work.

A user named Myria, who had argued against RPGe's hex editing approach to no avail, split off from their efforts beforehand to work on a separate translation. Sharing similar setbacks to them, she gradually parsed through the code used to handle the text files, and edited it so it could recognize English characters of different sizes and fit more in a dialogue box. Som2freak helped translate the script for a time, but then left the project after bringing on a new editor, named harmony7, who started heavily revising Som2freak's translations to his chagrin despite seeing several issues with it.

One of the most controversial aspects of the translation was the main character's name. Squaresoft's later English translation named him "Bartz", but RPGe's translation named him "Butz", which many joked sounds like "butts". Myria claimed that Butz was the most accurate translation based on documents and official merchandise using it "the way we'd written it" (for reference, the Romanized version of the Japanese name "バッツ" comes out as "Battsu"). However, Butz is used in real life as an actual German surname with a different pronunciation, the vowel being an "oe" sound like in the English words "put" and "good". Therefore, Bartz would make more sense to match up with the vowels in the Japanese name than Butz, and also fits better as a German first name since Bartz is a pet name for Bartholomäus (Bartholomew).

The bulk of Myria's technical work ended in October 1997, with harmony7 still working to revise the entire script until something unexpected happened. An early version of the fan translation mysteriously appeared on a Geocities website with others taking credit for it. This prompted RPGe to release their work up to that point as "v0.96" on October 17, 1997, with the final patch eventually being released in June 1998. The translation patch received acclaim for its technical aspects and near-professional writing quality, and influenced other players to become translators, including Clyde Mandelin who would later create the English fan translation for Mother 3. Squaresoft never contacted RPGe about the translation, and while their 1999 translation of the game was seen as inferior to RPGe's, Myria would later opine that Square Enix's 2006 translation in Final Fantasy V: Advance was better than theirs. Myria continued hacking and reverse-engineering games and eventually earned a job at an undisclosed major video game company.
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Cancelled Release, Complaint, Development, Emulation, Etymology, Fan Translation, General, Leak, Merchandise, Mistranslation, Modding, Name Change, Parody, Real Life, Regional Difference, Social Media, Technology, Website
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month December 24, 2023
comment Comment (0) | Source
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