Go Go Ackman 2
Image: Banpresto

It pretty much goes without saying that Akira Toriyama's Go Go Ackman isn't as well known as some of his other projects like Dragonball, Dragon Quest, or Chrono Trigger.

The manga, about a young child named Ackman who harvests souls for a demon, debuted exclusively in Japan back in 1993 in the pages of the shōnen magazine V Jump and lasted for only 11 chapters, published over the course of a year. Nevertheless, it received three Japanese-exclusive Super Famicom games from Banpresto, a Game Boy tie-in, and even an animated short film.

The first of these Super Famicom games was translated into English a couple of decades ago, and a translation for the third was also released in 2020, but the second remained somewhat untouched — that is, until fairly recently.

As spotted by @CDRomance_Spike back in January, an individual named Retroman_X published a new translation patch for the game, fully converting its text into English. And now, Retroman_X has published an update to this hack earlier this month, revising the script and improving compatibility based on feedback from players.

Here's a description of the title from Mobygames:

"The angel Tenshi is still determined to end Ackman's nefarious ways, and this time he has enlisted the help of the angelic rock band Metal Angel. Ackman still murders at whim and has his companion Godon collect the souls of his slain, but this time Ackman can keep the weapons he finds, either sword, boomerang, or gun. Each weapon can be upgraded twice, but upgrades will be lost if Ackman is hit or finds a new weapon. Ackman can also now throw smaller enemies, although he can't move while holding them."

Want to try it out for yourself? You can find the latest patch on romhacking.net. You'll also need a copy of the original Japanese ROM. According to the description, it runs well on emulators like bsnes and mesen, and also on real hardware with sd2snes.

[source romhacking.net, via twitter.com]