For years, if Monster Hunter fans in the West wanted to experience the second game in the series — released exclusively for the PS2 in 2005 — they would need to download and apply incomplete English translation patches to Japanese versions of the game to have a better clue of what was going on.
This was because the game was never localized outside of Japan, with only some of its content making its way into the 2007 indirect port Monster Hunter Freedom 2 for the PlayStation Portable.
Recently, however, a group calling itself Break Arts — comprised of only two people named Kresna and Nara — has gone to incredible lengths to create what is the first-ever complete translation patch for Monster Hunter 2 (or Monster Hunter Dos as it is also known). This new patch translates all the text in the game into English, including quest, item, and equipment descriptions, NPC dialogue, menus, and so on and so forth. This is in addition to any of the game's online content and its software keyboard. It's an incredible undertaking and one that apparently took the two of them 6 months and over 850 hours to complete.
Writing on their website, Break Arts had this to say about their reasons for making the patch:
"Our goal for the project was to create a retail-quality patch that is faithful to the series and its fans. A great deal of love and care was put into the reverse engineering and localisation to preserve the original Monster Hunter 2 Dos experience. There is no other Monster Hunter like Dos, and we hope you can now enjoy exploring this unique and ambitious game as much as we do."
Something to note is that, as well as translating the game, Break Arts has also gone to the effort of creating codes to unlock the PSP Connection Bonuses too. These are new quests, hairstyles, equipment, and items that were originally unlockable by connecting a PlayStation Portable running Monster Hunter Freedom to your PlayStation 2. These are available on a separate page.
For more information on the patch and how to apply it, you can visit the project page on the Break Arts' website.