The Japanese manga/anime Love Hina has had a bunch of different video games over the years for consoles and devices like the Nintendo Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, and PS2.
However, none of these, at least to our knowledge, have ever been officially localized outside of Japan — despite both the anime and manga having received overseas releases in North America, the UK, and Australia. As a result, these games have mostly been left unapproachable for English-speaking audiences, in the past, with the 2001 GBA release Love Hina Advance being the closest from the long list of Japanese-exclusive titles to receiving a complete translation.
That could soon all be about to change, however, in the future, if developer Derek Pascarella gets his way, with the Sega Dreamcast hacker, currently being hard at work on creating an English patch for the 2000 Dreamcast love simulator/adventure game, Love Hina: Totsuzen no Engeji Happening (which is being translated here as Love Hina: Surprise Engagement).
This is a game that puts the player in control of the main character from the anime/manga, Keitarō Urashima, who is searching for a girl that he made a promise to long ago, and then suddenly finds himself managing an all-girls dormitory in his grandmother's hotel.
Pascarella started work on the patch back in June 2023, posting a proof of concept in July of that same year on YouTube, but has struggled in the past to assemble a qualified team to help "get it over the finish line". Now, though, it appears he's finally got together a group of like-minded individuals to put the project together, stating that it is once again "back in full swing". He has even posted a short video teasing some of the bonus content he is planning to add on social media, including a 100% unlocked save file and a live performance of the Love Hina theme by singer Megumi Hayashibara.
Something we should probably mention is that, while the game of Love Hina was developed by the Japanese software company Fortyfive Co., Ltd. and published by Sega Corporation (seemingly with little input from its original creator judging by the game's credits) the original author of Love Hina, Ken Akamatsu, has become somewhat a politically divisive figure in Japan and overseas, thanks to his views on freedom of expression.
In 2013, for instance, Akamatsu joined other creators in opposing the Liberal Democratic Party and its partners' proposed amendment to child pornography laws, arguing that the amendment did not distinguish between pornography featuring real children and images of fictional children in explicit anime and manga. The bill then ended up passing in 2014, without these types of anime and manga being covered within the ban on explicit materials.
Also, in 2022, shortly before entering the Japanese House of Councillors as a politician, he again drew criticism after releasing what some referred to as a "propaganda comic", which depicted both himself and an ally protecting a magical girl against attacks from "affirmative action" and "supererogation".
This is not to pass judgment, but simply to provide some additional context we know some readers would care to know.