A fan translation patch for the Dreamcast version of Di Gi Charat Fantasy is now available to download online, allowing English-speaking fans of the anime mascot another platform on which to experience the visual novel-style game.
Di Gi Charat, or "Dejiko", in case you've never heard of the character, is a green-haired catgirl who originally appeared in From Gamers in 1998, a promotional magazine for the Japanese media company Broccoli's Gamers chain of retail stores, and later became the store's official mascot as well as the star of her own multimedia franchise.
Since her original debut, she's been the focus of various manga series, animated TV shows, OVAs and films, as well as trading cards and video games, with Di Gi Charat Fantasy being the second game following Dejiko no Mahjong Party for the Game Boy Color.
Di Gi Charat Fantasy sees Dejiko opening a portal with her eye beams, transporting herself and her friends to a fantasy world called Etatia. Immediately suffering from amnesia upon arrival, it falls to the player character to help Dejiko recover her lost memories and find a way home, with the game featuring a cast of new "allies & foes" to encounter. It was released for the PC in February 2001 exclusively in Japan, and was later ported to the Dreamcast in September 2001, and the PS2 in November 2003 as Di Gi Charat Fantasy Excellent (featuring an extra story route for a character named Piyoko).
The PS2 port received an English fan translation earlier this year, in October, from Gopicolo and monnekey, but now, thanks to Derek Pascarella and a small team of individuals, Dreamcast fans can also check out the game in English, too. This version is based on Gopicolo and monnekey's work, with some Dreamcast-specific hacking from Pascarella, as well as a few other changes.
Here's what's new, as revealed in the GitHub repo:
- Title screen menu is now in English, including a newly designed English logo.
- In-game pause menu has been translated into English.
- Rudimentary English name entry has been implemented.
- End credits in the Dreamcast version remain in Japanese, as they are presented via FMVs and not rendered text.
- ASCII font has been refined for cleaner glyphs and improved text alignment.
- Horizontal offset for printing dialogue text and dialogue history text has been shifted further to the left to prevent text from running off the right side of the screen.
If you want to download the patch, you can do so here. We should also mention that the PS2 patch has also been updated to version 2.0, as of this week.