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A fan translation has just been released for the Super Famicom title Rushing Beat Shura — the third entry in Jaleco's Rushing Beat series of beat-em-up games.
Rushing Beat Shura was first released in Japan in 1993 and is a sidescrolling beat 'em up that notably features branching pathways and different endings depending on which route you choose through the game.
Much like the original Rushing Beat and Rushing Beat Ran — Fukusei Toshi that were localised as Rival Turf! and Brawl Brothers, it was later brought to North America in 1994 under a different title — in this case, The Peace Keepers. However, this version of the game was later criticised online for making substantial changes to the Japanese original, including changing character names, altering the script to feature a number of literary and cultural references, increasing the game's difficulty, and switching up the original soundtrack.
As a result, there's arguably demand in the retro community for a slightly less extreme localisation of the game that foregoes some of the more significant changes, while still translating the game's text into English, which is where the ROM hacker Daniel Burgess (DackR/The Bit Punch) comes in.
Yesterday, they announced, on their YouTube channel, a new fan translation patch for the SNES version of the game, which aims to give players an alternative way to experience the Jaleco beat 'em up, in a way that aligns more closely with the original Japanese.
"Rushing Beat Shura (1994, Jaleco)... was released only in Japan," Burgess wrote in the description for the patch. "The North American release, The Peace Keepers, was substantially altered (renamed characters, reworked story and dialogue, and content changes).
"This patch translates the original Japanese release into English, keeping its own story, characters, and tone rather than reverting to the altered Peace Keepers localisation. There are a few inconsequential name changes, but it would be possible for anyone to use the tools as a base to make your own modifications if you so desire."
Stating why they decided to tackle this project, they wrote, "I have a long history with this game, and often played Peace Keepers with my buddies back in the day, only later discovering the original Japanese release."
If you'd like to give it a try yourself, you can download the latest version of the patch (1.1) from GitHub or the popular ROM Hacking website romhack.ing.