I have a particular fondness for tactical RPGs such as Shining Force and Warsong. Near: As a child, I fell in love with Japanese role-playing games, and I began importing Super Famicom games. To help me tell this story, I caught up with Near to chat about Bahamut Lagoon, their tireless pursuit of perfection, and how fan localization has evolved over the past two decades.
This is the story of one fan's pursuit of the ultimate fan localization. Several attempts and 23 years later, they’ve finally finished. Back in 1998, before they were known for their standard-setting work developing game emulators, they took it upon themself to bring Bahamut Lagoon to English-speaking players. One of those fans is a Tokyo-based software reverse engineer named Near. But gaming is a passionate fandom full of skilled people, and around that same time intrepid fans began working on unofficial fan translations for games like Final Fantasy V, Seiken Densetsu 3, and. As the 16-bit era transitioned into the emerging 3D technology of the PlayStation, I got swept up in games like Final Fantasy VII and Grandia, and gave up hope of ever playing those games locked behind a language I didn't speak.
