I am a British bloke who has been living in Japan since 2015.
I was eight years old when the N64 came out in the UK, and it was my first console. I played all the classics back then, and I was a big fan of the British publication N64 Magazine. In fact, reading that magazine certainly helped me overcome my dyslexia and improve my reading comprehension. So it is somewhat amusing that, 20 years later, translating Japanese N64 games has helped me improve my Japanese too.
For my first three years in Japan I didn't really study Japanese much, aside from learning Kanji on Wanikani. In 2018 I got married and started a family, so I knuckled down with my studies and eventually passed the N2 level of the Japanese Language Proficiency test in December 2020. I highly recommend the 総合まとめ Sogo Matome books for passing said test. But please note, that they only introduce the grammar to you, they don't teach you it!
When I discovered The CRP Addict's blog I decided I wanted to do something similar for the N64. The CRP Addict has been playing almost every RPG that came out for home computers in order of their release date. This has allowed him to gain a large amount of knowledge of the genre as a whole. Modern games are clearly superior to retro games in many regards, but they do not have that nostalgic feeling that older games do. I suspect this is why many people of a certain age start looking back to the past rather than continuing to engage with modern culture.
Because the N64 did not sell well in Japan, most of the games were cheap and easy to get . As the Japanese tend to take care of their possessions, many of the games were still in good condition or even still boxed. I was surprised to discover that many of the Japanese N64 games did not have guides on GameFaqs. Even after 20 years, and countless numbers of people becoming fluent in Japanese, there was still very little information about most of the Japanese library. In 2020 I started working with the gaming historian Ozidual to translate and write guides for said games. Ozidual has provided many valuable scans of obscure Japanese N64 game manuals. He is also well known for doing the hacking for many N64 translations such as Getter Love and Sim City. He also fixed the bug in Space Station Silicon Valley that prevented you from collecting all the trophies in the game!!
Writing guides on GameFaqs may seem like a waste of time in this era of Youtube and streaming, but for me, the site has a history. I often used GameFaqs to look up information back in the days of dial up internet. In fact there are still guides on the site that were written in the 90's, when N64 games were still new. I wanted to make my own contribution to that history, and clearly my writing will be preserved for a while, something that cannot be said for youtube and twitch streams.
In 2024, I got in contact with Zoinkity and we began working on creating translation patches for several N64 games. Our first release was for the N64 shump creation tool, Dezaemon 3D. Since then I have spent most of my spare time translating video games, rather than actually playing games myself, since that is of more use to the community.
Acknowledgements
Without these people the challenge would not have been possible.
Youtubers
thabeast721 for giving me a shout out in all of his Japanese N64 game videos!
MidoriSM64 for his walkthrough of Habu the Strongest Shogi, which I translated.
Soregashi for their walkthrough of Live Prowerful Pro Baseball 4 which I translated.
Silverwings21 for his strategies for Hyper Olympics in Nagano.
Sha lon for showing me how to beat Ucchannanchan's Flaming Challenge: Irritating Electric Stick.
Light Grunty for his Mahjong tutorials.
Newbs for his guide to Sim City 2000.
Gamefaqs Users
EChauvire and Aussie2B for their walkthroughs for Wonder Project J2.
CurtMac for their walkthrough for Doraemon 1
N64 Master for their walkthrough of MRC
Tricky for his walkthrough of "Switch palace 64" otherwise known as Hexen.
DMay for his guide for Sonic Wings Assault.
KeeperBvK for his guide to the dreadful Airboarder 64.
I would also like to thank my childhood friend Mo, for finding and buying me copies of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gauntlet Legends in Kobe. Finally I would like to thank Ozidual. Without his hard work, it would not have been possible to do my manual translations. He has been tirelessly scanning and uploading Japanese N64 game manuals at extremely high quality. He is also assisting in many N64 translation projects and fixed the trophy glitch in Space Station Silicon Valley. I am very grateful for his efforts towards preserving video game history.
The Great Japanese N64 Game Challenge / Translation Project Timeline
04/01/2020 - The challenge begins with Super Mario 64.
06/06/2020 - I write my first gamefaqs guide, for 夜光虫II 殺人航路 Mareel II The Murder Route.
I begin working with Ozidual to translate the entire game as well.
25/08/2021 - I complete my 60th gamefaqs guide.
31/10/2021 - The first draft of our Mareel II The Murder Route translation is 64% complete.
28/05/2022 - The challenge is 25% complete when FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 is beaten.
18/07/2022 - Super B-Daman Battle Phoenix 64 is the 64th title to be completed.
01/10/2024 - Zoinkity and I release a full English translation patch for Dezaemon 3D.
13/06/2025 - Chapu, Polyon Slayer and I release our translation of Misfortune - A Story of Suspicious Friendships.
07/07/2025 - I post the entire 2nd draft of Mareel II The Murder Route onto GameFaqs.
14/02/2026 - RoboVerse, GammaTrove and I release a full English translation of Explosive Invincible Bangai-O!
07/07/2025
My top ten favourite games:
Thief the Dark Project
An N64 game
Minecraft
Silent Hill 3
Demon's Souls
Ikaruga
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
System Shock 2
Shadow of the Colossus
Penumbra