厄 友情談疑  Misfortune - A Story of Suspicious Friendships

Released only in Japan on January 13, 1996, 厄 友情談疑 or Misfortune - A Story of Suspicious Friendships is a visual novel horror game by Idea Factory.  The game is infamous for its bizarre CGI characters which are more terrifying than any horror game enemy! The entire game possesses a rather strange quality, the music is nonsensical, the writing is bizarre and the cutscenes are odd and repetitive. The game was received very poorly on its release but went on to become a cult classic kusoge online.

"Late at night, five students gather at their old elementary school which was closed down due to a tragic incident last year. They have decided to sneak into the school to dig up a time capsule which they buried in the courtyard on the day of their graduation. However things do not go to plan..."

You can find our patch here:

https://romhackplaza.org/translations/misfortune-a-story-of-suspicious-friendships-english-translation-playstation/

We released our complete patch for the game on Friday the 13th of June 2025. I translated the manual for the game back in December of 2023, a few months later SuperRetroPolygons contacted me on GameFAQs  to tell me about a Let's Play he was making of the game for his Youtube channel. We discovered that the entire text of the game is simply stored as text files on the disc, which made it incredibly simple to remove and translate the text. We took the completed script to Eight Mansions Translations, where Chapu and SuperRetroPolygons  finally hacked the text back into the game!
SuperRetroPolygons also created the fantastic trailer above, and beautiful English renditions of the manual and the front cover (PAL and NTSC!) which you can find in our patch.

It is an honour to share this bizarre cult classic kusoge with the English speaking world! It seems that Idea Factory were were trying to send a serious message about bullying, but it was completely drowned in the weirdness of their creation! Translating Yuichi’s route was incredibly fun, so I hope people enjoy his storyline! The story flips from a strange Goosebumps-style children's horror tale into something very self-referential…

I highly recommend that you DO NOT use the Zapping feature at all, it ruins the game completely. It’s much better to just play through each character one by one.  You can learn more about this strange game in my walkthrough here:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/573781-yaku-yuujou-dangi/faqs/81026

I would like to thank Super Retro Polygons and Chapu for all their hard work on this patch, as well as everyone at Eight Mansions Translations for their assistance!

I have already begun translating the sequel 厄痛 〜呪いのゲーム〜 "Misfortune Two Painful! - The Cursed Game!"

Finally, hidden within this game is a certain “mystery” to solve…
But don’t worry if you don’t manage to solve it…
Nothing bad will happen to you...
Probably...

人魚の烙印 - The Curse of Ogaeritō 

黒ノ十三 - Black 13 

Released on September 27th 1996, Black Thirteen is a visual novel horror game by Tonkin House. Tonkin House were the game division branch of the Tokyo Book Group, and were active from 1986 to December 1, 2005. The game has 13 individual stories, each one a mini Sound Novel. The game was supervised by 綾辻行人 Yukito Ayatsuji, a novelist known for the 館 House and ANOTHER series of horror novels. Tonkin House also released the horror adventure novel 雨月寄譚 Ugetsu Kitan or The Mysterious Tale of the Rainy Moon for the PS1 and the similar but more famous mystery adventure game; Juggernaut. 

I am uploading the first draft of the translation to GameFAQs for posterity. So, although playing the final patch would be the best way to experience the game, you can read the entire text of the game here:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/573128-kuro-no-juusan/faqs/80451

Released on July 22nd 1999, Germs The Targeted Town is a open world horror game by CGI film makers KAJ Corporation. I have translated the entire game, and you can read all of the NPC bios in my GameFAQs guide. We are currently putting the text back into the game itself.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/575588-germs-nerawareta-machi/faqs/80574

This was KAJ's first attempt at making a video game. Previously they had only created CGI animations for the Japanese television network NHK. The game was inspired by 50's invasion B Movies and depicts a the smal town of Newtown under attack from a shape changing virus. It is said that only 4,000 copies of the game were made, making this one of the rarest Japanese PS1 games. I have seen second hand copies selling for close to 600 dollars online. The cover art is an extremely strange image of male and female nude bodies, reminiscent of holocaust imagery. I am shocked that KAJ were able to publish a game with such a strange cover, the 90s really were a different time! The cover does not even have the title of the game on it! The manual was printed on the back of a large map of the town which I have translated and also uploaded.

At 3km squared, the town in the game is extremely large for a PS1 title, meaning it is necessary to use your car, or public transport such as trains or buses to get around. However there are no pedestrians NPCs in the town, perhaps due to development limitations. This gives the town a really haunted feeling. Only important NPCs have faces, but they are digistised which only increases the creepy feeling. The outside world is shown mostly in monochrome, perhaps to reflect the B Movie inspiration of the game. The interiors are render in full colour and buildings you can enter are marked with large floating red arrows which only makes the experience feel more like a game.

While the visuals and gameplay might a bit a basic, the writing and storyline are fantastic for a PS1 game. Whoever wrote the game clearly had a wide knowledge of paranormal and conspiracy theory topics, which must have been difficult to come by in 90s Japan!