Zoids Legacy gets a fresh English script built on a full decompilation of the GBA game

RE:TRANSLATION, version 1.0.2, rewrites the Game Boy Advance game's English from the Japanese original with anime-accurate names and a new variable-width font, and patches your own US ROM in the br...

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Zoids Legacy, the Game Boy Advance game in which a weapons experiment throws Planet Zi's eras together and pilots from across the series end up in one world, has a new English translation. Zoids Legacy: RE:TRANSLATION, now at version 1.0.2, replaces the US release's script with one drawn from the Japanese original, according to the project's site.

It is a patch, not a ROM. The site patches a clean copy of the US ROM that you supply, in the browser, and hands back the translated file.

What changes

The site groups the changes under four headings. Text uses proportional lettering and new line breaks, so conversations read more naturally on the small screen and menu labels fit their windows. Brad and Jamie go back to their anime names, and character labels follow the same choices throughout. Deck Commands now show their pilot requirements before you commit a turn, with rewritten battle descriptions and clearer skill names. And the dialogue leans on the cast's anime voices, including familiar dub lines in scenes adapted from the show: in the site's words, Harry gets to be theatrical and Brad gets his dry wit back. Each section has before and after screenshots.

Built on a decompilation

Behind the patch is a matched decompilation of the game on GitHub by jmacato, released under the MIT licence. The README says it rebuilds 1,130 regions of the game's code byte for byte, covering 371,784 bytes, from C, inline assembly and assembly, and that it ships no ROM, game data or saves. A verifier checks your ROM's checksum, compiles each region at its original address and compares the result.

The translation lives in the same repository as plain English text plus font spacing choices. The build reads the original game's text from your own ROM, so the repository contains no game script, and it refuses any edit that would overflow a dialogue window or a menu line. The author also says plainly in the README that the decompiled functions are rough for now, built partly with permutators and AI tools, and that they plan to clean them up when they have time.

Sources

Image: Image: RE:TRANSLATION project

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