Project Melancholia SD Snatcher English patch now available for free download!

When it was time for software giant Konami to wave goodbye to the MSX, they did it with a bang. In 1990 they released their last master pieces Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and SD Snatcher. Both with full Japanese scripts only, sadly no English versions. About five years ago Project Melancholia released a patch to change SD Snatcher to English dialogues. Although the game had been translated before by other parties, this English translation is hailed by the scene and recognized as the best fitting one. Today this translation is being released to download for free.

Originally sold for just a few buckaroons, the Project Melancholia SD Snatcher patch was introduced at the end of 2011. The actual release was just a few years later. Begin 2014 this massive project finally saw light and was well received. A project with the sole purpose of properly translate the highly renowned MSX2 role playing game SD Snatcher, released by Konami in 1990.

With some wit and love, the project members did more than just a translation. Not only did they reverse engineer the text printing routines of the game and replace those with new coded routines, they also provided for various technical improvements along with a new proportional font. The result is just....stunning.

It has been over five years since the release of this overhaul and the team has decided it was time to give it away. The patch is available for download at their website. That's right, for free! There's just no excuse to replay this historical piece of MSX software and re-live good times. With Project Melancholia you have a good change at just that!

Can we expect more projects from the team? Will Randar III ever see a proper translation? Leave a comment below, perhaps they will surprise us. Again.

relevant link: Project Melancholia website

Comments (19)

By hamlet

Scribe (4106)

11-11-2019, 17:11

A very generous gift! Thank you very much!
And a nicely written newspost ro!

By Tolvatar

Paragon (1043)

11-11-2019, 21:39

Many thanks for making the patch free

By KdL

Paragon (1485)

11-11-2019, 22:49

As I showed in a previous post, in v0.92 the missing gunshot is confirmed.
Is there any version of this patch that doesn't?

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6977)

11-11-2019, 23:06

Very good, greeting
https://www.file-hunter.com/MSX/index.php?id=sdsnatcher

By max_iwamoto

Paladin (673)

12-11-2019, 03:59

This is the original patch v0.92 that was distributed since January 2014. So it still have the same issue with the shot. I know how to fix it, but I think we will just release an additional patch to fix the issue.

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

12-11-2019, 07:49

Great news, to all who didn't play this version, do it in the Christmas holidays. Skip going to your family, you have a great excuse now. It is realy great to play this game as close too the original version. Not only is there a bunch of extra text, also in-game graphics have been translated.

By wimpie3

Champion (438)

12-11-2019, 09:14

During the writing of my Konami book, this was one of the few Konami games I played for the first time till the end, since its release so many years ago. After Metal Gear, this is probably the best game I've ever played on the MSX. Well worth a go with this perfect translation.

By raymond

Hero (653)

12-11-2019, 09:32

Very nice! I will patch my SD-Snatcher disks and play it all through to the end another time. I really love this game!

As a suggestion for a new translation project, I would really recommend to translate Illusion City!

By ro

Scribe (5059)

12-11-2019, 09:41

Having Illusion City translated (full) is probably on the list of all of us geeks, is sure is on mine. It's the one game I never even really tried cuz of language barrier. And, Fray would still be cool..

By meits

Scribe (6571)

12-11-2019, 11:39

ro wrote:

+1.
I have 0 knowledge of the game... Well maybe 0.001 m. I've watched the intro and walked around a bit but stopped at the first sign of Japanese... Then the translation started so I got hope... Then it halted due to some reasons I could understand back then. I don't remember the reasons exactly but iirc some people were rude to the translator (people, stop being rude and demanding to people who contribute, they're necessary to get what you want), so yes, his punishment hit us all.

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5684)

12-11-2019, 13:47

ro wrote:

Having Illusion City translated (full) is probably on the list of all of us geeks, is sure is on mine. It's the one game I never even really tried cuz of language barrier.

Played the partial translation. I loved it. One of the best RPGs that I ever played. A true masterpiece.
I seriously almost literally cried when the game asked for disk 7.

By Atjantis

Master (200)

12-11-2019, 16:06

I bought this translation 15 months ago... I thought I was supporting the team for additional translations, Illusion city, Xak, Ys.... but I realise it was not the case....

I feel betrayed... paid money for nothing....

bullshit!

By Wolverine_nl

Paragon (1160)

12-11-2019, 16:21

Atjantis wrote:

I bought this translation 15 months ago... I thought I was supporting the team for additional translations, Illusion city, Xak, Ys.... but I realise it was not the case....

I feel betrayed... paid money for nothing....

bullshit!

Wow, are you serious?
It's more than just typing words what they did, plus it was totally worth the money.
I applaud it, they didn't leave it as a small cash point, they probably thought they earned enough for their efforts and time that went into it.

By Louthrax

Prophet (2496)

12-11-2019, 21:34

I bought the Melancholia translation some years ago when it came out. Played and finished the game from start 2 times since, and enjoyed everthing in it : details and quality of the translation, proportional fonts, pauses and sync with animations, support for different SCC hardwares, etc... It was just like playing the game for the first time !

Far more than what I was expecting for a few euros, so I was not expecting anything more from the Melancholia team (even if I would be super glad seeing them release something new). Hope they just enjoyed my money, to chill out after all those weeks (or months) of work with the 1 or 2 beers they could afford with that

Congratulations again to the team, and thanks for making that awesome work public !

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

13-11-2019, 07:43

yep, like I wrote. I think it is the closest a non-japanese speaking gamer can get to the original. ANd it realy is like Louthrax says, it was like playing the game for the very first time. (Somehow I always knew that "Hi, I am Larry Laffer" and "is that your gun or are you just happy to see me" where not authentic translations )

By KdL

Paragon (1485)

13-11-2019, 16:19

max_iwamoto wrote:

Very well max, thank you so much.

By tfh

Prophet (3427)

14-11-2019, 09:52

Just got out of the hospital yeasterday and this game has been on my "to do" list for a long time, so... I think I also might have a go at it somewhere in the next few weeks and I will not be able to do much else anyway
Thanks to the guys from Project Melancholica for making this release public!

By hamlet

Scribe (4106)

14-11-2019, 21:34

Welcome back tfh, good to see you here again!

By OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1438)