Release Date: March 25, 1994 (PC-98)
Publisher: Banpresto Co., Ltd.
Developer: AIC Spirits
The Slayers First Video Game
Slayers for the PC-98 was the first game in the anime franchise, followed by later releases for the SNES in Japan. This well-known Japanese anime fantasy property includes comics, TV cartoons, and several OVAs. In the 1990s, Slayers was brought to North America and dubbed in English. For many English-speaking fans, Slayers was their introduction to anime, offering light-hearted humour set in a world of sorcery and fantasy.
Over the years, many SNES Slayers games received fan translations, but the elusive first game for the PC-98 languished in fan translation limbo for over a decade. Numerous people joined and left the project, often due to life’s inevitable interruptions—after all, fan translations are passion projects. However, renowned hacker Alpharobo saw an opportunity to rescue this project from development purgatory and finally complete it.
The journey began in 2006 when Filler and EsperKnight embarked on a translation project for Slayers for PC-98. Slowly, they worked through the intricacies of the script. Filler balanced this project with other tasks, including translating Slayers for the Super Famicom (SFC). It wasn’t until 2012 that a significant milestone was reached: the entire script translation, thanks to the efforts of Eien ni Hen. After this announcement, silence fell over the project. It seemed abandoned, and any further progress was a mystery.
Fast forward to April 2024. Alpharobo reflects, “Curious about the fate of the Slayers for PC-98 project, I decided to take matters into my own hands. A quick Google search led me to an old forum post from EsperKnight. This post contained links to a code repository housing the remnants of the Slayers project. The most recent timestamp was from 2013, indicating the project’s last known activity. Inside, I found translations for the cutscenes, an untranslated partial dump of the game text from the executable, and the tools for extracting and inserting the text.”
“With this treasure trove of resources, I conducted some tests on one of the cutscene files,” Alpharobo continues. “The results were promising. Encouraged, I contacted EsperKnight on the PC98 Central Discord, offering assistance. He welcomed the help and connected me with Filler. We divided the work: Filler would translate the text from the executable, while I handled the hacking.”
“During this process,” Alpharobo adds, “I unearthed a significant amount of overlooked game text. Some of it I translated myself, while other parts I passed on to Filler. I also brought in Kirinn B, a collaborator from previous projects, who developed tools to convert the graphics format. This allowed us to translate the text within the images, ensuring a comprehensive localization.”
“From that point,” Alpharobo explains, “it was a matter of fine-tuning and rigorous testing. Challenges arose, such as dealing with translated cutscenes that were too lengthy. I devised a solution: splitting the cutscenes and creating a hack to load one from within another, maintaining the flow and coherence of the narrative.”
After many years, Slayers fans can enjoy this fantastic game in English on the PC-98. What once seemed like a doomed project has been given new life, thanks to the collective efforts of dedicated enthusiasts. The revived translation of Slayers for PC-98 preserves the game’s original spirit and enhances it, offering players a richer and more immersive experience.
NOTES ON THE CUT CONTENT
Digging through the game’s files can reveal unused or unfinished concepts like this hidden shop. While mechanically functional, it is missing the image graphics associated with it, so you end up losing all your money for an implied joke instead.
Grab the patch today and start playing this game! If you need further information about The Slayers for PC-98, please check out this amazing video by The Basement Brothers that does a great job (btw you should sub and follow them as they do great work). Keep in mind this video came out before this Fan Translation came out.