Incline Untranslated non-English / non-Japanese PC RPGs

[felipepepe]

In the past months I've been looking into RPGs outside US & Japan that never got an English release, mostly focusing on the ones from China & Korea, since those had absolutely massive industries that rarely translated anything. Speaking only about PC RPGs, Korea had over 80 titles released in the 90s & 2000s, while China had over 200!

I've made two articles examining these two scenes: Chinese and Korean RPG.

Those seem to be the biggest sources of untranslated RPGs. European devs in the 90s usually already began making international releases with English versions, like Hungary's Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes (1992) or Russia's Rage of Mages (1998) and Konung: Legends of the North (1999).

The two big exceptions seem to be France & Germany, since they already were already making a lot of RPGs in the late 80s:

FRANCE

• Tyrann (1984)
• L'Antre de la Peur (1984)
• Oméga: Planète Invisible (1985)
• Les Templiers d'Orven (1986)
• Le Fer d'Amnukor (1986)
• Tera: La Cité des Crânes (1986)
• Fer & Flamme (1986)
• Phalsberg (1987)
• L'Anneau de Zengara (1987)
• Karma (1987)
• Le Maître des Âmes (1987)
• Zone (1988)
• Le Labyrinthe d'Orthophus (1989)
• Le Maître Absolu (1989)
• Muryaden (1989)
• Saga (1990)

GERMANY

• Mythos (1985)
• Mafia (1986)
• Nippon (1988)
• Seven Horror's (1988)
• Die Dunkle Dimension (1989)
• Kayden Garth (1989)
• Sandor (1989)
• Sandor 2 (1991)
• Projekt Terra (1991)
  
• Die Drachen von Laas (1991)
• Dark Stone Ritual (1992)
• Arcan (1993)

The CRPG Addict has done a good job looking into these, the French really had a weird scene going (that suddenly died in the 90s), while I'd say the German was more a few bedroom coders at first, the real heavy-weights arrived in the 90s with English versions, like Dragonflight (1990), Legend of Faerghail (1990), Spirit of Adventure (1991) and Fate: Gates of Dawn (1991).

My question is, what else is out there? I know of some RPGs that never got an official English release or fan translation, would be really interested in hearing about others:

SPAIN

• Rol Crusaders: Búsqueda del Hereje (1995)

ITALY

• Time Horn: Il Corno del Tempo (1991)

TURKEY

• İstanbul Efsaneleri: Lale Savaşçıları (1994)

RUSSIA

• Зачистка Хьёрварда (1997)

POLAND

• Skarbnik: Śląska Legenda (1994)
  
• Inny Świat (1995)
  
• Rezerwowe Psy (1999)
• Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową: Nieznane przygody Franka Dolasa (2003)

CZECH REPUBLIC

• Asmodeus: Tajemny kraj Ruthaniolu (1996)
• Prokletí Eridenu (1997)

If you know more interesting titles, please write them!

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

RUSSIA

• Зачистка Хьёрварда (1997)

Russia was in a bad place in the 90s for an RPG, it was:
- not familiar with tabletop RPGs at all
- not familiar with computer RPGs at all, until Fallout and Diablo
- only a small fraction of people had personal computers due to the recent collapse, the 90s were a period of extreme poverty
- games weren't translated and nobody could speak English
- there was no legal network of games distribution at all

Before '98 piracy was illegal, but (de-facto) decriminalized. In '98, they create an anti-piracy agency that involved FSB. Coincidentally, that's the same time the ruble collapsed the economy defaulted. Suddenly, the legal prices of games became equal to one salary. And so we were back to illegal distribution before legal one could even take its first breath. I lived in the 90s, I genuinely had no idea where you'd go to buy a legal game. That someone somewhere owned a legal disc was like an urban legend. A local library refitted itself into a CD shop, but as soon as police pulled up, everyone drew the curtains, shut down the lights and pretended to be closed. It wasn't a big deal.

I can name some 90s russian games like Lines (DOS game) or Bratja Piloty (a cartoon drawn quest) or GAG (erotic comedy quest), but I'd be counting them on one hand. None of them were RPGs.

Still, I was just a kid. Maybe if someone was a grown-up at the time, they'd have a slightly different story.

 

[Peachcurl]

felipepepe

You are probably missing German Fallout:

The Fall: Last Days of Gaia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall:_Last_Days_of_Gaia

And no, I don't know why an untranslated German game had an English title. Space magic or something.

An unofficial translation exists though.

 

[Zandig Slaytanic]

SPAIN

• Rol Crusaders: Búsqueda del Hereje (1995)

There is an English version on OG RU. It's a 3 level demo, however you can easily make it the full version.
In the game [Description] tab read the comment by Angel of nemesis for instructions.

 

[JarlFrank]

GERMANY

• Mythos (1985)
• Mafia (1986)
• Nippon (1988)
• Seven Horror's (1988)
• Die Dunkle Dimension (1989)
• Kayden Garth (1989)
• Sandor (1989)
• Die Drachen von Laas (1991)

The CRPG Addict has done a good job looking into these, the French really had a weird scene going (that suddenly died in the 90s), while I'd say the German was more a few bedroom coders at first, the real heavy-weights arrived in the 90s with English versions, like Dragonflight (1990), Legend of Faerghail (1990), Spirit of Adventure (1991) and Fate: Gates of Dawn (1991).

Seven Horror's and Sandor were made by Motelsoft, which made a LOT of games throughout the years, all in German. I tipped CRPG Addict off on them two years ago or so.

This is their website: http://www.motelsoft.de/motelsoftfeng.html
Click on "Programmhistory" for their entire release history.

 

[Vlajdermen]

A reservoir dogs RPG sounds interesting, anyone played it?

 

[AdolfSatan]

The real question... Is any of those worth playing at all?

 

[Humanophage]

As the OP says, the noteworthy RPGs like the various Allods, GoldenLand, and Konung got translated, although not promoted.

I can name some 90s russian games like Lines (DOS game) or Bratja Piloty (a cartoon drawn quest) or GAG (erotic comedy quest), but I'd be counting them on one hand. None of them were RPGs.

There was quite a ton of Russian adventure games which were pretty big in Russia. E.g.,

Petka and Chapaev 1 & 2 - a humorous adventure about the Russian Civil War


Nuclear Titbit - rave culture influenced psychedelia


And so on. Here is a list: https://lurkmore.to/Русские_квесты

 

[felipepepe]

A reservoir dogs RPG sounds interesting, anyone played it?

I'm curious about this one too, what I read said it was "highly controversial due to its violence, profanity and parody of Polish politics, celebrities and media".

What's really weird is that Rezerwowe Psy’s engine was reused for 2003’s The Troma Project, a Tactical RPG based on movies from US horror B-movie studio Troma Entertainment: https://store.steampowered.com/app/279640/The_Troma_Project/

The real question... Is any of those worth playing at all?

As a game, probably not.

But they're interesting as history pieces. A lot of them are just early Ultima clone or simple blobbers, but the French ones are really unique in their setting & presentation. Look at Zone (1988), a Mad Max-esque post-apoc RPG where you manage a gang of bikers, building bases, recruiting bikers, training them and doing trade routes, and when you invade enemy bases the game turns into a dungeon-crawler.

Some of the others also have interesting gimmicks, like how Rol Crusaders: Búsqueda del Hereje came bundled with an RPG boardgame for you to play using the characters generated in-game:

 

[mondblut]

Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową: Nieznane przygody Franka Dolasa (2003)

That's Weird War - The Unknown Episode of World War II

Apparently not released in english in the end, but released in a number of other languages, including russian.

 

[Dramart]

This? I can't find it in English but it's available in Spanish named GoldenLand. Developed by Russians, it looks good https://www.mobygames.com/game/zlatogorye-2

 

[felipepepe]

This? I can't find it in English but it's available in Spanish named GoldenLand. Developed by Russians, it looks good https://www.mobygames.com/game/zlatogorye-2

Yeah, a problem with some of these games is that they get random translations with weird names... The first Zlatogorje was translated as Heath: The Unchosen Path in English and Heath: El camino elegido in Spanish, but the sequel only got the Spanish release, called GoldenLand.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Rol Crusaders: Búsqueda del Hereje

Actually, there is an English version out there.

You can find it on a certain Russian site about old games.

 

[felipepepe]

Rol Crusaders: Búsqueda del Hereje

Actually, there is an English version out there.

You can find it on a certain Russian site about old games.

Was already mentioned in the thread, but it's just a demo of the first 3 levels that you can add the levels from the full Spanish version to play all 15 levels... apparently there was never a full English release.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Don't have much to contribute to the RPG talk. The only ones I remember you either already know, or don't seem to actually exist. I guess you might make a case for Planet Alcatraz and one of the Seadogs games having such poor translations into English that you might as well play the Russian version, but they don't technically count.
Either way, I found it fascinating looking up old systems and finding weird things like this. Its fascinating to see places like Spain and France having thriving industries, then just sort of die off in the early '90s. Then it feels like everything is in English. I'm sure I missed something but it feels a lot like the gaming world got smaller then.

The real question... Is any of those worth playing at all?

It depends on if you're interested in the language. Considering how many people around here learned English by playing RPGs, the same principle could be applied to other languages. People tend to remember things better when there are more memories around them.

 

[Leonard]

A reservoir dogs RPG sounds interesting, anyone played it?

Yes, it was a total shit.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I remembered one title, SpurguX. Its one of the very rare games from Finland that's in Finnish. Very few titles, even during the olden days, seem to be exclusively released in Finnish, not sure why.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Skarbnik: Śląska Legenda

Does this even count as an RPG? As far as I'm aware, it's a pure adventure/puzzle game where you can't level your character.

 

[felipepepe]

Skarbnik: Śląska Legenda

Does this even count as an RPG? As far as I'm aware, it's a pure adventure/puzzle game where you can't level your character.

Good point, seems like it's more of a Shadowgate-like adventure game than an RPG.

 

[Lord_Potato]

POLAND

• Skarbnik: Śląska Legenda (1994)
• Inny Świat (1995)
• Rezerwowe Psy (1999)
• Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową: Nieznane przygody Franka Dolasa (2003)

If you know more interesting titles, please write them!

Does anyone know if Polish strategy-rpg hybrid "Legion" from 1996 (made for Amiga) was translated to English?
https://thecompany.pl/game/Legion

 

[Lord_Potato]

Jak rozpętałem II Wojnę Światową: Nieznane przygody Franka Dolasa (2003)

That's Weird War - The Unknown Episode of World War II

Apparently not released in english in the end, but released in a number of other languages, including russian.

The first game (Another War, which got translated) was okayish in adventure segments but too combat-heavy, with abysmal controls during fighting plus a pretty bad sense of humor. On the other hand you visit quite a lot of diverse locations (France, Germany, Soviet Union, Arctic region). I have a short review in my signature.

I installed second game on one of my old laptops, it works fine, but so far I didn't manage to force myself to playing it.

 

[Lord_Potato]

I must say I was always fascinated by the game Beltion: Beyond Ritual. From the screenshots it seemed like an eastern Gothic, but with a larger world. However I never could find an English version (despite the title clearly being translated to English), only the Russian one.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Does anyone know if Polish strategy-rpg hybrid "Legion" from 1996 (made for Amiga) was translated to English?
https://thecompany.pl/game/Legion

English version here

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Beltion: Beyond Ritual

Had the same problem as you. I saw an English trailer for it and yet no English game anywhere

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

felipepepe

World of Chaos
German RPG where you play as an orc with great atmosphere and good quest design. I have an original German copy and found a Russian copy (+ a French ISO courtesy of someone on the site) but seems like English copies (if they ever existed) have been lost to the void.

World of Chaos ISO (German)
Let's Play: World of Chaos (ENG Translated)