Revival After Emulation
The development of console emulators led to access to foreign video games. A revival began in 1996 when a group calling themselves Kowasu Ku formed under the lead of one "Hazama". The group stated plans to translate Final Fantasy V, but their efforts were never publicly released. Later that summer, a user called Demi announced work on a Final Fantasy V translation and founded Multiple Demiforce. It was eventually dropped in favor of Final Fantasy II (NES), a more manageable goal at that time. Demi and Som2Freak used Pasofami to post four screenshots of their work to Archaic Ruins, an emulation website. Shortly after, the translation stalled and the group disbanded.
Derrick Sobodash (Shadow) and David Timko both saw the Archaic Ruins website and contacted Som2Freak expressing interest in translating Final Fantasy V. He provided each with some primitive tools, and for the next few months, Shadow and Timko worked against each other. Both projects generated renewed interest in fan translation.
After months of working against each other, Shadow and Timko began cooperating. RPGe, the first major translation group was established on July 8 in the #ff5e IRC channel, on the EsperNet IRC network by Shadow, Timko, Hooie and Thermopyle. The start of RPGe sparked many other efforts to unify and within months, Translation Corporation, DeJap Translations and Starsoft Translations had formed.
RPGe's translation of Final Fantasy V was completed October 16, 1997 (version 0.96).
Read more about this topic: Fan Translation (video Gaming)
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