“Story”
Long ago, on the land of Akaneia, there was a dark dragon known as Mediuth. He terrorised the land, causing the humans to fear him. That is, until a man named Anri stood up to him. Sword of light in hand, the dark dragon was slain. And so, he rested for one hundred years. He then revived and was killed once more by the hands of another man. His name was Marth.
However, on the distant continent of Jugdral, there was a strange gathering of people, wondering about a dark dragon of their own…
The dreaded Dark Lord Loputousu’s resurrection would soon be at hand. Prince Leaf of Lenster, stranded on the island of Talis along with his old cellmate Karin and various other knights, had one goal. Destroy the Grandbell Empire and the Lopt Sect, and avenge his father’s demise by Archbishop Trabant’s hands.
Information
Fire Emblem: The Reincarnation of Light and Dark, also known as Super SLG and has been referred to with several other names, is a game for the Game Boy Colour. Bootleg Fire Emblem, as it is often called, has several unique elements compared to Intelligent Systems’ own efforts. Perhaps the most unique is the ability to freely choose which stats increase when a unit levels up. Instead of Leaf gaining a useless +1 HP, +1 luck level, the player is given the ability to select any four stats out of seven available choices. This is not well balanced and increasing strength and defence on each level is the optimum solution, but it is a unique idea and with some refinement could be used in a fan game to good effect.
Another selling point is Bootleg Fire Emblem’s version of the skill system. In common with Genealogy of the Holy War, units are not capable of double-attacking and require the Pursuit skill in order to do so. To activate Pursuit, a unit – say Alec – must use an amount of skill points (SP) in order to use it. Once Alec pays three SP, he can activate Pursuit, hitting his opponent twice. Every character learns skills by levelling up: up to six, in most cases. This removes the randomness found in earlier incarnations of the traditional system. Some skills normally permanently active, such as Elite, have been converted to match the new system. A point of comparison can be made to the Three Houses combat art system, which Bootleg Fire Emblem predated by around a decade and a half.
Project Status
The current translation patch was one of my first works, and it shows. While other projects of the time such as Barhara Revisited and the FE4 Binary translation have since received clean-up updates, Bootleg Fire Emblem has not. Graphic edits are crude: the pre-rendered menu text was drawn on without any font at all. Item names were simply made up, trying to match their function to traditional Fire Emblem equivalents. Character names opted to match the character portrait, for want of Chinese knowledge. One menu option is rendered as something crossed out, due to lack of knowledge about it.
The current release, though playable, is heavily flawed. When item names weren’t made up, they were left untranslated. Several bosses have their names rendered as CHX. And of course, dialogue is completely untouched. Any future release, even if the dialogue isn’t to be translated, should clean up the MS Paint doodles, tidy up the menus, and get a proper translation for all terminology. This would be a time-consuming process, as there are a large amount of Chinese characters that require identification in order to properly dump the text. Assembly hacking would also be required in order to fit more than eight 16×16 characters on a line.
Gallery
Downloads and Links
Releases
Latest version (released 25/03/17, v0.1): Download here
Other Links
Fire Emblem Universe thread: Here
Serenes Forest thread: Here
Romhacking.net page: Here
Patching Instructions
Acquiring a Bootleg Fire Emblem rom is a difficult task, and one that I cannot help you with. The appropriate hashes are as such:
ROM/File SHA-1: 62620A2CB01FE93388ADC42DA0B7CBAF53C11BA8
ROM CRC32: 808F19D7