Fudou Myouou Den English translation
不動明王伝 · The Acala Legend · Demon Sword
Stardust Crusaders' English patch for the Famicom original of Demon Sword, with its Buddhist intro and ending and the stages the US release cut.
What it is
Stardust Crusaders released this patch, under the name The Acala Legend, on 16 August 2009. It translates Fudou Myouou Den, the Japanese version of the NES game Demon Sword. The American release lost several stages along with the game's Buddhist-themed opening and ending, so the Famicom original is the fuller game.
What's translated
There is little text during play, so the work went into the intro and outro, a prayer to the fiery wisdom king Acala that the game stores as sprites, which made it tricky to rewrite within the console's sprite limits. FlashPV redid the title screen in English, and snark helped explain the Buddhist references so they could be translated properly.
Playing it
The patch is applied to your own copy of the Japanese cartridge, following the included instructions. Get it from the Stardust Crusaders project page linked below.
Credits: Stardust Crusaders (hacking), FlashPV (title screen), snark (translation help).