Policenauts is without a doubt one of the greatest cinematic adventure games ever released. Despite being such a timeless title with a huge following, Konami's multi-console release never ventured out of Japan. The final port of Policenauts, the more complete Sega Saturn version, is finally being fan translated.
Policenauts? You're not alone in wondering what this elusive title might be. In 1994 Hideo Kojima wrote and directed an adventure game featuring a hard science fiction storyline for Konami, which was initially released for the PC-9821 computer platform in 1994. The game focuses around our protagonist, Jonathan Ingram, a detective who travels to the stars into Earth's space colony in an attempt investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his ex-wife's murder and her new husband's disappearance.
The arrival of this Sega Saturn translation, however, is not the first time Policenauts has been made accessible to English speaking audiences. Game hackers successfully converted all of the in-game dialogue in the PlayStation 1 port to English, releasing their work on Hideo Kojima's 46th birthday. While this feat may have been unofficial, Konami supposedly worked on an official English translation of the Sega Saturn version many years ago, only to scrap development following various complications.
So why exactly should you care about this fan translation patch - especially when there is already a PlayStation 1 version available? The Sega Saturn port of Policenauts features several additional scenes, a slightly modified story and light gun support - effectively making the Sega Saturn edition of the game the definitive one.
The patch to convert the Sega Saturn port's in-game dialogue to English is still in development, however, the team behind this release recently demonstrated their work at the Spanish retro gaming convention, RetroMadrid.
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Not sure if this has been discussed already but I know it would interest a couple of you.
