For more than a decade, the second Ace Attorney Investigations was the one Ace Attorney game you could not play in English. Capcom said the localization would cost too much, so more than 50 fans spent almost four years on a patch that even dubbed the new characters' voices. Further down sits a Nintendo life sim that never left Japan because its voice program couldn't speak English.
We surveyed players about playing these games in English: 211 recommendations in all, and a pick other players backed counted a little extra. Every entry ends with the patch to get, its version and its date, so you know what you're downloading.
10. Rockman EXE Operate Shooting Star (2009)
Operate Shooting Star is an enhanced port of the first Mega Man Battle Network, released in Japan in 2009, with a crossover with the Mega Man Star Force series bolted on. You can control either Mega Man, and the Star Force one brings his ability to lock on to faraway targets. Capcom said it had no plans to bring it west.
The patch translates the new content, from the Star Force crossover scenario to the new chips, and ports the rest of the text from the American Battle Network 1. It also fixes typos and mistranslations from that original script, so it reads more like the later games.
Patch: Rockman EXE Operate Shooting Star Translation Project by Greiga Master, version 1.0, last updated February 22, 2018.
9. Tomodachi Collection (2009)
Tomodachi Collection is the DS game that came before Tomodachi Life: Miis you create live on an island, build relationships and solve each other's problems. It sold 3.76 million copies by 2020, which makes it one of the best selling DS games, and it was released only in Japan, on June 18, 2009.
Plans to localize it fell through, largely because the Miis' voice synthesis couldn't handle English. The fan patch translates most of the game. Job descriptions stay in Japanese, though, and so does about half of the Mii News. Players say the English patch is a lot of fun anyway.
Patch: Tomodachi Collection English Translation by jjjewel, version 0.80, last updated October 4, 2020.
8. Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary (2011)
Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary was made by Sonic Team to celebrate twenty years of the series, and it came out on the DS in July 2011 before arriving on other systems. It packs in 20 modes of play, 8 of them new.
Players call it one of the best falling block games ever made and tell newcomers to pick it over Puyo Puyo 7. The patch is a full translation, from the menu graphics and the story dialogue to the battle victory quips.
Patch: Puyo Puyo!! 20th Anniversary English Patch by Precise Museum, version 1.2, last updated January 5, 2020.
7. Tales of Innocence (2007)
Tales of Innocence is the ninth main Tales game, and it follows Ruca, a merchant's son who rescues a fugitive named Illia and finds out he has inherited supernatural powers from a past life. Its team set out to fit all of the series' main gameplay and story elements onto the DS, and both it and its Vita remake stayed in Asia.
The patch is a full localization with some thoughtful options. You can switch arte and item names between the official localized ones and two other styles, and the opening and ending songs come with karaoke subtitles. The opening lyrics are even written backwards, because the Japanese ones were.
Patch: Tales of Innocence English Localization by Absolute Zero Translations, version 1.0, last updated June 29, 2010.
6. Retro Game Challenge 2 (2009)
Retro Game Challenge 2 is the sequel to a game that did come out in English, based on the TV show where comedian Shinya Arino plays old games until he beats them or they beat him. The first game sold fewer than 100,000 copies in North America, which discouraged Xseed from localizing the sequel.
That's a shame, because the sequel has 15 games in one, styled after Super NES and Game Boy games among others, plus a game trainer modeled on a Game & Watch. The fan patch arrived in 2014. Somewhere, Arino is still stuck on a boss.
Patch: Game Center CX: Arino no Chousenjou 2 by Aaron Chmielowiec, version 1.5.1, last updated October 21, 2014.
5. Soma Bringer (2008)
Soma Bringer is Monolith Soft's first portable game, and its first release after Nintendo bought the studio. Tetsuya Takahashi created it, with music by Chrono composer Yasunori Mitsuda, and it is an action RPG where up to three players explore dungeons together. It came out only in Japan, in February 2008.
The patch is 98% translated overall, with the ship's glossary left out. Cutscenes are 99% done and the library and menus 94%, so you'll hit the odd untranslated line.
Patch: Soma Bringer Open Translation by DarthNemesis, the version from February 2, 2009, last updated May 3, 2016.
4. Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem (2010)
New Mystery of the Emblem remakes the second part of the Super Famicom's Mystery of the Emblem, as the sequel to Shadow Dragon, and it was released only in Japan, in July 2010. It is also the last Fire Emblem that stayed in Japan, because the next one, Awakening, made the series popular worldwide.
It added an Avatar you create yourself and a Casual Mode that revives fallen units, and that Casual Mode caused fierce arguments inside the team. The patch translates the game in its entirety.
Patch: Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow by The Heroes of Shadow, version 3.01, last updated May 9, 2016.
3. Nanashi no Game (2008)
Nanashi no Game is a first-person horror game from Square Enix about a cursed role-playing game that kills you seven days after you start it. You explore real 3D places on the DS, and the cursed game itself plays out on your in-game handheld, interrupting you with messages and updates.
The game asks you to wear headphones for its 3D sound, and the translators warn about clumsy movement and a lot of DS rotating. The translation is complete, written in British English, so colour is spelled with a u on purpose. Its sequel got a translation too.
Patch: Nanashi no Game by Ryusui, Nagato and summvs, version 1.2, last updated November 7, 2011.
2. Jump Ultimate Stars (2006)
Jump Ultimate Stars is a crossover fighting game with 305 characters from 41 Shonen Jump manga, 56 of them fully playable. You build a deck out of manga panels, from big battle panels for your fighters to small help panels, and every arena looks like a page of a manga.
Players call it one of the best games on the original DS. The patch translates the panels, the missions and the tutorial, plus the deck building screens, while some of the rest of the interface stays in Japanese.
Patch: Jump Ultimate Stars by Weukeukeu, version 03/05/08, last updated May 3, 2016.
1. Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor's Path (2011)
Gyakuten Kenji 2 is the sequel to Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, and it came out in Japan on February 3, 2011. Reviewers praised the story and its new Mind Chess mechanic, but Capcom said there were no plans to release it outside Japan because of higher localization costs. It finally got a worldwide release in 2024, in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection.
Before that, the patch was the only way. More than 50 contributors worked on it for almost four years, and it covers all the text, all the graphics down to the evidence, and the voices, dubbed by voice actors where there was nothing to reuse. It is the most recommended DS translation on this list by a wide margin.
Patch: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - Prosecutor's Path by Auryn, Final 2, last updated February 20, 2015.
