Dezaemon 3D English translation

Dezaemon 3D is a Japan-exculsive shoot ‘en up game and a sequel to the previous NES and SNES entries in the series. It is known for having a complex level editor that allows you to make your own models, textures, music and levels, which makes it particularly difficult to use if you’re not fluent in Japanese. Well, Whowasphone404 and Zoinkity have teamed up to solve that problem with the Dezaemon 3D English translation.

You can get the ROM patch from the download page by using the password shootmycustomlevels, or by going to the 64DD website.

About the Dezaemon 3D English Translation

Dezaemon 3D has fit a weird place in the Nintendo 64 library. This was about the time where 2D shoot ’em ups were falling out of fashion and being replaced with 3D flying simuator-types of games like Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64) or Rogue Squadron. Dezaemon fits in more of a 2.5D style of gameplay there you’re still scrolling in one direction but incorporates some 3D elements like varying depths and 3D models.

The full English patch for Dezaemon 3D is now available, making all 50+ tutorials, menus, tooltips, and sample games accessible in English. The game includes a 3D polygon maker, art tool, music tool, and various other tools for creating custom shmups. It also comes with three example games that you can play.

This is a particularly difficult game to wrap your head around; it’s not really something that you can just pick up and play. Even if you know exactly what to do, it takes a very long time to make all your assets and put them in a level. Even then, you can only play them locally unless you take an extra hundred steps to copy over your save file to the internet.

To help you out, there is a youtube playlist by one of the modders which teaches you how to use all the tools available in-game, so have a look if you want to give it a go for yourself: Playlist by Zoinkity.

Conclusion

Dezaemon 3D has been one of those game that I’ve had in my collection for a while, but I’ve always been held back by the level editor to really build anything with it so I just stuck with playing the pre-made scenarios.

This translation is really helpful since it is one of those games that is very text heavy. Even if you can tell vaguely what everything is (as I did), the tooltips do make a difference in speeding up the process.

Though nowadays I would be more interested in making a game using a PC for modelling, texturing, music and coding, this translation puts you back into the shoes of someone in 1998 who just wants to use whatever tool is easiest to make their own game on the Nintendo 64.