"Lupin the 3rd: The Sage of Pyramid" gets unofficial English translation!
To be this good takes AGES. To be this good, takes a group of talented fan translators and a 1994 released video games console, the SEGA Saturn.
Lupin the 3rd: Pyramid No Kenja, or more commonly known in English speaking territories as Lupin the 3rd: The Sage of Pyramid is finally playable in the English language, thanks to Vermillion Desserts, a talented ROM hacker who uses the assistance of A.I. and machine translation to help convert the text from Japanese language into English (yes, I do not like A.I. either, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t used Google Translate myself before, so I don’t want to judge too harshly… still - hire or call on the help of translators, if you can)!
First released in 1998, Sage of Pyramid features our familiar red-jacket clad hero entering an ancient pyramid in an attempt to uncover some hidden riches. Not all is as it seems, as soon a mysterious ghostly figure of a cute girl appears, guiding Lupin through the maze. With armed guards and Zenigata both on his tail, has Lupin bitten off more than he can chew, or will he traverse the pyramids many traps and snag the treasure for himself? Not if Fujiko Mine can help it!
Since the original version of the Japan exclusive game did not feature subtitles, some extra effort has been needed to implement these on top of the animated cinematics. As much as I adore the SEGA Saturn, with SEGA Rally, NiGHTS Into Dreams, and Daytona USA being some of my favourite games of all time - Sage of Pyramid is not very good. I tried the untranslated Japanese version a few years back on my Japanese SEGA Saturn, and as a 3D action-adventure, it feels its age and is certainly no Tomb Raider. Still, this is a part of the series’ history that can now be enjoyed for fans outside of Japan - so I appreciate it for that!
You can find a patch version of the ROM over on RomHacking.net by clicking here. More details on the release can be found over on the SEGA Saturn Shiro! blog.
