Crystalis Improvement Patch Released Nearly 30 Years Later

Fans of classic titles often the most hardcore of the fans out there. Who else would take the time to improve the localization of a nearly 30-year-old game? Then, either on purpose or by chance, release that improvement patch within seven days of that games 28th birthday? That is exactly what happened with this proofread based improvement hack for Crystalis on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Crystalis was an action role-playing game for the 8-bit Nintendo NES from an unlikely publisher – SNK. SNK had not yet launched their Neo Geo console but their efforts in the home market were decidedly arcade based games (often ports of their own arcade games). An action role-playing game is just slightly outside of what fans expected.

That could be why sales of Crystalis on the NES were not record setting.

Anyhow, 28 years later, to the week, we have an improved script patch that fixes a ton of the spelling errors that were abundant in this era. Older readers may recognize the term, “Engrish”, which will give you a clearer idea of the spelling errors fans had to endure.

Most of those are gone now. Some remain because of how they were embedded into the Crystalis ROM.

What is great about this patch is, you can use it with current save games and not lose your progress. Also, the patch creator did not add anything to the script so there are no Working Designs style current, but oh so dated in a few weeks, memes or references to worry about.

Grab the patch over on ROMHacking.net