Fan translations

:For the Final Fantasy Wiki's policy on fan translations, see Project:Translations Pages#Fan-translations.
A fan translation, alternatively referred to as fanslation or scanlation depending on the medium, is an unofficial translation of a piece of media that was written in another language. In the context of the Final Fantasy series, fan translations often take the form of patches that modify video game code to integrate other language scripts in games originally released in Japanese. 
Most historically important fan translations for the series are unofficial translations of certain Famicom and Super Famicom games that did not release outside of Japan initially. This includes translations of mainline games Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, and Final Fantasy V which would not receive official localizations until 2003, 2021, and 1999 respectively. The prominence of English-language fan translations has diminished in recent years as Square Enix increasingly offers parity of between releases of Japanese and English media in the Final Fantasy series.
==Notable fan translations==
===Final Fantasy manga===
The 1989 comicalization of the original Final Fantasy by Kaimeiji Yuu was translated in 2023 by a scanlation group known as "TrafalgarScans", marking the first translation of the manga into another language.
===Final Fantasy II===
===Final Fantasy III===
===Final Fantasy IV===
====J2e====
Fan translation group J2e released a version of Final Fantasy IV on July 3, 2001. At the time, English releases of Final Fantasy IV were all in the easier easytype version of the game, and had been censored in alignment with the policies of Nintendo of America. The goal of the J2e translation was to release an uncensored, uncut, hardtype version of Final Fantasy IV, and for many years, the J2e translation was considered by fans to be the most accurate translation of Final Fantasy IV. In spite of this, the J2e translation actually added profanity that wasn't in the original Japanese version of Final Fantasy IV, and parts of it were not even a translation, but rather an edit of the SNES English version of Final Fantasy IV.
===Final Fantasy V===
====RPGe====
Final Fantasy V was not released in English by Squaresoft on the SNES. This led to several individuals, most prominently high-schoolers "Myria" and Katsuyuki Ohmuro, to form a group called RPGe to make an unofficial translation of Final Fantasy V. Their translation was released in June 1998 to fan acclaim at the time, and critial acclaim even in recent years. For example, journalist Jason Schreier praised RPGe's translation as evidently superior to the Anthology translation of Final Fantasy V that Square Enix released the following year, which he called "a mess". Myria wrote, comparing her work to the Anthology release, that "a couple kids in high school over four months did a better job than Square. ... We were just laughing so hard."
RPGe's fan translation is of historical importance because it was one of the first projects of near-professional quality. In particular, such a project entailed reprogramming much of Final Fantasy V's text-engine to support a non-monospaced font, because while Japanese text is often written monospaced, most English fonts are not monospaced. Such a reprogramming entailed reverse-engineering of the assembly code that Final Fantasy V was written in. Translator Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin referred to this feat as "as if the team time traveled from the future to deliver the Final Fantasy V translation patch."
===Final Fantasy VII===
====Hoshi o Meguru Otome====
===Final Fantasy Type-0===
====Operation DOOMTRAIN====
After the PSP version of Final Fantasy Type-0 was not released in English, a team known as Operation DOOMTRAIN, including a lead programmer named "SkyBladeCloud", announced a fan translation project, scheduled for release on August 8, 2014. By 2012, however, Square Enix had nearly completed an English localization of Type-0. After negotiations between Square Enix's legal team and SkyBladeCloud, the latter released the unfinished translation on June 8, 2014, two days before Square Enix announced Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, a localized remaster of the game for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Shortly after, under legal pressure, Operation DOOMTRAIN pulled the patch from the internet.
==Citations==
Category:Fandom