Originally released in 2004 as a Japanese PlayStation 2 exclusive, Meitantei Conan: Daiei Teikoku no Isan or, Detective Conan: Legacy of the British Empire, has been fully translated into English thanks to the mighty efforts of some brilliant fans over on GitHub. This 1.0 release translates everything from video and dialogue box subtitles all the way to the game’s ending credits, while keeping the original Japanese voice acting intact. It’s a full-blown English translation without a single menu or UI element left behind.
ESL fans of the Great Detective should keep an ear out too, since the team is currently working on translating the game into a number of languages that have yet to be announced.
Like any good, never-ending anime franchise, the legendary Detective Conan franchise—Case Closed, as it’s known abroad—has received a plethora of video game adaptations. Less than a fraction of these titles have ever made their way to English speaking shores, and much to the disappointment of detective-fiction-loving weebs everywhere, almost all of them have been mediocre.
Wistfully waiting for a decent game to come their way, western fans of the pint-sized private eye have long had their eye on this Bandai-developed PS2 title, which received high marks from Japanese fans back in its day. This new translation feels like a bit of a holy grail for Conan-heads, with high-quality cel-shaded graphics and voice acting that, to my ears, sounds straight out of the anime.
While Conan himself might never catch the pesky criminals that turned him into a young lad, I’m glad that this particular PS2 gem has received the happy ending it so clearly deserves.