Ancient Roman – Power of the Dark Side is a Japanese role-playing game that never made it to our parts. Being considered the worst ever among the many released on the first PlayStation It shouldn’t be too bad, but someone thought it deserved to be translated in English. These are some enthusiasts who are working on a patch for the game, which apparently will be available soon.
Sublime ugliness
Ancient Roman – Power of the Dark Side was developed by Nihon Systems and released way back in 1998. In theory it is an emulator of Final Fantasy VII, so we have pre-rendered scenarios, turn-based combat between 3D characters and so on. Unlike the Square Enix title, however, it is truly awful.between animations bordering on offensive and a soundtrack that makes your ears bleed, full as it is of errors and imperfections. Over the years its ugliness has even become proverbial, transforming itself into a meme, that is, the maximum form of celebration of modern times.
As often happens on the internet, where bad fame is still fame, someone decided to translate it, first of all SnowyAria, the translator in charge of the project, who discovered Ancient Roman in 2015, intrigued by the negative comments of those who had played it.
Ours explained, interviewed by Time Extension, that: “Perhaps it is excessive to speak of love at first sight, but Ancient Roman is so bad, a carcass of a game held together with glue to give it the vague shape of a role-playing game, that it is captivating. Usually ‘kusoge’ (bad games) have some positive elements, even if they fail to work completely. Ancient Roman is one of the few in which they did everything wrong.”
In short, it’s so bad that it goes around and is unmissable. SnowyAria therefore wanted to make it accessible to Western audiences too, so that they can appreciate its absurd story and rubbish gameplay.
Despite having some difficulty finding people willing to translate Ancient Roman, our heroine eventually managed to get the well-known hacker EsperKnight (who previously worked on hacks for Planet Laika, Linda Cubed Again and others) on board, convincing him that such a bad game is an opportunity not to be missed. For now the translation patch does not have a release date yetbut it should arrive soon, anticipated by a trailer prepared for the occasion.
