Nintendo announced a 3D remake for Super Mario RPG! It'll be released for the Nintendo Switch on November 17th! To comemerate the 3D remake, I've updated the Super Mario RPG shrine with content from it. I also made general updates to the shrine. I added the following.

• Updated and re-wrote the About the Game page.
• Lots of new pictures: added 70 3D Remake screenshots, 6 3D Remake desktop wallpapers, and new official art from the SNES game.
• Added the SNES game's soundtrack in MP3.
• To Downloads, added the new exciting Relocalized hack. And, unfortunately, I took down the download for the SNES ROM. I had to. I can't leave my site at risk for another DMCA takedown notice from Square Enix.

And other site updates:

• To Video Game Emulation for Newbies, I re-wrote the Download & Setup article and made it more helpful. I added more pictures. I added tips on how to find the best games per system. I added an explanation about how emulators for PlayStation 1, Saturn, Sega CD/Mega CD, and TurboGrafx16-CD/PC Engine CD are sensitive with different types of ISOs, and how to resolve that. I also updated the Gamepads guide with the latest top gamepads.
• To Dungeons & Dragons Arcade, I added 7 new gorgeous high-quality pieces of art. I organized the art better, too; it's now in three pages by category.

Finally, I have bad news. I'm sure you have felt the reprecussions of inflation. Costs have risen for everything. People have been laid off. Well, these problems have impacted web hosts. More and more web hosts are getting rid of the 'unlimited space' perk. My web host recently did away with it.

The 'unlimited space' perk was key in allowing me to host video files and large ROMs. Recently, my web host sent me an email: “Hey, so... we have good news and bad news. The good news is we're upgrading your server. Your site is going to run 10x faster. The bad news is we're introducing a new pricing structure that puts restrictions on server space. Currently, your site takes up 240 GB. Your monthly fees will increase 6x. If you want to keep the same monthly fees, you need to keep your site below 60 GB.“ Well, I'm not willing to pay more for the site, so I must abide.

For the most part, stuff that won't be missed was taken down:

• Removed all WAV versions of soundtracks. This is not a huge deal because you can easily make your own WAV soundtracks. My Extracted Game Music tutorial has directions with that.
• Removed several 'bonus' ROM downloads such as Tactics Ogre (PSP) in the Ogre Battle MotBQ shrine and Castlevania Chronicles (PSP) in the Castlevania SotN shrine. This is not a huge deal because you can easily find them on ROM sites.
• In RPG Lunch Break and Classic CD RPGs, I removed all ISO downloads for Sega CD/Mega CD and TurboGrafx16-CD/PC Engine CD games. This is also not a huge deal because ROM sites.

The biggest blow is to the Anime Video Archive. With a heavy heart, I took down ALL video files. It's no longer a video archive. I don't want to completely take this site down because of this. It still has value with its hundreds of screenshots and soundtrack downloads. I suppose I will try to rebrand it as an anime reviews website. I could even put back up the content I had removed when I received the DMCA takedown notices for Record of the Lodoss War, Ninja Scroll, the Sailor Moon movies, and others.

Anyhow, I'll figure this out. I don't need video files to keep the spirit of retro anime alive. My FantasyAnime.com initially started in 1998 as a massive anime gallery. Perhaps it's time to bring that spirit back?

To celebrate the release of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, I added lots of Pixel Remaster content to the Final Fantasy 4-6 shrines. I also took the time to beef up the screenshots pages with shots from other releases. Here's what I added:

• Final Fantasy 6 shrine: Added Pixel Remaster release info. To the screenshots page, added 83 GBA screenshots, 34 screenshots from the 2014 remake, and 38 Pixel Remaster screenshots. And added two official Pixel Remaster wallpapers.
• Final Fantasy 5 shrine: Added Pixel Remaster release info. To the screenshots page, added 65 GBA screenshots, 21 screenshots from the 2014 remake, and 44 Pixel Remaster screenshots. And added two official Pixel Remaster wallpapers.
• Final Fantasy 4 shrine: Added Pixel Remaster release info. To the screenshots page, added 75 GBA screenshots, 38 WonderSwan Color screenshots, and 62 Pixel Remaster screenshots. And added two official Pixel Remaster wallpapers.
• I did some general housekeeping with the shrines to make it clearer that the GBA Final Fantasy 4-6 bonus content is exclusive to the GBA and 2014 Remakes. I don't want to confuse people into thinking that the bonus content is included with the new Pixel Remasters.

Started the new year with big updates to Video Game Emulation for Newbies:

• I reviewed Emulation Wiki's early-2023 updates and updated my #1 Video Game Emulators for Windows guide with the latest and greatest emulators for 2023.
• I added 3 new tutorials! I now cover RMG (the #1 N64 emu on Windows), Mesen (the #1 NES emu on Windows), and MAME4droid (the #1 arcade emu on Android).
• RetroArch is now a great option for Sega Saturn emulation because it uses the same high-quality core as Mednafen. This is very important to highlight. I updated the RetroArch (Windows) tutorial to help you get started with Saturn emulation.
• I realized the PCSX2 tutorial was quite outdated. I pruned through every feature and I updated the entire tutorial. I also added important information on upscaling and improving graphics. PCSX2's defaults are barebones and don't enhance much. Neither is it obvious exactly what video settings you need to tweak to improve them. So, my tutorial is here to help you with that!
• For the Introduction to Emulation guide, I made a video showing how to install portable emulators. I also placed the same video in other tutorials where the emulator is portable.
• Aside from my emulation help site, in FantasyAnime's emulators page I added new sections for Switch, Wii U, and 3DS. In the Genesis category, I'm emphasizing RetroArch as the 'best' option. Kega Fusion and Gens are quite outdated now for Genesis emulation.

And a few miscellaneous site updates:

• To the Shining Force 1 Secrets page, I added a full collection of reference maps to show you exactly where the secrets are located. I re-wrote the page, too, correcting spelling and grammar errors.
• Snes9x EX+ on Android changed the way it works with hacks that rely on folders. This impacts Moon Healing Orchestration (the awesome hack that replaces the soundtrack with full audio tracks). I updated my Moon Healing Orchestration page with directions on how the new process works.
• To the Downloads page for Magic Knight Rayearth, I added the recently released Magic Knight Rayearth 1 Game Boy Classic English fan translation. Yay, now we have yet another Magic Knight Rayearth game that we can play in English!

Ending the year with lots of updates! The biggest updates were to the Anime Video Archive:

• A DVD quality version of the Fire Emblem anime has been released! Previously, only a poor quality VHS transfer was available. I've updated my Fire Emblem videos with the better quality version. I also added the soundtrack and art scans.
• The Ninja Gaiden OVA was also updated to a DVD quality version, where previously only a poor quality VHS transfer was available.
• The Project A-Ko 2 movie was updated to a Bluray quality version.
• I added a new movie, Demon Hunter! It's an awesome movie from the early 90s that used the English voice actors from Tenchi Muyo. It's gory (and perverted); I meant to add it back on October for Halloween.

And I have a bunch of new ROM hacks:

• Final Fantasy 4 Ultima - This hack adds MANY new features and improvements to the game. It adds a full-featured bestiary, 60 new weapons, 60 new spells/summons, 40 new bosses, achievements, new areas, new quests, new commands, new graphics, new secrets, springs with the Y button, Dark Knight Cecil is playable endgame, and more! This hack is heavy enough that I added a dedicated screenshots page for it.
• Final Fantasy 4 Graphics Update - This hack ports in the enhanced graphics of the WonderSwan Color, Advance, and mobile phone versions of Final Fantasy 4 to the SNES version. Currently, the monster graphics and menu portraits have been finished.
• Final Fantasy 5: Pixel Freemaster & Kick Butz Edition - This patch bundles together the majority of the most popular Final Fantasy 5 ROM hacks into one convenient patch. It includes the GBA translation, sprite touchups, auto learning, 2x experience/ABP/gil, better menu, shop price improvements, auto map, better job equipment, dash on world map with B button, and more!
• Final Fantasy 6 GBA Text - This replaces all the text in the SNES version with the translation from Final Fantasy 6 Advance (GBA).
• Shining Force 2: War of the Gods+ - This is a complete overhaul of the game with a more cohesive story and significant changes to the story and gameplay. Also, many changes have been made to the battle system to improve gameplay.
• Cyber Knight: Improved! - The English fan translation of Cyber Knight released back in 2001 wasn't perfect. A massive improvement patch was released that fixes all known technical issues, improves the presentation, and corrects all known typos and text overflows. Enemy names have also been retranslated and the opening credits are now displayed in English.

Lastly, I have a few general site updates:

• Celebrating the recent release of the Front Mission 1st 3D Remake, I added 4 new 3D wallpapers and 15 3D screenshots.
• My DuckStation tutorial (Windows version) is one of the site's most popular pages. It's the #1 PlayStation 1 emulator, after all. So I added a new tutorial covering DuckStation on Android. This tutorial even takes the time to explain how to move files around on Android and unzip 7Z files (because all PSX ISOs these days are in 7Z).
• I've been dabbling into making mobile-friendly wallpapers lately. I've started by mobile-izing wallpapers for Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Shining Force, and Sailor Moon RPG (see some previews below). It's tricky because I can only do this for wallpapers that I've made myself and have the source file for (so I can scale the art & move stuff around). I'm not putting a lot of focus into this because the majority of my existing wallpapers can easily be cropped for mobile, so making a mobile version isn't always necessary.

I have some BIG news for Sailor Moon RPG. I've completely remade the shrine! I've done & added the following:

• First, the whole reason why I made a new Sailor Moon RPG shrine was to commemorate the release of the MSU-1 version of the game. What's MSU-1? It's a method of hacking that allows us to replace a game's SNES soundtrack with a CD-quality soundtrack of our choosing. Sailor Moon RPG's MSU-1 project replaces the soundtrack with a beautifully orchestrated version. The team for this project even commissioned musicians to reproduce songs! Now that's dedication! The team selected my Sailor Moon RPG shrine to be the home for this project. And so I made a dedicated page for it: Moon Healing Orchestration. And if you really like the newly orchestrated soundtrack, you can download it from the Music page.
• The Game Review page (previously called 'About the game') has been completely rewritten. The history section has been expanded, featuring more info and website screenshots from the 1999 fan translation.
• The Characters page has been expanded with more info, technique lists, and GIF animations for attacks.
• I now host a full walkthrough for the game. Relevant game maps are sprinkled throughout it for further assistance.
• For the Maps page, as you may or may not know, I originally used FuSoYa's utility to export maps from the game. Doing this quite literally saved me weeks of tedious map-building work. However, many of the maps came out looking weird and messy. That's (nearly) resolved now - I took the time to clean up the maps. And I connected separated maps. They're looking much nicer!
• For the Art page, I got my hands on that famous strategy guide that's been the source of the best art for this game. So the art page now has a gallery of 30 new high-quality scans, including a full download of the strategy guide.
• I added 40 new screenshots for the Screenshots page. A handful are neat animated GIFs.
• To the Desktop Wallpapers page, I added new HD 4K wallpapers. Three of them are in my 'Octopath Traveler' style where I Photoshop sprites over HD photos.
  
• All other pages have been redesigned and look cool :)

I made a bunch of video game emulation updates:

• Added a tutorial for iOS video game emulation! Yes, it's possible to install emulators on an iPhone (or iPad) without jailbreaking.
• Updated the tutorials for PCSX2 and DuckStation with entirely new screenshots and up-to-date directions.
• The tutorial for emulators on Android now has a full list of recommended emulators.
• There's been some big changes with Saturn emulation. SSF (one of the top Saturn emulators) officially supports loading ISOs now. It's as simple as other emulators - you just go to File > Load ISO. Hence, I've updated my SSF tutorial with this new, easier method of loading games.
• ISOs for CD-based games have a new ISO format: “CHD”. This format is the new standard that everyone needs to adopt using for Sega CD/Mega CD, PC Engine CD, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation 1. I've updated all relevant tutorials mentioning this new format and how to find them.

And other site updates:

• The Live-A-Live HD 2D Remake has been released for the Nintendo Switch! I've made more HD 2D updates to the Live-A-Live shrine. The Square's Art page has a big update with 30 art pictures from the remake and 20 new art pictures from the original. With this new art, I made four new HD 4K desktop wallpapers. I also made HD 4K versions of the existing wallpapers.

• Continuing the 'shrines improvement' project, I've improved the Terranigma shrine. Rewrote the About the Game page. Added 40 more screenshots. Added the soundtrack in MP3. For the Desktop Wallpapers, took down all the old ones and added 16 HD 4K wallpapers. To the Enix's Art page, added 20 new pieces of new official art by the original artist (made recently in 2021!). To the Maps page, added new world maps and tons of area/dungeon maps. All other pages had general improvements.
• To the Front Mission shrine I added 50 new pieces of official art.
• For the Ys anime in the Anime Video Archive, I added the Falcom Special Box soundtrack which features 7 tracks from the Ys Book 1 anime.
• I'm on an HD 4K wallpaper spree! To Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 6, I added multiple new 4K wallpapers.
  

So I have some bad news. I didn't want to make this news post depressing by talking about it first. Square Enix sent me another Cease & Desist takedown notice. First it was for my ROMs, and now it's for my soundtracks. They made me remove all music files for Final Fantasy 1-9, Chrono Trigger, Mana series, SaGa series, Front Mission series, and Parasite Eve. Even the MIDI files had to be removed! It would seem I lost the privilege of hosting any music files for these games, including fan music.

What perplexes me about these takedown notices is that my website is a small fry compared to other ROM and music download sites. They're far more popular than me, and offer the same 'illegal' content. In Google you can see the takedown notices Square Enix sends to websites. I found out I'm the only website they sent a takedown to.

Why does Square Enix find my website to be far more threatening than a ROM site? I've thought about that question a long time... the only thing that separates me from a ROM site is that I'm a fan site. Fan sites don't really exist anymore; they're a thing of the past. I don't have fan site competitors. So perhaps Square Enix finds my fan site format threatening for possibly confusing people with their official site. Or perhaps it's a compliment to my web design skills that the fan site format makes it too easy to find ROMs and full soundtrack downloads.

Everyone's talking about February's Nintendo Direct. Nintendo announced an HD-2D remake of Live-A-Live, a 3D remake of Front Mission, and Earthbound and Mother have been added to Switch Online. These RPG classics are major titles that have been shrined in FantasyAnime. Hence, to celebrate the exciting news, I've made appropriate updates to the corresponding shrines.

• The Live-A-Live shrine was partially re-worked. The main page has demo trailers for the old and new game for comparison and to promote them. I added a dedicated HD-2D Remake page with screenshots and a comparison video. The Music page was updated with the soundtrack in MP3.
• Similarly, the Front Mission shrine has a dedicated 3D Remake page with screenshots. Some time ago, I already updated the Music page with MP3 soundtracks for the SNES and PS1 versions of Front Mission.
• To the Earthbound shrine, I updated & re-wrote the About the Game page. I added GIFs to make it more interesting. The Screenshots page now features screenshots from Mother and Mother 3. I added a Walkthrough page that hosts Nintendo's Official Player's Guide in PDF. What's special about this PDF is that it isn't a scan - it's an export from the source file!
• Some time ago, I updated Parasite Eve's Music page with MP3 soundtracks. I received some complaints that I was claiming this was a full soundtrack, but it didn't include the tracks from the CGI sequences. Well yes, that's true because I normally rip my PS1 soundtracks from PSF and they don't include the CGI tracks. I felt bad for misleading people. So I went ahead and bought Parasite Eve's official soundtrack and ripped it for you. So now the Music page does feature a complete Parasite Eve soundtrack. It includes bonus tracks, too!
• To the Anime Video Archive, I added the site's second live-action movie: Sweet Home! What's special about this movie is that it inspired the Resident Evil video game series. There's also a dark and awesome NES game based on the movie under the same title, which my Sweet Home movie page features for download (towards the bottom). Also, you may have heard that Project A-ko recently had a Blu-ray release. I updated my Project A-ko movie with this higher-quality version (both dubbed & subbed versions).
• I made some updates to the video game emulation pages. I updated the Recommended Video Game Emulators for Windows page with the 2022 latest top emulators for every system. And it is my pleasure to announce that PCSX2 has been ported to Android as AetherSX2. This is a big deal because Android hasn't had a worthwhile PlayStation 2 emulator. I made sure to update the Android emulators page with AetherSX2.
• The dust is settling from Square Enix's Cease & Desist letter they sent me two months ago. I have since updated all the Downloads pages where Square Enix roms were removed with links to rom sites. This is the best I can do to make up for the loss.

Normally, my last post of the year is a happy one, announcing something big. Not this year. Well... it finally happened. I received my first Cease & Desist letter. Square Enix's legal team demanded that I remove all ROM downloads for Final Fantasy 1-9, Chrono Trigger, Mana series, SaGa Frontier, Front Mission series, and Parasite Eve. I always knew this day would come. I'm surprised it lasted this long - I've had these ROMs up for over two decades!

Just to be clear: just the ROMs were removed. FantasyAnime.com is not shutting down. Neither did Square Enix have an issue with the ROM hack patches and the full soundtrack downloads, or anything else. Additionally, the Square Enix games not mentioned above remain as well. Square Enix is only interested in the removal of active properties.

This also makes me wonder why Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve, and Front Mission are now active properties. They must be working on something new if they're aggressively seeking the removal of their ROMs. A Chrono Trigger remake, perhaps? A sequel to Parasite Eve? Let's see.

Anyway, it's not the end of the world. There are still plenty of ROM sites out there. The worst loss out of this is the pre-patched ROM hacks. You guys will need to be patching ROMs yourself from now on.

On to the site updates! Here's what I added recently:

• To Final Fantasy 6, I added the famous T-Edition ROM hack! This hack retains the existing game and adds a ton of new, creative content all around it. It's a popular ROM hack in Japan, and remained in Japan due to being only in Japanese. However, thanks to Mato/Tomato (responsible for many popular fan translations) this awesome hack is available in English! I also added a screenshots page for this hack. Unfortunately, I'm only allowed to have the patch up for T-Edition, so there's no pre-patched ROM. Same thing goes for the other hacks mentioned below.
• Final Fantasy Tactics hacks are here!
  • For War of the Lions (PSP), I added the popular slowdown fix. This awesome patch corrects the annoying slowdowns that occur during battle.
  • For Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1), I added the “US Changes Removed” hack. Final Fantasy Tactics received many changes that significantly dampened gameplay. The Japanese version was far better. This hack aims to restore what was removed.
  • Lastly, I added the “Insane Difficulty” patch. This makes the original Final Fantasy Tactics much harder!
• To Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana, I added the new Seiken Densetsu 3 Bugfix. This awesome hack fixes many gameplay bugs and adjusts some values to be not imbalanced.
• Throughout the years, I've received complaints about how getting the Dungeons & Dragons arcade games up and running is still very confusing. So I added new pages to the shrine that goes into step-by-step screenshot-by-screenshot detail to explain how to get these games running:
  - How to play D&D Arcade on Windows
  - How to play D&D Arcade on Android
  I hope these guides help more people get into Capcom's awesome action RPG arcade classics!
• To Parasite Eve, I added the Parasite Eve II soundtrack as a bonus to the Music page. I found out that the soundtrack was rare and not easy to find, so I bought it and ripped it for the Internet to enjoy.
• To Front Mission, I re-typed the Tips & Strategy page and added a ton of GIFs to make it more interesting and easier/faster to understand.
• As usual, I wanted to mention that I'm still working hard on the 'Shrines Improvement' project. In the next site update, I'll let you know which RPG shrines had all of their content improved and new goodies added.

• The highlighted update is to the Anime Video Archive. I added the Panzer Dragoon OVA and Explorers! Did you even know the famous Panzer Dragoon game on the Sega Saturn had an anime? Now you can watch it! And 'Explorers' is a super cute 4-episode fantasy anime series.
• To Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3/Trials of Mana, I updated their Maps pages with all maps (previously, I only had world maps).
• Exciting new ROM hack updates!
  • Near's English translation for Bahamut Lagoon was updated to version 1.2 with bug fixes & compatibility tweaks.
  • To Final Fantasy 6, “Return of the Dark Sorcerer” was updated with bug fixes.
  • To Phantasy Star II, added three new hacks: “Phantasy Star II: the Modernization”, “Phantasy Star II Improvement”, and “Walk Faster” hacks. The Modernization hack massively balances out the game to play more smoothly like Phantasy Star IV, fixes bugs, and adds more references to other games in the series. The Improvement hack is geared toward rebalancing the underutilized characters and implementing gameplay quality upgrades. The Walk Faster hack doubles your walking speed.
  • To Secret of Mana, added “Secret of Mana Reborn.” It's a complete, high-quality retranslation of the game.
• I updated the Patching tutorial with information on xDelta, BPS, and PPF patches and what utilities to use to patch ROMs with them. I took out ZSNES as an option for auto-patching (since clearly its an old emulator lol) and mentioned RetroArch as a modern option that supports auto-patching (also called soft patching). I updated the sections that talk about patching on Android and Macs.
• On the Android emulators page, I removed the PlayStation 2 emulator “DamonPS2” because it is widely known for being spyware. Rather, I replaced it with Play!, a 100% free and open-source PlayStation 2 emulator. Unfortunately, this emulator only supports around 20% of the game library. And at this time, there's no other option for PlayStation 2 emulation on Android. So if you want to play PlayStation 2 games on your Android device, it's “Play!” or bust!

As I mentioned back in November, I'm currently working on a big 'shrines improvement' project. I'd love to just totally remodel every shrine, but that has proved to be extremely time-consuming. Rather, for now, I'm just going through the shrines and making improvements and adding new content. The following shrines have been improved:

• Phantasy Star IV - Added a global navigation (no more 'back to the main page' links). Redid the main page; added a video trailer. Re-typed the About the Game and Characters pages. Added 50 new screenshots. For Sega's Art, I added better quality character art, removed the web 1.0 frames, and removed the fan art (I wasn't crediting the artists). For the Wallpapers, purged all the old ones and made 8 new HD wallpapers. The Music page now has the soundtrack in MP3. To the World Maps, I added high-quality full-sized maps and prepared print-friendly PDF maps. All other pages had general improvements.
• Tales of Phantasia - I redid the main page; added mini-trailers for the SNES & PS1 versions of the game to promote them to visitors. I retyped the About the Game page; plus I added several animated GIFs to make it more interesting. Heavily cleaned up & redesigned the SNES Characters page; corrected typos. The SNES screenshots and GBA screenshots pages were redesigned and now zoom in 4x. Additionally, I added a new PlayStation 1 screenshots page with 50 shots. Re-worked the Namco's Art page to be without frames. I removed all of the fan art and cosplay photos since I wasn't crediting anyone. Updated the Maps page to include all maps from the game; also made better print-friendly world maps. To Wallpapers, purged all the old wallpapers and added 22 new HD wallpapers. The Music page now has the SNES, PlayStation 1, and Game Boy Advance soundtracks in MP3. To the Tales of Phantasia: The Animation page I typed up a new review, added larger episode screenshots, and added a page navigation to make it easier to browse all the pages. All other pages had general improvements. The site was full of Flash stuff and Flash movies - they've all been removed.
• Dual Orb 2 - Added a global navigation. Redid the main page. Re-typed the About the Game page, and added animated GIFs to make it more interesting. Re-typed the Characters page and removed my adolescent (and slightly offensive) sense of humor. Added a new page for art, offering 12 high-quality scans. Did a massive overhaul to the Maps page adding new world maps and all maps for the game. To the Wallpapers, I purged the old ones and added 3 new HD wallpapers. The Music page now has the soundtrack in MP3. All other pages had general improvements.

The Remastered version of SaGa Frontier was recently released on April 15 for all platforms. In support of this, updates were made to the SaGa Frontier shrine.

• I re-wrote the About the Game page and added info for the Remaster.
• Added over 100 screenshots from the Remaster.
• Updated the Characters page to include Fuse (since he has a scenario now).
• New character art was added as well.

Exciting new ROM hack updates!

• After so many years, I now have the latest version of Chrono Trigger: Flames of Eternity! Finally! This hack has been so elusive ever since the download links went dead on the official site. At this time, my site is the only place where you'll find the latest version for download! Flames of Eternity is a completely remade version of Chrono Trigger. It's well made and quite popular.
• To Super Mario RPG, added the new Reworked Text hack! This hack corrects all of the (many) errors, typos, and out-of-nowhere capitalization.
• To Phantasy Star 4, added the Bugfix hack and the new Relocalization Project. The Relocalization is a very special project! It's a comprehensive retranslation and relocalization of Phantasy Star 4, utilizing fan-translated Phantasy Star scripts and resources and Phantasy Star team interviews. This was created by a professional writer/editor team.
• To Earthbound, updated the Mother 3 (GBA) English translation. It's a heavy update with many bug fixes, corrections, and improvements. This update is a big deal because it hasn't been updated in many years!
• To Arcana, added the new Arcana: Seal of Rimsala hack! It offers an entirely new experience. Gameplay is faster, maps are redrawn, there's a coherent story, Nintendo's 90's censorship is uncensored, and more!
• To Final Fantasy 6, updated the Return of the Dark Sorcerer hack. They added more to it.

I forgot to mention in the last update that I made a tutorial for DuckStation, the now #1 PlayStation 1 emulator.

As I mentioned back in November, I'm currently working on a big 'shrines improvement' project. I'd love to just totally remodel every shrine, but that has proved to be extremely time-consuming. Rather, for now, I'm just going through the shrines and making improvements and adding new content. The following shrines have been improved:

• SaGa Frontier - As mentioned above, I added a bunch of new stuff for the Remastered version. Every other page in the shrine received general improvements and redesigned pages; plus I added a global navigation (no more 'back to the main page' links). The Maps page now has thumbnails (previously, I just had text links to the maps). The Music page now has the soundtrack in MP3, in addition to including SaGa Frontier 2's soundtrack as a bonus. I trashed the desktop wallpapers and added 12 new HD wallpapers, including four based on the Remastered version.
• Arcana - Added a global navigation. Re-wrote the About the Game page. Re-wrote the Characters page; particularly, all of my really bad & offensive adolescent sense of humor was taken out. To the Pictures page, added better quality official art and new magazine scans. For the Wallpapers page, I purged the old ones and added 4 new HD desktop wallpapers. Plus I jumped into my 3D modeling program to create a new wallpaper based on Arcana's style of maze graphics (a preview is towards the right). The Music page now has the soundtrack in MP3. To the Maps page, I put together an improved printer-friendly PDF maps collection with much larger, easier-to-read maps. To the Downloads page, I added the new Arcana: Seal of Rimsala ROM hack (as mentioned above) and added pre-patched versions of all hacks. All other pages had general improvements.
• Super Mario RPG - This was one of those 'squished shrines' that were short in width for the smaller monitors of the old web. I re-worked all pages to normal width. To the Characters page, I replaced the character Flash movies with HTML5 movies. The Screenshots now zoom in 4x instead of 2x. The Music page now has the soundtrack in MP3. The Wallpapers were re-worked for modern resolutions, including adding HD 4K versions for a few of them. All other pages had general improvements.

I don't know if any of you have noticed that my site updates have been more frequent since the pandemic began ^^;; I've been more active in the social media posts as well. My job has me working from home so that has given me much more time. I love being able to give the site the attention it needs.

• I had to accept some hard feedback. My subsite, Video Game Emulation for Newbies, was misleading and not reputable. The problem was with the main page. I was showing tutorials for old emulators that are no longer used. That was giving people the impression that I was still recommending old emulators. So emulation enthusiasts who stumbled upon my site saw that and would think “Jesus, what's ZSNES doing here? This site is out-dated garbage!” I've made some big changes to remedy this false first impression.
  • I typed up a new article: Recommended Video Game Emulators for Windows. With help from the Emulation Wiki, I researched the top emulators and carefully curated a list of the BEST ones. Understanding that everyone has different preferences, I recommended these top emulators in a variety of categories to cater to different audiences. I added this article because I want to make it clear the emulators I'm recommending.
  • I've removed the tutorials for ZSNES, Nestopia, MagicEngine, Ootake, and Kawaks. Since multi-system emulators are so prominent these days, I moved them to the top of the main page.
• With all of my new knowledge of the best video game emulators, I had to make changes to the emulators page:
  • NES emulators - I removed Nestopia; I have no reason to continue recommending it. I'm keeping FCEUX as a recommendation for old machines.
  • N64 emulators - I added m64p as the #1 N64 emulator. I downgraded Project64 as a secondary recommendation.
  • NDS emulators - I didn't realize DeSmuME was still being updated via automated builds since its last stable release in 2015. There have been significant improvements since then. DeSmuME is truly the #1 NDS emulator. I removed melonDS (previously, I was pushing it as #1). The latest DeSmuME supports upscaling, so I removed the 'X432R' forked version of DeSmuME I had up. I updated my DeSmuME tutorial with directions on how to download the latest version of DeSmuME (because it's confusing) and how to upscale 3D graphics with the new feature.
  • Dreamcast emulators - I added redream. And I pushed down DEmul as second-best.
  • Arcade emulators - I'm pushing RetroArch as a top arcade emulator due to the variety of valuable cores it offers. I added FinalBurn Neo as the top standalone arcade emulator. I'm keeping all of the old arcade emulators up (FinalBurn Alpha, MAMEUI, Kawaks) because when it comes to arcade emulation, old emulators always have value. And I updated the RetorArch tutorial with a new section explaining how to load arcade roms.
• With my 'shrines improvement' project, I've been revamping my desktop wallpapers for modern resolutions. Someone requested, “Why stop at 1920x1080? Why not go 4K?” Haha, why not? I certainly can go 4K! I've added a bunch of HD 4K resolutions to the desktop wallpapers in Chrono Trigger, Shining Force 1, Shining Force 2, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, and Dungeons & Dragons Arcade. However, I couldn't add a 4K version for every single wallpaper. Many of the pictures I used are not available in a higher resolution beyond 1920x1080. Anyhow, here are a few previews of the nicer wallpapers that I managed to produce in HD 4K:
  

• You may have heard of “Shining Force Special Sound CD” and “Shining Force 2 Symphonic Suite”. These special soundtracks have always been available at Shining Force fan sites for us. However, but not available in high-quality. I went out of my way to buy these soundtracks and rip them in high-quality for you! You can grab Special Sound CD from Shining Force 1 Music and the Symphonic Suite from Shining Force 2 Music.
• I added the famous Earthbound Deluxe hack! This is completely uncensored! It goes back to the Japanese text. It's completely reprogrammed in a bazillion ways. The enemies are redrawn and paletted along with new enemy sprites. There are new colored maps. The difficulty is way increased. New items were added. PSI animations were changed and new PSI was added. And more! This'll give you an exciting new playthrough of the game.
• Patch Updates: Final Fantasy 6 Ted Woolsey Edition was updated again with a much larger script revision. The Sailor Moon RPG translation was updated as well with script corrections.
• I made some changes to my emulation offerings and guides:
  • RetroArch is now available in 64-bit and 32-bit for both Windows and Android. This is a big deal because the 32-bit version offers fewer cores. I updated my RetroArch Android tutorial and RetroArch Windows tutorial to reflect these changes. Also, I updated my Android emulators page with the new versions (it's an important distinction to point out).
  • DuckStation is now the #1 PlayStation 1 emulator on Windows. A DuckStation tutorial is in-progress. Previously, I was recommending RetroArch as the best for PlayStation 1 emulation. I don't recommend ePSXe at all anymore. DuckStation has an Android port as well. Although I don't quite consider it #1 just yet because ePSXe for Android has a better interface and offers more features.

As I mentioned back in November, I'm currently working on a big 'shrines improvement' project. I'd love to just totally remodel every shrine, but that has proved to be extremely time-consuming. Rather, for now, I'm just going through the shrines and making improvements and adding new content. The following shrines have been improved:

• Dungeons & Dragons Arcade - Added a global navigation (no more 'back to the main page' links). Redid the main page; put up demo movie clips for both games to make them attractive. To the Scans page added around 40 new pieces of official art. The screenshots for both Shadow Over Mystara and Tower of Doom were re-worked to be thumbnail galleries that zoom in to the shots 4x. For the Music page, re-ripped both games' soundtracks and now offering them in a variety of file formats. Took down all of the desktop wallpapers (they were old-looking and ugly) and added 40 new HD desktop wallpapers. Lastly, the site was littered with typos & grammar errors that have been there since the shrine was created two decades ago lol - which are now fixed. The Downloads page makes downloading and playing the games clearer for newcomers. All other pages had general improvements.
• Secret of Mana - Added a global navigation. Slightly redid the main page and added a flying bird. Re-typed the About the Game page. To the Square's Art page, added 60 new pieces of official art from the original game and the 3D remake; several of which are high-res scans you won't find anywhere else. In the Characters page, converted the Flash to HTML5. Added a new screenshots page for the 3D remake with 23 screenshots. Added 23 new HD desktop wallpapers. The Music page now has MP3 soundtracks. To the Downloads page, I added pre-patched downloads of the hacks + added the new Relocalized hack. All other pages had general improvements.
• Shining Force 2 - Added a global navigation. Redid the main page; added a mini trailer movie clip. Re-typed the About the Game page. Re-typed the Shining Force characters page and added maps with locations to the secret items for promotions. Re-typed the Tips & Strategy page and added several animated GIFs to make it more interesting. Purged the old desktop wallpapers and added 13 new HD desktop wallpapers. Re-typed the Secrets page and added the locations for secret promotion items. The Music page now has MP3 soundtracks. The Downloads page now offers pre-patched hacks and a new hack: The Graphic Upgrade hack that gives everyone and everything unique graphics (no more re-used graphics).

• A new English fan translation was released for Bahamut Lagoon! Firstly, the game was translated by a native English speaker with Japanese fluency far beyond the JLPT N1 (the highest standard in linguistic competence). A great deal of work went into injecting the highest quality font possible. They made use of text colors to distinguish between text, names, headers, quantities, etc. They took legibility so seriously that they went as far as to implement character kerning, expand text fields, and reposition elements on every screen for better UX. They accomplished these feats (and more!) with the accumulated knowledge of the emulation community, who had been studying SNES hardware for the past 20 years. Countless bugs in the original game were corrected. And much more was done! Grab it in Downloads.
• For Chrono Trigger, I made a new pretty 3D desktop wallpaper. This is based on the beginning scene in the anime opening when someone grabs the photo frame to look at Crono and the gang.
• Patch updates! For Sailor Moon RPG, the English translation's improvement patch was updated, fixing typos and some bugs. For Final Fantasy 6, the Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition patch was updated with bug fixes.

As I mentioned in the last update, I'm currently working on a big 'shrines improvement' project. I'd love to just totally remodel every shrine, but that has proved to be extremely time-consuming. Rather, for now, I'm just going through the shrines and making improvements and adding new content. The following shrines have been improved:

• Shining Force 1 - I added a global navigation (no more 'back to the main page' links) and redid the main page. I re-typed the About the Games page. I re-typed the Tips & Strategy page and added lots of animated GIFs to make the page more visually appealing. Re-typed the Shining Force Characters descriptions. I updated all Desktop Wallpapers to modern resolutions and added 10 new wallpapers. Lots of better quality official art was added. I consolidated my humor pages into a single page; also, I converted the Flash to MP4 videos and HTML5. All other pages had general improvements.
• Final Fantasy 4 - I added a global navigation. The Maps, Music, and Downloads pages all had a heavy overhaul. They're nice and organized now. The Maps page has better optimized PNG maps that are smaller in memory size. I deleted all the Desktop Wallpapers (they were too old & ugly) and made 11 new ones. The Music page now has MP3 soundtracks for the SNES & PSX versions. All other pages had general improvements.
• Seiken Densetsu 3 - I added a global navigation. Redid the main page; it has mini trailers for the original game and the 3D remake. Completely retyped the About the Game page, now mentioning the 3D remake. Added over 100 new art pics to Square's Art. Added 56 HD screenshots from the 3D remake. Added 20 new screenshots from the original Seiken Densetsu 3. The Music page now has MP3 soundtracks. Added a whopping 29 new Desktop Wallpapers. To the Downloads page, I added pre-patched versions of the 3-player hack for both Trials of Mana and fan-translated Seiken Densetsu 3. All other pages had general improvements.

My “Shrines 2.0” project to remake every shrine from scratch is taking forever. In the meantime, I realized just the content itself in my old shrines desperately needs updates and improvements. I figured it was worth it to go through each shrine and perform the following:

• Add MP3 & WAV soundtracks. Particularly, these are properly prepared soundtracks with the song/artist/album/year tags filled in and the album art is included.
• Re-work Downloads pages with title screen thumbnails and add clear Download buttons. This makes Downloads pages more inviting.
• Add pre-patched ROMs for all ROM hacks (instead of just having the patch up).
• Re-work Screenshot pages to display large screenshots and to house 30 shots per page (instead of 10 shots).
• Add high-res box scans and large official art.
• Add versions of desktop wallpapers for modern resolutions.
• Correct any spelling and grammar errors. And remove all of my adolescent sense of humor, which by today's standards can come off as quite offensive ^^;;;
• Remove any 'old web' stuff such as Flash and frames. If a page has a small-width layout (for 'old web' resolutions), expand it for modern resolutions so that the page doesn't look so squished.

The following shrines were the first to receive the treatment mentioned above and other tweaks. The most work went into re-doing the Music and Downloads pages for these shrines.

• Chrono Trigger - The Downloads page received the heaviest treatment with pre-patched ROMs now available. I added a dedicated page for Flames of Eternity's screenshots. And I added more official art and better quality art. I removed the fan art and cosplay because I never credited where they came from. Plus added MP3 soundtracks.
• Bahamut Lagoon - I re-worked the main page. Lots of 'old web' stuff was removed and improved upon from the shrine. I added 6 new desktop wallpapers - they came out nice! I placed some previews to the right of them. Plus added MP3 soundtracks.
• Front Mission - I also re-worked the main page and added 6 new wallpapers. In Downloads, I removed the Front Mission 2 (PS1) pre-patched download and its English patch. I just realized the fan translators strictly asked that their work not be redistributed (not even the patch). I can keep the Japanese game for download, but you'll need to go to the official page to obtain the game's English patch. Also, I added MP3 soundtracks for both the SNES & PS1 versions of Front Mission 1.
• Front Mission: Gun Hazard - This shrine had a lot of my adolescent sense of humor, which is now removed. The now large screenshots are gorgeous with this game's graphics. Plus added MP3 soundtracks.
• Sailor Moon RPG - I totally re-worked the maps page and added new maps! The wallpapers were updated with widescreen resolutions. Plus added MP3 soundtracks.
• Tenchi Muyo RPG - Added a global navigation (no more 'back to the main page' links on the bottom of every page) and 4 new wallpapers. Plus added MP3 soundtracks.

And a few general updates:

• FantasyAnime is now on TikTok! I want to stay relevant and have a presence on all the popular social media platforms.
• I was looking over the Final Fantasy 9 screenshots I added in the last update. Most of the screens looked significantly dark. So I re-processed all of them and brightened them to appropriate levels.
• If you've been following my Video Game Emulation for Newbies tutorials for a long time, you'd know that I recommended a program called “ImgBurn” to rip your game CDs to ISO files for use with emulators. It's a great program, and it still is. However, its installation serves ads that (falsely) get the program flagged by anti-virus programs as adware. This scares people and prevents them from using ImgBurn. Well, I found something better! I discovered that RetroArch for Windows has the ability to rip game CDs! Cool, huh? I updated every tutorial that has game-ripping instructions to use RetroArch instead of ImgBurn: ePSXe, PCSX2, SSF, uoYabause, Gens, Kega Fusion. When it comes to burning ISOs to a CD-R, I still have ImgBurn directions in my tutorials for that since RetroArch doesn't have the ability to write to CDs.

• I typed up an article covering all the popular ways to Play ROMs on Your TV! From custom systems to streaming, there's a bunch of neat ways to achieve this. With every option, I talk about what it is, the pros, the cons, and how to obtain it.
• You guys might recall that my screenshot galleries for Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Parasite Eve used some old web application thing ever since the early 2000s. These automatically generated galleries saved me a great deal of time because I collected thousands of screenshots for these games. Well, my web host upgraded the server with something major that broke these old galleries. I had to look for a modern solution real quick and come up with new galleries from scratch. After a week of work, here they are below. The screenshots are scaled 2x larger and they're better quality, too.
  • Final Fantasy 7's new gallery (938 screenshots)
  • Final Fantasy 9's new gallery (1,355 screenshots)
  • Final Fantasy Tactic's new gallery (198 screenshots)
  • Parasite Eve's new gallery (425 screenshots)
• The English translation for Sailor Moon RPG was updated with bug fixes. Grab it from the shrine's Downloads page.
• Lots of improvements to the Anime Video Archive:
  • The Chrono Trigger OVA was recently updated with a DVD quality version, which this site now has. This is a big deal! For all of these years, only the poor quality VHS transfer was available.
  • Added a Blu-ray quality version of Slayers Perfect: The Motion Picture (subtitled version only).
  • Added a slightly better quality version of Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals. Best of all, the subtitles are now normal text. The previous subtitles were a fancy brush stroke font that wasn't easy to read.
  • The subtitled episodes for Golden Boy had an issue where words were oddly appearing inside black boxes. This is now fixed! The new font is also nicer looking and easier to read.

• I've made some BIG changes to my emulation offerings. RetroArch recently redid the UI from the ground up and now it's 1000% better. I'm so impressed by it that I made a tutorial for RetroArch. I updated the emulators page to push RetroArch as the top emulator to replace standalone emulators for 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit gaming systems. The animated GIF to the right is an example of RetroArch's PS1 emulation correcting the jittery of 3D animation vs normal PSX.
  • The most important highlight of RetroArch I need to point out is that it's required to use for emulation of Sega CD/Mega CD and TurboGrafx-CD/PC Engine CD. Kega Fusion and Gens don't fully support the new format people are ripping games. All of this is explained in the RetroArch tutorial.
  • For my tutorial for the Android version of RetroArch, I re-wrote sections for emulating Sega CD, emulating PlayStation 1, and loading cheats.
• To the Anime Video Archive I added a new movie: Arion! It's an excellent 80s anime classic following a story of a hero based on greek mythology. I also updated every anime page to include release information so that you know the year everything came out and who made it.
• For Final Fantasy 6, the ROM hacks for Brave New World and Ted Woolsey Uncensored Edition were updated. I also redesigned the Downloads page to follow my new design standard of organizing things better and showing a thumbnail screenshot.
• For Revelations: The Demon Slayer, I expanded the Downloads page to include fan translations for Last Bible II (Game Boy), Last Bible (Game Gear), Last Bible Special (Game Gear), and Last Bible III (SNES).
• For the emulators page, I've removed the downloads for emulators that are currently in active development. Rather, I'm linking to their website instead to download the latest version. Keeping these emulator downloads constantly up-to-date has been an annoying task that I don't want to do anymore. In the 'Other' page, I organized it better to highlight the best options for iOS, Mac, and Chromebooks.

• The shrine for Shining Force: Final Conflict (Game Gear) has been revamped with the “Shrines 2.0” format. It's mobile-friendly, organized better, and overall more pretty. Added in the update are new pages which the previous shrine didn't have: walkthrough, music, wallpapers, and videos. The soundtrack is available in multiple formats.
• To Shining Force 1, added the exciting new ROM hack: Shining Force Alternate. It offers a whole new experience for Shining Force! Firstly, take a look at these preview screenshots. There are many tweaks to the gameplay, story, dialogue, and spells. You'll notice new features in the animated battle sequences: battle backgrounds from Shining Force CD, new sprites for enemies and Force members, and new weapon designs. There are new spell effects for staffs and spell users such as the iconic Blast from Shining in the Darkness! New abilities and ranges for most non-magic users; even enemies use these. Force members have more presence/dialogue in select scenes. All icons have been updated. And more!
• The following hacks were updated with bug fixes & improvements: Sailor Moon RPG English Translation and Final Fantasy IV: Namingway Edition.
• What I'm working on now: The revamped Final Fantasy 7 shrine is currently 60% complete. I'm also working on adding new anime to the Anime Video Archive.

• To Seiken Densetsu 3, I added the download for Trials of Mana. Trials of Mana is the localized version of Seiken Densetsu 3, recently released for the Nintendo Switch as a part of the Collection of Mana. We've been enjoying the fan based English translation for nearly two decades (it was released in 2000)--now we can experience an official translation of the game!
  Edit: Sorry, no more Trials of Mana ROMs. Square Enix made me take them down in Dec '21.
• Sailor Moon RPG recently received an improved & massively overhauled retranslation. A bunch of people got together and took it upon themselves to perfect Bishoujo Senshi Translations' original translation. They fixed some bugs in the game as well. The language throughout my shrine has been updated to accomodate for the new changes in this improvement translation.
• To Final Fantasy 4, I updated the Project II and Namingway Edition hacks. The updates consist of fixes and improvements.
• To Final Fantasy 5, I added a new spoof hack. I'm calling it the 'tasteful spoof' to avoid confusion with the 'dirty spoof' I already have there in the downloads page.

• To the Anime Video Archive I've upgraded the following anime from DVD quality to Bluray quality: Demon City Shinjuku, Wicked City, Robot Carnival, and Neo Tokyo. Also, I found better quality versions of Twilight of the Dark Master and the Fire Emblem OVA (subtitled versions only).
• To Video Game Emulation for Newbies I've added a tutorial for Dolphin, the #1 emulator for Nintendo GameCube and Wii. Also, I corrected the Chromebook portion of the Android emulation tutorial: yes, it is possible to use gamepads with video game emulators on a Chromebook.
• The emulators page received the usual round of updates, keeping every video game emulator download up-to-date.
  • One change to note: the best arcade emulator for Android, FinalBurn Alpha, was removed from the Play Store for some reason. I offer the last APK for download. However, the only way to play the latest build of it is with RetroArch.
• The Final Fantasy IV Namingway hack has been updated. This hack is the highest quality retranslation of Final Fantasy IV (SNES).
• And yes, slowly but surely I'm still working on the Shrines 2.0 project to revamp the old shrines. As each day goes by, Google continues to punish me by reducing the audience to FantasyAnime. The shrines gotta be revamped to keep up with modern web standards.