Well, slather me in oil and send me down a hill. A Chō Aniki has finally received a fan translation. This one is for the Super Famicom’s Chō Aniki: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen, which the team of muscle fanatics has translated to Chō Aniki: Buff Battle Ballad.
If you’re not already savvy, the Chō Aniki series is a collection of wonderful kusoge (crap games). Each game is a ridiculous celebration of absurd body-building physique and normally comes packed with bizarre homoeroticism. The first game was released on the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² System in 1992. A typical Chō Aniki is a horizontal scrolling shoot-’em-up, but the series has long dabbled with other genres. Chō Aniki: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen is a 1995 Super Famicom fighting game.
The series hasn’t been strictly exclusive to Japan. Cho Aniki Zero was released over here on PSP. Meanwhile, the PlayStation version of Chō Aniki: Kyuukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyou Otoko was ported to PS3 and PSP via the PSOne Classic lineup, but they were provided as-is. That is to say, they were not translated. However, they weren’t especially difficult to figure out for Anglophones.
For that matter, Chō Aniki: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen wasn’t impossible to play for those who don’t know Japanese. However, it is nice to see it finally get a full translation, even if it’s not official. Considering how notorious the whole series is, it’s very surprising to me that this is the first time the series has seen a fan translation. Yet, that statement was made on the mod’s page, so I fact-checked it and found it to be true. Weird.
The Chō Aniki: Buff Battle Ballad comes to us from modders Pennywise, Ryusui, and FlashPV. The patch can be found right over here.