[Dark Age Iron Savior]

I wonder if Japanese roguelike fans are as frustrated with the sheer number of (relatively) inaccessible English computer roguelikes (as seen on sites like Roguebasin as we often are by the numerous untranslated Japanese releases for consoles and handhelds (and mobile platforms, for a while now). Probably. There's always been foreign fans of the more hardcore titles in the genre, and I know most of the major "canon" titles have gotten Japanese releases/localizations in some form, largely due to the open-source nature of many projects. ASCII even got away with selling their own apparently tweaked version of Nethack for the PC-98 by packaging it with a hefty guidebook (which was the actual thing you were buying). And of course, there's the dream/nightmare that is Elona...

Speaking of Japanese-only, light-weight and commercial, someone has started a project to translate the Sakura Taisen game for DS, which is a Shiren-alike by Neverland (who also co-developed Shiren Gaiden) with a heavy focus on party-based combat (which I guess isn't quite as interesting after all those Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles). Who knows if anything will come of that, though. The script for Milandra has apparently been done and insertable for years....

Like the situations in the games themselves, the discussion of roguelikes just requires the right thinking, approach and utilization of resources. But actually pulling it off can be quite tricky.