As discussed here, due to the lack of officially localized games, Chinese-speaking gaming groups often translate and then release games themselves. This is a copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap that was localized into Chinese (漢化 Hànhuà ‘Chinese-ified’) and released in Taiwan.
There are two types of Chinese characters – Simplified, which are used in China, and Traditional, which are used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The box for this game is written in Traditional Chinese as it was sold in Taiwan, but the in-game language is actually Simplified Chinese – probably as the Rom hacking group that translated it where from China.
All of the in-game text has been translated to Chinese:
Since there wasn’t an official release of The Minish Cap anywhere in this region, the Chinese name of the game can vary. On the box it’s called 米你帽 which means ‘mini hat’, but the in-game title screen says 縮小帽 ‘Shrinking Hat’. I’ve also seen Minish Cap referred to as 不可思議的帽子 ‘The incredible hat’ and 神奇帽 ‘Magical Hat’.
The print quality of the manual is really low. It’s blurry and difficult to read. I’m not sure I’d call it a manual, either. It’s more a collection of hints about when and where to use particular items.
Here’s the full set together – box, manual and cart.
As I mentioned in this post about Chinese Language Bootlegs, the loose carts of these ROM hacks are quite common, but it’s rare to find a CIB version like this. Being a Chinese-learning Zelda fan this was perfect for me.
