Sometimes video game companies just don’t listen to what fans want. It’s understandable. Publishers are focused on making money and working on games that will give them some kind of guaranteed return, and that often means games that people desperately want don’t get picked up for worldwide releases because financial success isn’t guaranteed.

That’s when fans step up, and get to work on fan translations. Ordinary people who happen to be fluent in Japanese, or know a bit about hacking, take on the task of preparing games for an English speaking audience. While actually getting to play the fan translations may be a questionable act (Piracy is very, very bad. Support your developers and publishers.), there are some situations where it is the only way to play a game that will never, ever see a worldwide release.

This week in Important Importables, we’re looking at some particularly notable fan translations that have either been completed, or are currently being worked on. Most of the headers below also double as links to the translation project or translation group’s pages, so you can read more about their endeavors…

There’s good news for fans of otome games, dating sims for girls, that don’t speak Japanese. A group of devoted Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus fans are working on an English, fan translation of the DS game. Since it seems like Konami will never release the Tokimeki Memorial games outside of Japan, this is fantastic news!

The Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus fan translation is being worked on right now by translators named Jewel, Miruki and Elaine, with Jewel heading up most of the translation work on the project. It seems to be going quite well, as the official website already has some translated screenshots uploaded, like the one at the right, and has a Translation Progress that is constantly being updated with the project’s status.

There haven’t been any Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus English patches released yet. However…