A full English fan translation of Tomodachi Collection (友達コレクション / CCUJ),
the 2009 Japan-only Nintendo DS game that Tomodachi Life grew out of. It was never
released in English. This project translates every readable string in the game so
you can play the whole thing in English.
It is built on top of — and extends — jjjewel's unfinished Rev 0.80 community patch. This release finishes the job: the news, quizzes, song UI, and the remaining dialogue that earlier patches left in Japanese.
⚠️ This repository contains a patch, not a game. There is no ROM here and there never will be. You apply the patch to your own legally-dumped copy of the Japanese cartridge. See How to apply.
- All 26,405 text entries across the game's 22 message archives: menus, Mii creation, profile screens, apartment and room interactions, the dynamic Mii dialogue for all five personality types, problems/requests, shop and item names, jobs, compatibility tests, every Mii News article, song titles and the music UI, explanations, system messages, and the staff credits.
- jjjewel Rev 0.80's redrawn graphics (menus, map-sign captions, list buttons, keyboard tabs, fonts) are included unchanged.
- New beyond Rev 0.80: ~840 additional translated strings (the news/quiz/song/dialogue remainder), romaji labels on the name-index jump buttons (a, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, ra, wa), and an English banner title in the DS/DSi system menu.
- The kana keyboard pages. There is a full English QWERTY "A" tab with letters, numbers, and symbols — pick it once and the game remembers it. The kana pages stay because names typed in kana are what your Miis can speak; their layout is generated by game code and can't be safely relabeled.
- Voice-synthesizer text and song lyrics — that text is the audio the Miis sing and speak. Translating it would break the voices. Enjoy the J-pop.
- A few decorative logo/sign graphics — each already carries an English caption.
You need your own clean dump of the Japanese cartridge. The patch only works on the exact right ROM:
| Game | Tomodachi Collection (Japan), game code CCUJ, version 1.1 |
| Size | 64 MB (67,108,864 bytes) |
| Source MD5 | 7AB6ACD97168F6D70E953A9C8057337C |
Apply the patch (Tomodachi_Collection_EN_v1.0.xdelta) with any xdelta3 tool:
- GUI (easiest): Delta Patcher — pick the
clean ROM as "Original file," pick the
.xdeltaas "XDelta patch," click Apply patch. - Command line:
xdelta3 -d -s "Tomodachi Collection (Japan).nds" Tomodachi_Collection_EN_v1.0.xdelta Tomodachi_Collection_EN_v1.0.nds
Verify your result — the patched file should be ~56.9 MB with
MD5 BB0B1D0C6E3FCF427037B1F9CC16E3DE. If it matches, you did it right.
Full step-by-step (with screenshots-worthy detail): docs/HOW_TO_APPLY.md. Playing it on a real DSi/3DS (and the anti-piracy gotcha): docs/PLAY_ON_HARDWARE.md.
Tomodachi_Collection_EN_v1.0.xdelta
size 1,522,616 bytes
SHA-256 AEBE0C293111CAFB0ABC0F920B139D87A89DF20D97B6F74C04531A9567183291
This is a standard Nintendo DS game (not DSi-exclusive), so the English version runs on every DS-family system — the same hardware the original Japanese cartridge runs on:
- Nintendo DS / DS Lite
- Nintendo DSi / DSi XL
- Nintendo 2DS / 3DS / 3DS XL / New 3DS / New 2DS
What changes per system is how you load it, not the patch:
| Your console | How to run it |
|---|---|
| DSi / DSi XL / 2DS / 3DS / New 3DS | SD card via TWiLightMenu++ + nds-bootstrap v2.16.0+ (handles the anti-piracy automatically — see docs/PLAY_ON_HARDWARE.md) |
| DS / DS Lite | A slot-1 flashcart (R4 and similar) with a current kernel |
| Real CCUJ cartridge | Reflash/play per your cart's tools — works on any model |
The only model-independent gotcha is the game's DS Protect anti-piracy: it's satisfied by your loader, not your console. An out-of-date loader causes the "crash after naming your island" on any system — keep your flashcart/TWiLightMenu current.
Works on a flashcart or on a DSi/3DS via TWiLightMenu++ with nds-bootstrap v2.16.0 or newer. Tomodachi Collection uses the DS Protect anti-piracy library and will deliberately crash right after you name your island if your loader is out of date — current nds-bootstrap applies the anti-piracy fix automatically. Details and troubleshooting in docs/PLAY_ON_HARDWARE.md.
This was a labor of love, shared for free. If it brought a game you couldn't play into a language you can, here's how to help — no money involved, ever:
- Star this repo. It's the single biggest thing you can do — it helps other fans find it.
- Spread the word. Link it on GBATemp, r/tomodachi, Discord servers, wherever DS fans are.
- Report rough spots. ~200 strings are auto-assembled sentence fragments that may read a little stiff. Open an Issue with a screenshot and a better phrasing and I'll fold it into the next version.
- Translate the docs into your language so more people can play.
That's it. Stars and shares keep this alive and findable. 🫶
- jjjewel — the original Rev 0.80 English translation (menus, Mii creation, shop, fonts, redrawn graphics). This project would not exist without that foundation. Thank you.
- CarlosA49 — this extended v1.0 release: the remaining ~840 translations, romaji index tabs, English banner, hardware/anti-piracy testing, and packaging.
- The extraction/insertion toolchain and the bulk of the remaining-string translation were AI-assisted (Anthropic's Claude), then reviewed and assembled for this release.
- RocketRobz, ahezard, and the DS-Homebrew team — TWiLightMenu++ and nds-bootstrap, which make this playable on real consoles.
Tomodachi Collection © 2009 Nintendo. This project is an unofficial, non-commercial fan translation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo. See DISCLAIMER.md.