Bummed that Nintendo has no plans to localize Fatal Frame 4 (Japanese title: Zero: Gesshoku no Kamen) for a US or Europe release? Be bummed no longer.

A team of translators and developers have released a fan translation patch that allows English-speaking Wii owners to play Tecmo‘s and Grasshopper Manufacture‘s critically acclaimed horror game in their own language.

What’s particularly impressive about this fan translation is that it can patch a retail copy of the game on the fly, meaning that Wii owners will not need to “softmod” their systems or venture into legal “gray areas” to play the game with English language text.

To play Fatal Frame 4 in English, you’ll need to purchase Zero: Gesshoku no Kamen from Play-Asia or another retailer, download the fan translation patch, and install the patch according to instructions available on the translation developers’ site.

Aside from being great news for English-speaking fans of the Fatal Frame series, this patch opens a host of new possibilities for fan translations. With a 100% legal method of translating in-game Japanese text to English, other popular Japan-only Wii releases could receive their own fan translations.