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Spinner 8
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phantasy star 1j
Post Posted: Mon Aug 16, 1999 8:46 pm
who was it that was working on that game? I wanted to give it a shot myself, actually :)
 
Nyef
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 17, 1999 1:29 am
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> who was it that was working on that game? I wanted to give it a shot myself, actually :)
I don't know. I was thinking of trying my hand at it myself.
--Nyef
 
  • Joined: 29 Jun 1999
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I _was_ working a a translation, but... *text*
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 4:59 am
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> who was it that was working on that game? I wanted to give it a shot myself, actually :)

I started working on a translation a few months ago. Everything was going fine: I was able to dump the script and all that. Then everything collapsed when I got to the graphics hacking. All of the 1bpp graphics are compressed, and even though I figured out the compression scheme, I still can't change the font without corrupting everything. I can think of only two ways to go about figuring it out: 1) Searching all of the graphics for patterns and using trial and error to get it right; 2) Disassembling the ROM and finding the compression scheme that way.

If anybody wants a font table, or some info on the compression scheme, just let me know. I think Johannes Holmberg was going to incorporate it into the next version of Massacre, but we'll see how that goes.

Paul


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  • Joined: 24 Jun 1999
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Re: I _was_ working a a translation, but... *text*
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 6:52 am
It would be nice if you could release all your infos here. Or you can make a single ZIP file with everything, send it to me, and I'll put it online on the site.

Disassembling the ROM will be needed for the reason there is probably not enough text space to replace the Japanese text by the accurate English one.
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Nyef
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Re: I _was_ working a a translation, but... *text*
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 1:56 pm
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> It would be nice if you could release all your infos here. Or you can make a single ZIP file with everything, send it to me, and I'll put it online on the site.

Hrm... I have a partial disassembly of the US version. Would you be interested in that as well?

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> Disassembling the ROM will be needed for the reason there is probably not enough text space to replace the Japanese text by the accurate English one.

I think you're going about it backwards. I'd try to put the japanese music code in the US rom, not the other way around.

The problem is that the US and Japanese roms have slightly different code in the first two banks. It could just be an 8-byte shift, but it should be checked. Most of the rest of the ROM is the same (with exceptions of banks 0x03, 0x0c and a small area much later in the rom, probably the font).

--Nyef
 
  • Joined: 29 Jun 1999
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but...
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 3:03 pm
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> > Disassembling the ROM will be needed for the reason there is probably not enough text space to replace the Japanese text by the accurate English one.

> I think you're going about it backwards. I'd try to put the japanese music code in the US rom, not the other way around.

But you cant use the fm music from the japanese version, because
the us one doesnt know what to do with fm music!
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Nyef
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Re: but...
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 3:26 pm
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> > I think you're going about it backwards. I'd try to put the japanese music code in the US rom, not the other way around.

> But you cant use the fm music from the japanese version, because
> the us one doesnt know what to do with fm music!

That's why you would use the japanese music code. It, by definition, knows how to do FM music. And in case you're wondering, the japanese version does degrade gracefully when on a non-FM system, so I don't think the sound interface will have changed that much.

--Nyef
 
Johannes Holmberg
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Re: I _was_ working a a translation, but... *text*
Post Posted: Wed Aug 18, 1999 10:07 pm

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> If anybody wants a font table, or some info on the compression scheme, just let me know. I think Johannes Holmberg was going to incorporate it into the next version of Massacre, but we'll see how that goes.

Yeah, I'll try to have some sort of support for it, but the release is still many months away... :(

/Johannes
 
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the translation sucked though.. a retranslation would be nice.. nt
Post Posted: Thu Aug 19, 1999 2:26 am
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> > It would be nice if you could release all your infos here. Or you can make a single ZIP file with everything, send it to me, and I'll put it online on the site.

> Hrm... I have a partial disassembly of the US version. Would you be interested in that as well?

> > Disassembling the ROM will be needed for the reason there is probably not enough text space to replace the Japanese text by the accurate English one.

> I think you're going about it backwards. I'd try to put the japanese music code in the US rom, not the other way around.

> The problem is that the US and Japanese roms have slightly different code in the first two banks. It could just be an 8-byte shift, but it should be checked. Most of the rest of the ROM is the same (with exceptions of banks 0x03, 0x0c and a small area much later in the rom, probably the font).

> --Nyef
 
Nyef
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What sucked about it?
Post Posted: Thu Aug 19, 1999 1:18 pm
Seriously, given the limitations they were working in, the translation was fairly good.

All the game text had to be packed into a very small space (the compression could be improved, I suppose, but the decompression routine would have to fit in a small space, too)

They only had enough room for either upper or lowercase but not both (video memory limitation).

Admittedly, they could use a bitmapped text window, I believe they have the vram space for that, but it would require some nasty tricks to pull off, and they might not have the RAM for it (the same argument applies for adding lowercase letters, it's a complex problem).

The somewhat ideosyncratic grammar and spelling only add to the game's charm.

I think it all comes down to how much extra space is available in both RAM and ROM.

So, what needs improving with the existing translation?

--Nyef
 
Spinner 8
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oh
Post Posted: Thu Aug 19, 1999 4:18 pm
my head hurts :(
 
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