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So after mumble-mumble years I've been looking at the Phantasy Star retranslation and spent a bunch of time understanding a lot more about it in order to fix some of the little bugs that were left over. 108 commits later, I think it's ready for some testing.

Builds are here: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/maxim-zhao/psrp/build/artifacts - please give feedback in this thread and/or raise GitHub issues at https://github.com/maxim-zhao/psrp/issues .

Maybe a changelog would be helpful to know what to be looking for ?

The GitHub readme says:

"
v1.03 released 2019/??/??
rebuilt tools and assembly process
fixed issue with 10-letter item names in inventory (#2)
fixed bug with pluralisation (#4)
"
But as per the other threads it seems missing sentences were fixed to?

You're right, I didn't update that yet. Unfortunately due to the nature of the change it really needs to have people play through and see every item, monster, dialogue branch...

Readme is now updated.

Quote

- v1.03 released 2019/??/??
- rebuilt tools and assembly process
- fixed issue with 10-letter item names in inventory (#2)
- fixed bug with pluralisation (#5)
- fixed missing script in Aerocastle Gardens (#3)
- fixed screen corruption when closing menus (#1)
- optimised space usage to make it easier for further translations (or script improvements) to fit without expanding the ROM
- fixed naming inconsistencies in the script, e.g. Dezoris/Dezolis, Roadpass/roadpass/road pass

New update: I allocated some more space for the main text window, to make it easier to read. I also put in a new font and thinned down the box drawing characters - feedback is welcome.

There's about 150 bytes left to allow me to enlarge other windows, so I'm wondering which ones can benefit from this the most, any suggestions?

I may also see if I can allocate more space for the savegame names - but that will be incompatible with existing saves, and it's a shame to break those... but I could write some code to convert them...

ps1jert-14.png (3.93 KB)

...I'm working on expanding the places where there’s a 10 character width limit (inventory, equipped items, shops, enemy names) as much as possible. It’s so much better to have “PelorieMate” than “Pelorie- Mate”... I think the benefit there is more than in widening the spells menu, for example.

For other languages there may be some trade-offs to allow longer words in other places. I’m interested to hear from people working on translations.

Here's how it looks with wider item names... almost nothing wraps now, so it's tempting to remove the blank lines between items too...

ps1jert-17.png (5.19 KB)

ps1jert-21.png (4.2 KB)

I always encourage people to improve their works where you can see love and pation on it. And as I always a d**c about doing the things right (including with myself), I saw what are you doing and I must to say: Excellent job, Maxim!! Even with all what was done to make this work superb, you still get some time to revise what was done to see if can be even better. Get extra spaces to put more characters in the same line on old games requires a lot of trial and error work, tricks, and dedication, even more if you consider this hack already extended the number of characters over the original ROM (I would love to see the other classic Phantasy Star games could receive the same love treatment of this ROM hack as well).

By the way, it's possible to put the whole word "Meseta" in the money line, instead of the abbreviation "MST", or there's some technical problem?

Another thing: There's some tool available who allows any user with no hacking experience to extract / replace the text of this ROM hack, making the translation to other languages (who uses roman letters) of this re-translation easy and possible to anyone (including with accents and other special characters)?

To show “meseta” would require widening the player status window. This is in a high pressure situation (lots of windows open) so it may be tricky. In other places it may be possible.

I’m interested in further translation. There are some notes in the readme about this. There is stuff in the code that is specific to the English language, so it may be hard to get “good grammar” without some code help. There is an existing French translation which I’d like to see the source for.

Because of the tools used, and the changes I’ve made to the build process, you do need a C++ compiler (well, VC++ really as it’s using NMake) to compile - but after that you really can just edit a txt file and see the results.

I spoke too soon - Meseta is now there instead of MST. I also found a bug with dungeon pitfalls.

Maxim wrote

I spoke too soon - Meseta is now there instead of MST. I also found a bug with dungeon pitfalls.

Super cool, Maxim!! Thanks for your hard work!! :D

Can I tweak the English script? I'm still proud of this project and would be really happy to revisit it with you.

Absolutely! The script is all here - in much improved form, for a start it’s somewhat in order and heavily commented with Japanese and original translations for reference:

https://github.com/maxim-zhao/psrp/blob/master/psrp/script.txt

If you do the GitHub thing then you’re welcome to have at it in there too and get your name on the commits and get CI builds of the patches for testing.

Hi Maxim, here are the sources from the French translation.

PhantasyStar FR.zip (3.12 MB)

So today I learned that “psycho wand” in French is “baguette psycho”...

... and that item names are much longer in French. Nevertheless, it’ll be useful for me to see how it fits in the current structure, especially as I’m increasing all the item name limits.

Text & files in "textes_fr" directory are old/first pass files.
Good files are directly in original/good directories.
Last (good) files are from ~ august or september 2012. (date of the release)

PS. "psycho wand" has be translated into "Sceptre Psycho"

Attached French IPS file.
Regards

phantasys_msf.zip (3.49 MB)

Phantasy Star FR IPS patch (+ manual and guide)

Well, I rearranged all the files to be more logically laid out - which means a big task to migrate the text, since I reordered it to be in “game order”... I also plan to replace the accented character placeholders with accented characters, to prove a point...

Very nice !
If you need some indications on our translation, do not hesitate.

Well, the hacks keep coming...

ps1jert-24.png (5.09 KB)

Wider, more compact windows!

ps1jert-25.png (3.85 KB)

No more wrapping of item names!

ps1jert-23.png (8.35 KB)

Longer save game slot names!

Very clean and impressive, Maxim !
Old passwords continue to work ?

PS. The only things you could add is maybe a VWF font
(i'm interested in a code snippet/explanation for such a thing ^^)

Yes, old saves get converted automatically. There is space to make the save game names even longer - they are 11 letters here - and also to add two more save slots - the original game uses 1KB per slot, leaving the last 2KB empty.

I did do a very brief test of a variable width font some time ago ( http://www.smspower.org/forums/13279-ProportionalVariableWidthFontTextRoutine ) but there's really not enough space in video memory to add it to this game. Basically you store a 1bpp font in ROM along with a width table, and then draw one character at a time into a set of tiles. Each time you get to the end of the current tile you have to move to a fresh one. This means you need to reserve a lot of tiles - maybe a few hundred - and engineer the game such that there's never more text onscreen at once than you have tiles for. Since PS can fill the screen with status, and has only ~70 tiles for the font, it's not really achievable.

Perfect for the saves !

and thank you for the VWF thread link ^^

Impressive work!!!

So did anyone do any testing yet? :)

I've been doing some playing from the beginning over the last few days. I haven't noticed anything odd so far and I'm at the point in the game where I've gathered the entire party and got the space ship. I have been speeding through most of it though but I've been trying to read all text and look for any oddities. I'm not sure if I will have the time to finish the entire game but I will post if I notice anything.

But seems to be quality stuff so far.

Great - Frank is extending the text somewhat and it looks great so far. Grab a latest build to get more save slots with longer names. Double speed walking is almost done.

Maxim wrote

Yes, old saves get converted automatically. There is space to make the save game names even longer - they are 11 letters here - and also to add two more save slots - the original game uses 1KB per slot, leaving the last 2KB empty.

I did do a very brief test of a variable width font some time ago ( http://www.smspower.org/forums/13279-ProportionalVariableWidthFontTextRoutine ) but there's really not enough space in video memory to add it to this game. Basically you store a 1bpp font in ROM along with a width table, and then draw one character at a time into a set of tiles. Each time you get to the end of the current tile you have to move to a fresh one. This means you need to reserve a lot of tiles - maybe a few hundred - and engineer the game such that there's never more text onscreen at once than you have tiles for. Since PS can fill the screen with status, and has only ~70 tiles for the font, it's not really achievable.

Even if you were to limit VWF to certain parts like story text (much the same way in 16-bit era RPGs, story text was often given a different font than menus, especially so that Japanese RPGs could use big kanji text for dialogue while using small kana fonts for menus), 70 tiles is probably far too little for when you have to consider if other menus might appear on the screen at the same time which could need the normal tilemapped font. (and probably some delay to restore the tilemap font when the VWF font is done being used)

It's nice to see that this project is still going on! Let me know if you need any help on it.

KingMike wrote

VWF

This is almost what the Korean version does - it draws the 16x16 characters into video memory as it goes (almost). In order to do this it has to mess with the menu system to hide menus as soon as they are used, to free up the memory space, rather than have them cascade.

Paul Jensen wrote

It's nice to see that this project is still going on! Let me know if you need any help on it.

Can you do a quick pass on the story part of the manual and see if you'd translate it any differently today?

http://www.smspower.org/uploads/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-EN-manual/

Hey, there's a new menu option on the title screen! I'm starting to think this needs a bigger version number...

ps1jert-30.png (9.25 KB)

ps1jert-31.png (2.7 KB)

WOW!! A music test? I need a surprised emoji in this forum to show how I'm surprised... LOL

It's an amazing feature, Maxim. I would like to know somethings:

1) "Music" is a ok term, but is could be more interesting if this option could be called "Music Test" or "Jukebox". What do you think?

2) The menu shows the YM2413. So, if the YM2413 is not present, the PSG chip will be displayed, correct? So, I'm thinking if it's possible to add an option to let the player select the FM sound or the PSG sound to change the sound chip in-game, but only if the YM4213 is present at the system (if the chip is not present, the option will not be displayed). But I don't know if such option could be better to be at the menu the player access during the game, or at the new Music option at the main menu (if the last one could be the case, this menu can even be called "Sound Option", once it will become a "not only for music" option). What do you think about this suggestion?

3) I know all Phantasy Star's musics are available everywhere, even even at MUSIC SECTION, and it's looks no sense to not have this option in the game by default, but it could be more "natural" for the game if this music option could be "enabled" using a "finish the game first" flag? I don't telling "do it"... I'm just asking what you (or even other members) think about it (keeping it as an already enabled option is alright for me). Just think as if the team is making this translation of the game's debut release in western market from that time, and you think you could add this feature as a secret bonus for dedicated players.

4) Thinking about "add a flag to enable the music option", how about add a "Clear All Data" function. This feature can be called by pressing (or holding for about 2 seconds) the PAUSE button at the main menu. Of course, like every "Clear All Data" option/code, it must have about two or three messages warning "All the data will be deleted and can't be restored" and asking "Are you sure?" to the player before clear the data for sure.

5) I'm just thinking: After all this translation work, the game still fit into a 4 Mega ROM, or the translation already surpassed this size?

I didn’t want to add an SFX test so I renamed it from “sound test” to “music” already. I think it’s the best name for it at the moment.

The top menu item already lets you change the chip. On a system without FM it will just be silent. It always detects is there is an FM chip and enables it by default.

The track names are slightly spoiling the story I suppose, but how else to title those? Detecting a completed game is not easy.

I’m already planning to improve the save game management. I don’t think a delete all command is useful though.

It’s still fitting in the original game’s 512KB size to make ROM hacks simpler. It’s also compatible with saves from other versions of the game.

Maxim wrote

I didn’t want to add an SFX test so I renamed it from “sound test” to “music” already. I think it’s the best name for it at the moment.

I agree about the "Sound Test with just Musics but no Sounds" thing. That's why I suggested "Music Test", "Jukebox" or "Sound Options" (Sound Options can have both music test and Sound Chip select options). :-)

Maxim wrote

The top menu item already lets you change the chip. On a system without FM it will just be silent. It always detects is there is an FM chip and enables it by default.

But there's anything to make the game check the presence of the FM chip, or is it not possible?

I mean, if there's some way to make the game check the presence of the FM chip, and the game check there's no FM chip present, the Sound Chip selection can be stuck into the PSG option, or even not display the Sound Chip selection option at all.

Maxim wrote

The track names are slightly spoiling the story I suppose, but how else to title those? Detecting a completed game is not easy.

I think a flag who can be marked after the ending/credits are triggered for the first time can be enough, but I'm a noob, so this idea can not be a simple task to be added as this suggestion make it look. =/

Maxim wrote

I’m already planning to improve the save game management. I don’t think a delete all command is useful though.

The "Clear All Data" suggestion is to clear all the save data, including the "Music Test" if such flag could be added. Plus, there's no option to clear slots in the original game. But once you are working to improve the save game management, I just think the game will receive both Copy and Delete file options in a future patch update.

Maxim wrote

It’s still fitting in the original game’s 512KB size to make ROM hacks simpler. It’s also compatible with saves from other versions of the game.

It's nice to know. Thanks for the info. ^_^

I might just call it “sound”. There is FM chip detection - but the game uses the same flag for “has FM” and “use FM”. I’d need to add another flag - but it’s definitely doable.

The original does let you delete saves - go to Continue, then answer “no” to “do you want to continue” and then it asks “do you want to delete a saved game”. I plan to change this to a menu with “continue” and “save” options.

The issue with a “game completed” flag is that it’s hiding the sound test away until you do something quite extreme - maybe nicer to instead enable songs when you hear them... but then it’s still a lot less straightforward than a sound test with no conditions.

I think a music test with no condition is a much nicer thing.

It's not like we're sitting here trying to avoid spoling track names of Phantasy Star in 2019, and not all of us are going to have the time and logistic to clear the game and maintain a working save.

The titles and ordering come from the VGM pack. I’m pretty sure they are a bit weird - Cave instead of Dungeon, Final Dungeon before Village. I will probably reorder them myself but I’d welcome some else’s suggestion since I spend way more time hacking the game than playing it.

So technically we have space in VRAM to show menus over the title screen... so we can avoid all that blackness. The same should be possible for the other options.

ps1jert-32.png (6.03 KB)

Intrigued with the amazing looking expanded text boxes, lack of word-wrapping, save-game compatibility and music gallery etc I had to try the latest build and was very impressed. Thank you for taking the time to improve this amazing patch.

I did however notice what looks like some tile corruption in one of the menu screens; specifically during a battle sequence affecting the bottom strip of Alisa's Magic Skill menu.

I should point out that I had taken the liberty of applying the Quad XP & Quad Meseta patches allowing my party to rocket through leveling up (Alisa had access to a lot of Magic Skills she probably would never have had so early in the game). I don't know whether these additional patches might somehow be contributors to the menu graphic corruption but, here we are. I should probably test how the save file is interpreted by a non XP & Meseta-boosted patched ROM, now they it comes to mind.

I’m aware of that and working on it. The goal is to integrate those hacks into an options menu. The save file will work on an unpatched game but the names will be messed up and only slots 1-5 accessible - the change there is not backwards compatible.

Now there's an Options menu! Meseta and experience boosts are built in - the stats patch will multiply these again, so take care. Menu glitches should all be fixed.

ps1jert-34.png (9.23 KB)

Oh my this is going to be the bestest version of Phantasy Star... good work Maxim on those menus, and thanks Frank, Paul etc for reworking the translation.

What I lost these days... It's incredible. Amazing work, Maxim!! =O

I'll try to take a look at this hack with these changes if my free time allows me to do it. =)

This is truly great work. The dream Phantasy Star patch.

No issues to report with the latest version and what an awesome thing it is to have the suite of quality-of-life mods available to toggle.

Title screen menus are all done...

ps1jert-37.png (6.49 KB)

Continue menu

ps1jert-36.png (5.94 KB)

Music test with chip select

ps1jert-35.png (9.33 KB)

Options menu

The names of the saves... LOL

It's strange to see all these menus covering the title screen, but I can get used to it. What the future will reserve for a 3.0 patch? Dedicated Load / Sound / Options screens featuring some NPCs of the game, like Dr. Luveno or Hapsby? I'll die to see Suelo featuring the Sound option screen (and yes, I'm a Suelo fan. Judge me!!).

What will be the next thing? Add a map to the dungeons? In-game walk speed control when a button is held? I'm still interested to see the “has FM” / “use FM” flag separated.

That flag separation is done, systems with FM will default to it but let you switch back to PSG, systems without FM will default to PSG and not let you switch.

Dungeon maps would be crazy hard, there’s nowhere to draw it :)

It might be cool to have an in-game “hub world” instead of menus but it doesn’t make much sense really and the game itself is so menu heavy...

One thing I would love to address is the representation of groups of enemies. That would mean replacing much of the battle scenes to depict multiple enemies attacking and dying separately. Doing that with the existing graphics will be very hard...

Was kind of wondering if we were going to get some kind of crazy wizardry to grant us a backport of the Switch Sega Ages version at this point. :)

Maxim wrote

That flag separation is done, systems with FM will default to it but let you switch back to PSG, systems without FM will default to PSG and not let you switch.

In times like that I miss the use of some emojis to express myself in this forum (what makes sense if the intention is to make the forum have a cleaner visual).

So, take my emoticon: XD

Maxim wrote

Dungeon maps would be crazy hard, there’s nowhere to draw it :)

A command to call a map into a new screen could be ideal, but it will be a little annoying to call everytime the player want to see it if compared with the Switch's SEGA AGES version of the game, who offers a map off the emulated game's screen, making use of the extra space of the whole game's screen. But a work to offer a map in-game will be amazing... if possible for the SMS's limits, of course. But there's the work to create new graphics to do it and etc... Next time... Maybe...

Maxim wrote

One thing I would love to address is the representation of groups of enemies. That would mean replacing much of the battle scenes to depict multiple enemies attacking and dying separately. Doing that with the existing graphics will be very hard...

I would love to see it too, but it with a single enemy on screen is a difficult task already (waiting someone to say "Challenge Accepted").

Just no note, Rieko Kodama had difficulties to animate the zombie's vomit attack...

I get garbage on the screen and the game crashes when pressing PAUSE, is this a known bug? I'm using the latest patch and retroarch. It happens in the world map or inside a dungeon (haven't tried elsewhere).

Author	Message
Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Phantasy Star retranslation update beta test Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:33 pm
	So after mumble-mumble years I've been looking at the Phantasy Star retranslation and spent a bunch of time understanding a lot more about it in order to fix some of the little bugs that were left over. 108 commits later, I think it's ready for some testing. Builds are here: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/maxim-zhao/psrp/build/artifacts - please give feedback in this thread and/or raise GitHub issues at https://github.com/maxim-zhao/psrp/issues .

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8610 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:55 pm
	Maybe a changelog would be helpful to know what to be looking for ? The GitHub readme says: " v1.03 released 2019/??/?? rebuilt tools and assembly process fixed issue with 10-letter item names in inventory (#2) fixed bug with pluralisation (#4) " But as per the other threads it seems missing sentences were fixed to?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2019 3:09 pm
	You're right, I didn't update that yet. Unfortunately due to the nature of the change it really needs to have people play through and see every item, monster, dialogue branch...

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:18 am
	Readme is now updated. Quote - v1.03 released 2019/??/?? - rebuilt tools and assembly process - fixed issue with 10-letter item names in inventory (#2) - fixed bug with pluralisation (#5) - fixed missing script in Aerocastle Gardens (#3) - fixed screen corruption when closing menus (#1) - optimised space usage to make it easier for further translations (or script improvements) to fit without expanding the ROM - fixed naming inconsistencies in the script, e.g. Dezoris/Dezolis, Roadpass/roadpass/road pass

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:04 pm
	New update: I allocated some more space for the main text window, to make it easier to read. I also put in a new font and thinned down the box drawing characters - feedback is welcome. There's about 150 bytes left to allow me to enlarge other windows, so I'm wondering which ones can benefit from this the most, any suggestions? I may also see if I can allocate more space for the savegame names - but that will be incompatible with existing saves, and it's a shame to break those... but I could write some code to convert them... ps1jert-14.png (3.93 KB)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 4:43 pm
	...I'm working on expanding the places where there’s a 10 character width limit (inventory, equipped items, shops, enemy names) as much as possible. It’s so much better to have “PelorieMate” than “Pelorie- Mate”... I think the benefit there is more than in widening the spells menu, for example. For other languages there may be some trade-offs to allow longer words in other places. I’m interested to hear from people working on translations.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 2:18 pm
	Here's how it looks with wider item names... almost nothing wraps now, so it's tempting to remove the blank lines between items too... ps1jert-17.png (5.19 KB) ps1jert-21.png (4.2 KB)

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 12:19 pm
	I always encourage people to improve their works where you can see love and pation on it. And as I always a d**c about doing the things right (including with myself), I saw what are you doing and I must to say: Excellent job, Maxim!! Even with all what was done to make this work superb, you still get some time to revise what was done to see if can be even better. Get extra spaces to put more characters in the same line on old games requires a lot of trial and error work, tricks, and dedication, even more if you consider this hack already extended the number of characters over the original ROM (I would love to see the other classic Phantasy Star games could receive the same love treatment of this ROM hack as well). By the way, it's possible to put the whole word "Meseta" in the money line, instead of the abbreviation "MST", or there's some technical problem? Another thing: There's some tool available who allows any user with no hacking experience to extract / replace the text of this ROM hack, making the translation to other languages (who uses roman letters) of this re-translation easy and possible to anyone (including with accents and other special characters)?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 7:20 pm
	To show “meseta” would require widening the player status window. This is in a high pressure situation (lots of windows open) so it may be tricky. In other places it may be possible. I’m interested in further translation. There are some notes in the readme about this. There is stuff in the code that is specific to the English language, so it may be hard to get “good grammar” without some code help. There is an existing French translation which I’d like to see the source for. Because of the tools used, and the changes I’ve made to the build process, you do need a C++ compiler (well, VC++ really as it’s using NMake) to compile - but after that you really can just edit a txt file and see the results.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:10 pm
	I spoke too soon - Meseta is now there instead of MST. I also found a bug with dungeon pitfalls.

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:05 pm
	Maxim wrote I spoke too soon - Meseta is now there instead of MST. I also found a bug with dungeon pitfalls. Super cool, Maxim!! Thanks for your hard work!! :D

TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:40 pm
TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Can I tweak the English script? I'm still proud of this project and would be really happy to revisit it with you.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:27 pm
	Absolutely! The script is all here - in much improved form, for a start it’s somewhat in order and heavily commented with Japanese and original translations for reference: https://github.com/maxim-zhao/psrp/blob/master/psrp/script.txt If you do the GitHub thing then you’re welcome to have at it in there too and get your name on the commits and get CI builds of the patches for testing.

ichigobankai Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 532 Location: Angers, France	Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 11:43 pm
	Hi Maxim, here are the sources from the French translation. PhantasyStar FR.zip (3.12 MB)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 9:18 am
	So today I learned that “psycho wand” in French is “baguette psycho”... ... and that item names are much longer in French. Nevertheless, it’ll be useful for me to see how it fits in the current structure, especially as I’m increasing all the item name limits.

ichigobankai Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 532 Location: Angers, France	Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 2:46 am
	Text & files in "textes_fr" directory are old/first pass files. Good files are directly in original/good directories. Last (good) files are from ~ august or september 2012. (date of the release) PS. "psycho wand" has be translated into "Sceptre Psycho" Attached French IPS file. Regards phantasys_msf.zip (3.49 MB) Phantasy Star FR IPS patch (+ manual and guide)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 6:47 am
	Well, I rearranged all the files to be more logically laid out - which means a big task to migrate the text, since I reordered it to be in “game order”... I also plan to replace the accented character placeholders with accented characters, to prove a point...

ichigobankai Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 532 Location: Angers, France	Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2019 8:46 am
	Very nice ! If you need some indications on our translation, do not hesitate.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 11:16 pm
	Well, the hacks keep coming... ps1jert-24.png (5.09 KB) Wider, more compact windows! ps1jert-25.png (3.85 KB) No more wrapping of item names! ps1jert-23.png (8.35 KB) Longer save game slot names!

ichigobankai Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 532 Location: Angers, France	Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:34 am
	Very clean and impressive, Maxim ! Old passwords continue to work ? PS. The only things you could add is maybe a VWF font (i'm interested in a code snippet/explanation for such a thing ^^)

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 7:58 am
	Yes, old saves get converted automatically. There is space to make the save game names even longer - they are 11 letters here - and also to add two more save slots - the original game uses 1KB per slot, leaving the last 2KB empty. I did do a very brief test of a variable width font some time ago ( http://www.smspower.org/forums/13279-ProportionalVariableWidthFontTextRoutine ) but there's really not enough space in video memory to add it to this game. Basically you store a 1bpp font in ROM along with a width table, and then draw one character at a time into a set of tiles. Each time you get to the end of the current tile you have to move to a fresh one. This means you need to reserve a lot of tiles - maybe a few hundred - and engineer the game such that there's never more text onscreen at once than you have tiles for. Since PS can fill the screen with status, and has only ~70 tiles for the font, it's not really achievable.

ichigobankai Joined: 04 Jul 2010 Posts: 532 Location: Angers, France	Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:19 am
	Perfect for the saves ! and thank you for the VWF thread link ^^

sverx Joined: 05 Sep 2013 Posts: 3593 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:04 am
	Impressive work!!!

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:05 pm
	So did anyone do any testing yet? :)

fx Joined: 09 Sep 2001 Posts: 236 Location: Umeå, Sweden	Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:38 pm
fx Joined: 09 Sep 2001 Posts: 236 Location: Umeå, Sweden	I've been doing some playing from the beginning over the last few days. I haven't noticed anything odd so far and I'm at the point in the game where I've gathered the entire party and got the space ship. I have been speeding through most of it though but I've been trying to read all text and look for any oddities. I'm not sure if I will have the time to finish the entire game but I will post if I notice anything. But seems to be quality stuff so far.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:56 pm
	Great - Frank is extending the text somewhat and it looks great so far. Grab a latest build to get more save slots with longer names. Double speed walking is almost done.

KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 502	Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2019 11:15 pm
KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 502	Maxim wrote Yes, old saves get converted automatically. There is space to make the save game names even longer - they are 11 letters here - and also to add two more save slots - the original game uses 1KB per slot, leaving the last 2KB empty. I did do a very brief test of a variable width font some time ago ( http://www.smspower.org/forums/13279-ProportionalVariableWidthFontTextRoutine ) but there's really not enough space in video memory to add it to this game. Basically you store a 1bpp font in ROM along with a width table, and then draw one character at a time into a set of tiles. Each time you get to the end of the current tile you have to move to a fresh one. This means you need to reserve a lot of tiles - maybe a few hundred - and engineer the game such that there's never more text onscreen at once than you have tiles for. Since PS can fill the screen with status, and has only ~70 tiles for the font, it's not really achievable. Even if you were to limit VWF to certain parts like story text (much the same way in 16-bit era RPGs, story text was often given a different font than menus, especially so that Japanese RPGs could use big kanji text for dialogue while using small kana fonts for menus), 70 tiles is probably far too little for when you have to consider if other menus might appear on the screen at the same time which could need the normal tilemapped font. (and probably some delay to restore the tilemap font when the VWF font is done being used)

Paul Jensen Joined: 29 Jun 1999 Posts: 254 Location: California, USA; Hiroshima, Japan	Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:04 am
	It's nice to see that this project is still going on! Let me know if you need any help on it.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 7:34 am
	KingMike wrote VWF This is almost what the Korean version does - it draws the 16x16 characters into video memory as it goes (almost). In order to do this it has to mess with the menu system to hide menus as soon as they are used, to free up the memory space, rather than have them cascade.

TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2019 7:53 pm
TheRedEye Joined: 20 Sep 2000 Posts: 149	Paul Jensen wrote It's nice to see that this project is still going on! Let me know if you need any help on it. Can you do a quick pass on the story part of the manual and see if you'd translate it any differently today? http://www.smspower.org/uploads/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-EN-manual/

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:09 am
	Hey, there's a new menu option on the title screen! I'm starting to think this needs a bigger version number... ps1jert-30.png (9.25 KB) ps1jert-31.png (2.7 KB)

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 1:27 pm
	WOW!! A music test? I need a surprised emoji in this forum to show how I'm surprised... LOL It's an amazing feature, Maxim. I would like to know somethings: 1) "Music" is a ok term, but is could be more interesting if this option could be called "Music Test" or "Jukebox". What do you think? 2) The menu shows the YM2413. So, if the YM2413 is not present, the PSG chip will be displayed, correct? So, I'm thinking if it's possible to add an option to let the player select the FM sound or the PSG sound to change the sound chip in-game, but only if the YM4213 is present at the system (if the chip is not present, the option will not be displayed). But I don't know if such option could be better to be at the menu the player access during the game, or at the new Music option at the main menu (if the last one could be the case, this menu can even be called "Sound Option", once it will become a "not only for music" option). What do you think about this suggestion? 3) I know all Phantasy Star's musics are available everywhere, even even at MUSIC SECTION, and it's looks no sense to not have this option in the game by default, but it could be more "natural" for the game if this music option could be "enabled" using a "finish the game first" flag? I don't telling "do it"... I'm just asking what you (or even other members) think about it (keeping it as an already enabled option is alright for me). Just think as if the team is making this translation of the game's debut release in western market from that time, and you think you could add this feature as a secret bonus for dedicated players. 4) Thinking about "add a flag to enable the music option", how about add a "Clear All Data" function. This feature can be called by pressing (or holding for about 2 seconds) the PAUSE button at the main menu. Of course, like every "Clear All Data" option/code, it must have about two or three messages warning "All the data will be deleted and can't be restored" and asking "Are you sure?" to the player before clear the data for sure. 5) I'm just thinking: After all this translation work, the game still fit into a 4 Mega ROM, or the translation already surpassed this size?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:51 pm
	I didn’t want to add an SFX test so I renamed it from “sound test” to “music” already. I think it’s the best name for it at the moment. The top menu item already lets you change the chip. On a system without FM it will just be silent. It always detects is there is an FM chip and enables it by default. The track names are slightly spoiling the story I suppose, but how else to title those? Detecting a completed game is not easy. I’m already planning to improve the save game management. I don’t think a delete all command is useful though. It’s still fitting in the original game’s 512KB size to make ROM hacks simpler. It’s also compatible with saves from other versions of the game.

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 12:45 am
	Maxim wrote I didn’t want to add an SFX test so I renamed it from “sound test” to “music” already. I think it’s the best name for it at the moment. I agree about the "Sound Test with just Musics but no Sounds" thing. That's why I suggested "Music Test", "Jukebox" or "Sound Options" (Sound Options can have both music test and Sound Chip select options). :-) Maxim wrote The top menu item already lets you change the chip. On a system without FM it will just be silent. It always detects is there is an FM chip and enables it by default. But there's anything to make the game check the presence of the FM chip, or is it not possible? I mean, if there's some way to make the game check the presence of the FM chip, and the game check there's no FM chip present, the Sound Chip selection can be stuck into the PSG option, or even not display the Sound Chip selection option at all. Maxim wrote The track names are slightly spoiling the story I suppose, but how else to title those? Detecting a completed game is not easy. I think a flag who can be marked after the ending/credits are triggered for the first time can be enough, but I'm a noob, so this idea can not be a simple task to be added as this suggestion make it look. =/ Maxim wrote I’m already planning to improve the save game management. I don’t think a delete all command is useful though. The "Clear All Data" suggestion is to clear all the save data, including the "Music Test" if such flag could be added. Plus, there's no option to clear slots in the original game. But once you are working to improve the save game management, I just think the game will receive both Copy and Delete file options in a future patch update. Maxim wrote It’s still fitting in the original game’s 512KB size to make ROM hacks simpler. It’s also compatible with saves from other versions of the game. It's nice to know. Thanks for the info. ^_^

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 8:11 am
	I might just call it “sound”. There is FM chip detection - but the game uses the same flag for “has FM” and “use FM”. I’d need to add another flag - but it’s definitely doable. The original does let you delete saves - go to Continue, then answer “no” to “do you want to continue” and then it asks “do you want to delete a saved game”. I plan to change this to a menu with “continue” and “save” options. The issue with a “game completed” flag is that it’s hiding the sound test away until you do something quite extreme - maybe nicer to instead enable songs when you hear them... but then it’s still a lot less straightforward than a sound test with no conditions.

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8610 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:22 am
	I think a music test with no condition is a much nicer thing. It's not like we're sitting here trying to avoid spoling track names of Phantasy Star in 2019, and not all of us are going to have the time and logistic to clear the game and maintain a working save.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:59 am
	The titles and ordering come from the VGM pack. I’m pretty sure they are a bit weird - Cave instead of Dungeon, Final Dungeon before Village. I will probably reorder them myself but I’d welcome some else’s suggestion since I spend way more time hacking the game than playing it.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 10:56 pm
	So technically we have space in VRAM to show menus over the title screen... so we can avoid all that blackness. The same should be possible for the other options. ps1jert-32.png (6.03 KB)

bumtree Joined: 01 Apr 2016 Posts: 45	Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 4:44 am
bumtree Joined: 01 Apr 2016 Posts: 45	Intrigued with the amazing looking expanded text boxes, lack of word-wrapping, save-game compatibility and music gallery etc I had to try the latest build and was very impressed. Thank you for taking the time to improve this amazing patch. I did however notice what looks like some tile corruption in one of the menu screens; specifically during a battle sequence affecting the bottom strip of Alisa's Magic Skill menu. I should point out that I had taken the liberty of applying the Quad XP & Quad Meseta patches allowing my party to rocket through leveling up (Alisa had access to a lot of Magic Skills she probably would never have had so early in the game). I don't know whether these additional patches might somehow be contributors to the menu graphic corruption but, here we are. I should probably test how the save file is interpreted by a non XP & Meseta-boosted patched ROM, now they it comes to mind.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2019 7:46 am
	I’m aware of that and working on it. The goal is to integrate those hacks into an options menu. The save file will work on an unpatched game but the names will be messed up and only slots 1-5 accessible - the change there is not backwards compatible.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 1:01 am
	Now there's an Options menu! Meseta and experience boosts are built in - the stats patch will multiply these again, so take care. Menu glitches should all be fixed. ps1jert-34.png (9.23 KB)

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8610 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 9:45 am
	Oh my this is going to be the bestest version of Phantasy Star... good work Maxim on those menus, and thanks Frank, Paul etc for reworking the translation.

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2019 4:51 pm
	What I lost these days... It's incredible. Amazing work, Maxim!! =O I'll try to take a look at this hack with these changes if my free time allows me to do it. =)

bumtree Joined: 01 Apr 2016 Posts: 45	Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:43 am
bumtree Joined: 01 Apr 2016 Posts: 45	This is truly great work. The dream Phantasy Star patch. No issues to report with the latest version and what an awesome thing it is to have the suite of quality-of-life mods available to toggle.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 6:11 pm
	Title screen menus are all done... ps1jert-37.png (6.49 KB) Continue menu ps1jert-36.png (5.94 KB) Music test with chip select ps1jert-35.png (9.33 KB) Options menu

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:37 pm
	The names of the saves... LOL It's strange to see all these menus covering the title screen, but I can get used to it. What the future will reserve for a 3.0 patch? Dedicated Load / Sound / Options screens featuring some NPCs of the game, like Dr. Luveno or Hapsby? I'll die to see Suelo featuring the Sound option screen (and yes, I'm a Suelo fan. Judge me!!). What will be the next thing? Add a map to the dungeons? In-game walk speed control when a button is held? I'm still interested to see the “has FM” / “use FM” flag separated.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14564 Location: London	Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:16 pm
	That flag separation is done, systems with FM will default to it but let you switch back to PSG, systems without FM will default to PSG and not let you switch. Dungeon maps would be crazy hard, there’s nowhere to draw it :) It might be cool to have an in-game “hub world” instead of menus but it doesn’t make much sense really and the game itself is so menu heavy... One thing I would love to address is the representation of groups of enemies. That would mean replacing much of the battle scenes to depict multiple enemies attacking and dying separately. Doing that with the existing graphics will be very hard...

KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 502	Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:24 pm
KingMike Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 502	Was kind of wondering if we were going to get some kind of crazy wizardry to grant us a backport of the Switch Sega Ages version at this point. :)

rouken Joined: 13 Apr 2005 Posts: 248 Location: Aracruz - ES, Brazil	Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 12:31 pm
	Maxim wrote That flag separation is done, systems with FM will default to it but let you switch back to PSG, systems without FM will default to PSG and not let you switch. In times like that I miss the use of some emojis to express myself in this forum (what makes sense if the intention is to make the forum have a cleaner visual). So, take my emoticon: XD Maxim wrote Dungeon maps would be crazy hard, there’s nowhere to draw it :) A command to call a map into a new screen could be ideal, but it will be a little annoying to call everytime the player want to see it if compared with the Switch's SEGA AGES version of the game, who offers a map off the emulated game's screen, making use of the extra space of the whole game's screen. But a work to offer a map in-game will be amazing... if possible for the SMS's limits, of course. But there's the work to create new graphics to do it and etc... Next time... Maybe... Maxim wrote One thing I would love to address is the representation of groups of enemies. That would mean replacing much of the battle scenes to depict multiple enemies attacking and dying separately. Doing that with the existing graphics will be very hard... I would love to see it too, but it with a single enemy on screen is a difficult task already (waiting someone to say "Challenge Accepted"). Just no note, Rieko Kodama had difficulties to animate the zombie's vomit attack...

PrOfUnD Darkness Joined: 29 Jun 1999 Posts: 374 Location: Brazil	Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2020 7:04 am
	I get garbage on the screen and the game crashes when pressing PAUSE, is this a known bug? I'm using the latest patch and retroarch. It happens in the world map or inside a dungeon (haven't tried elsewhere).

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