ROM Hack Game Center CX : Arino no Chosenjo 2 (New Start?)

[windwakr]

The dialogue is in order in the '.lbs' files. Two bytes length, then the string at two bytes per character:
http://i.imgur.com/1n64oLz.png


The file in the picture, 'room_00_01.lbs', contains the text from when you first talk to young Arino. If you play through and write down the text, then look through there, you should be able to figure out what's what. Like I said, it all seems to be in the order that it's displayed in.


EDIT: There seem to be some control bytes or something in that first string. The text('うわっ！'...) starts at the '5B 7D 12...'. Also, I messed up my highlighting a bit, but you should still be able to see what I mean.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

That helps a lot, thanks. Hmm, I wonder if it is the same mapping used as that in the adventure and RPG games...

Edit> Okay, I think I have it (as in, I see the pattern; I'm working on the table).

I have a sneaking suspicion this is used for the adventure and RPG and if it is, this is a pretty major breakthrough (at least to me) and I might as well focus on the Arino dialogue, Adventures and RPG first since those are the big ones people want first most likely (correct me if I am wrong)

Edit Edit> Okay, this seems to be working but it is incredibly tedious to start (it's like playing Wheel of Fortune with a hex editor). Probably tonight I will be able to spend some time doing this enough to extrapolate a pattern and see if that works. And come to think about it, I'm wondering if the text in the adventures and RPG are single byte since I don't remember any kanji in them off the top of my head (again, correct me if I am wrong). And doh! I don't see any roman (English) characters yet but I do remember some of them used (e.g. TOMATO)

Edit edit edit> Here is how it starts to look, anyway:

Edit edit edit edit> And some more good news! Floating head Arino uses the same mapping!

...and I think I see some of the Adventure dialogue, too. Only problem with roman characters is that everything is double byte :/

EDIT x 5> (My daughter is finally asleep for a moment) I found some of Guadia Quest here, too.

All right, that should be most of the text in the game (except for the intro star wars crawl which is probably a graphic) and the main menus which I do remember seeing as graphics.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

...and since I don't want to make a billion edits to a single post, I do have another question (actually, 2).

This latest discovery is encouraging, but there are no single byte roman characters in it. Is there a way to add that? I might have enough space for the in-game script (for the Adventure/RPGs) but if I am stuck using double byte roman characters I guess it is going to get very messy with pointers just trying to get the text in there.

Edit> Proof of concept: (Yes, I know punctuation is messed up)

Edit> I've confirmed all the .lbs files use the same mapping table so that is pretty much all the text in the game found except for the stuff that is graphics.

Also, I am having trouble opening graphics in Crystaltile properly if at all.

For example, \data\scene\intro\intro\intro_photo.NCGR which I know if the picture of Arino in the intro. It looks more than a palette issue alone. Maybe it is compressed?

 

[GHANMI]

As for the double-byte characters issue, you could either edit the programming itself so that it recognizes single-byte characters (ASM, hard way), or simply resort to this solution and edit the font itself graphically so that each double-byte character holds two letters.

I can't really help with the latter, my guess that you'd need to open the rom in Crystaltile, open the file through the nds viewer and then you'd see the pixel mass with the wrong palette, then I think you should select a part of one of the files with the same name but different extension (which isn't really recognized as a know format) then open it, recognize the palette data (???! I can't really do this part), select it then right-click and recognize it as palette, then re-open your original pixel mass and it should be crisp clear...
It IS a palette issue.

EDIT: Use Tinke, open in this order:
intro-obj.nclr (palette file),
intro-photo.ncgr (tile file.. this is the pixel mass in Crystaltile),
intro-photo.ncer (map file. had you been using CT you could have used the tile composition tool instead)
Tinke has Export/Import options but it's not perfect in some cases, you may need to enable "Map Compression" sometimes for better results depending on the game.

 

[Illidanz]

...and since I don't want to make a billion edits to a single post, I do have another question (actually, 2).

This latest discovery is encouraging, but there are no single byte roman characters in it. Is there a way to add that? I might have enough space for the in-game script (for the Adventure/RPGs) but if I am stuck using double byte roman characters I guess it is going to get very messy with pointers just trying to get the text in there.

Just a quick note, I had the same problem with another game and I wrote about a possible solution here. If your game uses NFTR fonts too it should work just fine.
If you end up using it and I missed some character combinations that you need, let me know.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Hmm, Tinke worked all right, though the interface is a bit kludgy at times it feels.

I got many of the images working/extracted. One in particular I didn't get though was the Star-Warsesque intro crawl

The image in action:

What I got (can't find a mapping file) - The blue text is shown first (This game is fiction...) The yellow text scrolls.

EDIT> Wait, never mind, I'm dumb

NSCR files to the rescue!

Okay, I can extract images from the first game in English and go to town (time provided) where a straight substitution would work. Perhaps when it is done (it being the intro) I can post a youtube clip of it running on a real DS unit?

EDIT> Hmm, I can export/import the image when viewed using a map alright, but I want to import the image back into its garbled form for use by the game...I'll have to poke around this unless anyone can point out something silly I'm mising... (Read: I'm viewing the image file through the mapping but when I import something I want to go through a reverse mapping so it can be used by the game. Tinke isn't playing nicely with me)

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay, the substitution of the title worked fine (it does that scrolling animation and flare and all that jazz, too). The menu, however, is all FUBAR whenever I do anything to it. I can export it all right but can't re-import it without a total corruption of the palette or whole image going blank in the game. Erm... help?

Also, there is a trick with this menu I bumped into head first. In the space next to the top option "Story" and next to Settings (設定), that space is a duplicated piece of part of the tile set, which means that when I try to make text longer than the Japanese on those two options, the affected tile is copy/pasted to every other blank area.

The bottom menu (Up/Down moves the cursor...A selects) shouldn't be too bad since I recall seeing that.

Hmm, I still have to work on that intro crawl...here's the 5 second translation...now to put it into that star wars scroll intro thing...

Edit> Argh! It just isn't working. I can import the image but it overwrites the original garbled image, not the mapped file. I'm just trying to get this in it to test it (probably could use a rewrite; the original had things like "The gamers of Japan..." which doesn't quite seem appropriate in this case for an international audience.

 

[StorMyu]

Graphics file can be a real mess to work with on NDS... Nice btw slow & steady I like it ^^

 

[Fishaman P]

Edit> Argh! It just isn't working. I can import the image but it overwrites the original garbled image, not the mapped file. I'm just trying to get this in it to test it (probably could use a rewrite; the original had things like "The gamers of Japan..." which doesn't quite seem appropriate in this case for an international audience.

Spoiler: 5 second translation

Let's see what I can do. You have enough on your plate as it is.

Spoiler: My changes

Arino's regret for his failed challenges culminated into a digital version of himself, known as "Game Master Arino."

Thanks to the united efforts of gamers, he was thought to have disappeared. However, after repeated failure on his show, Arino's heart once again filled with darkness.

"If only I were better at games..."

Arino could not escape his despair, and a new "Game Master Arino" was born on the Nintendo DS.

Now, there are new challenges for the gamers to contend with...

 

[MarkDarkness]

It's truly great that you've decided to tackle this project... I've moved away from ROM hacking for over 5 years now, and never really messed with the NDS and its tools, but what I can do is affirm that I will be playing this translation day 1, and will be keeping up with your progress from now on.

 

[Blazer]

This seems pretty cool and I can see you've got some motivation to boot. Sadly I'm not much good in the graphics department and it seems most of the technical stuff that I might've been able to help with is good to go so I'll sit this one out I should be focusing on my other 3 translation projects anyway. Still, you have my support and I wish you luck.

 

[8BitWalugi]

Oh man this is amazing!

Does anyone have a Something-Awful account? This would probably be worth posting the Game Center CX thread. It could be noticed by the translation team too!

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay, I messed around with porting over the graphics from the first game (in English) to the second to speed along common menus and prompts. Some of it worked all right. Some of it worked...but the palette was completely messed up for some reason. It might be something simple but in any case this does help add a bit more polish to the work:

Here is an example of when the palette and I don't get along from messing with image and palette moves, as funky as that color combination is...

EDIT> Ah, I see the problem, the palette of the Challenge explanation screen (The one when you first get a challenge) has a different palette between the first and second games). Copying over the palette file didn't work so maybe I can make the old screen look right under the new palette...

 

[Mirby]

We can just blame Game Master Arino for messing with the palettes, right?

Also glad to see this is coming along now. I think you might've made more progress already than the group that died out. XD

 

[John Player]

Looks like a dream is about to come true. Keep up the good work!

 

[DarknessSavior]

Hey,

I don't know if you need any more potential translation help, but I'd be more than willing to do some if you needed it. I translate GCCX already, and really wanted to work on this game.

~DS

 

[Mars_x]

The best of luck, have been waiting for a translation of this game for so long.

Something to take into consideration would be to take some time to watch a couple
of the series episodes, maybe it will help you have a better understanding of the
catch-phrases they use on the show, so you make an accurate good translation.

If I remember correctly, the in-game text for Ace Detective Kacho and Guadia Quest Saga
(and since both games use a lot of text) can't be found easily because they are
compressed and/or encrypted. There was a thread here at GBATemp talking about it
extensively (because that was the main problem with translating the game in the first place),
but a solution was never found until 'surprise surprise', Xvirus began the project.
I can't find the thread again, I fear it has been deleted when the new project started...
so it's lost with lots of possibly helpful information.

I understand you have played both games, but did you play the first one in english?
Also, I see you tried to contact the previous team. Do you have the emails of Zach and/or Xvirus?

Anyways, thanks a lot for your efforts, you are doing a great service to all DS owners.
If you need a graphic designer with decent skills on pixel art, feel free to send me a PM.
I would love to help out, even tho I don't have any knowledge on rom hacking (sorry!).

 

[Celice]

Hey,

I don't know if you need any more potential translation help, but I'd be more than willing to do some if you needed it. I translate GCCX already, and really wanted to work on this game.

~DS

I can vouch for this dude's awesome work translating episodes of the show (and his other projects and translations, too )

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Thanks for the offers! I'm pleased to get any help I can get.

Darknesssavior> I have a whole bunch of in-game magazines and some manuals I still haven't touched. I could send you an Excel file if you want to take a crack at it I'll message you about this.

I have the game script for the conversations with young Arino and found the strings for the RPG and Adventures with the same custom font mapping but haven't extracted it in a more useful form for translation, yet.

 

[DarknessSavior]

I can vouch for this dude's awesome work translating episodes of the show (and his other projects and translations, too )

Thanks for the support.

And no problem at all, dude. I love working on anything GCCX related.

~DS