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

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay! I figured out the counter issue with the RPG. At position 3109 in the font, there is a completely unrelated character remapped to be 体. That 体, and not the one already in the font, was the one used in the RPG. When I nulled it out it made the battles less Japanese.

Also, thanks to SubnetPie, Mars_x and Pix3l, the Magazines are now in English barring the inline images and the covers.

I just patched up the Adventure game, too.
I'm not positive if the entrance to the Indies Zero building in the Adventure is in Japanese or not. I have to test that.

I plan on whipping through the Adventure games one more time to test it all out and fix up the RPG while testing that afterwards but everything is coming together. There are just little things left from here forward. Unless there is a critical bug that makes the game crash, everything "big" to do is done except for the Magazine covers (and inline images though they are tiny and can be mocked up in just about any way). It's just a matter of polishing it up with the little graphics and text/dialogue fixes as far as I can see.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Quick update. There have been a lot of little changes recently so I'll try to list up roughly what has been happening.

* Touched up dialogue in the Adventure Games based on the bug reports
* Fixed Chat/Phone conversations (quite a few of them needed some touching up)
* Added the help "support bar" image during the boat race in the 2nd Adventure Game.
* Magazine/manual artwork is in place except for the Magazine covers and some of the inline images that used screenshots from the Adventure and RPG games.
* The end credits sequence is in place. It has the translation team and the original staff credits back to back. (There was a lot of room to work with)
* The mutekiken special movies
* The RPG "counter" character removed and a few menus reworked.

There are possibly other things but those are the bigger ones.

As far as I can see, there are still a handful of adventure game backgrounds that could be touched up (literally, 6 I think), and a handful of inline images that still need to be done. The Triotos tile swap has yet to happen but I might tackle that if the others are busy. The big thing right now is the Magazine covers. Some other parts of the game are getting a second polish on the graphics as well.

I'm still testing and debugging the Adventures and RPG. The Adventure is shaping up nicely. The RPG...I still have to touch that some more but getting that counter character and the leftover menus in Japanese (e.g. Press Select for a decription of your equipped weapon) frees me up somewhat.

Oh, for the credits, unless otherwise noted, I'm just using the usernames here. I could switch to real names in some cases like my own, but I messed up on that since I registered here with my Facebook account so it put my real name. Online elsewhere I'm known as "seishinbyou" but if I try to switch to that now only long time Bemani/DDR/music game fans might recognize me.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

I've been working on the Sound Test screen. Pretty much only the game names remain on this one.
But holy crap, Arino has 1290 voice samples in the game.

(The title image cycles colors as music plays, too)

 

[AnotherGamer]

Har, I knew he had more voice samples than the 154 in the first but I wasn't expecting there to be over 8 times as many. Kind of a shame that there's no easy way to understand them ingame in English.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

I could be insane and write out a list of everything said in the game and its translation based on the sound test ID numbers but that seems like a lot of effort for something so trivial. Most of the phrases are casual talk or grunts or "aha!" or "Get the coin!" moments.

Well, if I have a site for this project I can add content like that I guess. That can come after this game is done and patched. I'll report later today hopefully what is done/left.

I'm actually doing a seminar in Osaka today so I should have time on the Shinkansen to work on this and maybe make a film in the hotel tonight.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Update MANIA! <- I used all caps to make it sound more manic but probably failed.

Okay, in the past day we have the following changes:

* 12 of the 18 Magazine Covers were added (Thanks to Mars_x and his excellent work)
* The rest of the magazine/manual inline images
* The Sound Test screen completed
* Fixed Adventure Game Background Images (that should be all of them)
* Month and Year reworked for the bookshelf
* Some RPG dialogue fixes
* Main Menu fix ("Sound Test" was a bit fubar before; should be a little better now)

Hopefully I will get a chance to post a video later today of everything together.

Well, it's almost in a releasable state. (I guess some would be perfectly happy with what is ready now but you know, that whole extra mile and stuff). My birthday is June 2nd. I wonder how close we can get to release by then? (No rush, mind you. It is an arbitrary date but everything is coming together so fast it made me wonder). Of course, I'm perfectly willing to rework text and such after release should someone out there in Internet-Land(tm) find some error or I missed a reference or something.

 

[ObeseFeline]

I've been lurking in this thread for awhile now, and I made an account so that I could say that all of this is pretty awesome of you. I really appreciate all of the work that you and your team have been doing, and it's actually inspired me to be a bit more serious about my own studies (going into my third year of college Japanese, considering doing the JLPT soon). I plan to be a translator/interpreter as well when I finish school, so seeing all of this come together has been fun. I'm hoping one day soon I'll be able to do a project like this and have it turn out as well as this is looking.

So yeah, thanks! Oh, and my birthday's on June 2nd as well, so I'd be pretty happy about it coming out before then, too. Either way, good luck going forward.

 

[GHANMI]

Nice
Togashi's Hunter x Hunter comes back in June 2nd too, that would be overdrawing the happiness bank for one day if the patch is released that same triple-combo celebration day
(not that I would mind getting it that early, but it's up to you, first and foremost... also, thanks again a lot for saving this project from the limbo of scrapped translation projects: I hope this wouldn't be your last translation project if you're into obscure RPG classics)

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

It's late. I'm tired, but I said I would make a video showing off some of the newer stuff so I did. Enjoy. I hope it is more watchable than the last video I made.



Edit> Ah, before anyone asks (if you noticed) I messed with my emulator (Desmume) settings and I think it borked some of the 3D textures like Arino's crown. It works fine on a real DS and in any emulator with default settings. Watch out for No$GBA. That emulator isn't so great and has problems with this game, particularly the fog in Super Demon Returns and the character portraits in the Adventure game.

 

[AnotherGamer]

Nice of you to add most(?) of the thread to special thanks, although I'm not entirely sure if I personally contributed much compared to the testers and editors. Based on the amount of stuff that's still left to be done, I think Jun 2 seems a bit distant, although it's hard to say until it's actually done. Looking forward to it either way.

 

[Arras]

Nice of you to add most(?) of the thread to special thanks, although I'm not entirely sure if I personally contributed much compared to the testers and editors. Based on the amount of stuff that's still left to be done, I think Jun 2 seems a bit distant, although it's hard to say until it's actually done. Looking forward to it either way.

How is it a bit distant? That's only a week or so away, it's more than reasonable to wait another week

 

[AnotherGamer]

Well, it's not that distant per se, just in comparision to how done it is. I blame my impatience and would prefer it to be available next week but I guess I can fight off the withdrawal symptoms that long.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

I'll see what I can do. Graphically it may be ready by then. The more I play the RPG the more little things I find with the text, though. I fixed several dozen files last night but with over 1000 files of text alone to worry about with the RPG, I'm not sure if I can catch them all by the end of the week.

Even so, once I do a final check of the Adventure and try to fix up any last minute issues overall I'll be happy with the overall result initially. I have a feeling no matter how much I work into it I'll end up having to update the patch in some way.

AnotherGamer> I thanked anyone that offered an insight or advice into something related to this project or Game Center CX or hacking, etc.

 

[DickMarlowe]

I'm a huge retro-gamer and I created this account to congratulate Aaron and his peers for their tremendous work

Cheers guys, your dedication is much appreciated !

 

[Rothiseph]

Yeah, continued thanks guys - especially Aaron for unwavering dedication in bringing this to fruition! I remember years back seeing news of a translation on http://rgc2.moonfruit.com/ being in the works, but it seemed to have fallen by the wayside for whatever reasons. Hadn't expected it to come back and actually get finished, let alone so quickly.

This is the first translation project I've ever seen make it this far, and probably the only one I've ever had a particular interest in seeing completed. It's incredible to think we'll be able to play RGC2 in as close to its original form as possible! RGC was such a unique and fantastic game for the DS, and when I saw screenshots of its sequel, I was really disappointed to hear it wouldn't get a PAL release. But you guys have gone way above and beyond to get a translation so we can enjoy it too. Eternal gratitude!

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Yeah, the moonfruit group had good intentions, but after a HDD crash and months work gone it just kind of went into limbo. They still had raw text translations of the in-room conversations with young Arino and the phone/chat conversations. It needed to be reworked for the game in some cases (length/size limitations) but that was a big help at the start.

I actually do have a new site in the works but I should probably get it up on its own domain and get the approval of others working on this before I go throwing the link around.

In any case I am just testing the Adventure and RPG games now and I did manage to fix up a small bug with the settings screen. The RPG still has a ton of things that I found that needed to be changed. All little things, mind you, but they all add up. It's looking better now but it almost feels overwhelming trying to tackle all these little things.

 

[MarkDarkness]

The website for the patch is coming together real fast, and it feels like a real homage to the series rather than just something thrown together to get the patch out. I think you guys will be pleasantly surprised.

Aaron and I are working on the final content right now... so yeah, this is actually happening.

 

[GHANMI]

I recommend you include Aaron's review of the third faulty game for the 3DS somehow if you would like to pay homage to the entire series in some form.
If only just to warn people about its numerous shortcomings.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Maybe only as a brief mention but okay, I could "warn" about the third entry in the series, not that that had any hope of being officially released in English anyway.

Okay, as far as the game is concerned I have been rushing through the Adventure and RPG games looking for last minute bugs. I heard reports the final credits for the RPG are a bit messed up so I've put my Desmume on turbo and I'm trying to blast through to the end legitimately to see/fix that.

The last of the magazine covers and the Triotos tile swaps were prepared yesterday so once they are in the game that may be the last of the graphics that need any immediate attention...I think. There is issue with the whole "Light" edition of Guadia Quest Saga but it Is clearly written in many places it is the "light version" so it maybe isn't such a big issue.

There is just so much text overall in the game I'm bound to miss something along the way, even with the help of the testers. If I miss something, I'll have to patch it up in later editions of the patch, I guess.

I know I'm under a lot of pressure to get this patch out but I do want to make sure the whole game works and there aren't any serious lingering bugs.

 

[coredecepts]

Take your time.