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

[hippy dave]

I'll test it out tomorrow - remind me

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay, Version 1.1 is now out and hosted on romhacking.net among other places.

As usual, I hope it works for you.

Although I couldn't fit every last correction into this patch (version) this time around, I will take my time and try to iron out the RPG (mostly consistenct with the original Guadia Quest) and the appearance of the Adventure text, but all text can be reworked should anyone have any better examples.

Okay, can I get working on the strategy guide section of the site now?

 

[Drignor]

Woohoo! Success! The epilogue looks awesome you guys! Thanks again!

 

[coredecepts]

I can apply the new patch to previously patched image (v106 specifically)?

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

You need to apply the patch to the original Japanese rom but if you keep the resulting filenames the same you can carry over your saved game status.

 

[coredecepts]

You need to apply the patch to the original Japanese rom but if you keep the resulting filenames the same you can carry over your saved game status.

Great, thanks!

 

[codezer0]

I have to say, stellar job on the writing in the Arino: Ace Detective games.

"Do you think your console will be #1 just on hardware?!"

#SHOTSFIRED #omg #Arinojustpwnedthef*ckouttayou #4thwall

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Yeah, I actually liked the ending message of the adventure games. I still wonder if at the time it was a shot at consoles like the Xbox that failed horribly in Japan largely because it didn't focus on the games people wanted to play.

 

[cubeboy]

Okay, can I get working on the strategy guide section of the site now?

YES! And again, take your time. You guys are gold for doing this amazing work.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

YES! And again, take your time. You guys are gold for doing this amazing work.

Oh, the guide is coming along. I wrote out how to get all wands on all 32 floors of Wiz-Man, I know the locations of the 5 warp dragon things in Mutekiken (maybe draw up a map?), I have a rough walkthrough for both adventure games, and I've started on the RPG guide with help from everyone writing to me about it.

God forbid I lift a completely different project out of the ashes...

Spoiler

Well, here is an initial test with half-width characters. As you can see, even the half-width ones are very wide. We would need to redo the font to fit much text in there. Don't worry about things like translation yet. I'm just seeing how much space we have to work with. It does appear to be a variable width font, at least. Questions is, how small can we make the font and still have it comfortable to read?

I also notice in the description field, the ・ character (FF 21) represents a new line. No clue for new page markers. There are pointers for all of the strings starting points (of course; I'd be surprised if there weren't) so that's all good.

I'm also not sure on positioning of text in the menus at this point. I'll try one of the graphics and see how that works.

 

[GHANMI]

That project was handled apparently by Densetsu and is merely on hiatus, not dropped.
I'm sure (on second thought, I hope )he would appreciate someone lending him a hand on the text translation part (since I think he handled most of the direct technical issues).

Spoiler

Have you heard of the Professor Layton clones like "Treasure Report" and "Sloanne to Mc Halle"?
I heard they bombed pretty badly, but are they any good gameplay-wise?
They seem pretty straightforward to modify, all standard file formats... Used them as practice before.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

I've already contacted him about it, actually. Although I don't know much about the technical details/tools used thus far, there hasn't been any testing of anything in the actual game so I went on a mad rush to jam random things into the game and see what happens. I actually sent him a message with a bunch of random tests and reports.

If most of the text there is already translated and there is some handy tool for putting the text back into the game (and I can either adjust the positioning of the text and/or size of the font) then other than a few small graphic changes it might not take too long to get the whole game in a playable state (fingers crossed). That game is a kind of "guilty pleasure" for me, anyway.


But I digress, I still have guides to write, random small consistancy issues with Guadia Quest Saga relative to the first Guadia Quest, random Adventure game text fine-tuning, etc. That and it's 1AM.

 

[RadioShadow]

It looks like for the small font, the 10 width (2 hex bytes) : and ! instead of the 5 width (1 hex byte). Easy enough fix, plus you can get more letters inserted.

As for the game info text, is there a reason why there is no : after released? Also, why can't we have the year, so the release date being "MM/DD/YYYY"? I played about with the rom to see if I could make it better. Putting the maker text to the far right looks quite nice.

Left image = Original
Right Image = Modified


Just some tiny errors:


The one on the left, you need to put some spaces between the &, so it becomes: Faim & Ainon

Speaking of those names, they look foreign and mean nothing to mean. Is it a pun for something? I'm aware you're trying to stick to the original, and that is fine, but something like "Flame" would be better (and something done back in the old days when old games got translated).


The one in the middle, the second line:
stage mid-boss "Afro Karate Boxer" ！

You got carried away with the spaces. Should be:
stage mid-boss "Afro Karate Boxer"!

The last line:
him down！ I wonder why he never kicks…

Should be:
him down! I wonder why he never kicks...


The third one, there is a unnecessary space on the third line, before "Mutekiken". Looking at it, should it just be: "Go Kengo"?

Also, one of the machines is mentioned as "GameCom" or sometimes as "Gamecom". Which one is it meant to be?

I think that is all my error pointing.

 

[AnotherGamer]

Speaking of those names, they look foreign and mean nothing to mean. Is it a pun for something? I'm aware you're trying to stick to the original, and that is fine, but something like "Flame" would be better (and something done back in the old days when old games got translated).

Yeah, some of the ingame names are a bit too literal when it's apparent that a more sensical translation exists: like I suggested earlier in the thread, the name Iroha who's credited as the maker of the Ace Detective games is a pun on the ordering of Katakana and thus might work better as something like ABCware. Apparently the name Degoichi refers to a specific type of steam locomotive which explains their logo and thus can't really be translated, but even that could be turned into something silly like ThomasSoft. The enemy names in Demon Returns also tend to lose their meaning without a translation, so you should probably take the above points under consideration at some point.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

For some of them I wasn't sure if it was a reference or not. "Faim" (faimu) looks clearly based on "flame" but it isn't written flame in the original Japanese when it could have been so I'm not sure if it is a subtle reference to something else. "Ainon"...doesn't mean anything to me and it just looks like ice which is fine since the wands represent fire and ice but does the duo of "Faim and Ainon" reference another duo or combination of things or a pair or people? I could call them flame and ice and be done with it.

For the random punctuation/capitalization errors, those are easy enough fixes. I'll get to those.

Hmm, ABCWare and ThomasSoft... Possible, though those require changing some of the in-game graphics and the degoichi logo in super demon returns isn't easy to work with.

The enemy names in DR and SDR were in romaji direcly and weren't touched. I was debating on changing them at a later stage in the project (is now late enough?) but I couldn't think of any good names for some of them. Also, I'm not sure where those names are in-game, as in I think they may be a tiled graphic and not straight text; other mini games do that too (Triotos/DX. Every letter in the game is its own image)

I was actually working on the RPG to iron out consistency issues with the first Guadia quest game, too. Fortunately I have fans obsessed with the RPG so I'm getting pages on pages of feedback on that.

 

[Kobalos]

I think that changing the company names is a bad idea. The Japanese names makes them feel more 'legit', like they could really exist. The English puns feel a little forced.

Something else: I made some replacements for the actions in Guadia Quest Saga, as the current font is a little blocky. They should fit within the size limits; if those aren't an issue then you might as well use the regular font.
It also includes the text for Ace Detective with a consistent x-height for a cleaner look.

Edit: updated image to include Info/Ability/Wpn.Stat

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Hmm, since the menus are all graphics that is possible. Anything that is text is at the mercy of the font. I can change it but that affects the RPG and both adventure games.

Looks nice. I'll try messing with these when I get a chance.

Edit> if I change Guadia to pact I also have to change the header in the other window. That's fine, right?

 

[AnotherGamer]

Yeah, changing the company names isn't probably that important in general, I was mainly suggesting to preserve the puns in their names which the first game didn't have any of. Someone also made a translated version of Mutekiken Kungfu title screen for the sake of consistency with the first game that didn't end up being used either.

As for the menu font, it does look a bit more consistent with the first game's RPG, but if the actual font is chanced so that it matches up, it doesn't really fit in the Adventure game if they share the font.

Personally, I don't think "Guadia" or "Pact" is a fitting name for that particular menu option: the former implies that it's where you view your party's Guadia when you do it under Stats, and Pact implies that you've made an actual pact with the NPCs when they just join you out of their own will and one of them just flat out refuses even after you beat them. Something like "partner" or "companion" would be more accurate.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Yeah, that "pact/Guadia" has been a thorn in my side from the beginning. If anything, it's your party's NPC and you can only have one at a time. In the original Japanese I believe it was "Guadia" but that was confusing for the same reasons AnotherGamer lists. I have been thinking about it again. I came up with things like:

Ally
Pact <- Even though it is a loose, verbal agreement, they still have a "pact" with you in the game.
Partner
NPC
Guest
...

It's a tough call.

As for Mutekiken, yeah I know even in the first rgc in English it was called "Super Kung Fu" but there is another issue with this game. In the first rgc they never got to the 16-bit era but in this game they do, and one of the points from that era the game pokes fun at is how everything is titled "Super" this and "Super" that. Using Mutekiken as "Super Kung Fu" misses the point of the reference. Well, that and it's based partly off the game Karateka and the very fact a game with a name "Karateka" was even released like that already set the precedent for game titles like that.

Okay, I'm going to try to finish putting in the fixes to the menus and other random punctuation and capitalization errors tonight.

I'm still waiting on Densetsu to get back to me on the Blood of Bahamut thing. I already have those files figured out I think so even if he doesn't wish to revive his project I have enough of the game figured out I could do this on my own...except for maybe some of the graphics. There isn't nearly as much text in the game as I originally feared. Compared to rgc2 it's a walk in the park. I think the biggest problem is what to call the titans, goliaths, behemoths, leviathans or whatever you want to call them.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

In any case, I've started on putting those new fonts in for the menus. What do you think, Kobalos?

Edit> RadioShadow> Like this?

I'm actually open to changing the font used in the Adventure and RPG but more out of curiosity than anything. It was designed to display kana for use in the original Japanese games but the English font always seemed odd, not that it was ever used anyway (except for Capital letters)