ROM Hack [Release] Shin Megami Tensei eng patch (gba)

[Nikokaro]

All fans of the famous Digital Devil Story saga by Atlus, like myself, can rejoice; Gymzatan (https://mobile.twitter.com/gymzatan) has just released the English translation patch for the classic Shin Megami Tensei (gba), the remake of the first title for SNES, also translated years ago by the legendary AGTP. Apparently all menus, main dialogues and items are fully translated.
It's nice to know that after all these years GBA continues to be loved and to receive interest and attention from romhackers.
Here is the final patch for public testing:

https://mega.nz/file/urIFDCZS#R2kN17QaBHkuT5KTevEMEF5xbcz9ROZ7a82kKA0n1Ss

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

Took me a while to track down all the files to patch this. Agreed - it's very nice to see the GBA still getting love from hackers, and it gives me a wonderful opportunity to jump into the series.

I wonder if we'll see the second game translated at some point? This uses an official translation from Atlus for an iOS port of SMT1 (you'll need the iOS files to patch), but I'm not sure if they translated and ported SMT2 as well.

 

[GValiente]

The translation looks great!

By the way, some relevant files are in the SMT iOS project Discord server.

 

[Nikokaro]

As this game, like the original snes title, requires a lot of grinding (specially later in the game) and therefore free time available, and can be daunting, has anyone managed to find any AR or GS cheatcode (one that does not spoil the gameplay too much)?

 

[Deleted member 514389]

Who needs Persona ?
This is my jam.
Thx !

 

[Nikokaro]

As this game, like the original snes title, requires a lot of grinding (specially later in the game) and therefore free time available, and can be daunting, has anyone managed to find any AR or GS cheatcode (one that does not spoil the gameplay too much)?

After a diligent research, I was able to find this PAR code in a Japanese site, code that didn't spoil too much the playability and didn't make the game too easy:

Lot of money

03004DB8 E0FF
03004DBA 05F5

So I patched the rom with the code via GBAATM and it works, but on my flashcart it strangely slows down the game considerably, making it almost unplayable, who knows why!?! Perhaps it will not give these problems to you others.

 

[Titney]

gymzatan put up a a new update and a github repository to make bug tracking etc easier:
https://github.com/gymzatan/SMT1-iOS-to-GBA

 

[Jayro]

How do people setup custom borders like that for their GBA games? I wanna try it.

 

[Nikokaro]

How do people setup custom borders like that for their GBA games? I wanna try it.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-play-a-gba-game-with-background-frame-on-ds-phat-lite.576142/

 

[Jayro]

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-play-a-gba-game-with-background-frame-on-ds-phat-lite.576142/

Thanks for answering my dumb question OP.

 

[Plattym3!]

This is a cool project. Thanks for taking it on!

 

[akaciparaci]

I'm playing this on my psp and i read that the patch will produce bug somewhere later in the game
I'm wondering how my system will recognize my updated rom when they update the patch, will it just using the same name on my rom?

Another option i can think of to fall back to the japanese version tp circumvent said bug, however i'm not sure whether it's possible to load my hard-save file from japanese rom?

 

[Nikokaro]

Hello.
Maybe you do not know that the translation was recently updated: https://github.com/gymzatan/SMT1-iOS-to-GBA/releases

I'm wondering how my system will recognize my updated rom when they update the patch

To continue playing from your last save, simply the new rom must have the same name as the old one (and therefore its .sav file).
In order not to produce possible issues it is always better to load from normal .sav file, and not from savestate.

Another option i can think of to fall back to the japanese version tp circumvent said bug

You can do the same thing if you want to use the japanese rom, if in the patched one there were bugs that would crash the game, but the menu would be incomprehensible and you will have to memorize the position of the save / load options.

 

[akaciparaci]

simply the new rom must have the same name as the old one (and therefore its .sav file)

Does this mean i can just rename both rom and the .sav file into the same new name?
Having version number on my rom name turns out to be not a good idea you see

 

[Nikokaro]

Does this mean i can just rename both rom and the .sav file into the same new name?

When you' ll patch the (j) rom with the new patch version, why should you still keep the old patched rom?
Just keep the old .sav file and rename the new patched rom with the name of it (e.g. SMT.sav, SMT.gba).

 

[akaciparaci]

i don't plan to keep the old version, i was asking whether i can rename the old .sav file with the name of the new patched rom, and would it load my save or not?

currently my old rom's name is smtgbaversion3something
thus my save file should be smtgbaversion3something.sav right?

i'm going to update my rom and rename it smtgba
my question is can i rename my

smtgbaversion3something.sav

into

smtgba.sav

and will the game load my save or not?

hope i'm being clear and simple enough now

and to be more precise, no i don't want to name my new patched rom with smtgbaversion3something, again

 

[Nikokaro]

my question is can i rename my

smtgbaversion3something.sav

into

smtgba.sav

and will the game load my save or not?

From everything I had already said you can tell that the answer is certainly YES!

 

[akaciparaci]

Just wanted to be really really really sure

 

[Titney]

Version 1.0 was just released (first release since April)
https://github.com/gymzatan/SMT1-iOS-to-GBA/releases
Looks like mostly smaller text fixes

edit: it was posted on romhacking as well with more info on the state of the patch:
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6129/
"All in-game dialogue text, battle text, spell/item/demon names etc. are translated as in the iOS version, with the sole exception of BGM titles in the Music Theater (an accessory function unlocked by clearing the game once). In addition, this patch enables small-letter names for human characters, a function not present in the iOS localization.

The patch has been extensively playtested during several months, and only one rare freezing event (during demon negotiation) has been reported. Since the issue is extremely rare and has not been reproduced, it remains unfixed at present, otherwise it will be fixed in future versions."