ROM Hack English Magi Nation GBA Translation - Rom Patch!

ZucriyAmsuna · Nov 24, 2019

This came as quite the surprise! A few of us in the community have been looking into it here and there and finding that someone determined that the entirety (or at least most) of the English dialogue/text existed in the game. (This may have been Normmatt?) We didn't know how to begin attempting to get the game to use that text since none of us are ROM hackers.

And then this happened. Thank you very much! :sp:

I find it interesting that it was done by people who don't seem to be part of the existing Magi-Nation communities on Reddit, Facebook, and/or Discord (the most popular/active one at the moment). If anyone is interested, go to the /r/magination subreddit and look at the top pinned post to find the necessary links. We could always use more people to talk about anything Magi-Nation related.

Aplier · Dec 9, 2019

fluffsorcerer said:
I have been waiting YEARS to see this version of the game translated.Normmatt, Aplier, a thousand blessing upon you and your households for this! I was wondering, do the character models and portraits for Tony exist in the game's data? If so, are you planning to implement them? I just despise Dan SO MUCH! Complete and utter loathing for his character design! No offense to the Japanese localization team, but they really picked the blandest, shonen-adventure-hero-Goku-lookalike possible, for their protagonist!

You are so welcome! They absolutely did use the most generic anime design possible for Dan, to make it more "relatable" to their audience. Granted, Tony was also the most generic western american kid ever, as well. But it's just so glaring and off-putting the difference in art styles between the main character and everyone else. Every single scene is like playing a game of "spot the protagonist", that has lost its charm before you even fall down the hole.

As to the models or any other graphical work, that is way beyond the scope of something I even know how to begin looking for. I don't expect I'll have enough free time/energy to dive back into any recreational projects (aka this game) until January, at which point I'll be prioritizing making sure the translation is 100% polished. If I have time leftover after that, I'll look into the character model thing because that's one of the few flaws of this game that I can't convince myself just add to its charm.

Aplier · Dec 9, 2019

ZucriyAmsuna said:
This came as quite the surprise! A few of us in the community have been looking into it here and there and finding that someone determined that the entirety (or at least most) of the English dialogue/text existed in the game. (This may have been Normmatt?) We didn't know how to begin attempting to get the game to use that text since none of us are ROM hackers.

And then this happened. Thank you very much!

I find it interesting that it was done by people who don't seem to be part of the existing Magi-Nation communities on Reddit, Facebook, and/or Discord (the most popular/active one at the moment). If anyone is interested, go to the /r/magination subreddit and look at the top pinned post to find the necessary links. We could always use more people to talk about anything Magi-Nation related.

I am 100% not a rom hacker either (though technically untrue now, I suppose). Just a person who loved this game so much and understood the minimums of basic japanese well enough to decide to brute force my way through the entire translation in the least ugly way possible. At least until Normatt showed up. A lot of credit I have to give for Normatt for having the actual rom hacking skills and having his pointers to do the bulk of the main script, replacing what was to end up my rough translations with the original text. Though I do steal some of his credit back for myself for accidentally dragging him out of hiding =P.

I didn't even know until reading this message (a few weeks late, sorry for the delay) that there even are still existing communities for Magi Nation. I'm kinda surprised to see it still going "strong" as a card game. I never actually got significantly into the tcg for it at the time cause I was just a kid, and my brother and I both got a big box full of mtg cards from a parent's friend. But I loved the artwork, even more so now having looked up cards online, and can't find my "collection" (maybe 5 whole cards) anymore. ='(

The FB pages and reddit seem to be almost entirely dedicated to the ccg, so for now I think I'll make my way to the discord. I love this game and would so much enjoy having other people to talk to about it. I've long since decided that if I ever got into speedrunning (which I thoroughly enjoy watching), then this game would be my first project and I'd work at it until magi nation made it into some big event like GDQ. But that one is probably far more of a pipe dream than waiting around for a translation to appear was.

Aplier · Jan 17, 2020

A new patch with the below text fixes has been released. Overall minor and nothing that significantly affected changes. The version number is 1.01 and the file is now uploaded to the first post.

"still enjoying the party" <-- too long, cuts into next line. FIXED
"refuse warada's suggestion" <-- gets cut off, shows blank box. FIXED
"ahh, sarbil, please show our guest the door" <-- creature changed to Tragan. FIXED
"star keys" <-- item name is plural, always. FIXED

If anyone has come across any other issues while playing (other than some truncated names such as "Shdw Magi" or "Agrm", as those are due to space limitations), please free to let me know and I'll add them to my to-do list.

Belibell · May 25, 2020

I can't believe this post is from 2019/2020!! I was convinced it was from 2008 before checking it. Just created an account to say THANK you for translating the rom!!!! I loved this game for years. And I agree, I despise the character in the japanese version. I miss Tony Jones! haha

EvilJagaGenius · May 27, 2020

Just made an account to post on this! I opened up the ROM in Tile Layer Pro and was able to see a lot of graphics, it doesn't look like much is compressed at all. I'm fairly certain the tiles used on the title screen (including Dan's picture) are around 0x04c560. Dan's dialogue portraits start around 0x089e78, and I think his overworld sprites are around 0x6701c0. I'm not sure what other sprites he uses, those were the only ones I could easily identify. (I didn't see a portrait for Tony hidden in there, I wasn't sure what I was looking for)

So if somebody wanted to draw up new graphics to change Dan into Tony, I think it'd be easy to insert them. I didn't check where palettes were stored in the ROM, but I don't think they'd be too hard to find. The only other thing would be to change Dan to Tony in the script, which I don't know how to do... I can see all the English text, but I don't know how to insert or rearrange it (to fit the extra letter in 'Tony') without breaking the ROM.

Finally, thank you for the translation patch! It's wonderful to enjoy this in English, and if somebody can go the little step further for the graphical tweaking it would make a fantastic localization.

hollowdeathcult · May 29, 2020

Thank you very much for this! I didn't know there was a GBA game at all! Thabk you!

EvilJagaGenius · Jun 6, 2020

EvilJagaGenius said:
Just made an account to post on this! I opened up the ROM in Tile Layer Pro and was able to see a lot of graphics, it doesn't look like much is compressed at all. I'm fairly certain the tiles used on the title screen (including Dan's picture) are around 0x04c560. Dan's dialogue portraits start around 0x089e78, and I think his overworld sprites are around 0x6701c0. I'm not sure what other sprites he uses, those were the only ones I could easily identify. (I didn't see a portrait for Tony hidden in there, I wasn't sure what I was looking for)

So if somebody wanted to draw up new graphics to change Dan into Tony, I think it'd be easy to insert them. I didn't check where palettes were stored in the ROM, but I don't think they'd be too hard to find. The only other thing would be to change Dan to Tony in the script, which I don't know how to do... I can see all the English text, but I don't know how to insert or rearrange it (to fit the extra letter in 'Tony') without breaking the ROM.

I can post links and images and other goodies now! I've been working on this a bit, and it's a little harder than I thought. Here's what I have.
So, I found this image on the Magi-Nation wiki: https://magination.fandom.com/wiki/Tony_Jones?file=Tony_Jones_GBA.png#GBA
I'm not sure where it came from, but I downloaded it and opened it up in GIMP to clean up the compression artifacts and bring it down to 16 colors. Here's what it looks like in-game (and I have a color to spare! huzzah):

Basically, what I've been doing is looking for every portrait of Dan in the ROM and pasting this on top of it. The difficult part is that every portrait (as far as I can tell) is arranged slightly differently in the ROM, so I can't do a straight copy-and-paste. Some appear to be missing tiles, so when I try to paste Tony's sprite in, he's missing a chunk out of his shoulder or something. I think a better solution would be to find out how the game switches dialogue portraits, then make it so every one of Dan's lines points to one complete Tony portrait... but I don't know enough about how the dialogue system works to do that.

I'm not sure if or when I'll get back to this project, so if anybody would like to take a stab at it, here's an IPS patch with all my changes so far: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cagXil9FJipmJOu1N9gxL8MLSufx7oVm/view?usp=sharing
It's meant to go on top of a translated ROM, not sure if it'll work with a Japanese one.

Aplier · Jun 15, 2020

You are all so welcome for the translation! Over the past few months I've since been working on deconstructing how the RNG works so that I can abuse that for rng manipulation. But that's a side hobby I've only been able to put in a few hours at a time for.

@EvilJagaGenius and thank you for the work on the Tony swap! The image actually comes from within the GBA rom file itself, where Tony's face was tossed in at the end of the creature portrait list, I think I took notes of where I found it which I can share with you. I can do the script change easily enough, since it just takes a little creativity to squeeze in an extra letter here or there the 300 times "Dan" shows up. And make that as an IPS patch on top of what you just made or on top of the original japanese file. The only hiccup I can think of would have to be in the menus and battles his name would be "Tny" since I've already stolen the 1 extra character for that space to get it up to 3, and it would take redoing potentially a lot of pointers that I don't know where to find our how to edit to get it up to 4.

As far as the portrait goes and as awesome as the swap is, while Dan can be annoying and over the top, his face at least has emotions that change with the context of the dialogue. Idk if I could go through the whole game looking at that emotionless stare from Tony. If we could get an extraction of all of Dan's portraits since you've been finding them and someone to do some simple art to give Tony's face similar expressions, you could the do a proper swap of the portraits that keeps the emotional context to the dialogue.

Aplier · Jun 15, 2020

IPS patch with Tony replacing Dan in the script (just "Tny" in menu and battle messages though) and using @EvilJagaGenius Tony character portrait swap, will update in the OP as well to include the link there. The patch is created from the original japanese file, so in theory it should overwrite any iteration of the translation people are on. I take no responsibility for the Tony portraits, and haven't played super far into the game on this save file yet to see if they're all there. I think I got all of the Dans that are used throughout the script, though.

Also @ evil I found this monstrosity pretty early on.

EvilJagaGenius · Jun 15, 2020

@Aplier
Yeah, Dan looks downright freaky without the right palette, lol. The monstrosity was right after I found one of Dan's portraits that was missing a tile I needed (so Tony had a piece missing out of his shoulder), and I thought I needed a better method than just pasting over Dan's portraits. So that's where I stopped.

I just got back in town from a weekend vacation, so I can take another look at it soon. I'm not much of a pixel artist, but I could try coming up with new portraits for each of Dan's expressions, and while I'm at it make said portraits so that they aren't missing pieces... would take work, but should be doable. I think.

Also, as an alternative to "Tny" in the menus and such, since Tony's last name is Jones, would replacing it with "T.J" fit better? I don't know if anybody refers to him as T.J. in the series, but it seems a fairly common nickname.

EDIT: Sketched up new dialog portraits, now to sprite them.

EDIT 2: These need a lot of polish (and shading). There's one more face in the ROM I'm not sure how it's put together, I think it's an angry, shouting sort of face. If somebody has a screenshot (or better yet, a save before that face shows up), that'd be helpful.

EDIT 3: With some help from the Magi-Nation Discord server, here's a new patch with five portraits inserted. Should work fine on both Japanese and translated ROMs. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yvgPSEXr5xNb0VNt6VBOJu1_ELdwt2o9/view?usp=sharing

EvilJagaGenius · Aug 21, 2020

I'm not sure what the policy on double-posting here is, but it's been a while since I've updated the last post, so I'll write a new one. Found one last dialog portrait that needs done, in the meantime I'm working on the overworld sprites. Here's my work in progress sheet:

I know these need better colors and shading, there's quite a few sprites I'm missing right now, but it's progress.

Horonelius · Oct 10, 2020

Thank CHRIST someone is giving this game some love. Seeing as I practically know the dialog of the GBC version by heart, I have tried playing the game without a translation, but the camera lag, and the drunk music, and DAAAN made it impossible.

Eagerly awaiting the Tony sprites to be done, or even functional.

Horonelius · Oct 11, 2020

I dunno how easy it is to modify the text file in the game, but there are a few things I have noticed in the Dan version

The second half of my boy Tusk Bwisp's name appears to be cut off, resulting in "Tusk " wherever its name comes up. Doesn't appear to be an engine limitation, as other creatures names seem to render just fine. Alternatively could just be named Jore, as that appears to be its original name.
NPC references to the "Black Mass" and "Black Thingie" should probably be adjusted, seeing as they are no longer just a black pillar extending into the sky.
Blu still refers to Dan as Toney.
Upon returning Ashgar's Key after getting the boots the first time you return to the Cald and choosing to give Valkan the key back, the status message "You returned Ashgar's Key!" also appears in Dan's dialog, right before it appears in the status message.

Also, are the Shadow Hold and Cald Vent Tunnels themes supposed to be swapped?

Aplier · Oct 11, 2020

Thanks for the reports, it's pretty easy to get most of those fixed! Anything in the script (such as blu's "toney" that I may have missed in a search and replace for just "tony") is usually a quick fix.

Tusk's name and other truncated names that show up in generated messages such as in battle are, unfortunately, not fixable at this time. Those are not being read from a different section like the script is, but rather they are reading from the original location, just with different bytes shoved into place. And thus had to be limited to the same number of characters as the japanese name had, which is almost universally less space than the english text, so I just have to do my best to work with it. (For Tusk Bwisp in particular, I did have to choose between Tusk or Jore as you suggested, and made the executive decision to go with Tusk for as much consistency with the original gbc as possible.)

Anyways it's about time for a new patch, as there's a couple other things I have in my notes that need updating too, so I'll get what changes I can do and post a new version probably within the week.

I'm not sure what you mean by the shadow hold and cald "themes" though, can you elaborate on that one please?

Also you can join the discord that zucriy posted up above if you'd like to follow progress on the game (in the gbc/gba channel, a small subset of the discord that focuses more on the card game). We have someone who started on making tony sprites and most of the overworld ones are "done" and look pretty great! There's a number of other people slowly working our way through some other projects on the game, such as deconstructing, understanding, and documenting various segments of the game's code. Or my current project of working out the gba version's rng and testing out speedrunning routes based on rng manipulation.

And since I dont feel like double posting, I also figured out how to add the missing creatures for the gbc version into the game's rom, in addition to creating an encounter zone for the arderial hyrens, and will be adding a patch that does that to the main post as well.

Horonelius · Oct 12, 2020

Aplier said:
I'm not sure what you mean by the shadow hold and cald "themes" though, can you elaborate on that one please?

I was referring to the music, I haven't made it past the 3rd Geyser yet, but I have found it odd that the Shadow Hold music appears to be playing wherever the Cald Vent music played in the GBC version. Meanwhile the Cald Vent Tunnel music was playing in a core related area. Wasn't sure if that was developer decision or the result forcing the ROM to look at the English dialog.
Another few dialog oddities:

When you get rescued in the Shadow Hold, Dan says the rescuers 2 or 3 lines of dialog right before he does, and he does it each time.
Upon encountering and beating Warradda, she comments that Dan didn't give the Ashgar's key back, despite the fact that, in my case, I did it upon returning to Cald. Maybe the dialog pointers are backwards?
After getting rescued in the Shadow Hold, the correct music starts playing. However, once you leave the screen, the "Orwin is sick" music plays, even if you go back to the previous screen.
When Dan blows Blu's Horn, the title screen music starts playing, and once you get to Oscent Mar, the music from that swampy area north of the Weave starts playing

Having not gotten anywhere near this far in the original japanese version, I can't say if this is normal, but it sure feels unintentional. Not gamebreaking, but its really jarring. Really, it seems like a majority of the music past the Cald is all mixed up or something.

EDIT: Loaded the unpatched ROM in VBA, and the music appears to be like that intentionally. What a bizarre decision.

Horonelius · Oct 14, 2020

Got a few more things for you:

The phrase "So-and-so has Plague now" appears to show up whenever a creature is inflicted with any status effect. Actual plague show this, but so does a creature being inflicted with confusion, by say Whirl. A creature using Mirror also triggers this phrase. I haven't checked hiccups yet, but the actual midturn "so-and-so is confused" appears to be working. Same with eruption.
Gia's speech after the 4th geyser gets cut off, when she mentions how "a geyser appeared in Orothe." Only the italicized text ends up actually appearing.

ArderianLight · Oct 20, 2020

Like many others, I've only made an account to thank you for your work. I've had a copy of the GBA game for years, gave it a try or two, and thought it would just be a curiosity in my collection. I am thrilled you've opened up what's essentially a remaster of the GBC game. Thank you!! I applied the latest patch yesterday and had it running. It's amazing to see it in English.

If you ever do get into Magi Nation speedrunning, post about it on the Magi Nation subreddit and I'd watch your progress (at least on YouTube, I haven't gotten into Twitch, nor do I have time for tracking livestreams).

In case you haven't heard, there's also a GBC rom of the unreleased Keeper's Quest game that just came out! I discovered both that file and your project on the same day yesterday. Thanks for such an exciting discovery.

Viersell · Dec 31, 2020

I have been waiting years for this, so how I do get this to work, if you don't mind me asking

EvilJagaGenius · Jan 19, 2021

Made some updates. Notably:

The title screen! I converted Tony from the GBC box art into 16 colors and you can see him instead of Dan on the title screen.
Walking, running, and mini overworld sprites are done.
A lot of cutscene sprites are done, notably the ones when Tony/Dan falls into the pool.
Most, if not all, battle sprites are done.

Basically, you should be able to play up to the first Shadow Geyser without seeing Dan's old sprites. As before, should work with either a clean Japanese or translated ROM.

I'm not going to be able to work on this hack much for a long while. If somebody else would like to take up hacking, let me know and I can post my notes and my spritesheets.

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