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

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

My only real issue with the font used in the RPG and the Adventure are the lower case letters, like when they made the capital letters they designed it in a way that they shot themselves in the foot when it came time to add lower case letters which is why there are many odd vertical positioning placements for the different letters.

I remember we discussed the layout of the dialogue screen and even though alignment is a bitch, lining up the text relative to the left edge of each line (after the speaker name) looked the nicest overall. I do love extra space potential and all but for me that makes it harder to read.

I see what you are getting at with the quotes, but the thing is that almost every line in the game that appears there is of someone speaking. It would just be overkill and I'd have to painstakingly realign and check every single line in both adventure games to check for text overflow and (new) positioning errors. In an RPG, this makes sense, however. A lot of the text in that is of an action or describing something. There isn't conversation going on for 99% of the text that appears in the dialog window.

Okay, back in RGC2 update land, most of the graphic requests are done now:

* Rally King tent overhead
* Adventure game overworld map
* Game shop background during game selection
* Fail mark for skipping a challenge <- In progress

I'm updating the magazines and manuals again. There are many changes to the RPG but I'm getting concerned because fundamental changes to things like enemy names and the look of the main menu/options affect so many things in the game that will all have to be redone and tested. This may significantly slow down progress on releasing a new patch (read: I *really* don't want to touch things that are established and have references to them elsewhere in the game)

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay, even more consistency changes to the RPG are done and the X when you give up a challenge is working. I'll try to post screenshots later.

One thing I'm still debating on is the main RPG menu. I use "Items" in there. Do I really need to nerf Magic into Mag. and Stats into Stat to try an imitate a limitation that we don't need to really imitate? Guadia->Pact is more correct and Search->Look is something I'm still okay with due to the length relative to other commands but some of them just seem like artificial limitations I'm putting in for no reason.

I'm just rambling here, don't mind me. The rest of the game is shaping up fine and replacing everything and their references isn't as bad as I hoped in some cases.

Of course I'm still thinking about the overall font. I don't know if I want to change the whole thing but I'm curious about how different fonts will look.

 

[Kurt91]

I haven't gotten to the RPG bit quite yet, I'm abhorrently bad at most Adventure games. I actually had to go find a guide for the Adventure game. However, in doing so, I noticed something odd. The guide is for the Japanese version, and assumes that the player needs the guide because they can't read the text at all.

Where you labeled "Inquire" and "Gabble", the guide referred to them as "Tsukkomu" and "Boketemiru". This is supposed to be a reference to Arino's comedy act, correct? Knowing this, is there a more accurate term for these? I have no knowledge at all about Arino's career other than what I've heard from casually reading this thread for updates, the TVTropes article on the Retro Game Challenge series, and playing the game myself. I know the two terms refer to a sort of routine, so I was curious about the "Inquire" and "Gabble" translation for them. To be completely honest, I don't even have much of an idea what the two terms mean or what the comedy act was supposed to be, so "Inquire" and "Gabble" don't make much sense to me in that regard.

By the way, because I'm lazy and never got around to logging back in for a couple weeks after getting logged out, I never got around to thanking you for the translation. This is a really fun game, and I'm very grateful for your hard work in making it available for us to play. (Amazing timing, releasing this so close to the Ace Attorney Investigations release. I've got a lot to do now!)

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Oh, you need a guide?

http://www.gccxpatch.com/extras.html

About the two comedy routine commands, it is a general Japanese comedy duo habit where one acts all serious and "normal" and the other acts like an idiot with the first one retorting about how moronic the other is being. There really isn't a good term for those and this was one of the first big issues with the adventure.

The top two commands are basically "ask seriously about" and "ramble on like a fool about". If you have a good suggestion, let me know, but nothing else we came up with seemed to fit the context of the game despite that second one (gabble) being a bit odd on its own.

I wish it were as simple as "ask" and "look" but it doesn't work that way here, unfortunately.

I'm glad you're enjoying the game, by the way.


Okay, I put a whole new set of menu graphics in the RPG and patched up a ton of small inconsistencies and small errors. It's probably not perfect but it's looking a lot better anyway. Hopefully I can post some screenshots of all the changes tonight or tomorrow.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Pictures, because this page has too much text.

Rally King EX now has signs that aren't in Japanese:

You can actually fail a challenge without having Japanese "Give Up" thrown at you:

The JoycoLand background during game selection has the proper bg now with the English on the walls:

And here is the experimental part. I messed with the RPG menus a bit. Some of them look really nice, I compromised in a few cases, and in other cases I'll...have to think about it.

"Run" was changed to "Flee", among many other subtle changes here and there.

 

[cubeboy]

One thing I'm still debating on is the main RPG menu. I use "Items" in there. Do I really need to nerf Magic into Mag. and Stats into Stat to try an imitate a limitation that we don't need to really imitate? Guadia->Pact is more correct and Search->Look is something I'm still okay with due to the length relative to other commands but some of them just seem like artificial limitations I'm putting in for no reason.
.

You mean in comparison to the first game right? Since GQS is a sequel, we should expect things to improve from the first game, therefore, I don't see a need to nerf text just because the first game did it. That was some of the charm of the first, "wow, look at the p-meter in Super Mario Bros 3, I know how fast I need to run now, that's so cool!"

Changing to Pact makes sense because it's a concept from the first, that seems to be the same as the sequel. And changing Search to Look does sound like an artificial limitation, especially since Search seems to be a more fitting command.

 

[cubeboy]

You can actually fail a challenge without having Japanese "Give Up" thrown at you:

On a side note, when Arino gives up on a game in the show, they usually use the english words "give up", when asking him if he wants to give up, and Arino will say "give up", sometimes crossing his arms. I'm not saying that "give up" is a beter fit than "Fail!!", but just adding a little GCCX show info.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

I seem to remember that from the show, actually.

In the game, the image is quite clearly 失敗 which is Fail. However, in the challenge list window in the game selection screen, it originally had "Give Up" in katakana written over the big red "X". However, it was crammed in there so small you couldn't actually see much of the X.

You do have to phone Arino up and ask to Give Up, though, for what it is worth. (For anyone wishing to try it out, you need to have a play count of 10 or more on a game with a challenge you are trying to clear, then when you call Arino he will as if you want to give up)

 

[NighTrekr]

I'm playing through the game now (on actual hardware via a flash card, FWIW) using the most recent patch, and so far I've run into a couple minor mistakes. Apologies if these have already been mentioned. I searched the thread and didn't find anything.

- "Stomach" is misspelled on this page of the Feb. 1986 GameFan magazine.

- There's an unnecessary space between "He" and "'s" in the Kinopyon description (page 17) in the Demon Returns manual. (Also, I just noticed missing punctuation at the end of the Takoppi and the Kanyocho descriptions, though I don't think that's crucial.)

I'll post more as I find them.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Thanks.

Yeah, any case where you see a space after the apostrophe is because it is a double byte apostrophe. I made up combination characters of things like 's and 't and tried replacing all entries where I could but I might not have caught them all.

I have a 1.1.1 patch which I don't want releases yet because I'm still touching up a few things but I'll put your fixes in, too.

 

[RadioShadow]

I'm guessing those are meant to be puns on animals names? Out of interest Aaron, could you explain? I know "Tako" is Octopus, pyon is hop, and that it is.

Since this a parody of Super Mario Bros, maybe we should give them some better names that make sense in English (like how Goomba's are known as Kuribo in Japan)?

My only real issue with the font used in the RPG and the Adventure are the lower case letters, like when they made the capital letters they designed it in a way that they shot themselves in the foot when it came time to add lower case letters which is why there are many odd vertical positioning placements for the different letters.

Well editing the font shouldn't be a problem. Since NFTRedit refuses to open adv_font, I just made one myself. I made the j p q look better, but having trouble with the y. Any suggestions would be great.

The file does seem to work fine, but in the Adventure game, only the menu text display. The main text doesn't. It's as know you are using the 2-byte ascii characters for the main text (please tell me that is not the case <_<) and 1-byte ascii for the menus.

 

[coredecepts]

Kinopyon seems like a cute way to reference the mushroom-ness of the enemy.

 

[Kurt91]

Oh, you need a guide?

http://www.gccxpatch.com/extras.html

About the two comedy routine commands, it is a general Japanese comedy duo habit where one acts all serious and "normal" and the other acts like an idiot with the first one retorting about how moronic the other is being. There really isn't a good term for those and this was one of the first big issues with the adventure.

The top two commands are basically "ask seriously about" and "ramble on like a fool about". If you have a good suggestion, let me know, but nothing else we came up with seemed to fit the context of the game despite that second one (gabble) being a bit odd on its own.

I wish it were as simple as "ask" and "look" but it doesn't work that way here, unfortunately.

I'm glad you're enjoying the game, by the way.

Okay, thank you for the explanation, and the guide looks like it's a lot easier to follow than the one I was using.

I'm not sure if it would be much of an improvement, but the only thing that comes to mind after reading your explanation would be just "Serious" and "Foolish", or "Ask" and "Play Dumb".

If you're changing the font for the RPG, are you going to change all of it so it matches, or just the certain windows like you're showing already?

 

[Kobalos]

Well editing the font shouldn't be a problem. Since NFTRedit refuses to open adv_font, I just made one myself. I made the j p q look better, but having trouble with the y. Any suggestions would be great.

I noticed that you extended the descenders of those letters downward; but this 'shouldn't be possible' since each character should be 8x8 max. That's why there's so much vertical variation in the original font.

For me, one of the charms of Retro Game Challenge was the fact that Indies did an amazing job at working within the limitations and quirks of the consoles (ever noticed how the stars in Star Prince pass through the black parts in background tiles?); it's a bummer GCCX3 doesn't seem to have the same attention to detail.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

The conversion program puts the text in double byte characters because single byte ones actually don't work in many parts of the RPG and adventure. I made a few posts a number of pages back about mein kampf with the RPG and item names used in the dialogue.

However, the adv options are in overlay files and those actually did support single byte characters. Weird. The RPG is even more complex. Descriptions can be single byte but item, spell, monster and skill names must be double byte.

Oh, Tinke opens adv_font just fine, by the way. If you want, I can duplicate your efforts to the double byte Roman alphabet just to see how it looks...when I get a chance next, that is. I totally believe that I'm that era the Japanese games would overlook the lower case letters and a western release may use a better font or reworked font for those same letters. I guess I'd have to see it all in action.

Kurt> this would be for the overall font. The menus in the RPG were always graphics and the look was a bit different. I just hope I don't have too much of a contrast in fonts. All the same, what is there now is better than those handwritten letters I made initially. Changing the main font affects a lot, though, which is why I'm hesitant to change it; the adventures and RPGs would need to be tested from scratch.

Radio> Yeah, they are puns on animal names, actions and/or attributes. Changes to the names here will also have to be made in the game but the catch is that those text phrases in the game are actually graphics. That and even though I'm fine with the enemy names, I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

 

[Kobalos]

Since I was bored I tried my hand at a good looking font as well. The letters should be equal or smaller in width to the original font so hopefully no new overflows are introduced.

Fancy pantsy comparison mock-ups (left original, right replacement):

edit: tweak on '4' and 'G'

 

[MarkDarkness]

Since I was bored I tried my hand at a good looking font as well. The letters should be equal or smaller in width to the original font so hopefully no new overflows are introduced.
View attachment 8488
Fancy pantsy comparison mock-ups (left original, right replacement):
View attachment 8489View attachment 8490
View attachment 8491View attachment 8492

That's some pretty good work, man.

 

[AnotherGamer]

Radio> Yeah, they are puns on animal names, actions and/or attributes. Changes to the names here will also have to be made in the game but the catch is that those text phrases in the game are actually graphics. That and even though I'm fine with the enemy names, I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

Kinopyon could be something like Boun(d/c)shroom and Takoppi could be something octopus-related, but I'm not really that familiar with the rest of meanings of their names, which would be nice to have for some kind of a baseline on what to change them into.

View attachment 8491

Also now I want to fight a crazy cat lazy in GQS that bleeds cats when hit.

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

AnotherGamer> I'll work on that later if I get a chance.

Oh, I got to mess with the ADV/RPG Font a bit. It needs some tweaking still, but hey, new font!

 

[Aaron Chmielowiec]

Okay, I found out that some of the letters were set to be one pixel wider than characters of the same width ("v" was one of the culprits) and that is all fixed now.

Also, the ellipses problem that *still* gets reported...Well, I found all of the ones people are complaining about in the optional Chat/Telephone dialogue scripts and managed to fix those

So that means what was "Cool as ice... / Warm as the sun..." Is now "Cool as ice… / Warm as the sun…". Even though it looks the same in-game that small subtlety is important because the conversion process goes haywire when shifting from SJIS to Unicode back and forth for each question/answer and some characters don't quite convert properly, single-byte period being one of them.

In any case, I do have a patch (1.2) ready to go but I'll try to sneak in at least a few more tweaks to the Adventure game text (layout/appearance) first.

For those interested:

Version 1.2.0 - Fixed Japanese in background (Tent tops) of Rally King EX
- Fixed challenge screen to reflect challenges you forfeited
- Fixed Bamco banner on the Adventure Game world map
- Fixed the game select background in the shop to have English
- Renamed many enemies, items and places in the RPG to keep in line with the Guadia Quest universe
- Fixed "Poisoned" icon in the RPG to not have Japanese
- Several fixes to the manuals and magazines
- Many corrections to fix consistency of item names and general spacing in the RPG
- Fixed some challenge text descriptions
- Reworked the look of the menus in the RPG
- Changed the lowercase letter font in the RPG/Adventure to not has so much wide vertical variety in placement.
- Fixed ellipses problem with the optional Chat and Phone conversations

Edit> RadioShadow> The names of all the enemies in Demon Returns are (based on the source "ride" image file):

Takoppi <- Pun on Tako (Octopus)
Kinopyon <- Reference to a frog. More specifically, "Pyon!" which is an onomatopoeia for "Jump"
Kaniccho <- Play on "Kani", a crab
Togemaki <- Toge means Thorn and Maki means to wrap up. Wrapped up thorn? Well, that kind of explains the spike.
Gasagasa <- I forget which enemy this is. Gasagasa is the sound of something rough rubbing against something else I believe, like sandpaper
Skull Fighter <- Skull Fighter...yay
Skull Knight <- Skull Knight...yay again
Hi-Takoppi <- Is this the Octopus with long legs? Something else? In any case it is still a reference to Octopus

And in Super Demon Returns, there are (left out descriptions for those same as above):

Takoppi
Kinopyon
Kaniccho
Togemaki
Gasagasa
Skull <- Skull, yay
Deinotti <- Dinosaur you ride with a spiked shell back.

Next, when I have a chance, I'll go through and explain these.