ROM Hack hacking in the dark with ZX

[hyparx]

I decided to learn something and try my hand at some text hacking [oh joy].

Mega Man ZX was my choice for a starter game, because it is easy to make sense the game's text locations.
Well, using a hex editor and luck I finally managed to change around some of the text in ZX. And when I say some, I mean one word.

But, when I exceed the length of the word I'm replacing, the game crashes ( I made DATA into DATAS ).
I know it's because I'm pushing everything off one hexly bit ... Might there be a way around that?

Secondly, I listed out [a little] the hex codes that ZX uses for its text (upper and lower ABC pieces, but I might add more later.)
I stuck it in Google and made an open version, so if you have anything constructive to add, please do.
It's the hex/text list ...

I also noticed that Drawn to Life uses the same hex for the same things. Is this some kind of encoding I'm missing?

 

[Jei]

I've also stumbled upon that issue when trying to translate the game to my language.

My fellow romhackers said that it had pointers stored into the text sections (the alphanumeric string that come before each event/dialogue), and since I'm not very good with math (you'd need to calculate each pointer again with your modified text, or program an automated tool to do that) I decided to quit it.
Further on, people offered to help me on the translation and provided some tools, but even so there's random crashes into it.

I'd only like you to know that it's way too complicated to do it if you're only translating/messing into the rom.

 

[hyparx]

Yeah, I'm only messing with it ...
Actually, the reason I was doing such was to get a handle on text hacking, for use in general and all.

Also, I was able to get the game's text to be changed and stay stable if its the exact same hex length of original text.
I know it would be a huge pain for a translation, but it would still be workable ... a little

 

[canx13]

so you can modify text in a game like those patches.....cool ^-^