Tokugawa Corporate Forums

lately I've been playing a few retro Japanese computer games out of nostalgia and realized that many (especially in Europe and America) will never know how great some of these games are.

I've been thinking of attempting to try hack and translate into them but have no experience with hacking into pc98, x68000, PCFX, etc.. only with consoles (and older ones at that) such as game boy and famicom.

how much different is it when working with these files?

Note that PC-FX is a console, the sucessor of the PC-Engine.

The difference when working with CDs or Floppy Images is mainly the fact that you are not working with a single file, as would be te case on a Famicom or Gameboy ROM. Also, in some cases the lack of proper tools may impose an obstacle.

Wushu, do you know how the guys who translated Farland Story operated ? Perhaps their method can be used to translate other games ?

btw, what retro j-comp games would YOU guys like to see to have translations?

I know its a PC98 site, but I'm open in checking out PC88, MSX2, X68k, FM Martys, and even PCE-CD (but I won't touch SFC, FC, MD, PS1/2 because theres too many people who like to do that and other machines have no love)

It probably depends on what you want to achieve and what actual experience you have.
In general the resource to go for this kind of things is Romhacking.net
You can get one Pc98 specific tool in the section there, nekoproject with tracing functions.
For basics regarding hacking, it is recommended you check the documents first (they mostly use Famicom as an example).
You can ask general questions in the forum, but since very few people are actually working on Japanese old Pc platforms, you will have a hard time getting specifics for them.
you might want to contact Danke at
http://danktrans.piranho.de/

because this guy has projects for Gameboy, Nes and PC98.

Maybe RadicalR can elaborate a bit, too.
Ah, one more thing: If you can offer translation services, you could ask
if KingMike is still interested on working at Last Armaggedon.
http://kingmike.emuxhaven.net/


Regarding the MSX2, this is probably the best documented old Japanese PC machine, because it has been released outside of Japan. There are quite some translations for it (for example SD-Snatcher). You probably find some communities who can help you out, or maybe ask the Bluemsx authors, they have a forum, too.

FM Towns / FM Marty

I agree w/ DamienD as FM-Towns games were typically improved from the other platforms. I wonder how much similarity is there between PC-98 and FM-Towns games as it might be possible to leverage between the two.

I have done some English translated work for FM-Towns, so I might be able to answer some of your questions. I guess there are a ton of adventures that never had official English translations. It might be easier for you to start on something easier with less text.

You could try translating Emerald Dragon for Fm-Towns , the snes version has already been translated so that would help alot:)

http://transcorp.parodius.com/projects/ed/
http://emedra.lakuuna.org/
ISO: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/forum/vi ... dragon#441

I disagree w/ that. This game has compressed text, which the PCE translation has other technical issues.

Here's what Nightcrawler (SNES translator) wrote:

"As far as Emerald Dragon, I have worked a bit with Dave Shadoff on and off with the PCE-CD version. They are similar in several areas, but also very different. I personally won't be releasing any patches for the PCE-CD version, but I will continue to support Dave's efforts(or anybody else) if they continue to start to work on the PCE-CD version."

As much as I like to see a translation for it, I don't think it's a good title to start with. I would wait for the PCE version to complete prior to doing a FM-Towns version.

It was only one guy, BTAxis.

Probably he just found the text strings (among the files in the floppy images) and translated it using hex (It doesn't seem to have much text.. does it?). Or maybe he made a script dumper/inserter, who knows. I still don't know why he didn't translate Farland Story 7.. maybe lack of motivation, maybe a rude text compression scheme..

I think BTAxis and I just picked targets of opportunity.

Some games are just really easy to hack, especially ones that have most of the text in external files so you don't have to mess around with the EXEs.

Yeah xD I was reading the patch readme and he said something like picking a game with no compression, fully editable using only hex (no asm hacks).

Something I did not fully understand, BTAxis wrote in the readmes that he couldn't find a NEC V20 disassembler, which I find odd since V20 is a clone of the 8088 (around 25% faster at the same clock) with a few extra instructions.

I'll upload a V20 disassembler just in case it's needed, 'DIS86' (DOS, for the brave only)

http://rapidshare.com/files/95237772/dis86-216.rar

Godspeed.

I am not good at hex editing but you can get a freeware hex editor.
http://www.kibria.de/frhed.html

_________________
I am a hentai maniac, I live too long and played lots of old hentai games till now.

hi guys,

after trying a bunch of games, I think I found much interest in Shangrlia 1 (for some reason, I found 2 unenjoyable so far..).

I tried taking a stab at it earlier today by searching for the fonts and graphics but completely failed in finding them when using a tile editor

I wonder if it is because it is an HDI file? I tried loading Air Management 2 (which is FDI) in directed and found the fonts in 1bpp mode quite easily.

but im more interested in working with an s.rpg

You can try :
- nana eiyuu densetsu 1&2,
- the gundam games,
- the macross games,
That's what comes to my mind first, but there's gotta be more.

I know nothing about programming, edtiting and translating, but if you guys need a pixel pusher used to work with limited pallette, I'm your man.