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Implemented the third VWF in a row:

This one was using 16x16 4bpp blocks. I'm really starting to hate this game's code with a passion.

Looks good, as usual! It's for PlayStation, right? But why did they used a 4BPP format for a shaded font? Is it really necessary?
(notice: I live in a 8 bit world)

hello guys, as i started to check out the asm i got to hack the game in gameboy assembly editor. i searched for code that loaded the address 8000, so the first i find is "ld hl,8000" (and then called for what i think may be some loading and decomrpession of tiles function). i changed the 8000 for 8800 to see what happens. and for my sourprise, the game loaded some tiles that it didn't in that particular part of the game (a nintendo logo set of tiles).  in a hex editor i replaced some text for these tiles and then ran the game in no$gmb, and IT WORKED, the text was replaced for the newly loaded tiles (confirming that the tiles were now loaded).

Editing random part of codes is not exactly a good manner of doing things. Consider that in your ROM there there are very likely more than one instance of "ld hl,$8000" so you might be editing the wrong one.
Anyway, excluding the option that you write your own (de)compressin tool, your other chance is this: overwrite the existing code (which decompresses fonts in Work-RAM and loads the result in VRAM) with a code that just loads uncompressed fonts from ROM to the original Work-RAM and than let that the existing program copies it to VRAM (so you don't have troubles with VBlank timings).

Obviously first you have to find and disassemble the original routine; to do this you'll need to use a debugger (I strongly suggest BGB). You can for example put a breakpoint on access to VRAM:8000 and see when the game stops right before loading fonts in VRAM, and then go disassembling.
Now, since I'm cool (and since I was curious), I gave a very quick look at your game's code (using BGB), and found out that fonts can be loaded either in VRAM:8000 or in VRAM:9000. Here is a small chunk of extracted code, just to help you starting out somewhere:

Code Select Expand


ROM4:7398 21 00 80         ld   hl,8000
ROM4:739b 18 03            jr   73a0
ROM4:739d 21 00 90         ld   hl,9000
ROM4:73a0 3e 40            ld   a,40
ROM4:73a2 cd de 10         call 10de
ROM4:73a5 c3 2a 07         jp   072a

So, now, all you have to do is put a breakpoint at 04:73a0 in BGB and figure out the code step-by-step to find what to modify. Also, notice that this game, like many japanese-version games, has very small free space, so you might need to expand the ROM and repoint fonts and parts of code in a different bank than the original.

kinda weird if i think about it...
is the nintendo logo at the begining of games stored in the rom or in the emulator?

The Nintendo logo is loaded by the Boot ROM, located in the Game Boy hardware.

or is he/she(/it?) referring to the NES one? In that case, the disassembly author didn't specify which assembler is required (certainly not Visual Studio, I say..)

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "tracer option", but you can execute an opcode at a time by pressing F7, or you can step out(= run the game until a "ret" is performed) by pressing F8 (this is useful if you want to skip certain "calls", thus not having to go through too many sub-sub-sub...routines). You can also set conditional breakpoints (for instance you can say the program to break at address xxxx if a register contains a certain value).
I don't know what a trace logger actually does, so I might have misunderstood the whole post.

(i want to create a hack for harvest moon (gbc))

Now that's a fine answer all right. You've got a point there.
But which I don't understand if this is such a high paid task like ten thousands of dollars like you're saying I'm wondering why there ARE such tools for the pokemon games and the developers (which did it probably for fun) never got their ten thousands of dollars?

Makes me really wonder how realistis this view is.

First: you answered yourself, since you said they did it for fun. They weren't asked by some random guy to make a tool for a random game they probably don't even have interest in (which, by the way, I think, is one of the main reason for a hacker to do something).

Second: I have no knowledge in PSX hardware, but comparing a psx game to a GBA pokemon game seems pretty out of place, since pokemon is generally way smaller than a PSX game, not to mention that PSX have 3D graphics (they do, don't they?), while pokemon just have maps formed by predeclared blocks, which really isn't a big deal at all.

Once again, not knowing anything about PSX mechanics I may be wrong, but it seems that building a tool for a psx game would take too much time if compared to the requester's attitude and offer.

I do know and saw what Gemini can do. I respect him and think he's quite good when we talk about basic ROM hacking. But his reaction makes me wonder if he even feels up to the task. No elaboration, just saying my task is a mess and 100$ is not enough.

I never implied Gemini isn't skilled but that this task is maybe even too hard for him that's why he turned it down.
Maybe it is  a presumption but after all this is no easy task I guess.

If you really want to disprove Gemini, give him ten thousands of dollars and see if you won't receive a well packed tool with a shiny ribbon on it (you're going to receive it for sure since you are being such a nice and enlightened person [sarcasm]).

You could also use BGB's VRAM viewer to see what value correspond to each tile (or character).

Thank you, Garoth Moulinoski, Ryusui and DarknessSavior.

Those aren't hyphens, those are cho'on ("long sound") symbols. They extend the previous vowel sound.

ストーリー "Story"
たいせん "Battle"
しょうかい "Tutorial"
コンフィグ "Config"

はじめから "New Game" (lit. "From the Start")
つづきから "Continue"

I was wondering what those symbols were, because, in the texts GFX, it was put near numbers and common symbols ("/","!","?"; by the way does the symbol "~" mean something particular in japanese?)

Given that it's a sports game, I'm inclined to think that it's some sort of biography or introduction to the team members.

~DS

Hmm... But it only seems to give you information on the teams featured in the game... It doesn't seem to really show you how to play the game, unless it shows you instruction on how to play each team, assuming each team plays differently.

Maybe Info would be better? As in Team information?

In fact here's an example for the Shohoku Team:



I think I'll go for "(Team) Info".

My recommendation, before you go any further, is at least pick up an acceptable grasp of the hiragana and katakana.

You're probably right, but I have to admit that my preference would be to find a disposable translator, that would handle the translation, while I should only deal with the hacking part... Does Help Wanted Ads work fine? I mean, a game like this is probably not so famous, and finding another person to dedicate to this project would be impossible? Or are there people that translate games just for sake of translating?

Hi, hacking/translation of "SlamDunk" for GB is on again; and my japanese is not improved at all. GoogleTranslator's neither, apparently. So I'm having some doubts about translation.

At the moment I'm translating the first menu:
-----------------------------------

I hope I got the transliteration correct, at least:

スト-リ-          (I don't know why this has hyphens inside...): this takes you to 'Main Story mode' where you can choose between a "new game" and "password" (this game hasn't battery file, i.e. no 'save'). The translator says "list-list" (???). I would just put "Story", here.

たいせん        the translator says "Taisen"(???), or "Competition","Fight", which is more fitting, since this choice takes you to P1vsPC match, where you can choose your and opposite team, among the four disposable.

しょうかい      the translator says "introduce": basically this choice opens another menu where you can choose which team's description you want to read. I would put "(Teams) Presentation" (too long, probably).

コンフィワ"    This comes out pretty well: "Configuration", I guess "Options" would be 'more standard'.
------------------------------------------
Here is the Story sub-menu:

I couldn't manage to transliterate this, although, I think they can be acceptably translated with "New Game" and "Password", right?


Thanks in advance for any help you would donate,
Sawakita

IIMarckus has a WIP Disassembly of Red, which, in my opinion, is the biggest resource on R/B routines and stuff.
Too bad for you, "moves" haven't been recked yet.

Nevertheless on Skeetendo there's a pretty well done doc that should be reliable.

Since you're having so much trouble, I made an ips file for you:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wknhrmmmnfi

Thank you for your help!

Btw, you're not supposed to use the program on a zip or rar file, only on the extracted rom file (.gbc).

Yes, I know it, but since the patching wasn't going right I tried some unlikely solutions..

Thanks again, see ya

Path probably needs to have no spaces and no ANSI or Unicode symbols in it.

cYa,

Tauwasser

Unfortunately the problem doesn't seem to be that. I tried to put the files in "C:\Yellow" to make everything simpler, but it didn't work. I wonder if it is possible the uploader to upload an .ips file instead of "Pokemon Thunder Yellow Patch.exe", that has obviously some internal error; I'm curious to know if there's anyone that experienced my same problem...

EDIT:
The program is only able to patch .zip and .rar files, but not the extracted .gb one. Anyway it's impossible to extract the file, because after patching the archive is damaged (zip) or corrupted (rar). The mystery tangles...

[i give it the right address]

even though i give it the right address

You have to click Browse, then set the path where the file is, by selecting it.

Obviously I selected the path, but the program still says "ERROR"..

ok thank you for the reply. Anyway, i'm experiencing a problem: when i try to patch the rom, the programs say "[ERROR] Cannot find file to patch.", even though i give it the right address. Any hint?

I agree with redsoul, i think you've done a really good job, but i have a question (i hope i'm not OT): when i try to open .exe file my antivirus finds a virus (Trojan), and I obviously deny access to file. Isn't there an .ips file to patch the original rom, or can you please upload a "virus-free" .exe file?

thanks in advance