Castlevania II (Simon's Quest) - Multilingual enhancement

[Turambar]

Down + A to drop off stairs? Yes please.
"Sometimes I don't feel like going down the stairs just to get down to ground level.
I mean, there's no reason I should have to do that when I can just take a shortcut and jump down.
But oops, I shouldn't do that. There might be water down there."
From the legendary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY

If you can get the doors in town to be closed at night, that would be great. It would also make more sense.

Bathory? I did not know that. Maybe I should change the name.

Seems like a good change.

> I think there should be a secret way to go from Denis Marsh Pit to Berkeley Mansion.

I agree. And the secret staircase in that map looks like an accident from the designers.

I don't think it was an accident by the developers, I think that they just wanted a secret way for you to get back safely without having to cross the damaging floor. I think it would be cool though if it did connect to the Berkeley Mansion. For example, you could have an invisible platform that moves left and right that you can't see unless you have the crystal selected (or maybe Dracula's Ring). It allows you to be able to make it to the right wall, which you can pass through at the top.

> What's worse is that the sub-weapons don't get any stronger[...]
> As for the sub-weapons, maybe their damage should increase with level up?

It could be reasonable to powerup the weaker subweapons, like the bottle or the diamond, as Simon levels up. Maybe the others as well.

Increasing the damage of the subweapons as you level is a good idea. The holy water does the damage of your first whip. It's so crap.

> Even if they are not interactive, having animated lanterns in the towns at night would be pretty cool.

Or indeed those chandeliers.

See the lanterns above or in the vicinity of most doors? I think it could be reasonable to add a fire into them at nights.

Animated lanterns would be sweet. It would be cool if you could whip them like in Rondo of Blood.

> And if you ever figure out the background animation thing for the Open doors and lanterns
> in towns, consider an animation for the waterfalls in the Uta Lower Road.

That would pretty much have to be done as an MMC3 exclusive feature. You can only practically do such waterfall tricks by VROM bank switches. On MMC1, the VROM swap granularity is too high, and the cost would be too great (you would need to double the VROM size, and that's not something I am willing to do very lightly). On MMC3 it would actually be possible to swap much smaller regions of the VROM at time.

Animated waterfalls? Awesomesauce.

> Speaking of which, why Uta Wasteland? Isn't it an underground mountain pass?

Hmm, it should actually be called Uta Lower Road. I am not sure why I called it like that. Any suggestions for the new name? I am willing to change it.

Uta's Defile sounds pretty awesome.
http://thesaurus.yourdictionary.com/pass

> Also, Why "Laruba's Mansion" and not just "Laruba Mansion"?

Why Brahm's Mansion?

What is the rationale behind sometimes using 's and sometimes not? This boggles me. Could someone explain it?

The name of the mansion is generally named after a person or family, rather than being currently possessed by a particular person.
It's the difference between "the Tolkien Estate" and "J.R.R. Tolkien's estate."
I think that Brahm should be Bram, because of Bram Stoker.

Didn't I suggest 'A' for cancelling regular dialogues too? Aren't the two kinds of dialogues already handles differently? The reason for this suggestion is for consistency with the shop menus in most other games. You could always go the simpler route and have 'A' cancel out of the shop dialogue regardless of the cursor position which many games do as well.

On NES and SNES games, B is usually cancel and A is usually accept. Pressing B to cancel out of menus seems like a good idea.

[Bisqwit]

I successfully implemented the Down-A to drop off stairs support... It is not released yet.

But what do you guys think, should it be an optional feature? I think this would be one of those things that e.g. Bregalad would roll his eyes at, just what kind of "retranslation" is that.

But as for the patch vending machine, its usability suffers when there are too many choices to choose from.

This one is just a personal preference of mine. Could you add an optional patch to disable access to the password feature and remove it from the start menu? I just think it would look neater especially since I don't intend to ever use the god-awful password system ever again.

In my patch system it is not currently possible to customize the menu screens for different patch options, without awkward hacks. The screens are stored in the text translation file, which does not know about patch options. In addition, the cursor positions must be indicated in the assembler code that deals with processing the UI for that menu, which also has a limited number of variants.
This is why the Load Game option stays in the menu even if SRAM is disabled. This would also go for the password feature.

[ChronoMoogle]

Sounds like a very good improvement!
Maybe you should consider to forge all control fixes to one option in the patching screen.
Improved controls Yes/No
This would fix the issue with too many choices

[Turambar]

I think that adding the ability to drop off stairs wouldn't be that big of a deal.
It's sort of like using a Doom source port like ZDOOM that adds looking up and down, you don't have to actually do it if you don't want to.
Also, I noticed that when you use an oak stake on an orb it makes your life bar disappear.

[Bisqwit]

Maybe you should consider to forge all control fixes to one option in the patching screen.
Improved controls Yes/No
This would fix the issue with too many choices

But there are no other changes of that sort.

[M-Tee]

Honestly, I think all the options are unnecessary. I would put everything below "chipset" on your vending machine in one group called "improvements." It shows confidence in your choices, allows an unaltered option for purists, and still has the regional and chipset options for compatability.

[Turambar]

I always pick yes on everything because they are all things that make the game better and that's why I'm playing it.

[Vanya]

Down + A to drop off stairs? Yes please.
"Sometimes I don't feel like going down the stairs just to get down to ground level.
I mean, there's no reason I should have to do that when I can just take a shortcut and jump down.
But oops, I shouldn't do that. There might be water down there."
From the legendary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4we8iFk-fY

To be honest I'd remove the pit falls in all the towns except the first one. (for nostalgia)
You shouldn't otherwise be able to die like that in towns. Everywhere else? Well if you leap without looking out in the world and you get killed, then that's your own damn fault.

I don't think it was an accident by the developers, I think that they just wanted a secret way for you to get back safely without having to cross the damaging floor. I think it would be cool though if it did connect to the Berkeley Mansion. For example, you could have an invisible platform that moves left and right that you can't see unless you have the crystal selected (or maybe Dracula's Ring). It allows you to be able to make it to the right wall, which you can pass through at the top.

I was thinking more along the lines of a duplicate of Deborah Cliff that takes you to a different location.

Increasing the damage of the subweapons as you level is a good idea. The holy water does the damage of your first whip. It's so crap.

I know, right?! I tried to take out a merman on one of the bridges near Yomi and I hit it 19 time with Holy water and it ended up getting bored and then it jumped back in the water.

I successfully implemented the Down-A to drop off stairs support... It is not released yet.

But what do you guys think, should it be an optional feature? I think this would be one of those things that e.g. Bregalad would roll his eyes at, just what kind of "retranslation" is that.

But as for the patch vending machine, its usability suffers when there are too many choices to choose from.

Honestly, I think all the options are unnecessary. I would put everything below "chipset" on your vending machine in one group called "improvements." It shows confidence in your choices, allows an unaltered option for purists, and still has the regional and chipset options for compatability.

I agree. Have a pure retranslation patch, and an optional enhancement patch that includes all the enhancements. If someone feels so strongly about removing a single enhancement then they can use a hex editor to disable it in the ASM code. And you wanted to be a cool guy you could give out the addresses of the individual enhancements so people have a place to start from.

[Bisqwit]

Thanks. I should certainly consider that venue.

[MathUser2929]

I think pressing down + jump to get off stairs was a good improvement to the series. A seperate patching option for that probably shouldn't be nessesary. It don't drastically change the gameplay and using it is optional anyway since it requires a button combo to use.

[Turambar]

Shouldn't "Debious Woods" be "Devious Woods"?

Is it possible that Jova was meant to be Joba/Job, as in this guy?

[Bisqwit]

Shouldn't "Debious Woods" be "Devious Woods"?

Yes. I have been conservative at changing those because they are referred to wikis and walkthroughs.

Is it possible that Jova was meant to be Joba/Job, as in this guy?

Job would be written as ヨブ in Japanese. Whereas Jova was originally ヨーバ. Quite different. It could be e.g Yourba, if that made any sense.


I will rename Debious as Devious, Bodley as Bathory and Uta Wasteland as Uta Cavern. Some sources refer to it originally as Uta Lower Road; but I have previously changed Aljiba Lower Road into Aljiba Cavern.
To that end, there is now a release version 2.6.3.
The jump-from-stairs feature is now tied into Simon's blinking on the download form.

[Vanya]

Awesomeness!

Debious Woods = Jibiasu no Mori = Forset of Jibius =Devious Woods

It could be Devious since this is an older game and the katakana combinations for the dee and vee sounds are not commonly used in NES era games. However, that doesn't explain why the manual doesn't use them other than that sometime foreign words that use these sounds are often "Nopponized". At the very least I can say with certainty that it isn't supposed to be a deh sound in the first syllable.

Before deciding on Uta Cavern, I'd just like to point out that the background consists of stone blocks and metal grates. So I'm pretty sure it isn't technically a cavern. And more importantly this:

ユタの地下道 = YUTA no chikadō = Utah (i'm not kidding, that's the katakana for the state of Utah) of underground road = Uta Underground Road

So my best suggestion for that one is Uta Tunnel.

[Bisqwit]

Debious Woods = Jibiasu no Mori = Forset of Jibius =Devious Woods

It could be Devious since this is an older game and the katakana combinations for the dee and vee sounds are not commonly used in NES era games.

The Japanese printed manual calls it デビアズ (debiazu). The name does not occur in the game. There is no J / dʒ sound there.

ユタの地下道 = YUTA no chikadō

Where does that occur? It does not occur in the game, and it does not occur in the map in the Japanese printed manual either.

[Vanya]

The Japanese printed manual calls it デビアズ (debiazu). The name does not occur in the game. There is no J / dʒ sound there.

Where does that occur? It does not occur in the game, and it does not occur in the map in the Japanese printed manual either.

You're right about the "De" my bad. But both the manual scans and the guide book on Mr.P's site show it as デビアス. Either way, I agree the correct translation is "Devious" however dubious that might be for the name of a forest in Romania.

The YUTA no chikadou is from the official guide and is listed as such on the wikia page.
http://castlevania.wikia.com/wiki/Uta_Lower_Road

http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/cv2/guide-fridayspecial.htm

[Turambar]

http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/cv2/guide-fridayspecial.htm

Page 54 - 55. Check that out. It looks like the developer's internal map creation tool.
Imagine being able to see the tools that these people used back in the 80's.

Utah's Cavern and shi'

I thought that Uta's Defile was pretty cool and I also don't think that it's just a cavern because that sounds too natural and the area doesn't look natural.
Uta's Delve could work, I guess.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cavern

[Bisqwit]

Interesting. In that Friday Special you also have some names you don't see elsewhere, such as Vlad Mountain, and Borgia Mountain Range.
Why does it call Brahm's Mansion as Dim Mansion, though?


Re: Defile and Delve, I don't know, both of them sound too esoteric words to me to be used. Does some other game use them that way? Also, their meanings at
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/defile
http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/delve
do no quite match the intention. Neither does cavern, I admit.

And yes, my mistake about ズ/ス. It was not really clear in the manual scan so I just presumed that it is ズ.

[Turambar]

With defile and delve, both the noun and the verb version of the words are mostly relevant to this kind of area.
Uta's Burrow or Uta's Den are possibilities.
Den is used often with this sort of thing, like in the phrase "den of evil."

[Vanya]

I still think Tunnel is sufficient and expresses the authors' original intent. It's clearly not any kind of natural formation at all. As for Dim Mansion, I'm guessing it was an earlier name they were considering.

[Turambar]

It doesn't really look like a tunnel. I actually think the best sounding name is probably Uta Pass.