Castlevania II (Simon's Quest) - Multilingual enhancement

[helaku]

Sorry to bother you Bisqwit but what does the Extended password crypting? If I don't use it in the patch can affect the game in some way?

For Multiple whip & clue browser support can you implement to choose only clue browser without Whips for the patch?

Another thing with Japanese version functionality restored - Konami style Start text on the startup screen, do you refer to the text Push Start Key at the beginning? If yes, then I don't see a difference if you use it or not. Maybe a bug?

Best regards!

[thanksgoogle]

Yes, I changed them back to the same order as in the North-American game. There is some dispute on the matter as to which text belongs to which ending.

Ending 1 is for quick completion. The text praises Simon's efforts in third person. But it also sounds like an eulogy, speaking of Simon's efforts. Although the tone is happy, as the animation reveals, the happiness will not last. I cannot move the animation into another ending.
Ending 2 is mediocre completion. Simon and Transylvania are not happy campers, but unlike in the NAR version, the text does not undermine the accomplishment.
Ending 3 is for slow completion. It speaks in second person at Simon, but it also sounds like an eulogy, speaking of Simon's legacy, which will last. The tone is happy.

This order also matches the original Japanese version, although my text does not mention spring flowers.

That's what I mean. I got the fast ending (the one with the red sky and Dracula coming back) but the second person text that talks about Simon being remembered for his bravery and courage.

Edit: This is in version 2.9.9.1.

[Bisqwit]

Sorry to bother you Bisqwit but what does the Extended password crypting? If I don't use it in the patch can affect the game in some way?

It extends the repertoire of passwords the game might give by a factor of 16, so that instead of being given randomly one of 16 possible passwords at a gameover screen, you are given randomly one of 256 possible passwords for that identical game state. All passwords it gives are decodable by the original game, regardless of this option. If you don't use in the patch, it's totally fine. The gameplay is not affected in any manner.

For Multiple whip & clue browser support can you implement to choose only clue browser without Whips for the patch?

The backend supports selecting or deselecting each of these features separately, but they have been combined in the frontend for simplicity of UI. I think it was requested in one of the earlier posts in this thread that there is no need for the patch vending machine to be so complex, so I merged some of the options.
Internally, the insertor has the following list of separately selectable options:

Additionally, merging some of the options means that the cache of all patches people have been requesting from the machine does not grow quite that large (they are cached on disk for performance reasons). Seeing as to how every additional option doubles the number of possible patches.

Another thing with Japanese version functionality restored - Konami style Start text on the startup screen, do you refer to the text Push Start Key at the beginning? If yes, then I don't see a difference if you use it or not. Maybe a bug?

It may be a bug. I have been thinking of it the last few days too, although not enough to actually remember to look into it. Thanks for the heads-up.
However, this feature also selects or deselects the toast ending.

That's what I mean. I got the fast ending (the one with the red sky and Dracula coming back) but the second person text that talks about Simon being remembered for his bravery and courage. This is in version 2.9.9.1.

Hmm...

[thanksgoogle]

Yes. I tried the latest version (2.9.10.2) and same result. Here is a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUCmv_tWF0w

[Rodimus Primal]

Yes. I tried the latest version (2.9.10.2) and same result. Here is a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUCmv_tWF0w

I hope this can be fixed. I know there's always been question about which ending is the right one but the fast ending (with the red sky and Dracula's hand rising) should be the best one, and the text should reflect that as it does normally. I see the debate between the blue sky and gray sky endings being the two that should be switched text wise since the gray sky probably implies that Simon did in fact die from his wounds and the blue sky ending has Simon present. But that's debatable of course since I believe Bisqwit was simply doing a translation for the most part.

For more details on this, Mato did an excellent comparison of the three endings of you want to look:
Endings comparison

Also, I may have brought this up before, but I think the iconic line "What a horrible night to have a curse!" should be restored on the version that doesn't have the fast switch from day to night.

[Bisqwit]

VERSION 2.10.0 HAS BEEN RELEASED.



Features:
* Added Spanish translation (thanks ShadowOne333!)
* Some changes to dialog text, mostly better formatting, but also some flavor. For example, the crystal guys used to say "I would like to exchange my gem stone... But you don't have the type of crystal I want." This was changed into "I love gem stones. [beat] But you don't have the type that I want." This is so that the line works better when it appears immediately after you have completed a crystal swap. For the record, the original Japanese says pretty much the same as the NAR version: "I refuse to exchange my crystal with yours." In the Finnish version I split some lines that otherwise touched the right edge of the dialog box.
* I have reverted the ending order. It was a misunderstanding on my part. The endings are presented in reverse order in the script.

Bugfixes:
* Fixed a bug that caused music to cease or become broken when exiting sram save screen on PAL version (by pure chance it didn't cause problems on NTSC).
* Fixed a bug that broke all PAL title screens since I added the gameover palette fix a few weeks earlier.



Now, about other translations.

— The Dutch translation project was abandoned five years ago due to health issues from the translator. It is currently without an owner. IIRC all text has been translated, but there are playtesting issues, and the symbol budget is exceeded in a few places.
— The German translation is likely the next one to come out. Seven months ago the translator contacted me expressing their wish to continue the project, and it took me this long to follow-up. As far as I can tell, there is not much work remaining to do. Today I fixed most of the outstanding bugs I know of.
— The Norwegian translation is looking promising, but the translator vanished four years ago, promising to make adjustments and fixes and testing, but they never followed. I wonder what happened. There is still some work to be done. The symbol budget is exceeded in a few places.
— The French translation came out six years ago, and in fact it was updated just a week ago. However, I don't speak French. Could someone who speaks French fluently have a look at the French column in https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/diff and tell me, if everything looks alright? I notice the translator did away with some of my double linebreaks (blank lines), and I wonder if it's a worrying sign.
— The Tagalog translation came out six years ago. Could someone who speaks Tagalog fluently have a look at the Tagalog column in https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/diff and tell me, if everything looks alright?
— The Finnish, English and Japanese versions are maintained by me, but naturally I am always open for feedback. The Japanese text is mostly just a copy of the original text from FDS version, but I consulted with a native speaker for the extra lines.

[artflue]

There is an official Japan guidebook from 1987 that describes some ideas from original "four" endings.
https://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php?topic=9546.0

And the JP version has a New Game+ that keeps all your goodies.


Going to start playing this CV2 redesign soon! Sounds like amazing fun!


edit: The endings have been hashed to beyond eternal speculation. But here's my take.

Spoiler

long = Simon dies shortly after sealing Dracula's spirit. Because he cannot bear children, there are no future Belmonts to fight back. Everyone is rightfully scared of the next onslaught.

medium = Simon has enough life to settle down and have offspring. Because Simon cannot be cured and will have an earlier non-natural death, Dracula will wait to play with the new generation.

short = Simon wins again! Twice! Dracula is enraged and will have his revenge on Simon to make sure he dies by his hand!
(creative license, fun easter egg)

If everyone was given only 1 chance to play and win, which ending would most people get? Not the short one.

[close]

[Bisqwit]

Question.

Thanks to some PPU render speed improvements I have implemented in the last few versions, some new avenues have opened for me.






I can make the dialog boxes wider. This was previously not possible, because attempting to write more to the PPU during NMI would cause graphical glitches.

I am also working on variable-width-font support (VRAM only), although I have not done work in that branch for six years.

Opinions?

[artflue]

The wider dialog boxes are much easier to read and understand.

[Noside]

Pretty cool, it gives a fresh new spin to the dialog box, I like it.

[ShadowOne333]

I like it, Bisqwit
Really gives the textbox a more clean and polished look.
Also, the text doesn't look as claustrophobic with the widened box.

[Turambar]

Either box is fine, though I kind of prefer the normal box. I can understand running into languages with long words that can't fit on one line and require you to use hyphens. That is where the wide box would be useful.

[Da_GPer]

The wide box looks more cleaner and professional. Also, it allows you to add more info that the smaller box didn't.

[knderia]

Simon can fall through floors by using a weapon at the right time when falling from two-brick ledge. (image)

Tip-toe to the very edge, where on the very next frame Simon falls down. Perform the whip on that frame.

There's a variable at ram $336. 18-FF = okay. 00-17 = fall-through.


edit:
Read the stellar disassembly. (link)

$336 = ObjectScreenYCoordFrac.

[odditude]

count one more vote for the wider textboxes. if nothing else, the improved flexibility for text choices makes it worth it.

[helaku]

I think I have a déjà vu...

I was very sure that this was discussed in the past

Or maybe I was seeing at someone else the wide box improvement...

Anyway, great improvement

[Bisqwit]

I think I have a déjà vu...

I was very sure that this was discussed in the past

Or maybe I was seeing at someone else the wide box improvement...

I may have expressed the same thought before. However, it only became possible when I made those particular improvements. Déjà vu is my whole life. More often than less often I have hard time telling if I am only imagining having had the exact same discussion before.

In any case, here is a test patch where I have changed the dialog box sizes for nearly everything (English only). https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/ips/cv2_ntsc_eng_map10_vram0-2.10.0-test-1.ips
I wrote an automatic line-wrapping system for the insertor toolchain of this game. It uses an AI* of sorts to figure out which split would be visually pleasing rather than greedily filling every line to brim, and verifies at compile-time that all strings actually fit in the boxes, which is something no previous version did (leaving it up to playtesting by translators to find those situations out). The box sizes in this patch are 26x8 for dialog, 22x12 for shop, 20x10 for clues, 20x10 for gifts, 14x10 for possessions, 20x8 for priest, 20x10 for ferryman, and 16x18 for status. Yes, each one of these can be separately configured, although I used common values for some of these. As usual, the edges are not writable and there is one tile of margin on top and left, and preferable at right and bottom too, so the insertor will complain if it cannot fit dialog in 23x5 for example. Previously, the sizes were 16x18 for status, 16x14 for shop (16x12 in licensed version), and 16x10 for everything else.
Feedback would be appreciated.

_{*) Slight embellishment. It's just Dijkstra's algorithm. Source code: https://gist.github.com/bisqwit/f796ea84b91ed44d353828446ca47bdb}

[helaku]

I think I found an "bug".

I don't know if you consider this to be a bug but anyway.

[Bisqwit]

I think I found an "bug".

I don't know if you consider this to be a bug but anyway.

Oh yeah, I knew I forgot something when I hastily made the patch for this page. Too little sleep... But yes, that is a known thing. I haven't updated the NotHideActors code yet to account for changed box sizes.
EDIT: Fixed in: https://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/ips/cv2_ntsc_eng_map10_vram0-2.10.0-test-2.ips Works even better than it did before.
Source code (a bit changed for presentation):

[knderia]

Please read my earlier post about the falling through floors glitch (it's in moderation queue).

_____________________________________________________________

Code Select Expand


+ $A4B5  A9 10:       lda #$10
++ $A4B7  A0 14:       ldy #$14
$A4B9  20 A2 E2:    jsr Object_GenericCollisionHelper_ParamAY_ReturnCarry_IfFrameOddThenDefaultSEC
$A4BC  B0 06:       bcs + ; $A4C4
$A4BE  20 27 E0:    jsr Object_SetXVelocity16bit_InvertCurrent
$A4C1  4C D9 A4:    jmp +++ ; $A4D9 -> Object_GeneringXYmovementEngine


About the ferryman stopping at the opposite shore. Would it be doable to set ObjectXSpeed to zero instead of inverting? Then the boat just stops a tad short of land but no longer moves anywhere.