[MachoAlex]

Hello everyone, I'm a total n00b to romhacking and am slowly grasping the very, very basics of it. But soon I'd like to put my limited knowledge to use and try to translate one of the real simple Satellaview games as my first project. My question is:
Are most Satellaview roms coded like other SNES roms or are they a total headache to hack? Any input would be appreciated.

[Jorpho]

I reckon it depends very much on the game in question.  As you may know, several Satellaview games have already been translated, others aren't even emulated at all, and some aren't particularly distinguishable from ordinary releases.  What game are you looking at?

I have the vague impression that the Satellaview enables an address range that is normally not available to SNES software, and whether or not a game makes heavy use of that range makes a big difference in how well it will run (as does how gracefully the emulator will accept the use of that range).  But I'm just frantically waving my arms here.

Regardless, BSNES has the best Satellaview emulation at this point, and there is a debug version of BSNES available, so I guess it can be done?

KiddoCabbusses is one of the authorities on these things; perhaps he shall be along.

[MachoAlex]

Ok cool, thanks for the info. I'll dig around a bit. Like I said I'm still new to this, so I'll probably start with something small like one of those Picross Satellaview games or something. Ultimately I'd love to translate the third Famicom Detective Club, but that's way, way down the road.

[Revenant]

DarknessSavior and I have been working on translating the BS-X platformer Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero, which is fairly close to completion. It has the luxury of not really using the BS-X BIOS at all, making it compatible with pretty much every modern SNES emulator (and somewhat easier to hack, at that )

I'd love to see the BS Detective Club episodes translated too.

[MachoAlex]

I may be wrong, but if I recall correctly BS Famicom Club's soundtrack was supplied by the satellite link which would make it nearly impossible to insert back into the actual rom. I guess it's theoretically possible to take the soundtrack from Detective Club II and insert it into BS Famicom Club. Hopefully someone else takes that on as a project because that's way beyond me at the moment.

But good to know about staying away from games needing the BSX Bios. That would just add another level of obstacles to complete.

[Jorpho]

There are Youtube videos of some of the games in question; see for instance https://www.google.ca/search?q=satellablog+"tanei+club" .  Even if some of them have been taken down, the aforementioned Mr. Kiddo probably has copies stowed away somewhere.  It would probably be desirable to keep the original soundtrack intact in some form; I think there's already some sort of effort to re-dub the BS Super Mario USA streaming soundtracks.

[talos91]

DarknessSavior and I have been working on translating the BS-X platformer Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero, which is fairly close to completion. It has the luxury of not really using the BS-X BIOS at all, making it compatible with pretty much every modern SNES emulator (and somewhat easier to hack, at that )

I'd love to see the BS Detective Club episodes translated too.

Sorry to necropost but did you finish the translation of bs kaizou? Or are you still working on it? no english rom exist on the internet and that game is pretty good and prety underrated.

[SunGodPortal]

no english rom exist on the internet and that game is pretty good and prety underrated.

I agree. That game is awesome. The graphics are cute and the controls are smooth as silk. It needs to give you more lives though. Seems like I remember having to share the lives in two-player mode too.

[KingMike]

Doesn't use the BSX BIOS?
I wonder if it was originally meant to be a standard retail game (like I suspect O.B. Club was, given that I recall EGM previewed it in 1994, before the BSX was released).

[NERV Agent]

Hello everyone, I'm a total n00b to romhacking and am slowly grasping the very, very basics of it. But soon I'd like to put my limited knowledge to use and try to translate one of the real simple Satellaview games as my first project. My question is:
Are most Satellaview roms coded like other SNES roms or are they a total headache to hack? Any input would be appreciated.

Tetsuii77 is working on a translation of BS Super Aleste. If you post on his stomping grounds (and can stomach the content), I'm sure he can teach you a few things (provided you have the attention span to comprehend a wall of text).

[Revenant]

Sorry to necropost but did you finish the translation of bs kaizou? Or are you still working on it? no english rom exist on the internet and that game is pretty good and prety underrated.

Not yet. I'd been working with a second translator after DS became preoccupied with stuff but then both of us more or less became too busy with things as well. I'd like to have it finished sometime this year though.

[talos91]

Not yet. I'd been working with a second translator after DS became preoccupied with stuff but then both of us more or less became too busy with things as well. I'd like to have it finished sometime this year though.

Awesome man. Can't wait! do you need more help with the translation or you got that covered already?

[einstein95]

Doesn't use the BSX BIOS?
I wonder if it was originally meant to be a standard retail game (like I suspect O.B. Club was, given that I recall EGM previewed it in 1994, before the BSX was released).

Related to this, an auction on Yahoo JP a while back was for a Shubibiman Zero prototype that was on its own board.