Translating PC Engine games.

[VoltageControl]

Hi there!

I have noticed there are a lot of PCE games untranslated. So far, I have not found too much info on hacking PCE games.

Anyone have experience dabbling in PCE hacking that can point me in the right direction?

[Psyklax]

Um... I guess it depends what kind of hacking you want to do. I translated Knight Rider Special, but it got such a negative reaction that I kinda went off doing any more...
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,16705.0.html

If you're just translating, I don't see how PCE is much different to NES, GBC, SMS... anything like that.

[Pennywise]

http://www.romhacking.net/?page=documents&category=&platform=4&game=&author=&perpage=20&level=&title=&desc=&docsearch=Go

Like I said before, #mednafen at freenode is the place to ask about the PCE.

[VicVergil]

Um... I guess it depends what kind of hacking you want to do. I translated Knight Rider Special, but it got such a negative reaction that I kinda went off doing any more...
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,16705.0.html

If you're just translating, I don't see how PCE is much different to NES, GBC, SMS... anything like that.

That's an excessive point of view.
Nothing wrong with translating a game with 16x16/12x16 tiles for font if you can't do the ASM work to make it 8x16.
A nice enough font would make it more bearable (even though not much can be done for letters "i" and "l"). Take a look at the "Go Go Ackman" translation for example.
The "Dr. Shrodinger" sounding squished by comparaison? No worries. Commercial releases (Crystalis) and fan-translations (Penta's Adventure) did it alike and no one complained.

While learning about VWF, or 8x16 is preferable, it SHOULDN'T be a sine que non requirement.
I don't see much VWF for NES games to make the "i" or "l" 3 pixels instead of 8, it's actually rare.
Try making a good looking 16x16/12x16 font and don't be scared.

If the game itself wasn't of questionable quality (even you don't like it very much), I would be anticipating it, 8x16 or not... it's not like that kept me from playing Terranigma

Text-heavy games like Tengai Makyou Kabuki Fuuden (Manjimaru has a superior version on the DS, no need for the PC-Engine one -the uncensored script/scenes can be hacked back in the DS one) would NEED the 8x16 to fit in the English translation.

[mrrichard999]

Um... I guess it depends what kind of hacking you want to do. I translated Knight Rider Special, but it got such a negative reaction that I kinda went off doing any more...
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,16705.0.html

If you're just translating, I don't see how PCE is much different to NES, GBC, SMS... anything like that.

Hey just because you may get hit in the balls once doesn't mean you stay on the ground Its always better to do something than nothing that adds to what was not there before
June 21, 2014, 12:41:13 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Hey just because you may get hit in the balls once doesn't mean you stay on the ground Its always better to do something than nothing that adds to what was not there before You learn from it and improve as you go.

[Pennywise]

I dunno, any translation with a Terranigma font whether it be text heavy and/or bad is fair game for criticism even if that criticism is not deemed helpful. Quite frankly the English alphabet looks terrible as a fixed width 16x16 font and should never be considered an option considering the tools and information floating around to get around it.

You don't see VWF's on the NES, because most NES games don't have the hardware to support it. Only 1 NES fan translation has a VWF, 2 if you count a screen of vwf text in one other.

http://turbo.mindrec.com/tginternals/hw/

A memory map is one of the important things to learn in romhacking.

[VoltageControl]

Pennywise, I did talk to someone about the PCE on #mednafen. It was informative. It appears I'll have to learn a lot for myself and experiment. lol

The Develo Assembler Book could stand to be translated, at least the technical stuff describing the hardware. I am not sure how accurate what is out there is.

[mrrichard999]

Pennywise, I did talk to someone about the PCE on #mednafen. It was informative. It appears I'll have to learn a lot for myself and experiment. lol

The Develo Assembler Book could stand to be translated, at least the technical stuff describing the hardware. I am not sure how accurate what is out there is.

Anybody have that on a .pdf file? Seems hard to find on a hard copy even on eBay or anywhere for that matter

[Pennywise]

You don't need to read an assembler to learn how to hack. There is such as too much information and/or information overload. It's better to learn a little at a time and the best way to do that is by hacking a game. The best games to learn on have an uncompressed font and script. Hell, I would even suggest trying to do a font hack for Knight Rider. That would be a good example to learn on.

[VoltageControl]

Anybody have that on a .pdf file? Seems hard to find on a hard copy even on eBay or anywhere for that matter

I have a PDF. If it weren't so damn hard to find and out of print...

It really could stand to be translated, even if it's just the parts relating to the hardware, and not just the Develo software itself.

From what I DO understand it's part technical manual, part ASM language tutorial, with a bit of creative stuff thrown in.