[DealinStuff]

Hey everybody!

My name's Steve and I have just registered to this awesome site!

I'll go straight to the point: I recently got an unreleased GBA ROM, used by the creators of the game in order to transfer an item to the game itself. There are 2 games that the item should have been transferred to, and it works with one game, not with the other. The item is transferred using the wireless adapter. If I try to transfer to the other it says on the other that the item cannot be received.

Now I want to:

1) Make the item transferable to the other
2) Change the text message that the device sends to the game when the item is sent

Can I? How?

I cannot say too much about my unreleased proto unluckily...

[FAST6191]

I am not sure what conditions you might have that would allow you to ask this but not speak further -- for the most part as long as you do not release the ROM it is more or less all good, though I suppose if it will get someone in trouble then eh. The list of wireless compatible games is very small so I could probably guess/infer some things -- you say one game but not another, this means bit generations is probably out and as it is an item transfer that means pokemon, megaman, boktai or possibly mario golf and mario tennis. You say one game and not the other, however it is for good reason that the same game but slightly different things like megaman and pokemon are considered cash ins so I am guessing two actually different games which means likely megaman 5 and 6 or boktai, or the mario sports games.

So it functions somewhat like the pokemon special event stuff where a pokemon that would not be obtainable in the game otherwise is sent to the game over the link connection (or in this case the wireless).

Anyway there are two ways this sort of thing works
i) You actually get some data sent.
ii) You just get an unlock code, think on disc DLC.

Depending upon which of those it is means 1) in your numbering gets to be changed. It is quite possible that the code was removed entirely and you would have to rebuild it into the game, or it could be any variation on that right up to it being a simple unblock the function (though the GBA was pretty much a compiled affair there was still enough assembly and messiness that such a thing is not assured things would be removed).

I should note that if it is instead boktai and megaman then you might have trouble as a lot of the boktai tie ins were removed from megaman BN6, I do not know how well though as I have not looked it at from that perspective (it could be that it is all still there but gated off slightly, or it could be that the code no longer exists and it would be easier to backport the translation to the Japanese version instead).

2) in your list also varies. It could be that the text info was sent, or it could be that the game contains it. I would consider the second far more likely.

[jobless_floppy]

You would need to understand how it works with the one that it does work with. So you might wanna get looking at hardware docs and tracing through a debugger to see how it works.

It's most likely not a simple hack unless some code had just been dummied out in the other version or if you can just cut and paste the code from the one that works into the one that doesn't.

[Zynk]

*waits again for Isao's Newbie Package*

[VicVergil]

Let's call it "Item Distribution Proto X".
And games it can link to are Game A, and Game B.

If Game B has some sort of inventory system where that item does appear,
the item likely (not 100% sure of course) has its data probably in Game B (though it could be not intact in case devs decided against including it). So you could do a cheat code search (using your favorite GBA emulator which isn't no$gba) and unlock that item anyways in Game B.

Assuming text isn't compressed, you could use a relative search tool (mokeymoore) to find what each byte value matches as a letter, then create a tbl file you use with a hex editor while opening any of the roms involved, and you'll find and probably can edit the text in question.

(By the way, in the off chance one of the games involved is a localization of Megaman Battle Network 5/6, don't bother - because the localized versions deleted tons of link-related features, even the data which would be transferred, to save cartridge space. So a good idea would be to use the Japanese versions.)

I am not sure what conditions you might have that would allow you to ask this but not speak further -- for the most part as long as you do not release the ROM it is more or less all good, though I suppose if it will get someone in trouble then eh. The list of wireless compatible games is very small so I could probably guess/infer some things -- you say one game but not another, this means bit generations is probably out and as it is an item transfer that means pokemon, megaman, boktai or possibly mario golf and mario tennis. You say one game and not the other, however it is for good reason that the same game but slightly different things like megaman and pokemon are considered cash ins so I am guessing two actually different games which means likely megaman 5 and 6 or boktai, or the mario sports games.

2003-2005 had tons of games scrapped: a near finished localization for Boktai 3, Legend of Stafy, and lots of first party Nintendo games (like Ao no Tengai, with a console couterpart TM:Namida having also a cancelled localization).

[KingMike]

Wasn't the GameCube version of Namida canceled entirely (even in Japan, only the PS2 version got out)?

[VicVergil]

Wasn't the GameCube version of Namida canceled entirely (even in Japan, only the PS2 version got out)?

Indeed.
GameCube ultimately only got the 3D "remake" of Manjimaru (TM2), which also was downgraded a ton from its prerelease look to something dull and hacked together for a rushed release.
Konami also announced an US release for Namida (TM3) PS2, but then they cancelled tons of stuff around 2005 including this and Boktai 3.

If we're willing to go back even further, the original TM3 was cancelled twice, on the PC-FX then on the PS1, supposedly going over budget. The assets were also completely lost, but the writer released a novel with the rough plot using altered names to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits. The plot for the PS2 Namida has little to do with the original concept, some elements of the intro segments aside.

[Isao Kronos]

*waits again for Isao's Newbie Package*

hey i only do it if they're HOW I MINE FOR ROMHACK tier i told you