Tengai Makyou Zero translation project

[Tom]

Let's wait until it happens to call it a miracle. Call me doubting Thomas, but I'll only believe it after I've loaded it up in an emulator!

I don't know about SNES9X GX, but DougRPG hacked a version of SNES9X to be able to run the xml file, and I believe he played through the game using that.

He sent me the hacked version that he made, but I couldn't get it to run on my computer. It popped up with some error message... But I didn't persist in getting it to run, because it wasn't necessary for me.

Some of the testers expressed concerns that they weren't able to run bsnes well, but this same suggestion worked for all of them so far, much to their surprise... Download the old "compatibility version" that I'm using. I don't have a souped up computer, and it works just fine for everyone else so far. Maybe it'll work for you.

I think this is the one.

https://github.com/Alcaro/bsnes-gc/blob/master/bsnes_v087-32bit.7z

Run snespurify on your rom, if necessary, and then load the game using the emulator. Hopefully that does the trick.

[ObiKKa]

Yahoo!

Has anyone taken a look at this interesting retrospective video on this specific game and that also explains some of the cool mechanics in it? Buckle in your seat, it's 27 minutes and a half long! I'd think that it'd be a good primer for you before playing this patched up game.
This more recent video (11.5 mins long) discusses the history and time system in the game's story and is much better than the above video. It has dubbed captioning!

[Tom]

I have seen (and commented on) both of those videos, but I would recommend that other people not spoil it by watching them ahead of time. Let the game feel totally fresh and new! (Shouldn't be too long now, if all goes well.) Luke's video is thorough and was obviously done with love, but his take on the script is a bit off when he tries to summarize/translate what's being said in the intro.

The game will be able to speak for itself soon.

[Lentfilms]

DougRPG said that he should have the remaining graphics extracted by Friday (in Brazil). FlashPV will probably be able to do the edits that same day, and on the weekend, DDStranslation can put everything together for the beta patch. Once that's done, I will take the last remaining manual pictures and send them to Cargodin for insertion into the English manual. I will do a quick test to make sure that things are in order, and then (providing there are no problems) beta testing will finally begin next week...

This is great news! I got bsnes up an running on my PC and am ready for testing whenever the beta patch is finished 

[mikeprado30]

My PC's body is READY also! 

[LynxxLancer]

To those who are involved in this project, thank you for all your hard work.

I am looking forward to playing this game in English. I am currently replaying the original japanese game and hopefully I can finish the game once the English patch is released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nolxQh76MJs&list=PLO34R-lFRKd6ggtY_gNJEAqADo2epuiA8

Thanks a lot guys.

[Tom]

Sorry we couldn't make it before your current playthrough, LynxxLancer. I honestly thought it would be done by now.

[DougRPG]

Hi, I'm playing using Bsnes v086 because I use a debugger based on v086. But v087 has some changes related to the RTC, so I use this version too.
Tom, if I remember I only sent to you the .exe for this new Snes9x version, so you need to replace the .exe of your already installed 1.54.1 version. The Snes9x doesn't need the .Xml because the mapping is hardcoded inside the code. Snes9x is not so cool like Bsnes where you can do whatever you want. 
But I'll try to generate a complete package or an installer.
I'm using this Snes9x version to take pictures, because I can enable some filters.

I'll try to compile a Zsnes version compatible with this game, but Zsnes seems to be a pain to compile. Someone here knows how to compile Zsnes?

I could recompile other emulators too, if someone is interested. Please send me the emulator name and I'll see what I can do.

About the game, sorry for the delay, but I had very little time to work on this game the last month. I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life, and I got sick for more than a week after that. But now everything is on track again and Tom already have the last Rom version with all graphics edited by FlashPV inserted. The graphics part is almost there.

[Lentfilms]

Hi, I'm playing using Bsnes v086 because I use a debugger based on v086. But v087 has some changes related to the RTC, so I use this version too.
Tom, if I remember I only sent to you the .exe for this new Snes9x version, so you need to replace the .exe of your already installed 1.54.1 version. The Snes9x doesn't need the .Xml because the mapping is hardcoded inside the code. Snes9x is not so cool like Bsnes where you can do whatever you want. 
But I'll try to generate a complete package or an installer.
I'm using this Snes9x version to take pictures, because I can enable some filters.

I'll try to compile a Zsnes version compatible with this game, but Zsnes seems to be a pain to compile. Someone here knows how to compile Zsnes?

I could recompile other emulators too, if someone is interested. Please send me the emulator name and I'll see what I can do.

About the game, sorry for the delay, but I had very little time to work on this game the last month. I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life, and I got sick for more than a week after that. But now everything is on track again and Tom already have the last Rom version with all graphics edited by FlashPV inserted. The graphics part is almost there.

Happy to hear that you are doing well DougRPG!

I like the idea of releasing some custom versions of other emulators so people can play Zero on other platforms besides bsnes/Higan (although recompiling Zsnes seems a little extreme). Personally I usually like to play snes games on my hacked Wii using Snes9x GX, if there is a way to recompile that emulator to work with the Zero patch that would be really cool for me. I also prefer Snes9X on the PC to bsnes, since it just runs better, so if you could make you rebuild of that emulator available to download somewhere that would be cool as well.

[Aeana]

I'm really excited to check out the work you guys have done on this. I've played it several times in Japanese, but it's been at least a decade since my last go through.  I did want to verify whether the translation works on the version of BSNES that's included in Retroarch? That's the way I do all of my SNES emulation these days.

[KingMike]

I'll try to compile a Zsnes version compatible with this game, but Zsnes seems to be a pain to compile. Someone here knows how to compile Zsnes?

I wouldn't spend any great deal of time on this, unless you really wanted to. It's over 10 years at this point since ZSNES last updated, it's like someone still making a Nesticle-compatible NES patch.

[Panzer88]

Has anyone tried on sd2snes, super ever drive, or super power pak?

[patuli]

Has anyone tried on sd2snes, super ever drive, or super power pak?

sd2snes doesn't have SPC7110 emulation, currently there's no flash cart that support's the game, so the only way will be via emulation.
Now that we are on that, I have a gamecube, ps2 and xbox360, so I wonder if some kind of special version of the emulators, would be need to support the game?

[Tom]

With the graphics rom that DougRPG sent, I was able to get the final screenshot we needed to complete the English manual. Once Cargodin inserts it and sends everything over, we'll send the completed packaging to the testers so they can start checking it out to find anything we've overlooked.

For the graphics hacking, yes, we're nearly done. Just a few things left to iron out now. If all goes well, beta testing could even start within a week.

I'm sorry that I can't say anything about any other emulators, though. I'll leave that up to DougRPG to deal with, once all of the graphics hacking is done!

[DougRPG]

Now that we are on that, I have a gamecube, ps2 and xbox360, so I wonder if some kind of special version of the emulators, would be need to support the game?

Yes, you will need a special version on the emulators. Like discussed before in this thread, the problem is that most emulators only supports the mappings for the 3 official games that has the SPC7110 chip. So if you try to access other regions of the memory map, the emulators wont support it.
Bsnes is the only emulator that gives the user the power to manually control the mapping through a Xml (Bml in newer versions).

The change is only one line (or very few depending on the emulator) in the code, but it needs a recompilation.
After the release I'll give the instructions on how to update the mapping on emulators. The only problem is the recompilation, because the change is trivial.

I wouldn't spend any great deal of time on this, unless you really wanted to. It's over 10 years at this point since ZSNES last updated, it's like someone still making a Nesticle-compatible NES patch.

Yes, but probably there is an expressive percentage of users still using Zsnes. I don't have this information, but depending on this percentage we can ignore Zsnes then. Someone has this information/guess?

[VicVergil]

@DougRPG
Do you mean the addresses for where the compressed graphical data is stored, are hardcoded to the same values as in retail versions of TMZ/TMZ:Shounen Jump Ban/Momotarou Dentetsu Happy? Or did you by any chance use memory banks (probably the case if you expanded the ROM) that were not originally used by those 3 games?

The problem is that lots of emulator devs don't like to accommodate translation/hack devs "so that they make properly done projects". Look at how late MSU-1 support trickled down to emulators other than the recent higan versions, or emulation support for the expanded Star Ocean 96Mbit ROM.

ZSNES, much like Snes9X versions 1.41 and prior, uses separate packs of that SPC7110 data already pre-uncompressed. They're referred to online as "graphical packs" (although technically they also included other data like tilemaps and sound). But I don't think it's worth it to bother with these if recompressing that data directly to the ROM is possible, considering these particular emulators (not recent Snes9X though) are already obsolete.

If it's possible, would you mind also sharing the tools for handling the SPC7110 compression after the translation is out?

[Bonesy]

Maybe down the road DougRPG or someone else could get with whoever maintains SNES9X these days and at the very least get an update in the works for SNES9X-GIT?

[DougRPG]

@DougRPG
Do you mean the addresses for where the compressed graphical data is stored, are hardcoded to the same values as in retail versions of TMZ/TMZ:Shounen Jump Ban/Momotarou Dentetsu Happy? Or did you by any chance use memory banks (probably the case if you expanded the ROM) that were not originally used by those 3 games?

The problem is that lots of emulator devs don't like to accommodate translation/hack devs "so that they make properly done projects". Look at how late MSU-1 support trickled down to emulators other than the recent higan versions, or emulation support for the expanded Star Ocean 96Mbit ROM.

ZSNES, much like Snes9X versions 1.41 and prior, uses separate packs of that SPC7110 data already pre-uncompressed. They're referred to online as "graphical packs" (although technically they also included other data like tilemaps and sound). But I don't think it's worth it to bother with these if recompressing that data directly to the ROM is possible, considering these particular emulators (not recent Snes9X though) are already obsolete.

If it's possible, would you mind also sharing the tools for handling the SPC7110 compression after the translation is out?

Hi, the mapping problem has nothing to do with SPC7110 stuff. The game was expanded, so now we are using an extra 1MB at 40-4f:0000-ffff. So the emulator needs to add this region in the game's mapping. This is trivial stuff in most emulators.

The Snes memory has 11,9MB for Rom, but 40-4f is the best choice in this case.

[chicco30]

Its so sad for me. So there is no solution for playing the translated and modified rom on Xbox360 or PS3 emulator? I mean ZSNES and SNES9X GX on Xbox360 and Retroarch SNES emulator on Ps3?

[ginbunbun]

sd2snes doesn't have SPC7110 emulation, currently there's no flash cart that support's the game, so the only way will be via emulation.
Now that we are on that, I have a gamecube, ps2 and xbox360, so I wonder if some kind of special version of the emulators, would be need to support the game?

I have talked to Ikari the person who codes the firmware for the SD2SNES and from what I understand implementing the SPC7110 wouldnt be hard at all for the SD2SNES because the SD2SNES's real time clock function is based on it. Thats what they told me anyway.