[Technical][NES] Hello Dracula 2 (a.k.a Kyonshiizu 2)

[filler]

Looking for a willing ROM hacker to insert the already English translated script, and perform necessary tasks to ensure all Japanese text appears in English, for Hello Dracula 2 a.k.a Kyonshiizu 2 for the Famicom.

English translated script and some notes available here: http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Kyonshiizu_2

[Bob789]

Hello,

I am a willing ROM Hacker and I get to work on it. No promises though, the Earth could spontaneously combust, I could run into problems, etc...

[Psyklax]

I'd be on it right now were it not for real life getting in the way... You've done most of the work by the looks of it, with ROM locations and what have you. I'll try to have a look in a few hours.

EDIT: Okay, I see a big problem immediately: screen space. In the detailed conversations, there's no nice big text window to fit a big translation in, just one tiny line along the bottom, 28 characters across. You can run onto the next line if you want, but it's probably in the CRT danger zone which I'd rather keep out of. The menus only use three characters of course, but that's less of a problem (still not good though). The little chats out in the open aren't so bad since the window can be expanded (with some effort).

With the lack of screen space, ROM space is less of an issue: there is lots of empty space in there, but it'd be hard to use given the bank swapping required. A DTE routine would probably be more than satisfactory here, since there can't be much English text anyway, and the original text is uncompressed. The pointers are simple, but the mapper uses 8KB ROM banks, so you're limited to whatever bit of the ROM has been loaded in at that point.

All in all, putting text into the game is easy. Putting your GOOD text in, however... quite a challenge.

[filler]

Hello,

I am a willing ROM Hacker and I get to work on it. No promises though, the Earth could spontaneously combust, I could run into problems, etc...

Cool! let me know how it goes.

I'd be on it right now were it not for real life getting in the way... You've done most of the work by the looks of it, with ROM locations and what have you. I'll try to have a look in a few hours.

EDIT: Okay, I see a big problem immediately: screen space. In the detailed conversations, there's no nice big text window to fit a big translation in, just one tiny line along the bottom, 28 characters across. You can run onto the next line if you want, but it's probably in the CRT danger zone which I'd rather keep out of. The menus only use three characters of course, but that's less of a problem (still not good though). The little chats out in the open aren't so bad since the window can be expanded (with some effort).

With the lack of screen space, ROM space is less of an issue: there is lots of empty space in there, but it'd be hard to use given the bank swapping required. A DTE routine would probably be more than satisfactory here, since there can't be much English text anyway, and the original text is uncompressed. The pointers are simple, but the mapper uses 8KB ROM banks, so you're limited to whatever bit of the ROM has been loaded in at that point.

All in all, putting text into the game is easy. Putting your GOOD text in, however... quite a challenge.

Heh, I expected you might work on this. Too bad to hear about the space limitations, but seems kind of like par for the course. Due to the resolution of the NES, there probably aren't as many options to adjust font size to squeeze more text on the screen like with the 16-bit systems. If it has to turn out like a game of its time, I don't think that's so bad. The NES games we got back in the day had such simple text sometimes, but there just wasn't much they could do.

[Psyklax]

Due to the resolution of the NES, there probably aren't as many options to adjust font size to squeeze more text on the screen like with the 16-bit systems.

Actually it's not resolution that's the problem: the SNES and NES have an identical resolution of 256x224. The problem is just how the game was designed. Often Japanese games do this: they don't need so much screen space for text so they don't use it. Some games are fine, like Final Fantasy (nice big text window) but this game has an awkward situation. As I said, putting all your lovely text in will be a challenge as a result. Actually, the RAM looks a bit crowded so using DTE could be a real struggle, too.

So as far as your messages in my thread suggest, you dumped this yourself. Are you just not confident enough to put it back in?

[KingMike]

If you're talking about how on SNES you could often add VWF, it's outright impossible in CHR-ROM games.
And even in CHR-RAM games, you're likely to be limited in free tile space (as you need basically as many free tiles as the maximum number of tiles of text that can be displayed on the window. And as the NES only has one background layer especially, you're not likely to have spares unless you have a rather small window)

[filler]

Actually it's not resolution that's the problem: the SNES and NES have an identical resolution of 256x224. The problem is just how the game was designed.

I was thinking specifically of when we worked on Hyper Iria. We were able to play with a few different font sizes in the limited space given for the in-game dialog.



With the 8x8 fonts that are default on the Famicom this isn't really an option.

So as far as your messages in my thread suggest, you dumped this yourself. Are you just not confident enough to put it back in?

That's correct! Definitely not confident! My hacking skills are rudimentary. I just make the table file and find the text visually. I don't know anything about the pointers to the text, or anything about reinsertion. I tried reading some docs probably 15 years ago, but I just couldn't get very far. I prefer translation anyway. It's just nice to be able to dump my own scripts so I can start translating something without having to have someone on-board to do the technical work.
September 03, 2017, 04:41:20 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

If you're talking about how on SNES you could often add VWF, it's outright impossible in CHR-ROM games.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to.

[filler]

Hello,

I am a willing ROM Hacker and I get to work on it. No promises though, the Earth could spontaneously combust, I could run into problems, etc...

Any progress?

[filler]

Bumping this as a reminder that the project still hasn't seen any progress. It sounds like this might be challenging from a technical perspective, but I'm still hoping someone may have a go at it.