[Chicken Knife]

@Cavery210

The problem with changing Portopia to another Enix game is that we didn't get any other Enix games besides Dragon Warrior sequels until Actraiser. If this was a real localization for a wide audience, it would probably be best to change it but because this is ultimately just going to be a hack played by a small group of educated and inquisitive players, it's probably best to just leave it Portopia and let people look it up.

As far as the original Kandar palette swap Ortega, hmm. Do you or anyone else have an opinion there? As for my thoughts on this at this moment, I'll give you the option of a short and long version.

Short answer: I personally like the Ortega sprites for the US version. Feels like a legitimate and modest improvement over the Japanese.

Long answer: I get that there is a group of people who would only be satisfied with a translation of the original Japanese DQ3 with no title screen, no intro animation and the Kandar palette swap version of Ortega. Personally, the redone Ortega sits well with me--just like how the intro to the second game sits well. I know this all sounds inconsistent coming from the guy who dislikes the DQ4 style sprites injected into the first game. I guess my frame of mind is that the I want to produce the best and most authentic version of each game while also making sure they are aesthetically congruent and demonstrate the same graphical progress between iterations as the originals. I don't think anything about the Ortega graphics fail to fit in stylistically or run the risk of outshining the 4th game. DW1 US on the other hand is as if Japan had taken the original Super Mario bros, swapped all the sprites with Mario 3 style graphics, and released it like that in the USA--but shortly after, they turn around and release The Lost Levels with all the original graphics. Besides the censorship obviously, this is probably the only stuff added to the US versions I will feel the need to roll back.

@Choppasmith

I don't need a rip of the mobile script TBH. There is a great faq on the NES gamefaqs.com entry from x_loto that reproduces the Japanese verbatim along with approximate literal renderings. I'm also blessed with a native Japanese best friend who I can bounce questions over to.
My script is done and the puff puff line is in. It's really only waiting on me understanding how to calculate RAM addresses properly so I can adjust pointers and get all my item and monster tables functioning.

[Cavery210]

Suggestion: Malroth/Sidoh's title of "God of Destruction" should be refered to as "Destroyer", as FUNimation uses that title for Beerus in Dragon Ball, another Toriyama work.

[Chicken Knife]

Question for those who know their way around the Dragon Warrior rom data.

You know how when you save with the King or Princess, they quote your experience needed and use the word "Points"? "Points" in those cases is not part of the normal script; rather, it's a special character inserted here and there within the script that summons up the word "Points", similarly to how the script summons up your hero's name.

My nitpicky little issue is that for the sake of proper grammar I need to decapitalize that word "Points". I've poured over the rom data several times thinking the word would appear somewhere but I can't find it for the life of me. Does anyone know where it's located so I can go shrink that P? 

[abw]

You know how when you save with the King or Princess, they quote your experience needed and use the word "Points"?

There's actually a little bit about that buried in the Spanish Translation thread . The word does appear, but it's stored backwards in the ROM (try searching for "tnioP " instead of " Point") and the "s" is handled separately. If you just want to change "P" to "p", I believe ROM address 0x7765 is the place to check; just be aware that that change will apply to both control code F0 [Hit Point(s)] and F3 [Experience Point(s)] since they both run through the same code .

[Chicken Knife]

@abw, thank you! I had a feeling you would know this. No worries since I actually eliminated use of the "hit points" control code in my script, replacing them all with just HP.

BIG UPDATE:

I've put up the new patch for my finished script reworking of Dragon Warrior 1 on the initial post of this thread. I wish I could list all the details but I've worked on this all day and I'm too tired for a long post.  . Suffice to say, I did this right. I went over every piece of text about ten times, all while testing in the game. Original DW text was the base, but I constantly referenced the literal Japanese. I did make determinations to change the delivery of numerous lines in order to maximize readability but the content of each line is ultimately still coming from a blend of DW1US and the Japanese version. They really arn't that far apart to be honest. I was able to take advantage of unused space in the rom to vastly expand the room for monster names, which allowed me to get them where I thought they needed to be. I'll post my list of monster names below so you can see an example of my approach. Priority here was given to the Japanese text with a little bit of Dragon Warrior nostalgia retained. There were some scenarios where I didn't like either version of a monster name, such as with the werewolf family of monsters for instance. The Japanese was Lycant, Lycant Mammal, Killer Lycant. So I took some liberties there, as well as a couple other places (like Archmage which I really like) I feel pretty satisfied with my decision making but would still be grateful for any feedback.

1  Slime
2  Red Slime
3  Dracky (from Drakee)
4  Ghost
5  Magician
6  Dracky Mage (from Magidrakee)
7  Giant Scorpion (from Scorpion)
8  Meda (from Druin)
9  Metro Ghost (from Poltergeist)
10 Droll
11 Drackeema (from Drakeema)
12 Skeleton
13 Warlock
14 Iron Scorpion (from Metal Scorpion)
15 Werewolf (from Wolf)
16 Wraith
17 Metal Slime
18 Hell Ghost (from Specter)
19 Dire Werewolf (from Wolflord)
20 Meda Lord (from Druinlord)
21 Droll Mage (from Drollmagi)
22 Chimera (from Wyvern)
23 Death Scorpion (from Rogue Scorpion)
24 Wraith Knight
25 Golem
26 Goldman
27 Armored Knight (from Knight)
28 Chimera Mage (from Magiwyvern)
29 Shadow Knight (from Demon Knight)
30 Killer Werewolf (from Werewolf)
31 Dragon (from Green Dragon)
32 Star Chimera (from Starwyvern)
33 Archmage (from Wizard)
34 Demon Knight (from Axe Knight)
35 Kith Dragon (from Blue Dragon)
36 Stoneman
37 Deathgod Knight (from Armored Knight)
38 Darth Dragon (from Red Dragon)
39 Dragonlord
40 Dragonlord

I will probably start working on the title screen again at this point, but I would really appreciate feedback if anyone felt like playing through this with my patch. I've done a fair amount of testing, but I'm sure there's another textual issue or two to root out.

[Tom]

At first I thought you changed Armored Knight to Death God Knight! The names seem fine to me.

[Chicken Knife]

@Tom Well, technically I did change what we had as Armored Knight (3rd tier red one with axe and shield) into Deathgod Knight. The lowest tier blue knight with no axe or shield was actually Armored Knight in the Japanese supposedly. It's a little confusing.

Question for anyone who has poked around the Dragon Warrior II rom--or who knows more about hacking than me (which is most of you):

In the Dragon Warrior II rom, I decided to try applying the same .tbl file I've been using for the first game to see if that would reveal the text. Not a lot of dedicated resources out there for the sequel unfortunately.

The strange thing is that using this table file caused the item names, monster names and spell names to all pop up in what appears to be the same long string format that they appeared in with the original game. That's well and good since I'm familiar with the procedure to edit them, but the strange thing is that the script itself did not appear. Is it a normal thing that a game would need me to switch text tables in order to see all the text in the game? I find it bizarre, but for all I know this could be normal.

PS, I did another significant script update to DW1--mostly comprised of continued efforts to smooth out the battle text along with some corrections to the Dragonlord sprite and his speech. I also went back to spelling out hit points in game as opposed to HP for the sake of consistency. I've started giving my patches a version number. (.52 in this case)

[Choppasmith]

I’ve heard of games that use more than one table. I guess that’s the case here. Good to know when I start hacking II, I can at least start with Monsters and items just fine.

Maybe this guy has gotten figured out (he’s focusing more on Monster Data right now it seems)

[Chicken Knife]

You mentioning the two table possibility made me want to go in and verify this. I loaded Dragon Warrior 2 up in the FCEUX Nametable Viewer and I was able to verify the hex code of every tile appearing on the screen including the letters in dialogue text. All of those letters showed a hex code that matched the Dragon Warrior 1 table I was using. Since the codes are the same, the text should be showing up in the rom along with what I can see (spells, items, enemy list, menus, etc.) So that makes me pretty confident that the game's text is unfortunately compressed. I came across references to IV's text being compressed, so more likely than not the second through the fourth game all have this issue.

I think the key is now is to find the right utilities that can help crack the code of the compression and spool out the uncompressed data, edit that data, and then re compress. No easy feet from the forum entries on compression I've glanced over. I'm sure I'm completely over my head with this, but I've been over my head for weeks now but have still made progress by some miracle. 

[Tom]

So the first English translation changed Death God Knight into Armored Knight, and turned Armored Knight into just plain Knight. It's definitely good that you fixed a mistake like that!

[Chicken Knife]

Update and a question for you guys:

The update for DW1 to .54 of my patch that I just put up is pretty extensive. There were a lot of little text edits where I continue to try and make it flow better and adhere more to the Japanese. For instance, the wizard who restores your magic points always had an awkward line in English where he addressed you in the 3rd person. I corrected him so that he is addressing God, praying on behalf of the hero as he did in the Japanese game (hence why your MP is restored haha). I also did a lot of work expanding item names, having to move around the item tables in the rom. Herb is now Medical Herb, Wings is now Chimera Wing, Clothes are now Plain Clothes. There were a few other changes, and that brings me to the question:

For the two main cursed items, Death Necklace and Cursed Belt--those are the original Japanese words that were used. However, I've always had an issue where the game completely gives it away that these items are cursed. Especially cursed belt, come on. This is a D&D concept obviously and cursed items were never so obvious. I think later games in the series got this right where the weapons and armor had a foreboding name but not one outright indicating they are cursed. Do you guys agree that we might want to change the names to something a little more subtle yet still hinting at their evil nature? If so, any naming ideas?

[Tom]

I like keeping the name obvious, because it punishes idle curiosity/ignorance instead of just coming off as a surprise punishment.

[Chicken Knife]

I do have a strong feeling of trepidation at going against any of Hori's design choices--unless I'm pretty sure they were made only because of space constraints--such as there being no title screen in 3 or the reuse of Kandar's graphics for Ortega.

My thought was something like Serpent Belt or Devil's Necklace which would still strongly indicate something was up. More likely than not I will leave them as they are, if only out of my massive respect for Hori.

[Tom]

Serpent's Necklace doesn't sound all that suspicious to me. In fact, the Dragon's Scale item sounds similar, despite it being a beneficial item.

[Chicken Knife]

after your input and thinking it through a few times, I'm leaving them alone Tom

FYI, I put up a tiny update with only a couple text revisions to the script for Dragon Warrior 1.

At this point, I'm really looking to dive into the script for 2 but we have just confirmed the text compression issue. I'm not giving up on this, but I'm sure the process will nothing like my convenient use of sleepy's editor for the bulk of my DW1 revisions. Here's the thread for the compression problem: http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=27053.0

I should probably put my focus on figuring out how to use that Atlas software at this point so I can go back to abw's lead on title screen overhaul.

[Choppasmith]

That DW2 stuff looks CRAZYY. I guess that's why there hasn't been much done in the way of romhacks for it.

Best of luck to you for the title screen stuff though, I'd love to see how it ends up looking

[Chicken Knife]

Ha, thanks. I've been editing the stuff I *can* see in Dragon Warrior 2 in the meantime. The system where the game counts the FF entries on the strings of names is about the same as the first game with one key difference. It appears that just like how the first game broke the item strings up into four segments, "items part 1 word 1" "Items part 2 word 1" "Items part 1 word 2" and "Items part 2 word 2", DW2 breaks up the monster list the same way into 4 sections around 2/3 of the way through the list. I have to keep poking around in the game until I find the exact monster where my naming gets screwed up, then I'll find the pointer and realign. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be hardly any empty space within that ROM bank so I don't have anywhere near the free hand for naming that I did in the first game. Still, there are plenty of improvements to be made.
September 24, 2018, 09:42:56 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)Ok, monster names are finished for DW2. I didn't have the extra space that DW1 afforded me so I had to trim the fat unfortunately. Hopefully I have the essence of the Japanese down pretty well. Here are some notes on where I had to diverge from the Japanese. Stuck with Zombie instead of Living Dead for the lowest tier ghoul type due to space. Went with "Hill Rat" instead of "Mountain Rat" due to space. Condensed "Armor Centipede" and "Helmet Centipede" into Armorpede and Helmipede respectively. Altered "Mummy Man" and "Mummy" into "Mummy" and "Greater Mummy". There are two different words for mummy in Japanese that were used for these guys but you can't really translate the distinction. Playing DW2 and DW3 in English, I could never tell whether "Mummy Man" or "Mummy" were the stronger ones so I decided to make that clear. Instead of changing "Titan Tree" to the literal "Human Face Tree", I went with "Grinning Tree" so it hopefully sounds less awkward. Went with "Reaper" for the old "Demighost" instead of "Deathgod Ghost" since the latter makes a rather weak enemy sound way too powerful in English, not to mention the space reduction. Had to chop down the literal "Messenger of Hell" to "Hell Priest" for the old "Evil Clown" due to space. For the "Liquid Metal Slime", the literal Japanese on that one is interesting: "Lost Metal". Anyway, let me know if anyone feels strongly about any of this.

Ah, one more thing. Notice how I changed "Healer" to "Hoimi Slime", and "Magic Ant" to "Rariho Ant" per the Japanese. It looks like I'm really committing us to the use of the Romaji spells names. Additionally, my modest increase to the overall monster list space was due to the Romaji spell list coming out shorter and giving me a couple extra lines to use for monsters. I hope these choices don't alienate half of my audience. 

1.  Slime
2.  Big Slug
3.  Iron Ant
4.  Dracky (from Drakee)
5.  Big Rat (from Wild Mouse)
6.  Hoimi Slime (from Healer)
7.  Ghost (from Ghost Mouse)
8.  Bubble Slime (from Babble)
9.  Army Ant
10. Mage (from Magician)
11. Hill Rat (from Big Rat)
12. King Cobra (from Big Cobra)
13. Rariho Ant (from Magic Ant)
14. Dracky Mage (from Magidrakee)
15. Armorpede (from Centipede)
16. Man O' War
17. Lizard Fly
18. Zombie
19. Smoke
20. Goblin Rat (from Ghost Rat)
21. Mandrill (from Baboon)
22. Maneater (from Carnivog)
23. Helmipede (from Megapede)
24. Sea Slug
25. Medusa (from Medusa Ball)
26. Shaman
27. Mud Doll (from Mud Man)
28. Baboon (from Magic Baboon)
29. Reaper (from Demighost)
30. Gremlin
31. Poison Kiss (from Poison Lily)
32. Mummy (from Mummy Man)
33. Gorgon
34. Saber Wolf (from Saber Lion)
35. Dragon Fly
36. Grinning Tree (from Titan Tree)
37. Undead
38. Basilisk
39. Muddy Hand (from Goopi)
40. Orc
41. Puppet Man
42. Greater Mummy (from Mummy)
43. Evil Tree
44. Gas
45. Corpse (from Hork)
46. Hawkman (from Hawk Man)
47. Black Mage
48. Metal Slime
49. Headhunter (from Hunter)
50. Devil Eye (from Evil Eye)
51. Hibabango
52. Bloody Hand (from Graboopi)
53. Gold Orc
54. Hell Priest (from Evil Clown)
55. Ghoul
56. Vampirus
57. Skull Knight (from Mega Knight)
58. Killer Tiger (from Saber Tiger)
59. Metal Hunter
60. Bevil (from Ozwarg)
61. Dark Eye
62. Gargoyle
63. Orc King
64. Vampirus Mage (from Magic Vampirus)
65. Berserker
66. Liquid Metal Slime (from Metal Babble)
67. Hargon Knight
68. Cyclops
69. Killing Machine (from Attack Bot)
70. Dragon (from Green Dragon)
71. Devil Priest (from Mace Master)
72. Flame
73. Silver Devil (from Silver Batboon)
74. Blizzard
75. Gigantes (from Giant)
76. Devil Lord (from Gold Batboon)
77. Archdemon (from Bullwong)
78. Atlas
79. Bazuzu
80. Belial (from Zarlox)
81. Hargon
82. Sido (from Malroth)

[Choppasmith]

Just for giggles I thought I'd make a DW1 title screen mockup in Photoshop to get a good idea of what changing Warrior into Quest would look like. PS can automatically center things and it looks like we'd just have to move everything one tile over for it to look centered (I'll probably just use the existing TM tiles)



I'm not sure how the Dragon popping out of the logo would work if we do end up moving everything over a space.

[Chicken Knife]

@Choppasmith

Gosh, that looks lovely. The letters in QUEST are a perfect blend. I'd be inclined to lose the tm at the end myself, but it's no big deal either way. If you're moving the D over to where the R currently is in DRAGON, I'd suspect that the black dragon head wouldn't look too different against the D. Perhaps there would be a small grey gap but not too noticeable. I do suspect though that the bottom right part of his neck will overlay the upper left of the R. I'd assume that the dragon head graphic is a sprite and we should be able to locate and edit those tiles to fit the new letters properly.

I've been taking a bit of a break the last week getting absorbed in DQXI. I was waiting for that game's US release for a couple years now but pushed off playing it for weeks due to these projects.

I've updated all the spells, monsters and items in DQII and it's just a matter of now taking on the headaches associates with learning how to extract and reinsert the compressed script. abw has a new tool he claims should do the job so fingers crossed. I'll be focusing on that soon. Apparently these extraction / insertion tools can also help us make the tile map adjustments we need to rearrange the letters for this title screen so I'm curious how that will work.

[Chicken Knife]

Ok, I've admittedly been away from doing anything with this for awhile. 340 hours of Dragon Quest XI later, I'm slowly reabsorbing myself in this project. After recently having someone play test my script for DQ1, I fixed up a couple errors they noted along with tackling a significant text bug that was coming up when you accept the Dragonlord's invitation to rule half of the world. He would end up telling you that you don't have room in your inventory for chain mail before the text went red and the screen froze. In any case, that's all fixed now and I'm uploading the current version on the first post of this thread.

Also, for this guy's benefit and possibly others out there, I'm including a second version which retains the Dragon Warrior spell naming scheme instead of the Japanese scheme that I've been using. FYI, I'm using Fireball and Firebane instead of Hurt and Hurtmore--as opposed to what some may think should be Blaze and Blazemore. The Japanese for these two spells is Gira and Begirama, which evolved into the group fire attack spells in later iterations. Therefore, another hack on this site that updates spell names to current conventions is incorrect by using Frizz and Frizzle.

FYI, I'm not using "Firebal" with one "l" like the NES versions do. I could never stand that misspelling, even if intentional.

One more thing: I was convinced by another guy in the Dragon Quester's FB group to use Roto instead of Loto. Loto seems to be the more popular of the two renderings because of our GBC versions that were officially released, but I was convinced to switch because in Japan, Roto has repeatedly been demonstrated as the official English letter rendering, appearing inscribed on toy swords and shields, in Manga, etc.

Unless anyone uncovers any more bugs, It's really time for me to take on take on the stuff that is making my brain bleed like learning Atlas / Cartographer / abcde / hell even command prompt (it's been awhile). These have been suggested to me as the best resources for fixing the title screen issues as well as decompressing DW2's text. Any helpful suggestions, let me know