Mega Man X5 Improvement Project Addendum (v2.1.4)

[acediez]

I do have one request though: Would it be possible to get both Hearts & Energy Ups regardless of what you pick? [/font]

There's instructions to enable that in the readme.

[MattKimura]

I absolutely love this addendum patch, on it's own it acts as a full blown improvement hack. The only thing I would wish for is to have an optional patch for the music replacements rather than enforce it on everyone. That way there would be two different ways to use this hack for those who prefer the western release music.
Not sure how much work would be required to make this separation though so don't worry about it if it's too much work. Thanks for the improvements, it's amazing how here in 2019 we finally have a better way to play MMX5 and X6.

[Ghaleonh41]

Oops, missed that part. I'll check it out.

MattKimura, you can hex edit the file just like Acediez directed to me.

[acediez]

The ones that are still on the disc can be reverted, there's instructions for that on the readme (how many times have I written this now?). Tidal Whale's and Dr. Light's though can't be reversed because the audio files were replaced.

Let's say I split all the music changes to a separate patch (or make a variant of the whole thing, wouldn't make a difference to me). Should I include the opening and ending in the base patch, or the "music changes variant"?
And even then, there's bound to be some that will say "I want this one but not that one"...
... so yeah, I guess you can understand why I don't offer that kind of variants atm.

The one variant I'm willing to offer is a zero music replacements patch that also leaves out the intro and ending, mostly because that's a patch I could submit to RHDN without worrying about copyrighted data.

[Ghaleonh41]

There's a typo on Zero's Opening Stage right before you fight Sigma.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ak4gj2VHybVMRIYcr9Tw1Pe5SwacwDMp/view?usp=sharing

[Thirteen 1355]

The ones that are still on the disc can be reverted, there's instructions for that on the readme (how many times have I written this now?). Tidal Whale's and Dr. Light's though can't be reversed because the audio files were replaced.

Let's say I split all the music changes to a separate patch (or make a variant of the whole thing, wouldn't make a difference to me). Should I include the opening and ending in the base patch, or the "music changes variant"?
And even then, there's bound to be some that will say "I want this one but not that one"...
... so yeah, I guess you can understand why I don't offer that kind of variants atm.

The one variant I'm willing to offer is a zero music replacements patch that also leaves out the intro and ending, mostly because that's a patch I could submit to RHDN without worrying about copyrighted data.

At max I'd do one patch that introduces all of your music edits, and one that introduces zero of them.

[Ghaleonh41]

Here's some more typos.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cxzmn5I6GfieGPVgIFPhZGmr0aFs4D4L

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F5evWBJHd7z2efhs2ozKZpurgJIVtySf

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RRe8TCK0UKJLXS_-sy-jH_vyld0vthgn

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vm59WNpqbGUNhIaqDrV-EyDj--dIKZAP

[acediez]

Thanks! Though I haven't touched the script beyond the listed localization changes (and a couple very minor things I ran into along the way), and I don't plan to do it, for now.

If I were to get into the whole script, I would use Hondoori's retranslation rather than fix the official one.

[Ghaleonh41]

Ah, I see. And you're welcome!

I don't think I read that text yet, or maybe I don't remember... I'll check it out.
November 04, 2019, 12:31:58 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
And I see why you would want to use the translation if you're going to fix the typos... Quite the difference compared to what we got.

[Enscripture]

Two years ago, I was helping gledson999 in translating MMX5 to brazilian portuguese, and was using Hondoori's translation as basis in order to fix localization issues such as Octopardo instead of Octopus. When I stumbled into Skiver's dialogues, I had this same doubt, so I've done a few researches on wiki articles related to this issue.

Taking into account the description of Spiral Pegasus (The Skiver) on megaman.fandom.com, it mentions this:

Code Select Expand

He was a young director of the Repliforce air brigade, who survived the Great Repliforce War that occurred during the events of Mega Man X4. He looked up to Colonel and General and knows Iris. He then began overseeing an Air Force base near to the west coast of Norway, known as the Reploid Air Force.

Basically, Repliforce still exists after the events of MMX4, and The Skiver is the last of its members, taking care of the Air Forces after Storm Owl was defeated. So, "Air Force" is kinda a division of Repliforce. IMO, I guess we can assume that all ocurrences of "Air Force" points directly into the Repliforce itself, and the same applies to the ocurrences of "Reploid Force" and "Reploid Air Force". That's why we basically replaced all ocurrences of it to "Repliforce" in the script, with the exception of maintaining mentions of "air division" when needed.

In the japanese version It's not Repliforce that its referring to. Pegacion belongs to the Repli-Air Force. That's what those are referring to (レプリエアフォース)

[Thirteen 1355]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfD7ez0aejw

I found this just now. Would there be any way to make the cannon/shuttle segments less RNG based?

[Solid One]

In the japanese version It's not Repliforce that its referring to. Pegacion belongs to the Repli-Air Force. That's what those are referring to (レプリエアフォース)

Thanks for the feedback. That'll be very useful.

BTW, based on the rest of the context of the game that you could analyze, is there a chance of "Repli-Air Force" (レプリエアフォース) being some kind of subdivision of the Repliforce (or remnants of)? Or is it definitely a totally-independent organization, born after the dismantling of Repliforce in the events of X4?

[acediez]

I'm not actively working on this (or any) hack at the moment, but since you asked, I'll share some ideas I might try implementing in the future.
(These are just ideas, I haven't even looked at the code that controls these yet.)

Enigma/Shuttle success modification:

Enigma success:
No pieces: Always fail
1-4 pieces: (normal RNG + chance % behavior)

Shuttle success:
No pieces: Always fail
1-3 pieces: (normal RNG + chance % behavior)
4 pieces: Always success

This is what you most likely will get anyway, based on the game's chance rates. It would simply aim to shave off the rare chance of getting an accidental success when you're going for the worst chance on purpose, or getting an accidental failure after going through all eight stages within the 16 hours limit.

I'm of course thinking of what seems to me what you would normally be aiming for on a regular playthrough, not speedrunners or other edge cases.

Acquiring Parts:

The original's system is based on the boss' level, which is based on a sum of the "hours" left and your character's Rank (which changes based on performance, but Zero always starts higher than X). In practice, however, it comes down to wasting enough hours at the start of the game so you get a high enough level, so your Rank doesn't matter. On top of that, since you can only pick one of two each time (and the game doesn't have a New Game+), you can only get half of them at most on a single playthrough/savefile.

This is a very flawed system in my opinion, and almost impossible to decipher on a casual playthrough. Since it came down to simply wasting hours, removing the requirements altogether to always get everything seemed to me an improvement over the original game. But it's obviously not an actual solution. It takes away a lot of the potential fun of making an extra effort to unlock these.

My idea now is to ignore the boss Level/Rank system altogether and change the requirements to two separate straightforward conditions:
- The "Life Up/Energy Up" choice only affects the actual Life/Energy upgrade. You always get to chose one, regardless of performance.
- Get the Part assigned to "Life Up+" by completing the stage without losing lives (Boss included. Not counting revisits).
- Get the Part assigned to"Energy Up+" by beating the boss without using special weapons (X-Buster/Z-Saber only). Either that, or simply not using the boss' weakness.
Get both Parts if both requirements are met.
Also, get acquired Parts immediately (not two hours/stages later).

Comments and different ideas are appreciated.

[Thirteen 1355]

Although I never minded the original parts system for X5, because at least you had full control over which parts you ultimately end up with, the ideas you bring forth are pretty great. Beating a boss without using weaknesses is something I aim for anyway (since I give myself infinite chances to try  ), and just feels very natural in the first place. The Lifeup requirement seems a bit higher than the Energy one, though. Maybe opt for getting the Lifeup parts if you manage to defeat the boss without dying (even if you end up at the boss with low health), but be able to die in the stage before it without consequence.

The Enigma/Shuttle stuff seems good as well. All that's necessary there is for players to have control. This morning I tried out the Enigma and Shuttle right after the intro stage, and I got them both to damage the Eurasia enough to be able to skip all the regular stages and head straight for the finale. First try, never done it before.

Maybe take into account the two playable characters. If someone wants to use Zero as much as possible, he certainly doesn't want the bad ending to trigger (since that causes you lose Zero as a playable character). Maybe make the Shuttle a guaranteed success if you start the intro stage as Zero. This, combined with the stuff you suggested, seems to be a nice change.

Besides that all, something I'd still love to see is getting armor upgrades to work separately, like in X1-4 and your X6 hack. For consistency's and fun's sake.

[ASR_94]

I completed the game it was nice work improving a already great improved hack

[Enscripture]

Thanks for the feedback. That'll be very useful.

BTW, based on the rest of the context of the game that you could analyze, is there a chance of "Repli-Air Force" (レプリエアフォース) being some kind of subdivision of the Repliforce (or remnants of)? Or is it definitely a totally-independent organization, born after the dismantling of Repliforce in the events of X4?

Yes it's part of Repliforce and not seperate. The aerial division is called the Repli-Airforce and the sea division (navy) is called the Repli-Seaforce (レプリシーフォース)
https://ainamk.fandom.com/wiki/%E3%83%AC%E3%83%97%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9
I dunno if there's a space in between I don't think there is. So it would be Repli-Airforce and not Repli-Air Force

[Solid One]

Yes it's part of Repliforce and not seperate. The aerial division is called the Repli-Airforce and the sea division (navy) is called the Repli-Seaforce (レプリシーフォース)
https://ainamk.fandom.com/wiki/%E3%83%AC%E3%83%97%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9
I dunno if there's a space in between I don't think there is. So it would be Repli-Airforce and not Repli-Air Force

So, both "Repli-Airforce" and "Repli-Seaforce" are basically subdivisions of the Repliforce, right? If that's the case, then at least calling it simply by "Repliforce" isn't entirely wrong. Not as precise as the correct subdivision name, but still works.

[Thirteen 1355]

Isn't that Repliforce discussion over by now?

[acediez]

Not necessarily? I'm thankful for any further clarification on the name 

For the current version, I settled for Repliforce on the dialogues against Rosered and Pegasion, since that's what was called on Hondoori's retranslation. Most "Air Force" mentions are in Alia's dialogues. I did (uncorrectly?) change those to Repliforce for consistency, but since they're not visible unless you manually add those dialogues back, it doesn't matter much either way.

FYI, Ghaleonh41 is currently reworking the script for this hack, again based on Hondoori's retranslation. I'll leave any further terminology decision to him.

[Heaven Piercing Man]

Isn't that Repliforce discussion over by now?

Someone. Must Stop. REPLIFORZZZZZ.