Mega Man X2 Relocalization

[Ghaleonh41]

Awesome work, DarkSamus! Can't wait to try this out!

[Thirteen 1355]

Woah, craziness! Guess it's time to replay X1 again! I actually planned to take a look at its retranslation and change the names to US variants, but this is better.

Right now I'm playing through them all. I have finished X2 plus relocalization plus refill patch yesterday. I think that with the menu weapons (but wait, does that also include the 'get Weapon' texts?), edited, the patch stands pretty much finished.

I assume X3 has no real missing/censored/erronous dialogue with the Zero Project. X1's covered as well. PS1 hacking seems a bit higher-level.

With Xtreme I don't feel it's worth the time, since Extreme Mode (which has no dialogue) is the best way to play anyway.

On an unrelated note, I've developed refill patches for both Xtreme 1 and 2. I'm testing these as I go through the X games. If these work well, all the X games have a perfectly working refill patch (weapons refill upon losing a life).

DarkSamus, if it's too much of a hassle, I'd still gladly upload your refill patches for you.
This would mean nearly every Mega Man game got a compatible refill patch. I think only 9 and 10 are missing now. WAD editing is quite tough.

[julayla]

Woah, craziness! Guess it's time to replay X1 again! I actually planned to take a look at its retranslation and change the names to US variants, but this is better.

Right now I'm playing through them all. I have finished X2 plus relocalization plus refill patch yesterday. I think that with the menu weapons (but wait, does that also include the 'get Weapon' texts?), edited, the patch stands pretty much finished.

I assume X3 has no real missing/censored/erronous dialogue with the Zero Project. X1's covered as well. PS1 hacking seems a bit higher-level.

With Xtreme I don't feel it's worth the time, since Extreme Mode (which has no dialogue) is the best way to play anyway.

On an unrelated note, I've developed refill patches for both Xtreme 1 and 2. I'm testing these as I go through the X games. If these work well, all the X games have a perfectly working refill patch (weapons refill upon losing a life).

DarkSamus, if it's too much of a hassle, I'd still gladly upload your refill patches for you.
This would mean nearly every Mega Man game got a compatible refill patch. I think only 9 and 10 are missing now. WAD editing is quite tough.

Same with me when it comes to relocalization games. It'd be fun to see how fans do it better when it comes to filling in plot holes.

[G30FF]

Right now I'm playing through them all. I have finished X2 plus relocalization plus refill patch yesterday. I think that with the menu weapons (but wait, does that also include the 'get Weapon' texts?), edited, the patch stands pretty much finished.

I tried playing through with the menu weapons patch on top of the relocalization patch. It's just the names in the pause menu, the get weapon text is still the same.

[Thirteen 1355]

Yep, DarkSamus is aiming to repoint the words that could be longer.

[G30FF]

I'm excited to see the results! I'm loving how all of the SNES X games are getting so much love. I tried playing X1 with the retranslation posted here for the US version, with the Capsule Remix patch, and it's a great experience.

I'm also really glad for the relocalization for X2. The Counter Hunters finally feel like proper characters instead of how boring they were in the vanilla US localization.

[DarkSamus993]

It's been slow going with my headaches drastically limiting my time lately, but I still managed to get some work done.

The variable-width font is still a big WIP (as you can see it's quite broken right now).

[Ghaleonh41]

Take your time, DarkSamus. One thing, you might run into a problem when it comes to the Get Weapon screen for Crystal Hunter. Her-Saki ran into the same problem while we were working on the JP version.

[Thirteen 1355]

Looks like a great start nonetheless! Headaches suck, don't rush yourself. I've caught the flu, so I'm not too well either.

Ghaleon, what's that cute profile pic from? It's all kinds of dizzying.

[Ghaleonh41]

It's from Mythical Detective Loki. One of my favorite manga.

[julayla]

That's pretty cool. I might have to check it out one day.

[Solid One]

I assume X3 has no real missing/censored/erronous dialogue with the Zero Project.

Although Zero Project v4.0 from Justin3009 has done some interesting relocalization changes on X3, mostly it still relies fully on the american localization. I think there's still room for improvements on X3 in this aspect.

By comparing the american localization with the Hondoori's Rockman X3 translation, there's some differences that would be interesting to have in a possible Mega Man X3 Relocalization. Here's some examples:

Example 1 - Vile shows up and bothers Doppler in his lab

AMERICAN LOCALIZATION	JAPANESE TRANSLATION FROM HONDOORI
Mysterious Reploid: Alive, Dr. Doppler? You are so kind.	Mysterious Reploid: Heheheh...what a pain in the ass. Capturing him alive, that is.
Dr. Doppler: Watch your mouth or I'll put you back where I found you! Even with your enhancements, you are still no match for me.	Dr. Doppler: It's you...even though I revived you and even powered you up...you won't behave and follow my orders...?

The first part of the dialogue above, where Vile says Doppler is kind for wanting X captured alive, is different on the japanese. Disregarding the use of the bad word "ass", he's basically saying that capturing X alive would be a very problematic task. To me it's kinda different than telling he's a kind person for not wanting to kill X.

The second part of the dialogue above, where Doppler tells Vile to shut up or he'll throw him away, is absent in the japanese version. The same applies to the part where Doppler says he's much stronger than Vile. In that case, IMO it's better to use the entire japanese sentence instead of the american one, since it depicts Doppler as a more pondered person.

Example 2 - First encounter with Bit (ignore the name change between the translations for now)

AMERICAN LOCALIZATION	JAPANESE TRANSLATION FROM HONDOORI
Bit: Welcome, X. I'm Bit. I have my orders. You are to be destroyed.	Vajurila FF: Fufufu...my name is Vajurila. As the right hand of Dr. Doppler, I've buried numerous Reploids. It's the doctor's orders. You'll die here.

On the american localization, the dialogues of both Bit and Byte are kinda robotic. In the japanese, it seems they have more personality. On Bit's side, he is arrogant and very confident of his abilities, as you can see on the first part of the dialogue. It'd be interesting to restore this aspect on a relocalization.

Example 3 - Some naming questions

Another thing to discuss is about the possibility of using japanese names for some characters. Not Vile or the other 8 bosses, but instead on Bit and Byte's side. Since you guys opted to change some names on the X2 Relocalization ("Serges" -> "Sagesse"), why not using their japanese counterparts here instead ("Vajurila FF" and "Manderela BB")?

Final Considerations

Last but not least, I've recently released some portuguese brazilian translations for both original MMX3 and Zero Project v4.0 (after asking permission to Justin3009), and I've even developed a simple dumper/inserter in PHP-CLI for dealing with game scripts in a better way. By using these data, I've created a MMX3 ROM containing some script changes based on Hondoori's translation, thanks to Justin3009 for providing me a clean expanded mmx3 rom, so I could do all needed changes without having to deal with space. You can see it from the screenshots below:




And here's the patch containing some of the changes above: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YPlN-qFoZajfP0rdiXPZX-NzuM3y5Jak/view?usp=sharing

Depending on the feedback received from the community, it's possible to convert this into a "Mega Man X3 Relocalization" project. What do you guys think?

The variable-width font is still a big WIP (as you can see it's quite broken right now).

Hey, I was wondering: What do you think about changing the MMX VWF font into a bigger and bolder one?

A few years ago, a fellow brazilian romhacker called denim has made some interesting improvements on MMX3. One of them is a VWF font that resembles more the american font. Here's some images of it:

Unpaletted	Paletted

In this font, all characters has dimensions of 8x12, and some diacritic signs were added in order to be used in translations for other languages such as portuguese, spanish, french, etc.

Here's two images of how it looks ingame:


Here's a video of it, in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEq2AcmJRm4

Unfortunately, only denim has the code for generating this VWF, and he's inactive since a few months. The only thing I have is the images above. Feel free to use them if you wish.

[Ghaleonh41]

Funny, I was thinking that perhaps we should look into improving X3. The only change I was aware of was the exchange between Doppler & Vile. The rest, I didn't. Thanks for pointing these out, Solid One! As for the font, well, I guess we'll have to see.

[justin3009]

That bigger font is really nice and could be implemented. I do have a pretty functioning VWF for X3 from years ago that I did but it's still problematic and broken in a lot of areas, mainly because I was redoing entirely how the text boxes and stuff were drawn instead of sticking with how X3 normally handles it.

Just in general though, that kind of font would be a great help but it would need a lot of script shuffling due to the larger size. Though, much more readable.

[erpster2]

a minor improvement to MMX2 - a password that will allow saving the "dragon punch" [Shoryuken] capsule enhancement powerup so I don't have to collect it again if I have to replay the last several stages of the game

that would be nice to have if it's possible

[TDOMMX]

a minor improvement to MMX2 - a password that will allow saving the "dragon punch" [Shoryuken] capsule enhancement powerup so I don't have to collect it again if I have to replay the last several stages of the game

that would be nice to have if it's possible

It's already implemented in the official releases.  You need to enter any of the passwords that the game gives you after you acquire the Shoryuken, then scroll down to the last row of digits, hold Down, Left, R & B, and press Y to actually confirm the password without the Shoryuken flag being reset.  The Hadoken has its own passwords, too (but, unfortunately, the Hyper Chip does not).

Relevant links:
- http://schwer-muta.blogspot.com/2016/02/help-wanted-hyper-dragon-chip-challenge.html
- http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=21312

On that note, I've programmed my own password generator in Excel (based on my own crack since the one on MMHP is incomplete in some places and wrong in others).  I plan to release a standalone version of it when I have the time to make a proper GUI.

[Heaven Piercing Man]

"hot take": I think the Nightmare Police's original names are way more obscure, I mean changing Serges to Sagesse makes the French theme naming more apparent instead of going over our heads, and French is a language closer to us. In contrast it's harder to get the reference to "vajra" and "mandala" from the NP's names. What about re-romanizing the names into something more obvious like "Vajraler" and "Mandaller"? I'm not sure.

[Ghaleonh41]

That's something to keep in mind, Heaven Piercing Man...

TDOMMX, thanks for confirming that there are passwords that save the special moves. I recall seeing it on TVTropes, but never tested it.

[TDOMMX]

TDOMMX, thanks for confirming that there are passwords that save the special moves. I recall seeing it on TVTropes, but never tested it.

You're welcome.

Amusingly, the passwords in the Cheat Code entries on TV Tropes' Megaman X and Megaman X2 pages were copied verbatim from my blog.  I specifically chose situations in X2 and X3 that cannot legitimately be encountered in-game (i.e.: getting the Shoryuken before Agile's Stage in X2, and fighting Vile mk-2 with the Z-Saber in X3), both as a test of my password generator's capabilities and to stealthily sign my handiwork.  I'm a bit disappointed that the troper left out the most important part: the player must highlighting a value in the last row of password digits before entering the secret button input or the code will not work (the Y button only works as a code confirmation whenever the "Start" option is selected; otherwise, it cycles through password digits).

[Ghaleonh41]

Well, that's a bit of a fail on their end.

Aside from that, thank you for your work on the Rosenkreuzstilette series!