Resident Evil Famicom Upgrade Project

[Lugia2009]

So, it's been a while since I've posted on here. A lot of issues in my life needed to be sorted out after I finished the Pokemon Yellow translation project, other issues were thrown at me that were out of my control.


I started on a new project to try and improve the NES port of Resident Evil. I made a list of things I'd like to do. Hopefully I can do most of it.

I've managed to make a few changes. Jill's frantic movement speed has now been reduced a good bit. I haven't figured out how to control it exactly, but, after some trial and error, I seem to have gotten it slowed down without any glitches showing up.

The battle screen has been modified a bit to be more than just a black background. Problem with it is that I only have 2 graphic tiles to work with since the enemies take up basically the entire graphic section. So, I did what I could with those 2 graphic tiles.

I'm thinking of changing the enemy graphics around to include a few more tiles for the battle menus.

Jill's portrait has been modified as well. Not great looking, but I tried to get it to look more like her original portrait.





Trying to figure out how to improve the look of the map layouts in the game, but, the game has very little room for additions. And, also found out that collision tiles are linked to the graphics themselves rather than being set per level.


But, anyway, that's what I've been able to do so far, I just started working on this about a week ago, I'm going to try and do some work on it every week.
March 02, 2020, 03:02:08 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Not sure why the images aren't loading, but, here's the links for them

https://imgur.com/hZbn1Ie

https://imgur.com/mwaPfgp
March 02, 2020, 03:44:01 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Screen scrolling is now fixed, rather than having to walk all the way to the edges of the screen to get the camera to move, now it's centered on Jill. So, no more being caught off guard by enemies directly in front of you, but off screen. 

[4lorn]

Hey, that's great. Bootlegs deserve some love too

What's the ROM revision you're working on? Felt like messing around with Jill's portrait but I read there were 3 versions floating around... I went with a RE3 approach and kept to 4 colors but I'm not sure this fits the alloted space:

[Lugia2009]

Resident_Evil_(Unl)_fixed is the one I have. The portrait looks great, but, it's a bit too large. The portrait size in game is 32x32 pixels

[Graphicus]

[Cody The Fox]

I Can't Wait To Play This Improvement...

[Lugia2009]

This looks pretty good, I'll have to modify it a little for colors to make it work.
March 04, 2020, 01:15:20 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Figured I'd redo Jill's overworld sprites and give it a little more detail.





I found out that there's a few unused sprites on each of her walking animations. If they were used, her walking animation would look much smoother. But, they aren't, and the game only allows for 4 sprites to be used per animation, so all 5 wouldn't fit anyway.

Maybe that's why Waixing didn't use them after they made them? Idk. But I'll have to limit it to just 3, cause even with 4, it looks rough.
And each direction you run, Jill goes back to her standing sprite for a single frame, even if you hold down the directional button which would make the added animations look bad anyway.
March 04, 2020, 01:46:08 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Also found how to slow the animation a little, and made the movement a little more smooth.
Rather than no frame being between the arms shifting back and forth, it now goes from arms swinging one way, standing, arms swinging the other way. A bit more fluid animation for her walk animation

[Shade Aurion]

I just wanted to say this looks great!~
Have you tried the battle screen without the tiles around the bottom and side. I know you're working with what you got, just suggesting just incase you find something that works better. So far i'm impressed with what I see

[4lorn]

Resident_Evil_(Unl)_fixed is the one I have. The portrait looks great, but, it's a bit too large. The portrait size in game is 32x32 pixels

Sorry. I figured it was small and went with an estimate. It's been a while since I tried doing very small portraits like that (usually I work in bigger sizes and more colors). Not a priority right now but figured I'd spend a few more minutes around it.

Nice That's from the PSX Director's Cut, isn't it?
March 04, 2020, 09:31:16 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
By the way... Is it possible to instruct it to rotate tiles for the interface? If yes, you could try doing something like this:



This way you could have one single tile for every straight line, plus a corner. The less colors the more seamless it will look, of course.

[Lugia2009]

Sorry. I figured it was small and went with an estimate. It's been a while since I tried doing very small portraits like that (usually I work in bigger sizes and more colors). Not a priority right now but figured I'd spend a few more minutes around it.

Thank you so much for making these, they look awesome


I really love this one, I made a few additions to it using the hair on the first one you sent as well as a few other additions

By the way... Is it possible to instruct it to rotate tiles for the interface? If yes, you could try doing something like this:



This way you could have one single tile for every straight line, plus a corner. The less colors the more seamless it will look, of course.

Unfortunately, I lack programming knowledge, so I'll have to rely on using graphic tiles. Only way I can make it work is by borrowing a few tiles from each of the enemy's graphics. It shouldn't affect the graphics for enemies much since I only need a few.
March 04, 2020, 06:47:16 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

I Can't Wait To Play This Improvement...

I'll try and have it all finished in the next few months ^.^
It shouldn't take much longer than that to complete I'm hoping

I just wanted to say this looks great!~
Have you tried the battle screen without the tiles around the bottom and side. I know you're working with what you got, just suggesting just incase you find something that works better. So far i'm impressed with what I see

I'll see what it will look like without those, I'll just have to wait till I start messing with the enemy graphics so I can know what I'll have to work with.
And thank you :3
I'm hoping this will turn out all right in the end, cause, this game is honestly very impressive. Waixing did a surprisingly great job with it

[4lorn]

Glad you liked'em! I'd forgotten about the cap's symbol, sorry, but your edit looks good

If you need any edits for the enemies let me know, though I looked into the ROM and while not compressed, the tiles seem to be a mess.

[gadesx]

You can use all my work from
Resident Evil Demake,
I made the game like an enhanced 8bit version of Sachen's Biohazard.
I made/edit sprites,
music (well I had all tracks in midi, so only have to sync all or the tracks sound weird as chiptune)
Menus/puzzles/computers graphics,
maps, etc

All unpacked
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10smYmjxzI2GYLrFaXBLcSkBFcbln3KNv

[Lugia2009]

Glad you liked'em! I'd forgotten about the cap's symbol, sorry, but your edit looks good

If you need any edits for the enemies let me know, though I looked into the ROM and while not compressed, the tiles seem to be a mess.

Enemies I kinda want redone from scratch so they won't be just copy pasted from Gaiden. And yeah, the sprites are pretty confusing to look at in the editor.

You can use all my work from
Resident Evil Demake,
I made the game like an enhanced 8bit version of Sachen's Biohazard.
I made/edit sprites,
music (well I had all tracks in midi, so only have to sync all or the tracks sound weird as chiptune)
Menus/puzzles/computers graphics,
maps, etc

All unpacked
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10smYmjxzI2GYLrFaXBLcSkBFcbln3KNv

Thank you, I'll see what I can use from the pack since my options are limited for the game. Would be great to have music to replace what's here.
March 10, 2020, 12:58:19 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
So, I looked at how the items are in the menu, and there's no way to add variety to the colors. They're part of the background so unless I change the blue background to something else, items are limited to 2 colors which are grey and orange.

I'm thinking of ditching the blue background and making it dark grey, so I can at least have a 3rd color for item sprites. Dark Grey, Grey, and Orange would probably be best for the item sprites. There are herbs in the game, but, I can't use green/red/blue for them either cause there's only one sprite for herbs and one for mixed herbs

[4lorn]

Ok, I'll see what I can do with the enemies. Might have something to show next week.

[Lugia2009]

Ok, I'll see what I can do with the enemies. Might have something to show next week.

Awesome 
Looking forward to seeing it
March 11, 2020, 03:41:40 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)


Working on the item icons now, and messed with the Use/Check/Combine boxes.

Here's a before and after of the old and new item menu
March 11, 2020, 03:43:02 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Also just realized the line where the Radio selection box will be is gone. I'll have to fix that
March 11, 2020, 09:44:03 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Ok, I applied the english translation to this game, or most of it at least. The waixing logo and translations for the maps you find are still not copied over. But at least the game can be played in english as well.

Only thing though, the people that translated the game didn't translate any of the memos and books you find. So it's all just black screens that you need to repeatedly press A to skip past. I'm not sure how I can add that in, and I don't think I can since the translation for the game doesn't touch the text system and just uses the game's chinese text and replaces it.

[gadesx]

I used more colors so only
"Looks" like an 8bit game.
First using cheats to have
all items to dump many things from the sachen rom,
They used Red color a lot.

About the battle system,
Sachen game it's similar to RE gaiden, I thought if made
battles like Sweet home, but
finally I moved to an Action system.
No idea about if it's too much work via Romhacking.

From the original game.
I saw the "random" hp of the
enemies.
Weapons had X attack,
but a zombie for example can
have 40-80 HP,
changing of map, the
hp change, so every time
the gameplay changes.

I did set random range of attack
power only.

[Tsukiyomaru0]

If possible... I'd suggest to change how the battle works, have you be able to control the aim bar, but the little aim bar could be shakier to simulate sway from trying to aim with a heavy gun or something.

[KAGE-008]

Ok, I applied the english translation to this game, or most of it at least. The waixing logo and translations for the maps you find are still not copied over. But at least the game can be played in english as well.

Is that translation based on the one Pacnsacdave did? Even though it was cool, it wasn't perfect to be honest, since the font might seem to be very small for some people.

[Lugia2009]

I used more colors so only
"Looks" like an 8bit game.
First using cheats to have
all items to dump many things from the sachen rom,
They used Red color a lot.

About the battle system,
Sachen game it's similar to RE gaiden, I thought if made
battles like Sweet home, but
finally I moved to an Action system.
No idea about if it's too much work via Romhacking.

From the original game.
I saw the "random" hp of the
enemies.
Weapons had X attack,
but a zombie for example can
have 40-80 HP,
changing of map, the
hp change, so every time
the gameplay changes.

I did set random range of attack
power only.

I didn't realize that the enemy HP in this game was random, but it would explain how the number of shots needed changes so much. I just thought I wasn't timing the shots right every time.

Playing this game, I also noticed that shotguns and the grenade launcher do less damage than the handgun. I'll have to fix that as well

If possible... I'd suggest to change how the battle works, have you be able to control the aim bar, but the little aim bar could be shakier to simulate sway from trying to aim with a heavy gun or something.

That's far out of my abilities. I have no programming knowledge.

Is that translation based on the one Pacnsacdave did? Even though it was cool, it wasn't perfect to be honest, since the font might seem to be very small for some people.

Yeah, it certainly helps to play through the game, but I'm seeing alot of issues with it. I'll have to redo it. Though looking at how they did it, I'll have to do it the same way. The text will still be pretty small, but it should help clean up the english. And I want to rewrite a few parts to have it make more sense.

as for the files/books. There's no way I can add that in at all, it's simply too much text. I'll have to make a kind of manual for the game and have the files point to the manual pages for them.


Cause the original translator, they didn't touch the text system for the game, they just changed the chinese text to boxes of english text, having things like one chinese symbol turn into a few words.





Also for this game, I noticed there's just a massive chunk of space that's not even used at the end of the ROM. It's kind of baffling.
0x0A0010 - 0x10000f is just FF in the hex editor. I have no idea why. and then in the ROM there's some stuff after the FF's that is different, but doesn't even show up in Tile Layer Pro. And followed by that is another bit of empty space that's all 00's from 0x101cb0 - 0x10200f which also doesn't show up in Tile Layer Pro

So the game's 1mb in size, but, looking at this it feels like it should be 600kb instead. Maybe less.

[Cody The Fox]

I Would Love To See What Else You've Been Working On For Resident Evil On The NES... 

[Lugia2009]

I Would Love To See What Else You've Been Working On For Resident Evil On The NES... 

Not too much unfortunately due to work and some issues from this whole virus situation. But I did do some looking into how enemies are placed and found how enemies, items, and NPCs are placed as well as other things.







--------Item/Enemy/NPC Placement Per Map Settings--------

around 0x09216d

00 - Jill
01 - Frog Man (Enemy)
02 - Zombie (Enemy)
03 - Pushable Box
04 - Health bar (Glitches game)
05 - Health bar (Glitches game)
06 - (Item drop) Look further down in guide for item list
07 - Barry?
08 - Barry?
09 - Barry?
0A - Richard
0B - Unknown (Enemy) (Uses altered version of Frog Man sprite)
0C - Bees (Non battle enemy)
0D - Dog (Enemy)
0E - Bird (Enemy)
0F - Snake (Non battle enemy)
10 - Spider (Enemy)
11 - Tyrant
12 - (Ball) Switch
13 - Large Ball (???)
14 - Rocket Launcher? (Not an item drop)
15 - ????? (Has no sprite)
16 - Vines (Like the one in the plant room)
17 - Candlestick
18 - Shark (Enemy)
19 - Plant Root
1A - Helicopter
1B - Battery? (Not an item drop)

1C - ????? (idk what the sprite is)
1C-FF I don't believe there's anything else here


now, for item drops, after you put in 06, there's 00 00
The first 00 sets what item is found.
The second one seems to cause an item to infinitely respawn if it's set to 02


------------Items--------------
00 - Knife
01 - Handgun
02 - Broken Shotgun
03 - Revolver (Magnum)
04 - Howitzer (Bazooka)
05 - Rocket Launcher
06 - Pistol Ammo
07 - Shotgun Ammo
08 - Revolver Ammo
09 - Bombs (Grenade Launcher Ammo)
0A - Red Herb
0B - Green Herb
0C - Blue Herb
0D - Mixed Herb (Unknown Combination)
0E - Super Mixed Herb (Unknown Combination)
0F - Mixed Herb (Unknown Combination)
10 - Super Mixed Herb (Unknown Combination)
11 - Mixed Herb (Unknown Combination)
12 - First Aid Spray
13 - Armor Key
14 - Shield Key
15 - Helmet Key
16 - Key 002
17 - Key 003
18 - Control Room Key
19 - Power Room Key
1A - Ribbon
1B - Serum
1C - Wood Crest
1D - Nothing
1E - Crown of Day
1F - Spider (Battle) that gives you Crown of Night
20 - Crown of Stars
21 - Crown of Wind
22 - Ruby
23 - Sapphire
24 - Red Book
25 - Creation Book -Red-
26 - Creation Book -Blue-
27 - Eagle Badge
28 - Wolf Badge
29 - Square Handle
2A - Hexagon Handle
2B - Lighter
2C - Herbicide
2D - Music
2E - Power Cell (Battery)
2F - Flare
30 - Mo Disc
31 - ?????? (Uses a copy of the first aid/serum sprite)
32 - ?????? (Uses the first aid/serum sprite)
33 - ?????? (Uses the first aid/serum sprite)
34 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
35 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
36 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
37 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
38 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
39 - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
3A - (Not sure if this is an actual item)
3B - (Not sure if this is an actual item)

-------------Maps--------------
3C - 1st Floor Map
3D - Mansion B1 Map
3E - 2nd Flor Map
3F - Garden Map
40 - Cave Map
41 - Dorm Room 1f Map
42 - Dorm Room B1 Map
43 - Lab B1 Map
44 - Lab B2 Map
45 - Lab B3 Map
46 - Lab B4 Map

---------Books/Notes----------
47 - Diary
48 - Fellow's Testament
49 - Plant 42 Report
4A - Newspaper
4B - Fax
4C - V-Jolt Report
4D - ??????????????
4E - ??????????????
4F - ??????????????
50 - Security System
51 - Researcher's Letter
52 - Command
53 - Botany Books
54 - Password (Keypad Log: Big House)
55 - Note (Log: John  Password:ADA   Password 2:Mole)
56-FF (Nothing)