[Chaos Rush]

Trailer: https://youtu.be/8xNUYS-tJZQ

So Nintendo has announced that FE1 is finally officially coming to the west onto Nintendo Switch. I've already played and beaten the Japanese version so this doesn't mean much to me, but I'm interested in discussing the technical aspects of it; particularly the variable width font they're using. Since this is romhacking.net, I felt this would be an appropriate place to discuss.

As the trailer shows, they're using a VWF. In a NES game. How do you think they're achieving this? Do you think they hacked the ROM to actually support VWF? Or do you think the text is being patched onto the image on the fly? I'm assuming that they're patching it on the fly because the font doesn't seem to line-up 100% correctly with the pixels, though it's hard to say.

Regardless of how they achieved this, how do you feel about them using a VWF at all? Do you think it clashes with the NES aesthetic?

Anyways, I've played through this game twice and I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad Nintendo is revisiting old games like this.

[EvilJagaGenius]

Assuming they're using an emulator, would it be possible to overclock an NES emulator to give it the extra grunt needed for a VWF?  I didn't think the font looked too bad, but I didn't take a very close look.  The simple black-and-white text boxes helped.

[tc]

Should we give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt? They didn't claim that this translation is running on an NES, or anything remotely derived from the NES.

[Chaos Rush]

Should we give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt? They didn't claim that this translation is running on an NES, or anything remotely derived from the NES.

It's being emulated on the Switch. The fact that there's savestates support is especially indicative of emulation, plus the beginning of the trailer shows the Nintendo Switch logo.

[tc]

Perhaps, but I'm tired of it. Emulation being guilty until proven innocent sickens me.

[John Enigma]

Fomo bs aside, I cannot wait to see comparisons between the re-release and the fan translation.

[Chronosplit]

Usually I buy stuff like this to extract it later for my own use on real hardware.  It's a foregone conclusion, there will be a way.  But this is uh... I'm not sure if I want to support this practice.  A limited digital release?  A collector's package that doesn't even have the physical game in it?  This isn't good in my book.

[Jorpho]

It's odd that the trailer breathlessly exclaims this has never been done before when we already got FE:Shadow Dragon on the DS.  But of course that is not really the same thing.

[Bregalad]

It's odd that the trailer breathlessly exclaims this has never been done before when we already got FE:Shadow Dragon on the DS.  But of course that is not really the same thing.

I was going to say the same.

As the trailer shows, they're using a VWF. In a NES game. How do you think they're achieving this? Do you think they hacked the ROM to actually support VWF? Or do you think the text is being patched onto the image on the fly? I'm assuming that they're patching it on the fly because the font doesn't seem to line-up 100% correctly with the pixels, though it's hard to say.

Regardless of how they achieved this, how do you feel about them using a VWF at all? Do you think it clashes with the NES aesthetic?

I think it works well with the aesthetic but unless the mapper is changed for a more "powerful" one it's impossible its an emulated NES game.
And I don't see why they'd even bother emulating a NES at this point. Recreating everything using the NES assets makes a lot more sense if it's going to be running on a Switch.

[Chaos Rush]

I was going to say the same.
I think it works well with the aesthetic but unless the mapper is changed for a more "powerful" one it's impossible its an emulated NES game.
And I don't see why they'd even bother emulating a NES at this point. Recreating everything using the NES assets makes a lot more sense if it's going to be running on a Switch.

I wouldn’t quite rule out emulation though, as the PS1 port of Final Fantasy IV patches the VWF text onto the image on the fly just like how I described, which I suspect is how it’s being achieved here as well.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars does something related for Mario 64 where it patches in different text on the fly using Lua scripts if you’re playing a language other than Japanese; everything is patched onto the Japanese ROM on that and there’s no other language ROM in the games files.

Lots of studios have released emulated retro collections on the Switch so I don’t see what’s so strange about assuming it’s emulation (aside from the VWF in this particular case), and Nintendo already uses a NES and SNES emulator for their games offered on the NSO service.

[tc]

I'd rather be optimistic. Presumption of guilt is a depressing life.

[Chaos Rush]

I'd rather be optimistic. Presumption of guilt is a depressing life.

You make it sound like it’s a bad thing if it’s emulated. I don’t think it’s something to be “guilty” about.

[Chaos Rush]

https://twitter.com/oatmealdome/status/1334933830491365377?s=21

Just like I predicted, it’s being emulated and the translation is dynamically patched at runtime (just like Super Mario 3D All Stars), so there’s not extractable English ROM.

And you guys all said I was wrong, whereas I just wanted to have a simple discussion about how the presentation looks :/

[Chronosplit]

https://twitter.com/oatmealdome/status/1334933830491365377?s=21

Just like I predicted, it’s being emulated and the translation is dynamically patched at runtime (just like Super Mario 3D All Stars), so there’s not extractable English ROM.

And you guys all said I was wrong, whereas I just wanted to have a simple discussion about how the presentation looks :/

Well, nuts.  There goes any reason for me to buy it.  Not that I was really wanting to support this limited practice anyway.  Thanks for the confirmation.

The only way I could ever see this runnning outside of a switch is maybe a weird implementation of Mesen's HD Packs.  And even then, you'd need to question the amount of work involved getting everything into an acceptable format.

[ShadowOne333]

Have you guys tried doing RAM dumps?
Iirc I did something similar for 3DS VC titles, and doing RAM dumps could get you the patched ROM.

[Vehek]

While LuigiBlood's tweets mention "native code", that might be referring to it being part of the program rather than an interpreted-at-run script like LUA, not saying they used 6502 machine code to implement the text. I.E., there might not be a resultant ROM in memory as with some of the other Virtual Console game revisions.

[tc]

Have you guys tried doing RAM dumps?
Iirc I did something similar for 3DS VC titles, and doing RAM dumps could get you the patched ROM.

Doesn't the dialogue they used, exceed the hardware capabilities of the NES?

[splch]

Doesn't the dialogue they used, exceed the hardware capabilities of the NES?

I just made an account here because I want to port the official translation over to the original NES ROM... but if the dialogue exceeds the NES hardware, I can't do that. How can you tell if the dialogue they use exceeds hardware limitations?

[Chronosplit]

Doesn't the dialogue they used, exceed the hardware capabilities of the NES?

That isn't necessarily true.  The text itself doesn't appear to be bigger than the ROM.  Nintendo may have simply done this as opposed to hacking the ROM.  The graphic changes for the new buttons in 3D All-Stars for example, those could've been done by hacking.

It may still be possible to "backport" the translation via hacking (though you may get in trouble), but to play the actual version obtained on the Switch another platform as-is would take some trickery either way.

[tc]

I mean the VWF.