GBA Castlevania HOD: Revenge of the Findesiecle Japan to USA Port

[sorrow]

Great addition from Eric and John! I loved the classic Konami logo and also the subtitle in the opening screen.
Thanks for the work and the wait looks like it will be well worth it. 

I would just like to ask for a change in JusteX mode. The knockback in this mode is too big, could you change that in a similar way to Maxim? I really like JusteX, but this problem makes this mode unplayable, which is a shame.

Hey verme.  Unfortunately that's how JUSTEX was setup by the original creators of the Japanese Findesiecle.  He's made to play that way intentionally, to be a "Devil" character and a difficult play through.

I know where the data is to change it though, I just don't think I want to alter his play style.

I get it though. It's super annoying to get hit with him, lol.

*Edit* I had completely FORGOT about one thing though. In the process of doing some quality of life improvements to the gameplay for the characters, I restored the regular "get hit" behavior for Juste and Maxim where they DONT get knocked back when getting hit on the ground or crouching.  I also applied it to Julius and JUSTEX, so there's at least that, lol.

[verme]

Wow sorrow

I know where the data is to change it though

I understand your reasons, but I will be very grateful if you tell me where to change it, just for my personal use. I've been wanting to finish the game in this mode for many years now.

By the way.. do you intend to update the songs in this new version as well? I just found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW8NeCCNGGY&list=PL6E9hVlff2TH9nsjGUe6PAsN18_OgH3in&index=6 on youtube and was wondering if it might be compatible with your new sound driver..

Thanks

[sorrow]

Wow sorrowI understand your reasons, but I will be very grateful if you tell me where to change it, just for my personal use. I've been wanting to finish the game in this mode for many years now.

By the way.. do you intend to update the songs in this new version as well? I just found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW8NeCCNGGY&list=PL6E9hVlff2TH9nsjGUe6PAsN18_OgH3in&index=6 on youtube and was wondering if it might be compatible with your new sound driver..

Thanks

That's just a playlist of the same Soundfont HoD currently has but not limited by the 13379hz of the game.

HOWEVER, I do plan on implementing a true overhaul of the soundtrack that is of much higher quality than my music patch here on rhdn (it was my first hack, I've learned SO much more since then lol).

But the music isn't my priority at the moment.  I want to finish adding my other extra characters 😂.

[sorrow]

I need to be better about posting more updates to this thread, lol.

Just wanted to post a quick preview of Eric, since I finished adding him to Findesiecle.

I spent a lot of time moving some of my data around to optimize rom space, but this current build is at roughly 8.95mb, not too shabby considering I also inserted streaming wavs for Julius (I compressed his theme song sample and used one that is cleaner sounding), the Bloodlines Intro, John Morris and, of course, Eric Lecarde...



https://streamable.com/48zlu2

[Solid One]

Awesome! Just tested your update real quick on my PocketGo, and it worked just fine. Also confirm the title screen are much better than before.

Played with John Morris for a few minutes. Gotta play it further in the next weeks.

It's really nice to see the music from Castlevania Bloodlines on the new characters, and it makes me wonder: what about replacing all songs for a specific character? For example, use Greece's song instead of the sucky default one on "Temple of the Apostates", or maybe Germany's song for the "Clock Tower" (yea, that one that makes our ear bleed lol).

Talking about expanding the game with new music, I noticed the rom filesize increased from 8mb to 9mb. What would the limit be? 16mb maybe?

[sorrow]

Hey Solid One!

It's a good idea that you have, but unfortunately I wouldn't know how to do it lol.

I was able to implement the theme songs for John and Eric because the original Findesiecle creators had implemented some asm to change the Entrance song for Julius.

I edited that asm to extend the same idea to Maxim and then to John and Eric.

You are correct, the rom did get expanded, not just from the music, but with the other updates as well. 

I'm surprised it wasn't bigger than 9mb for this version, but I did some pretty good rom optimization to move data around an erase unused data giving more more to work with.

Streaming songs can take up a lot of data.  The max rom size for gba is 32mb.

I plan on doing a streaming version of the HoD soundtrack in the future, but I don't know how much space is needed for that, I still have to do a mock-up
in order to get an idea.

Glad you like the update! 😊

[ExL]

Just letting you know, on mGBA (0.9.3 and current latest dev one 0.10-7566-8d7c040b4) there is only noise instead of music for intro and first location. Checked as Eric Lecarde. No such problem with regular game mode as Juste. Looks like new tracks playing incorrectly on mGBA.

[sorrow]

That's weird, I tested it just now on mgba 0.9.3 w/bios and it played the intro song for Both Eric and John just fine and also their theme songs in the entrance.

Then I downloaded the development build you mentioned and did the same tests, also w/bios all successful.

Have you made any changes to mgba settings?

[ExL]

Found it, it's "XQ GBA Audio" option that caused that. It's bypassing the internal software audio mixer engine using own mixer instead. I guess there is some difference between original tracks and sound and inserted ones(sample rate?) that mixer goes crazy. Though probably I'd better fill the issue on mGBA's github for that as it's emu's problem, not hack's.
About the hack itself - great Eric plays awesome. I can call it dream came true hack

[sorrow]

Haha, glad to hear you got it working and are enjoying it.

I'm really proud of how Eric turned out, his spear was a pain to setup for some animations lol.

[Creature667]

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong or what is going wrong, but I just patched the Simons Update and attempted to have a test run to make sure everything is golden and for whatever reason, when I attempt to select a data file to start game, the buttons just select the "Choose Data" option and back out of that menu when attempting to select a data file. No matter what I try will work and go beyond to the point where you would normally enter a name... I attempted to try an earlier Bloodlines version that was prepatched that I had received from Santa on Christmas and had the same problem there... Clearly I'm doing something wrong or there is something wrong with the checksum etc.

I looked at any troubleshooting material I could find to no avail. Can anyone perhaps shed some light on this? I'm definitely a helmet headed, window licking, purveyor of the special sauce on occasion, but this is just too much. I want to finally try this hack in its current state and I haz a sad...

To the Mods: I apologize for Necrobumping an old thread but I didn't think my paltry troubleshooting issue required a whole new thread for internet strangers to laugh and call me a moron. I do hope you understand.

[sorrow]

Honestly, it sounds like it's more of an emulator input issue more than anything.

Have you tried different emulators?

I do all my testing on mgba and then the retroarch core of mgba and everything works fine.

Also, please make sure to patch a fresh vanilla Harmony of Dissonance rom, the new patch is not meant to patch over an existing old version, as I moved data around the rom.

Let me know how it goes with trying different emulators.