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04-26-24 06:57 PM |
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| Main - ROM Hacking - Help needed for translation | New thread | New reply |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 1/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Hey there!
So i wanted to make a patch to play the prototype rom of the japanese Monster Party in english. This is pretty much my first translation so i'm pretty happy that everything was going so well and i already translated some of the stuff ingame. Most of the dialogue is only the boss enemies talking but after finishing the dialogues for the first level i wanted to translate the intro next. For now i just wanted to put the intro text from the english release into the rom but there is one thing i can't find a way to fix and i think you guys will definitely know how to fix it. Basically in the intro script 'FF' tells the game to switch to the next scene and continue on with the script. My problem here is that it seems to be hardcoded in where the script skips to next. For the first two scene switches there was no problem since i simply left a gap and continued my text where it would skip to (probably not very good either) but the third one is what kills it. The third scene change jumps to a portion of text that has already been displayed so it basically repeats itself. Here's a screenshot which should show what exactly i mean. The red signs are the scene change bytes.  (40 bytes collapsed: And here's a recording of it ingame repeating itself click I already tried finding pointers but i had no luck. This might've been my incompetence though. Any tips on how i can try fixing this? Well if anyone wants to help me out here is the download with the ips and the table file. click The original rom's name is just "Monster Party Famicom Proto.nes" and should be easy to find |
| Quick Curly |
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 Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1166/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
Hello! Welcome to Board 2!
This is a great idea for a project. I always enjoyed this game. Nice work so far. 
The following notes are likely review for you, but I'm just analyzing the situation to see if we can figure it out. 
From what I can see, 0x11F92-0x11FC3 (0x32) are the text pointers. B4 9F = $9FB4 (0x11FC4) 18 A0 = $A018 (0x12028) 6B A0 = $A06B (0x1207B) B9 A0 = $A0B9 (0x120C9) Etc. FE means the next line. 4 lines are displayed at a time. If there are more than 4 lines in a section of text, that's when the cursor appears to allow the player to press A to advance it to the next line. FF means the end of a section of text, and the next scene and section of text should begin. 0x11FC4 is for the first screen of Mark walking. 0x12028 is for the second screen of Mark staring at the star. 0x1207B is still the second screen of Mark staring at the star, but is a new section of text. The 0x120C9 pointer cuts into the text that was already used when the third screen is displayed. So, that appears to be the issue. You could probably make use of the unused space (the "01" bytes) and move the text accordingly so that you have more room to work with. Who knows how much of the space will be used up as you continue to complete the translation? This way, you make use of the room as best as you can. Just a suggestion, anyway. It's up to you.
I thought that it would be more difficult than that, so hopefully this doesn't seem too wordy. I just approach tasks one baby step at a time to try to figure out any potential problems, and I like to be thorough with my posts and explanations.
I hope that this helps solve your issue. If you have anymore questions, or if the problem still persists, please feel free to continue to post, and hopefully I or someone else will be able to look into it for/with you. I'm looking forward to your progress with this. Please keep us updated!
Just as a heads up as well, the ROM Hacking section probably would have been a better fit for this topic, especially if this can serve as a progress thread for your project. |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 2/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Posted by Quick Curly Wow! Thanks for the welcome and the indepth post. I sat on this and tried around for a while and the pointers were right above it *facepalm*. Could you explain how exactly the hex values for the pointers are translated to the adress itself. I've found one guide on this but i think i kinda misread it before since i've searched for other pointer values. Yep i'll actually move my text into those spaces again once i figure those NES pointers out. I just made those since otherwise it would skip that text with unmodified pointers. Your post hasn't been confusing for me at all 
You pretty much summarized all there is to say about this part of code so anyone with a little tech experience should understand it. Very neat! I actually noticed afterwards that this was kinda more about Forum help and not Rom hacking help. Sorry for that 
Edit: So you basically take the adress 0x011FC4 remove the first two bytes 0x1FC4 subtract the header 0x1FB4 add 0x8000 and then reverse the two bytes Could you explain why we add 0x8000? Edit2: I just remembered that i have another thing i'd like to change but don't exactly know how to (40 bytes collapsed: Since the japanese in the Game over screen is shorter than the english version i needed to stretch the menu out a bit. I'd love to have it centered though. I guess this would need a little ASM editing especially for the selection indictator (the head). How could i find out what asm codes would need to be edited for this. Is there an easy method for editing drawing routines? |
| Quick Curly |
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Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1167/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
You're very welcome. I'm happy that I could help.
No worries. We all begin somewhere. Sometimes it helps to just have another pair of eyes to look at something.
Generally, NES games have relative data close together, since that's the order that they put things in. For example, text pointers are usually set up, and then the text strings will follow to make the most effective use of the game's free space. No problem. I'll actually cover the exact steps and process that I took to find the information as soon as you made your post.
Since you already provided the ROM offsets for the text strings in question, I opened your patched translation so far in FCEUXD, and used the Code/Data Logger to run the intro with the hex editor open. Once the repeating screen finished playing, I paused the emulator window (with the F2 key) and then stopped the Code/Data Logger. Clicking into the hex editor, some bytes are now lit up. Yellow means code, blue means data, and green means both code and data. In this case, what we're looking for is data. The pointer bytes that I referred to were lit up in blue, and I saw how the high bytes and low bytes closely resembled the ROM offsets for the beginnings of the text strings. However, let's say that there's a case of where you're trying to find the location of the text pointers, since for whatever reason, they aren't nearby the text strings like in this case. Using the Debugger, you could try setting read breakpoints from what could potentially be those ROM offsets. While accounting for the NES ROM header (0x10 bytes in hex, 16 bytes in decimal), the ROM addresses will be +10 (hex) of their RAM equivalents. So, take 0x11FC4, for example. PRG-ROM banks (i.e. the ROM file) are mapped to RAM in specific sections: $8000-$9FFF $A000-$BFFF $C000-$DFFF $E000-$FFFF So, to try to find the code that the game uses to retrieve the text string values, until we know for sure, 0x11FC4 could potentially be: $9FB4 $BFB4 $DFB4 $FFB4 Some games have fixed banks within the $8000-$9FFF and $E000-$FFFF regions, so it really depends on the specific game that you're working with. Potentially, $9FB4 and $FFB4 wouldn't even be possible in some games for the RAM equivalent of 0x11FC4 in the ROM. I won't try to go too much deeper into specifics concerning that, though. Short version: Sometimes, it comes down to a lot of trial and error, and even random luck. The Code/Data Logger tool in FCEUX/FCEUXD really comes in handy for seeing everything in the ROM file that is being used at any given moment in the game. You can run specific parts of the game, like the title screen opening to see where the data for the graphics to display is located, a level to find object data, or even to try to locate the music being played. So, for the sake of completion, after setting a read breakpoint from $9FB4 in the Debugger window in FCEUXD, once the first introduction screen is loaded, the Debugger window freezes at this line of code:
So, just by examining this section of code, we can see and learn that Monster Party uses $0010 in RAM as a reference pointer (through $0010 and $0011) for loading the values for those text strings. The "CMP #$FF" part must be for checking for the FF that terminates one section of text and progresses to the next. Previewing my post, I noticed that you edited yours and added the part about 0x8000. Yes, that helps to explain what I just tried to much easier. 
Which, in a sense, disregards what I mentioned about the $9FB4/$BFB4/$DFB4/$FFB4 possibility, but again, it really does depend on the game. Multiple PRG-ROM banks could potentially be mapped to $A000-$BFFF or $C000-$DFFF in RAM, which means pointers (which apply to more than just text) could be the same for multiple banks. For example, in SMB3, take 0x1E010-0x2000F, the Plains bank, and 0x20010-0x2200F, the Hilly bank. A Plains level at 0x1E999 would have its pointer be "89 A9", just as a Hilly level at 0x20999 would also have its pointer be "89 A9". If you freeze the emulation window, or when the Debugger freezes at a line of code itself, you can hover over the side bar to view the location in ROM of what is currently at that location in RAM. This can help determine potential pointers as well for any data in RAM that is not actually code. This is a bit long, so I'll stop here for now. I apologize for any potentially inaccurate information and for definitely being wordy this time. |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 3/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Wow that is a LOT of stuff you've written up there.
Thank you so much for helping me. You're a awesome! Looks a bit overwhelming but i'll read through it step for step once i got put the rest of the intro into the proto rom (It actually works^^) and will try to understand it as best as possible. I don't want to annoy you with questions or anything but do you also have any knowledge on how this could be solved? Posted by infinest Could this also be done with the data logger to find the coordinates for drawing these elements? Anyways you already helped me out a lot! I just hope i don't kill your fingers if you type so much out for me ._. Edit: I'm finally done with the intro
Here you can see the intro the dialogue for the first boss and the (unaligned) game over menu Video |
| Quick Curly |
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Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1173/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
Sorry about not covering the Game Over screen yesterday. I had to go, and my post was already pretty long to fit much else in.
As for the adding 0x8000 step, it would have to be because of the $0000-$7FFF section of CPU memory in RAM that the PRG-ROM banks aren't mapped into, so you would have to skip those regions when accounting for any pointers. You're very welcome. No worries. I'm happy to help, if I can. You're awesome, too.
Excellent work on the translated introduction! I noticed that there were a few lines that could probably be modified to perhaps display the text more appropriately. When there are quotes of text spoken by the same character in a row, it might be more comprehensible to keep the sentences together within the same pair of quotes. I believe that the original Monster Party did this as well, but it might be something that you could do to fix that. Though, like with anything else, that's completely your call and up to you.
For example: "I'm looking for help." "Evil monsters are out of control in my world." Instead, you could combine those two quotes, since Bert speaks both of them: "I'm looking for help. Evil monsters are out of control in my world." There are other instances too, but I won't list all of them to try to save room. I'm sure that you'll be able to spot them, but again, that's only if you choose to, and consider the above suggestion as something worth looking into. There's also a line spoken by Bert, fully visible around the 1:14 mark, where the period and ending quotation mark appear on the next line: "With your weapon, you'll be able to destroy them easily ." Maybe instead, you can insert an "FE" byte after "them" (to go to the next line there) to fit "easily" with the period and ending quotation mark: "With your weapon, you'll be able to destroy them easily." Again, just a suggestion. I usually don't like making suggestions and trying to tell people what to do since it isn't my project, but I just wanted to point those things out for you nonetheless, just in case you didn't notice them and would want to know about them.
Now, as for the Game Over screen, let's have a look. Using the Name Table Viewer, you can hover over tiles displayed on the screen and view their values. You can then search for a string of values in the hex editor. I also used the Code/Data Logger to log the data for when the Game Over screen loads. The blue lit bytes begin at 0x094B2 in the ROM. The full range of blue lit bytes is 0x94B2-0x98BB (0x40A). To find where this data is loaded from, I set read breakpoints for $94A2, $B4A2, and $D4A2 (I didn't figure that it would be $F4A2, and given that $94B4 was 0x11FC4, it might have been used again) and then lost so that the Game Over screen would load. The Debugger froze at $C366, which is 0x1C376 in the ROM file.
Searching for "A294" in the ROM file, the first result is at 0x101B6-0x101B7 (0x2), and the bytes are lit in blue. 0x101B6-0x101BD (0x8) is all lit up, in fact: A2 94 02 06 1E 1F 11 00 It appears that there are other groups of similar bytes following this range, too. I'm not really sure what they're for at this point. Maybe the Game Over screen is different for later levels? I don't remember. Either way, it appears that all of the tiles that appear are within the 0x94B2-0x98BB (0x40A) range. Using a combination of the PPU Viewer (for seeing the tile values), the Name Table Viewer (to see your screen displayed, and which values you should be looking for in the hex editor to change next) and the Hex Editor (to make the changes), you should be able to modify the menu how you would like.
You could potentially move the top-left corner of the menu's border to start from PPU Address $2187, and stretch it out to PPU Address $2198. That would be a centered length. The skull sprite displayed on the screen is at 0x10479-0x10488 (0x10). 00 00 01 00 00 08 02 00 08 00 03 00 08 08 04 00 The 01, 02, 03, and 04 are the tile values used to draw the skull. 0x1048F - 84 - Vertical position for skull for "CONTINUE" option 0x10490 - 9C - Vertical position for skull for "END" option I'm guessing that 0x1048D and 0x1048E, both 69, are the horizontal positions for both respective options, but trying to modify them to move the skull horizontally causes graphical glitches. There must be something else that would need to be changed in order to display it properly. Here's basically an idea of what I have in mind. Hopefully it helps you with a sense of direction for modifying the screen how you intend to. However, again, that skull seems to not want to act properly with trying to move the positions for it. There must be some reason for it, but I would have to look more to find it, though I might not have anymore time to do so today. (44 bytes collapsed: Also, I'm not annoyed at all. I enjoy looking up this kind of stuff and being able to help others with their projects. I just try my best, and sometimes there are other people who will come around to help us both out, too. Let's hope for that.
In the meantime, I'll continue looking to see if I can maybe figure more things out. For now, this post is probably long enough by now, too. |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 4/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Thanks a lot man. It's really cool that you're writing all this up. Really helps me to learn what you can do with FCEUX to find stuff out.
I actually made the lines like this because it's like that in the original rom. I might switch it a bit around to make the text better readable. I'll try to replicate your steps later when im free. I'll report back on how it went
/Edit: I've no reproduced your steps. I kinda thought moving the menu was was trickier that that
Anyways i tried around and got everything working. everything but moving the cursor to the left a bit. I noticed something off about the adresses you listed for the horizontal values. They actually aren't the values for them but something else. (40 bytes collapsed: So when i changed 0x1048D to 65 the sprite only slightly glitched but didn't move at all so i kinda got the vibe that it isn't what you think. Second of all only 0x1048D did something. 0x1048E does nothing at all. All 0x1048D does just like 0x10495 is screwing up the sprite. I don't know in what exact way these adresses fuck them up but i actually found the real values nearby. It's 0x10497 and 0x10498 for each of the two selections. Finally, this is what i came up with now. (40 bytes collapsed: One more question though. How did you find the area of code that contained the data about the selection skull? Thanks for helping me again! /Edit: I've worked a little bit more and now got the password system and everything up to World 7 translated. I just added the unused totem boss into World 7 so you can actually battle him and also fixed the boss counter for it so you will actually be able to get the key with 3 bosses killed. Not even the producers of the american version thought of that when they added another spider boss xD It doesn't actually do much since it wasn't really finished i think but even if it's easy to beat it's still nice to have in there i think
(40 bytes collapsed: I would just wish a mod would move this. Do you think i should just make another thread in the right section? |
| Quick Curly |
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Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1178/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
You're very welcome.
I understand. That's what I figured. No worries.
Silly me. I was thinking that the wrong bytes were the possible horizontal positions. At least I was close. That's awesome that you figured it out and got everything to work as you hoped. Well done! 
For finding those bytes to begin with, I looked at the PPU Viewer to determine the values for the head/skull/thing, and after seeing that they were 01, 02, 03, and 04, I scrolled down from all the data for the Game Over screen, looking for those numbers within a group of bytes lit up as data. I was familiar with this process before from modifying the Super Mario Bros. 3 title screen, among other minor sprite displays. So, from where the sprite was displayed on the screen, I was able to estimate the position values. The vertical position values were easily found, and I knew that the horizontal position values had to be the same for both options, since the sprite would only move along the same vertical axis, but I mistakenly thought that the two "69" bytes were the correct offsets. Turns out it was 60 instead. Sometimes it's hard to tell when possibilities are so close.
Perhaps if I had just looked within the $0200-$02FF region in RAM, since that's generally where games save sprite information for easy access, I would have found the 60 value instead to know that that's what we were looking for. It was mainly just a trial and error kind of approach, with an idea of what to look for. That's amazing progress already, including finding and changing in-game variables! Keep it up! I was going to add that I noticed yesterday that you were receiving some replies with your Romhacking.net thread as well, but I saw that you've already noticed that, too!
Hopefully the members there will be able to help you out too, if you need assistance with anything else. Dr. Floppy is very familiar with Monster Party, as well as the NES in general. He and a group of other hackers made a big Monster Party hack, Donner Party, and even a utility for editing the game. I'm not sure if it would be compatible with the prototype ROM, though. So, what's next, my friend? Either way, I wish you the best of luck with your continuous progress, and I look forward to it! You can do it!
EDIT: With regards to if you would like this thread moved to ROM Hacking, you can maybe try sending a PM to one of the active staff members to request it. Both ninjablooper and ShaneM have been on recently, at the time of this post. |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 5/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Thanks for helping once again!
The program you pointed me at sadly only works with the US Offset and these do not match up with the prototype
I think im actually finished with my patch though so that's something good to say. It'd be awesome if you could try it out and tell me what you think. After all you helped me a lot with this so i guess you'd be interested in how it turned out too ^^. Download Thanks to whoever moved this by the way |
| Quick Curly |
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Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1211/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
You're very welcome!
I figured that might be the case. It wasn't designed specifically with the prototype in mind. The program came out in 2011, and the prototype ROM apparently wasn't publicly available until July 3, 2014. The differences between the versions couldn't have been accounted for. Though I suppose it would be possible now. I'm definitely interested in and excited about playing through this.
I haven't had time to yet, but hopefully I'll be able to soon. Congratulations on completing and releasing your project! |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 6/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Sound reasonable xD
I hope you'll have fun with it. It's actually a lot more challenging than the US release. And thanks man i couldn't have done it without you. |
| Quick Curly |
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Giant Red Paratroopa Level: 77 Posts: 1214/1443 EXP: 4172474 Next: 18655 Since: 06-15-08 From: Earth Last post: 22 days Last view: 22 days |
Thank you. I know I will. I've always enjoyed playing this game before. I welcome the different level of challenge, too. It should be interesting.
By the way, I saw this help ad on Romhacking.net yesterday: Monster Party Posted by "Pennywise"Just curious if you knew about this, and what they could be doing differently than what you've already done. |
| infinest |
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Newcomer Level: 7 Posts: 7/7 EXP: 1066 Next: 382 Since: 03-29-15 Last post: 3159 days Last view: 2729 days |
Posted by Quick Curly To be honest im not that much into Rom hacking and i mostly did this translation because i wanted to translate it and put it onto a cartridge for myself so i nope i didn't know about this. There is some stuff that wasn't implemented yet in the proto or was glitchy. Some stuff that comes into mind is the Shrimp Boss. In the US Version it actually consists of three bosses. The shrimp, the onion ring and the shashlik. In the proto only the shrimp has been implemented and you can only fight him. Anothert thing that comes to mind is the boss i reimplemented. It definitely is not finished since it only moves from left to right and does nothing special. One more thing i noticed is that the pallette in the last bosses room is glitched. There's some stuff that could be worked on for sure. I guess they're trying to finish this game up code wise or something Pretty cool that someone's trying to polish it up. Again, here's an exact documentation of the proto and its differences https://tcrf.net/Proto:Monster_Party |
| Main - ROM Hacking - Help needed for translation | New thread | New reply |
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