Gate of Thunder Force

[malducci]

Gate of Thunder hack.... about 98% done. Music pak for it is also available for download now.

http://www.pcedev.net/hacks.html

[Kaminari]

Is the music pack based on the FM soundtrack or the OST?

[malducci]

All but 3 tracks are from the OST "Best of ThunderForce" CD that came with the saturn version of Thunder Force V.

I tried to used the guitar/metal sound tracks, but ended up using 1 techno pop arrangement from the CD - track 9 "Feel The Groobe of TFII (powered by 68k remix)".

I reused the first level msuic for the last boss track, with a little alteration.

[NightWolve]

Hm, interesting. I'm gonna pm you a candidate release of TurboRip, malducci, as you might wanna formulate some patching instructions around it like, "Take your GOT disc, insert into drive, run TurboRip, pick the drive, etc." I guess I'll try this out since I was testing TurboRip with my 4-1 GOT disc the other day.

EDIT: Oh, btw, I just caught a problem. Your Track 6 is not the correct size. Run TocFixer on your ISO/WAV/CUE file set. TurboRip dumped it at size 3,854,336 bytes. Yours is  3,547,136 bytes; it's 307,200 bytes smaller than what it should be. 307,200 bytes/2048 bytes/sector = 150 sectors. OK, you subtracted too much, an extra 150 apparently. I suspect you used CDRWIN's sector range feature and tried to compute it correctly on your own, yes?

Anyway, I'll get back to you. I'll check to make sure if those last 150 sectors are all zeroes, which hopefully is the case. In the meantime, you can use the TurboRip I sent you to correctly dump a whole new ISO/WAV/CUE set with your original.

EDITx2: Alright, you're fine. Those missing 150 sectors were all zeroes. TocFixer or a whole new rip with TurboRip will fix the problem either way.

EDITx3: Winrar reports chunk #5 and #10 is corrupt. I get a CRC failure for files Track No16.mp3 & Track No20.mp3.

EDITx4: Well, I got around the two corrupt tracks and got the game working. I must say, it does feel like a different game. I played it up to the Mine stage. Not bad.

[malducci]

Cool, I'll test it out

Thanks, I realized that I patched the wrong file(the uncorrected one). I'll get the correct one up tomorrow.

I suspect you used CDRWIN's sector range feature and tried to compute it correctly on your own, yes?

Actually, I used Nero to rip just the separate iso and wav files and then used TocFixer. CDRwin always gave me problems - so I bought a new plextor px-760a drive, but haven't tested it with CDRwin yet. I can bypass that now, if TurboRip works with my drive

Winrar reports chunk #5 and #10 is corrupt. I get a CRC failure for files Track No16.mp3 & Track No20.mp3.

I can't figure that out. The rar files 5 & 10 are fine on my system, but when I upload them to the site, there corrupted I deleted and re-uploaded them, and there still corrupted. Guess I'll try to zip them instead.


Edit: I think I found two extra stages in the game - probably both incomplete. I can get one of them to load, but it's nothing special. It starts out with the first level boss with asteriods flying over him from the beginning of the level 2 - from there you go straight into level 1, but tiles evenually get messed up.  

 The original 7 levels are at 92000h, c2000h, f2000h, 122000h, 152000h, 182000h, 1b2000h with the ending at 212000h. You can actually rearrange the levels too by copying the 30000h bytes other the original.

 The second additional level is either at 252800 or 252000, but I can't get it to load. It has the level attributes of "rank", "conitnue", ship sprites, etc, but doesn't have the same starting code as all the others. hmmm

[NightWolve]

OK, the official release for that TurboRip application I was cooking up in my dungeoun just went public. Check this thread:

http://www.pcenginefx.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1604

Last minute improvements included adding the Monkey's Audio codec for perfect compressed 1:1 backups you might want to create. It's not just MP3 support anymore.

[esteban]

Edit: I think I found two extra stages in the game - probably both incomplete. I can get one of them to load, but it's nothing special. It starts out with the first level boss with asteriods flying over him from the beginning of the level 2 - from there you go straight into level 1, but tiles evenually get messed up.  

 The original 7 levels are at 92000h, c2000h, f2000h, 122000h, 152000h, 182000h, 1b2000h with the ending at 212000h. You can actually rearrange the levels too by copying the 30000h bytes other the original.

 The second additional level is either at 252800 or 252000, but I can't get it to load. It has the level attributes of "rank", "conitnue", ship sprites, etc, but doesn't have the same starting code as all the others. hmmm

This is awesome, can you post some pics of the "extra" stage you can load? From your description, it sounds like a "You haven't seen the last of me!" confrontation with a boss. Can you shoot the boss? If so, then it might take a certain amount of damage and then "retreat" to the second stage... kinda like one of the bosses in Soldier Blade...

[malducci]

here's a pic of the playable hidden level...



The original first level isn't actually part of the first hidden level(1e2000h) - it's just the boss.

 The weird thing is that this level contains a lot of data, but why just a boss? Each level is 192k long which means the loader is probably sitting in the other 64k of ram. The levels are probably just script and graphics. This means the possibility of writing a level editor for the game.

Edit: Maybe this was supposed to be an all boss level - common in other shooters?

[kingshriek]

My guess is this "extra" stage was used for debugging purposes during the game's development.

[esteban]

Thanks for the pic! Finds like this are fun

Perhaps kingshriek is right, and this is a remnant from the debugging process.

[NightWolve]

Did you fix your audio archive yet btw?

[malducci]

Nightwolve

No, I'm still out of town so I don't have access to the original files.

My guess is this "extra" stage was used for debugging purposes during the game's development.

Hmm that's a pretty good theory.

 All the levels are stored in order, except for the ending cinema/credits(stored as a level) which comes after this hidden level. I'll see if I can translate the levels addresses into an LBA addresses and find the hard coded table to pointing to each. Maybe I can trace the code back to a debug menu.

I'm still trying to figure out the second hidden stage(0x252800). It's possible it's not even a level, but just the initial loader for the game(start menu).

 If I could look at the graphic data(bg tiles) I could tell, but unfortunately the tile data is either compressed or not stored in a native pce format.

 If anyone is interested in searching for hidden graphics and such of PCE CD games, just PM me. I do plan on writing a tutorial(soon).

[malducci]

Fixed the corrupt rar files for the GOTF music pak. I'll also be uploading a new ISO patch (instead of just the iso) with alt/upgraded palettes.


More info on the two levels.

The second hidden level is incomplete. I located down the BAT, path map, collision map, and sprite map(game code) structure for the levels and this level is missing all but the sprite map(game code).

 I ended up inserting the missing maps/code from ingame level 2 as this seems to match best, but it freezes right before the boss. The strange thing about this level is the background tiles pretty much match level two, but most of the enemy sprites do not.

Here's a few pics.







Also, I used the first hidden levels BAT/path map and applied it to the other in-game levels. The path map brings you right to the boss of each stage. The strange thing is that when applied to the second hidden level, you fight the last boss

I tried to inserting two other in-game path maps into the first hidden level, but unfortunately it doesn't get very far before getting stuck in an infinite loop.

[esteban]

Good work!

[SysopGrace]

I know this is an ancient thread but the original website of the creator is gone now. I found an archive dot org copy of it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20090804075759/http://www.pcedev.net/hacks.html

The patch is still available here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/127/

The original website and this thread mention a replacement soundtrack - Would anyone still have the files for this?

Thank you in advance, love the game series