Cyber Knight translation

[megatron-uk]

Right, so through some judicious testing of the control codes it seems that of the 44 unique dialogue box control combinations, only 20 actually work correctly in the overworld and in NPC dialogue.

[0x1a, 0x1a] through to [0x1a, 0x2e] work correctly, but from [0x1a, 0x3a] to [0x1a, 0x74] cause the symptoms as described earlier - jumping into other banks. There must be some code specifically doing this, I can't imagine it's just a coincidence.

Now that I know what causes it, I'll have to go back through all of the text converted so far and see where I'm using any of those broken control codes, then try and pack the text into one of the dialogue boxes made available by the lower range of control codes instead.

[elmer]

The good news is that I've figured out what is causing the 'jump to other asset string' behaviour that I've been seeing.
...
The bad news come from the realisation that the dialogue box display codes now appear to be game-area dependent. So I had changed the dialogue box from his Japanese text:

Nice sleuthing! 

Yep, it's not horribly uncommon to change the meaning of script/command codes/parameters in assembly language.

It's not a problem when you're original developer with the source code, but it's a huge PITA when you're trying to do a post-mortem translation like this.

Sorry to hear that you've hit this problem.

Now that I know what causes it, I'll have to go back through all of the text converted so far and see where I'm using any of those broken control codes, then try and pack the text into one of the dialogue boxes made available by the lower range of control codes instead.

That's what makes translations so much fun to work on! 

[megatron-uk]

Okay, all NPC text for the first world now in place again. All displaying correctly now, too. That's all 80 or so strings for 'Farworld' in English and showing as intended. There's only one place that I'm not sure what to do with - I think I mentioned it early in the translation; the SNES text has the president giving you information about where to find the next people to help you. This is not in the PCE, so I need to make a decision about whether to put that in, or leave it up to the player to go exploring.

Perhaps the decision was made when coding the later SNES release to make it a little easier on the player?

I'll go back to the ship menu and battle messages now. Since it's the same asset used throughout the game, if I get the bugs worked out now, then it should be fine for the rest of the game.

[esteban]

I am so happy to see the NPC text progress... things went from crap to crystal in a relatively brief period of time (I'm not suggesting it wasn't frustrating as hell, mind you).



I'm just happy things are moving forward.

[megatron-uk]

Got pretty much all of the battle text done now. Two little fragments left to translate, and some overflow/corruption to track down, but nothing major.

One thing I am trying to do is to slow down the display of the 'player attacks badguy', 'player causes 5pts damage'  type messages that flash up after the battle animations. They fly past incredibly fast and the normal <pause> and <slow> control codes are not obeyed during battle. I'll try and figure something out.

The SNES and PCE script differ again, here in the battle screen - the SNES has a heap of extra strings that the onboard compute flashes up when an enemy has a particularly strong shield ('makes your laser weaker', 'cools your heat attacks', etc), these are not present in the PCE. Though instead we get not one, but two messages from the ships cook about the quality of tonights dinner onboard the SS-Swordfish when we return from battle! There's always a silver lining! 

[elmer]

There's only one place that I'm not sure what to do with - I think I mentioned it early in the translation; the SNES text has the president giving you information about where to find the next people to help you. This is not in the PCE, so I need to make a decision about whether to put that in, or leave it up to the player to go exploring.

Perhaps the decision was made when coding the later SNES release to make it a little easier on the player?

If the alternative is having the player walk randomly around the map with no idea of what to do, then I'd definitely favor giving them some kind of hint ... but it doesn't have to be hand-holdingly blatant.

The SNES and PCE script differ again, here in the battle screen - the SNES has a heap of extra strings that the onboard compute flashes up when an enemy has a particularly strong shield ('makes your laser weaker', 'cools your heat attacks', etc), these are not present in the PCE. Though instead we get not one, but two messages from the ships cook about the quality of tonights dinner onboard the SS-Swordfish when we return from battle! There's always a silver lining!