RCPD

@tripled79 Starts around the 25 seconds mark

Quick update! Just to let you know, I found and fixed the issue Seems there are at least two strings that define sound/music: one per level, another per cutscene. This means the game defines all possible songs played out per context on a level (waking up cutscene, getting the holocube, getting the cartridge, etc), as well as a global context. Surprisingly, the level string does not allow the correct song to be played, but it can be done on the global string so... it's done. Thanks for the reminder

Quite true. There are some byte changes, though; some are flipped, others are different by a considerable margin but overall the code for all is 99% similar. I think these are related to palettes. Speaking of which, I tested the original DOS intro on the Jaguar version: An obvious problem other than palettes is the length; I was careful to repoint the data so there's something else preventing the full intro from playing. @tripled79 Good point That's another thing to keep track of. Thanks

Hi! Nothing new to show just yet though I have made progress. I've already inserted part of my translation, but have been busy analyzing the code structure of the original game, specifically the cutscenes for now. Interesting fact which I wasn't aware of... With the expected exception of things like execution, initialization and GFX routines, the bulk of the original code is virtually the same between most platform releases, to the point where a couple of minutes ago, I just replaced the Jaguar's "Game Over" cutscene with the DOS one and it worked just fine, the only difference being the background was tinted red instead of blue (to be fair there are some bytes swapped around). Most cutscenes have the same size or similar, actually. I've made edits to the "Delphine Software..." intro screen on the Sega Genesis version, then ported that portion of code to the Jaguar with no issues. The CD-based releases, such as 3DO and Sega CD, also have the same structure - except the cutscenes, of course, which are entirely different. I wonder if it would be feasible to place the original DOS cutscenes on the Jag? Just daydreaming here. I've also been successful in mapping the credits on the main screen, which appear below Conrad's spinning animation. I'm not sure why they've made it like they did, but it's basically an incredibly long string of pixel "on/off" instructions, in a way. It's also divided by *12* lines, which is insane. I am now in the process of trying to edit the cutscene vectors for the translation. Cutscene texts have their own locations in the ROM; the vectors for things like "Replay" or "Game Over" however, much like the initial company logos, are part of the cutscene itself (the same as the *.pol and *.cmd files in other releases). I don't suppose anyone was ever successful in extracting/repacking the background graphics? That would be the ultimate challenge...

It should be released as a ROM patch, yes. A "Final Cut" release would be great actually, but that's a tall order for a non-programmer. Time, will and a hex editor can only get me so far Still, I'd like to point out that I've managed to solve something that might seem trivial but always bugged me. In pretty much every release (Amiga, SNES, Genesis, etc.) the "PRESENTS" at the intro screen would gradually turn green as the "AND" before it. The Jaguar version has code that seems to gradually turn "AND" green but doesn't seem to have one for "PRESENTS". However, "PRESENTS" has the required values to be shown with the same color tone. So while it doesn't seem to be possible to apply a gradation, I can apply the same color to it - now it doesn't seem muted against the rest. I just don't understand why they didn't do it, though; it's just a simple byte +1 thing. Even without grading it looks better. This took a bit to find because of how the code is ordered. Basically, the code blocks are organized in this order: Delphine Software, International, US GOLD, and only then "AND" and "PRESENTS" follow it (although as we know, the order it's displayed on screen is different). I've partially mapped this screen; there's the usual X and Y coordinates, along with basic color values (only the ones afforded by the screen's palette but this remains largely untested). You could pretty much rewrite this entire screen if you had the patience. I would have found this sooner but I had to rewrite a very small part of the Options menu for my language (basically have the menu accept one more letter per line on the Difficulty levels otherwise the words would sound stupid), which would have been faster if the Jaguar wasn't such an alien organism to me. And now, to keep working on it

Seemed obvious but sometimes you only get it when looking at things in more detail. The original font is pretty nice but it's a 7x7 pixel size (shading included). They wouldn't be able to include special characters even if they wanted to. So in order to include diacritics/special characters I've inserted a new font into the game; it's now at a 5x7 pixel size. Here's a first pass, testing legibility and spacing and tuning it up.

I don't remember that color issue but I'll be on the lookout for it Also we're talking about the cutscene as it moves towards the end, right? After Conrad's shot and taken away, it does seem to speed up a bit. I'll do my best to see if it can be changed Thank you for reminding me.

This makes sense except it's only applied to the french version; english is written just fine. Also, Delphine really seems to have made standard text for other console versions - they did it for the SNES and Genesis, at least: Now come to think of it, how is the French version of those games? ?

Yes, it seems weird. Here's how it looks like: It's not so much that the French is bad, it's fine on its own. But while I kind of understand the absence of diacritics, it seems weird they'd go with a full blown uppercase text as well. This would make more sense if the game was on a portable console; the vast majority of Gameboy, Gamegear and even Lynx titles would use uppercase to compensate for the smaller screen size. Of course, many, many home console releases also opted for uppercasing text - but only doing so for one language in a dual language release seems weird. Other than that: So, the bad news first: it's not where I thought it was. The code after the menu is another set of long pointers to the options. I only realized this when one of the values started showing German in the Language options. It seems at some point Delphine might have considered localizing the game to German and Japanese, as the references are present in the code but dummied out in the Language options. The good news is: I found a way to prevent Language toggling ? I was about to give up when I remembered an old romhacking maxim: usually, code associated with what one is looking for is nearby, either before or after. Since this doesn't always happen (and I still have nightmares about games I found that did this), and because the Jaguar is incredibly alien to me (ie., I don't understand what these pointers are or even if they are pointers), I assumed otherwise. But! Turns out the code was quite a bit before but still close to the Options menu I had pointed out before. There's a whole series of values that determine what/when to highlight, directional button input on/off, what happens and doesn't happen when toggling or activating certain options, etc. This is made somewhat more confusing by the fact it seems to load values as: option, option highlight, option highlight in relation to other options, where to show the options, etc - and then it seems to be immediately followed by code handling Conrad's spinning model on the menu. This took me quite a bit but now, when trying to toggle Language with the Action or Option buttons, it will not budge ? Meaning, I can now start the translation and once that's done, move on to the French improvement project. This also means that the first translation will kind of NOP the French text and use only the English one as a base, to avoid instances where my language would override both. I'll post any further developments here

Hello, everyone. First post here and hopefully, this is the right forum... Recently I've been looking into the possibility of translating Jaguar games, which I've come to realize is no simple task. I do not have a programming background, but have done some translations and romhacking in other systems - 8 and 16 bit, mostly. I took a gander at the Jaguar port of Flashback, and realized a couple of things. The French text isn't exactly good; unlike the English version, the French localization only uses uppercase letters and no diacritics whatsoever. I've also located the font in the ROM, which means I could probably replace unused characters and improve the French version of the game. Although truth be told, my main interest is translating it into my own language, which also needs diacritics; if I can finish it, then the plan is to then release a version with improved French afterwards since my language and French share several diacritics. I've also been looking into the text itself and control codes, from X and Y positions for text, highlighted text and dialogue pointers. With these, a translation becomes easier. However, I noticed a couple of quirks in the game which in turn also influence what I'd like to do. In the Options menu, selecting French as the main language does not alter the options' language itself - they remain in English. Only the game proper will run as expected. The passwords are also peculiar, since the devs used the template "CODE: XXXX" for both languages, so if I wanted to provide a dual language translation for "CODE", it's also difficult because I'd have to mangle one to show the other in this case (although workarounds are possible). For my translation at least, I would like to disable the Language selection but so far this has proven quite difficult. I've poked the code a bit but have only found "almost there" stuff. The menu is divided in two portions, that I'm aware of at least. The code from BA9A-BB44 handles the options and placement for the initial menu, while the code from BB45-BD8D handles the Options menu, and also its words, highlighting and word coordinates. I believe what I want comes after this, from BD90 onwards. But as I said, I'm not quite there. Some examples include: Modifying bytes 0A B1 11 42 40 10 39 @ BDC1-BDC7 Language options will not appear but are toggleable Modifying bytes CD 5E C0 FC @ BDCA-BDCD Pressing a button to change language will only show English, but it's still toggling between both Modifying bytes 0B D1 C0 61 @ BDCF-BDD2 Same as above but applies the behavior to French And so on. All I'm really trying to do is to either make the option impossible to toggle, or to have it be skipped (as in, pressing down from difficulty Levels would jump right down to Controls, and vice versa). I have tried reading Jaguar documentation but it's not as widespread as documentation for other systems, and some sources seem to contradict each other or don't have the same info. I might be wrong but something tells me this would require only a handful of bytes to be changed - except I can't find which ones. I've already given up on modifying some of the things which are walled by compression, such as level graphics and certain screens (like the Game Over one), but it seems kind of inglorious to hit another wall with text, especially since I've found how to manipulate it. I was wondering if anyone could nudge me in the right direction in this. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance