Derek Pascarella (ateam)

Listened to this one a while back. Strange indeed!

Jnmartin84's port of Mario Kart 64 to the Dreamcast is so, so incredible!

We're living in a wild timeline...

github.com/jnmartin84/m...

Just search "kiwitata nes".
www.amazon.com/dp/B08X6FSRP...

These KIWITATA "Amazon special" 2.4ghz USB NES controllers aren't half bad! Pairs great with MiSTer, and no excessive perceivable lag. Not scientifically tested, of course 😉

This is Aya from "Gambler: Queen's Cup", an FM Towns game for which my friends and I are close to finishing an English translation patch.

I feel a lot like Aya these days when somebody chooses "Politics" from the conversation menu.

Another on my shortlist of games I'd love to develop a translation patch for!

Maybe one day...

(6/6) Little adventures and challenges like these is just how romhacking and translation patch development goes. As much as I hate when stuff breaks, it's always that much more rewarding when I figure it out and fix it!

(5/6) So what's the fix? Well, the addend doesn't need to be read into r0 and then added to the static pointer in r4. Instead, those three instructions can be replaced with just one, where the newly stored absolute static pointer to the "\\snr" string is moved into r4.

It works!

(4/6) Looking at the code, we see the 4-byte long is indeed used to calculate yet another pointer! For whatever reason, the compiler decided to do this instead of just store the address of the "\\snr" string itself. Updating the original absolute pointer broke the calculation.

(3/6) "Do these need to be changed in some way to align with the pointer updates?" I wondered.

Not at all. Problem turned out to be the string just before table. See the 4-byte long stored after the pointer (0x2429)?

"I bet that's being used to calculate something," I thought.

(2/6) I knew this had to do with injection of strings embedded in game executable and its massive pointer update process. I processed only a few strings at a time until I found the culprit, hanging around here.

I took a look at the 4-byte values after each pointer in this table.

(1/6) With adding additional translation resources for our "Love Hina: Surprise Engagement" translation patch on Dreamcast, the newest translator let me know the latest test build crashes after starting a new game.

Skeptical it wasn't an emulator issue, I tested it myself...

Hell yeah 😎

Finally got a chance to sit down and place this. Honestly one of the best new racers I've played in ages. The classic arcade formula feels well preserved!

Haha, well thank you 😅

One at a time! 😂

For the unfamiliar, this is almost like an ADV game but with a 2D character sprite moving around a 3D space. There are branching paths, but rather than based on player choices, they're based on a roulette wheel game you play against residents of Hinata (and other well known Love Hina characters).

All hacking is done and all custom tooling is done. I'm waiting a while to start graphics because a fair bit of it relies on translation choices, and I'd prefer not to re-do things as opinions evolve over what to call certain things. Text translation/editing is maybe 25% complete, all said and done.

For a bit of a "where we're at" update...

Those of you who may know me or follow my work understand that I put a lot of heart and soul into these projects, and I do everything I can to make them polished and perfect. Check DreamcastForever.com to learn more.

Regarding our workflow, we collaborate in a private Discord and use various Google docs and custom webapp tools (like text search and spoken dialogue clip playback) to get the job done. Things are VERY organized.

I've actually never seen this kind of churn before, and it puzzles me. The story is fun, the characters are fun, and we're a fun group to work with too! I promise it's not a red flag, haha.

I hate to even have to say this (especially when soliciting for a totally unpaid voluntary fan project) but I've had at least half a dozen translators come and go on this project, so I ask that only those really, REALLY serious reach out to me.

We have one truly dedicated translator right now (a name many of you probably know), but his time is limited. While my friend has done great work for the project, we need additional translation resources!

If you or someone you know is a competent JP->EN translator and feels motivated to help us work on and complete our English translation patch of "Love Hina: Surprise Engagement" on the Dreamcast, I'd love to hear from you!

a poster that says i want to believe ALT: a poster that says i want to believe

Oh of course, but still...

Can only dream of an alternate timeline where this was released for Dreamcast and looked beautiful in proper crispy-ass progressive scan... 😅

Always been a favorite of mine!

I think so too!

That doesn't keep the internet from shitting on it. That said, I don't think there were any home ports that did it better back then (excluding AES because that's just cheating, and is not a port).

The 3DO port of Samurai Shodown catches a lot of flack, but I gotta say... if I actually owned a 3DO as a kid (and not just now as an overgrown manchild) and I was handed this to play in 1995, I would have been extremely happy with it.

I guess what I'm saying is, thank you @triphawkins.bsky.social!