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46
Chrono Trigger Modification / Re: Character Graphics Swap hack.
« on: September 17, 2020, 12:48:51 pm »
Wait, have you never dealt with full HiROM addresses before? DCxxxx is just the 1C0000 range. Which is where most of the PCs' sprite assemblies are placed.
How did you go around changing the graphic pointers without noticing the existing entries were all "nonexistent addresses" by that interpretation?
Code: [Select]
1C0000 1C27AF SASM N (06) Sprite Assembly - Magus 2007.06.29
1C27B0 1C4E6F SASM N (00) Sprite Assembly - Crono 2007.06.29
1C4E70 1C748F SASM N (02) Sprite Assembly - Lucca 2007.06.29
1C7490 1C9AD7 SASM N (04) Sprite Assembly - Frog 2007.06.29
1C9AD8 1CC07F SASM N (01) Sprite Assembly - Marle 2007.06.29How did you go around changing the graphic pointers without noticing the existing entries were all "nonexistent addresses" by that interpretation?
47
The Great To-Do List / Re: [10000] Rip the complete English, Japanese, and French scripts of CT DS
« on: September 11, 2020, 01:28:12 pm »
If we're making a unified spreadsheet rather than a separate one, then we need to account for those lines that changed even in the Japanese DS version.
An eternity ago, I read from the BBS logs on Ms. Kotoi's site that some lines of dialogue were changed in the PS1 release, the examples given were colors to button names and Taban's line in the ending. Thanks to them leaving the substitute string entries in the US release code, I know from hacking research exactly which ones got changed, though not the Japanese text directly (I checked videos).
The only changes that weren't to button references were censorship of underage drinking. These seem to have carried over into the DS release, though the last one (Taban's) merged back in the "you're the hero" sentence.
The DS version probably has some revisions of its own, but the only one I know for sure is the guy who manages the races at the fair. And that line in the developer's ending now referencing the original game's release year.
An eternity ago, I read from the BBS logs on Ms. Kotoi's site that some lines of dialogue were changed in the PS1 release, the examples given were colors to button names and Taban's line in the ending. Thanks to them leaving the substitute string entries in the US release code, I know from hacking research exactly which ones got changed, though not the Japanese text directly (I checked videos).
The only changes that weren't to button references were censorship of underage drinking. These seem to have carried over into the DS release, though the last one (Taban's) merged back in the "you're the hero" sentence.
The DS version probably has some revisions of its own, but the only one I know for sure is the guy who manages the races at the fair. And that line in the developer's ending now referencing the original game's release year.
Quote
レース中さ。
だまって見てな！
もし よそうをしたいなら
はしっている全員が そこに
そろった時 オレに話しかけな！
There's a race underway.
Be quiet and watch!
If you want to try and guess the next winner,
talk to me once the runners have lined up over
there after the race.
48
The Great To-Do List / Re: [10000] Rip the complete English, Japanese, and French scripts of CT DS
« on: September 11, 2020, 03:28:56 am »
I checked the files you uploaded. The line's the same as in the DS version; they must have misquoted it. Also, the change to Queen Leene's line was already there in the DS localization (the use of the party member name remained in the Japanese text).
49
The Great To-Do List / Re: [10000] Rip the complete English, Japanese, and French scripts of CT DS
« on: September 11, 2020, 02:46:15 am »
As far as I know, the DS version only had Japanese, English, and French. The other languages came with the mobile ports.
I think the mobile port changed some text because the previous versions referred to the controller buttons, while the mobile port apparently popped up colored buttons when necessary. Some or all of it may have been reverted in the Steam version. (After a quick look, the files ending with "pad" use controller buttons.)
Examples:
I think the mobile port changed some text because the previous versions referred to the controller buttons, while the mobile port apparently popped up colored buttons when necessary. Some or all of it may have been reverted in the Steam version. (After a quick look, the files ending with "pad" use controller buttons.)
Examples:
Quote from: DS
Catchy rhythm, huh?
You can use the X, Y, L, and R Buttons to dance along!
Quote from: Mobile
Catchy rhythm, huh?
You can use the color buttons to dance along!
Quote from: DS
There is a note.
"The Director of Research ought to have the security lock release code written down somewhere in this room.
"He's a strange one, though, always writing in codes and what have you. Knowing him, he probably wrote it down backwards."
There is a note written by the Director of Research.
"Security lock release code: LLAB
I picked it because, well...I like things that are round."
Quote from: Mobile
There is a note.
"The Director of Research ought to have the security lock release code written down somewhere in this room.
"He's a strange one, though, always writing in riddles and what have you. Knowing him, he probably came up with some crazy color code."
There is a note written by the Director of Research.
"Security lock release code: Tomato."
"I picked it because, well...veggies are good for you. A tomato a day keeps the doctor away!"
50
The Great To-Do List / Re: [5000] Place all Chrono Cross lines in the script accurately
« on: September 09, 2020, 03:14:17 am »
I pulled the version I was consulting out of utunnels_utils.zip, which at least in the past was hosted on chronofan.
51
Chrono News / Re: The Super Famicom Vol.5 No.16 (Sep. 16, 1994) early screenshots
« on: September 07, 2020, 04:05:11 pm »
So is the plan to turn the "Alpha Screenshot" page into a general magazine coverage page? Since it's going far beyond the release of the game.
52
The Lost Sanctum - Completed Items / Re: Radical Dreamers music: "Original Japanese Title"?
« on: September 07, 2020, 02:53:12 am »
Unfortunately, the music test was something Demiforce created.
53
The Great To-Do List / Re: [5000] Place all Chrono Cross lines in the script accurately
« on: September 01, 2020, 06:13:03 pm »
I found how to trigger the poem last night (it's a debug function called by entity 11), and was writing about it, but I'll dump this first.
You seem to be using an old script dump. In the version I downloaded (it was probably part of the script decompiler package), "opCE" is a check storyline progression opcode. (The debug room text has a nice list labeling the different storyline values.) So it should display at "Masamune Dissapears". The variables referenced in that script are roomVars, local variables. Instead of "Character(4)", it's "ENTITY 4" - the NPC version not in the active party. So after you talk to him once at that point, it sets a temporary flag, switching it to the other dialogue, back and forth.
One of the major issues in reading event scripts - I don't know if the later Cross hackers have made correct dumps - is an inconsistency with if-statements. That's partially my fault for not understanding it back then.
Using the jump-to points from the if-statements, and jump-statements within, you can break down the code into if-else blocks.
You seem to be using an old script dump. In the version I downloaded (it was probably part of the script decompiler package), "opCE" is a check storyline progression opcode. (The debug room text has a nice list labeling the different storyline values.) So it should display at "Masamune Dissapears". The variables referenced in that script are roomVars, local variables. Instead of "Character(4)", it's "ENTITY 4" - the NPC version not in the active party. So after you talk to him once at that point, it sets a temporary flag, switching it to the other dialogue, back and forth.
One of the major issues in reading event scripts - I don't know if the later Cross hackers have made correct dumps - is an inconsistency with if-statements. That's partially my fault for not understanding it back then.
do condition with two values.The logic is if X is true, then run the following line(s) of code, else jump. Due to my incorrect labeling of opcodes back then, not all if-statements conform to this pattern.
if true continue with next opcode, jump otherwise.
Using the jump-to points from the if-statements, and jump-statements within, you can break down the code into if-else blocks.
54
Chrono News / Re: The Super Famicom Vol.5 No.16 (Sep. 16, 1994) early screenshots
« on: August 20, 2020, 04:59:20 pm »
That was my first thought too, that it was the future. It's just where they put the image that made me reconsider. I only put effort into transcribing the section of the scans I posted, so I don't know much about the rest of the content yet.
It's unfortunate that "Chrono Trigger Prerelease" was the vernacular for two decades now, because I'm totally onboard the proper way to refer to these thingsYeah, I've been to The Cutting Room Floor too. They use "prerelease" to refer to media coverage and source code leaks, and "prototype" for demos and other early versiobs with ROMs.
55
Chrono News / The Super Famicom Vol.5 No.16 (Sep. 16, 1994) early screenshots
« on: August 20, 2020, 02:07:41 pm »
Something I stumbled upon while doing some research on a completely different Chrono-related topic.
https://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/172474134540/chrono-trigger-preview-showing-many-differences
[hidden]Until very recently, the last post on the blog was an announcement from the author that he was calling it quits in part due to frustration at having all his hard work on research stolen.
So I'm hesitant to dump full images here, and am just showing this one very different part.[/hidden]
Besides the image above, these are the scenes I don't recognize from either the ones collected on this site or the V-Jump scans I linked to last year.
[hidden]
There's an old tweet linking to all the scans he did for that magazine issue.
https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/980349834447282176
I don't know if the quality would be better than downloading them from Tumblr[/hidden]
https://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/172474134540/chrono-trigger-preview-showing-many-differences
[hidden]Until very recently, the last post on the blog was an announcement from the author that he was calling it quits in part due to frustration at having all his hard work on research stolen.
So I'm hesitant to dump full images here, and am just showing this one very different part.[/hidden]
Besides the image above, these are the scenes I don't recognize from either the ones collected on this site or the V-Jump scans I linked to last year.
- Cathedral-like room (page 2)
- A different early overworld - seems like the future, but could also be prehistoric based on placement next to a hut interior image (page 2)
- Early version of Crono's room (page 4)
- Another portion of the early overworld, with the party by a lone house (page 4)
- Factory (page 4)
Quote
[時間移動に関係あり？の不思議な部屋]
[Is this related to time travel? The Wonder Room]
ここで神秘的な雰囲気をもつ、３つの部屋を紹介しておこう。ないかが転送されているように見えるけど、現時点でなまぅたくの謎だ。ゲーム上，重要な場面かもしれないぞ。
Here are three rooms with a mysterious atmosphere. It looks as if it's a transporter, but that's a complete mystery at the moment. This could be an important scene in the game.
*床の形からすると、３つは別々の部屋にがんじ感じるけと、同じ部屋での連続した場面にも見える。
From the shape of the floor, it looks like there are three separate rooms, or a series of scenes in the same room.
*中央の物体には、目や口らしきものが見える。ちょっとグロテスク。
The central object appears to have eyes or what appears to be a mouth. It is a little grotesque.
*見れたのはモンスターらしい。少なくとも人間ではなさそうだ。敵か味方か？
What we can see appears to be a monster. At least it does not appear to be human. Friend or foe?
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
[hidden]
There's an old tweet linking to all the scans he did for that magazine issue.
https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/980349834447282176
I don't know if the quality would be better than downloading them from Tumblr[/hidden]
56
Chrono Trigger DS Analysis / Re: Glitch with 2 Epochs
« on: July 26, 2020, 03:09:48 am »
eysikal hasn't been around since they asked, so they've haven't read any of our answers.
At first when I was experimenting today I thought it was impossible to salvage, but now I might have a solution. Someone will have to test if it actually works in the actual glitched scenario. Take the winged Epoch to the Present, Middle Ages, or Prehistoric. Then use the time gates to get to the hangar.
This is the technical explanation. There's a variable, at $7F00CD in the SNES version, that's used for the various Epoch close-up scenes. Before getting the Epoch and when you return to the hangar using the wingless Epoch, it's set to 00. When you're departing to another time period from one of these scenes, it's set to 01. When the Epoch has been left at the End of Time, it's 06. There are other values from cutscenes too, but those are the ones that can easily produced multiple times in a playthrough. I couldn't find any location events after obtaining the flying Epoch that would set the variable back to 00 and not get immediately overridden by the warp-out, which is why I initially concluded it was impossible. The point of JLukas' advice, "before talking to Gaspar" is to move the Epoch from the hangar before that variable can be set again.
Because of the way the event code is set up, when you try to use the seats when $7F00CD is set to 01, it automatically tries to run the "warp out" sequence. Since you didn't get a chance to select an era from the era select, it fails to send you anywhere. So, we need to set the era (variable:$7E02AF) beforehand with the flying Epoch (luckily the variable doesn't get overriden during all that travel), but it has to be a map the wingless one can go to. So the Future and post-fall Dark Ages are out, and the End of Time too because it sets $7F00CD to another value the hangar can't deal with.
Edit:
Another possibility. If you haven't seen Lavos erupt yet, then use the Bucket, see the eruption, decline to fight, then use the gates to either get to Keeper's Dome, or if you parked it somewhere besides the End of Time, the Epoch. When the game returns from the scene of looking at Lavos, it sets 7F00CD to 02, same value it uses when you cancel out of the era select in one of the Epoch close-up scenes. But in this case, you have a chance to leave and preserve the value rather than it getting overwritten when the Epoch warps out.
At first when I was experimenting today I thought it was impossible to salvage, but now I might have a solution. Someone will have to test if it actually works in the actual glitched scenario. Take the winged Epoch to the Present, Middle Ages, or Prehistoric. Then use the time gates to get to the hangar.
This is the technical explanation. There's a variable, at $7F00CD in the SNES version, that's used for the various Epoch close-up scenes. Before getting the Epoch and when you return to the hangar using the wingless Epoch, it's set to 00. When you're departing to another time period from one of these scenes, it's set to 01. When the Epoch has been left at the End of Time, it's 06. There are other values from cutscenes too, but those are the ones that can easily produced multiple times in a playthrough. I couldn't find any location events after obtaining the flying Epoch that would set the variable back to 00 and not get immediately overridden by the warp-out, which is why I initially concluded it was impossible. The point of JLukas' advice, "before talking to Gaspar" is to move the Epoch from the hangar before that variable can be set again.
Because of the way the event code is set up, when you try to use the seats when $7F00CD is set to 01, it automatically tries to run the "warp out" sequence. Since you didn't get a chance to select an era from the era select, it fails to send you anywhere. So, we need to set the era (variable:$7E02AF) beforehand with the flying Epoch (luckily the variable doesn't get overriden during all that travel), but it has to be a map the wingless one can go to. So the Future and post-fall Dark Ages are out, and the End of Time too because it sets $7F00CD to another value the hangar can't deal with.
Edit:
Another possibility. If you haven't seen Lavos erupt yet, then use the Bucket, see the eruption, decline to fight, then use the gates to either get to Keeper's Dome, or if you parked it somewhere besides the End of Time, the Epoch. When the game returns from the scene of looking at Lavos, it sets 7F00CD to 02, same value it uses when you cancel out of the era select in one of the Epoch close-up scenes. But in this case, you have a chance to leave and preserve the value rather than it getting overwritten when the Epoch warps out.
57
Kajar Laboratories / Re: Chrono fan games in Spanish
« on: July 25, 2020, 10:30:58 pm »
Not quite sure if I should really be necroing this just to mention this, but it's something that's been on my mind from time to time.
I felt ashamed two or so years ago when I stumbled upon this topic and realized I didn't really deserve credit for "discovering" Chrono Chronicles in 2008.
Moving on, the other game listed, Chrono Vampire, has been archived at a Spanish RPG Maker resource site.
http://www.hellsoft.net/H5/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=469&func=fileinfo&id=382
As mentioned, it's a mix of characters from various places, not a story explicitly set in the Chrono universe. It does have some of its Chrono series stuff right at the beginning, like the title screen and music.
I felt ashamed two or so years ago when I stumbled upon this topic and realized I didn't really deserve credit for "discovering" Chrono Chronicles in 2008.
Moving on, the other game listed, Chrono Vampire, has been archived at a Spanish RPG Maker resource site.
http://www.hellsoft.net/H5/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=469&func=fileinfo&id=382
As mentioned, it's a mix of characters from various places, not a story explicitly set in the Chrono universe. It does have some of its Chrono series stuff right at the beginning, like the title screen and music.
58
News Submissions / Re: Chrono Trigger 25TH ANNIVERSARY Review and Retrospective SNES - video
« on: July 25, 2020, 03:16:47 pm »
Didn't watch the video, but we already knew those things you mentioned.
Just from the Compendium, rather than other sites:
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=9933.0
Kato's early sketches (CT Ultimania):
Just from the Compendium, rather than other sites:
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?topic=9933.0
tl;dr: Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana both originated as the same original project, the original Squaresoft/Akira Toriyama collaboration, which was going to be a Super CD-ROM action RPG codenamed Maru Island.
Kato's early sketches (CT Ultimania):
Quote from: Supporting Material Translation
And in place of Frog, a "monster man" would have appeared instead?
59
Chrono Trigger Modification / Chrono Trigger Playstation Research
« on: July 21, 2020, 03:02:04 am »
I was recently inspired to investigate the PS1 version again.
This research was done on the Greatest Hits release.
Most of my investigations were done on the field module. Elsewhere, like the overworld, menus, and battle, the contents of memory may be different.
The $7F0000 block of SNES memory is mapped to 0x8010000 in Playstation memory. This includes the decompressed location event data.
$7E0000-01FFF->0x802E000
$7E2000-FFFFF->0x8020000
DIALOGUE TEXT
Contrary what halkun said, the internal ROM has been modified with the English script - just the dialogue as far as I can tell. The dictionary entries are elsewhere - more on that later.
For both names and dictionary strings, the game automatically inserts a space, UNLESS what follows is a punctuation mark. This may complicate reinserting text without a mountain of duplicate entries for every punctuation mark or an inserter that can account for it.
There are some external dialogue strings used in place of the ones from the ROM, but I'll get to that later.
Music IDs
The first two are listed here because since they weren't included in the Japanese SFC release, there was no guarantee that they'd be in the same slots as the English SNES version we're familiar with and mainly hack.
51: Battle 2
52: Singing Mountain
53: Underground Sewer (no water)
54-5B: Memories of Green
5C: Time To Rest -After the Battle
5D: One Sunny Day When We Met
5E: Scattering Blossoms
5F: A Meeting with Destiny
60-7F: (glitch version of faraway times?)
COMPRESSION
The Playstation version has its own compression format for its data.
It's a typical LZSS implementation, except that it always works in 2-byte units instead of single-byte. So a control "byte" is two bytes long even though only the first byte is used and it writes two bytes at a time instead of one.
References: lower 5-bits are length (add 2 to get the number of 2-byte segments to copy), upper 11 the distance back to copy from (multiply by 2). Distances before the start of the decompressed data produce 00 00's.
(Edit - a prior decompression/compression tool exists - Squaresoft's portings file extractor)
File - GAME1\KOK.BIN
This appears to be part of the field module.
It contains two compressed files.
The first, decompressed to 0x9FC00 of memory, is known to contain among other things, the dictionary strings, credits text, and some replacement dialogue strings.
Dictionary strings come before their pointer tables. The first set are single-byte text codes, the rest two-byte codes, starting with E0 XX.
Mostly, the replacement text is for button references (they were probably more important in the Japanese version), but there a few that don't fit that pattern
The second part contains parts of the CT ROM. It gets stored at 0x123000 of memory.
I've only manually matched up a few parts of it.
Attract mode
Back when I started studying the PS1 version, I was planning on doing a write-up and providing codes or a patch for what I could get working of the attract mode. For now, this is just a list of some of the obstacles I ran into.
The game has a routine that constantly checks the current location and probably some other stuff to determine when to play a movie.
When I tried using the edited-warp method (see "Game Notes" in Geiger's Chrono Trigger Database) to view endings, the credits didn't display.
This research was done on the Greatest Hits release.
Most of my investigations were done on the field module. Elsewhere, like the overworld, menus, and battle, the contents of memory may be different.
The $7F0000 block of SNES memory is mapped to 0x8010000 in Playstation memory. This includes the decompressed location event data.
$7E0000-01FFF->0x802E000
$7E2000-FFFFF->0x8020000
DIALOGUE TEXT
Contrary what halkun said, the internal ROM has been modified with the English script - just the dialogue as far as I can tell. The dictionary entries are elsewhere - more on that later.
For both names and dictionary strings, the game automatically inserts a space, UNLESS what follows is a punctuation mark. This may complicate reinserting text without a mountain of duplicate entries for every punctuation mark or an inserter that can account for it.
There are some external dialogue strings used in place of the ones from the ROM, but I'll get to that later.
Music IDs
The first two are listed here because since they weren't included in the Japanese SFC release, there was no guarantee that they'd be in the same slots as the English SNES version we're familiar with and mainly hack.
51: Battle 2
52: Singing Mountain
53: Underground Sewer (no water)
54-5B: Memories of Green
5C: Time To Rest -After the Battle
5D: One Sunny Day When We Met
5E: Scattering Blossoms
5F: A Meeting with Destiny
60-7F: (glitch version of faraway times?)
COMPRESSION
The Playstation version has its own compression format for its data.
It's a typical LZSS implementation, except that it always works in 2-byte units instead of single-byte. So a control "byte" is two bytes long even though only the first byte is used and it writes two bytes at a time instead of one.
References: lower 5-bits are length (add 2 to get the number of 2-byte segments to copy), upper 11 the distance back to copy from (multiply by 2). Distances before the start of the decompressed data produce 00 00's.
(Edit - a prior decompression/compression tool exists - Squaresoft's portings file extractor)
File - GAME1\KOK.BIN
This appears to be part of the field module.
It contains two compressed files.
The first, decompressed to 0x9FC00 of memory, is known to contain among other things, the dictionary strings, credits text, and some replacement dialogue strings.
Dictionary strings come before their pointer tables. The first set are single-byte text codes, the rest two-byte codes, starting with E0 XX.
Mostly, the replacement text is for button references (they were probably more important in the Japanese version), but there a few that don't fit that pattern
- Ayla and Lucca talking about "soup"
- Taban offering Crono a sip of his drink in the ending - this line got mentioned at a Japanese BBS as a change in the PS version
- Receipt of the Prism Helms - upon further research, this line didn't exist in the Japanese SFC release, it was added for the English release
The second part contains parts of the CT ROM. It gets stored at 0x123000 of memory.
I've only manually matched up a few parts of it.
- Field sprite related data - palettes, graphic pointers, sprite assembly pointers, animation data & pointers, sprite data
- Bank C0: End of bank C0, starting from 0xF300
- Location exit data
- Unknown data pointers and data from 3DF290
Attract mode
Back when I started studying the PS1 version, I was planning on doing a write-up and providing codes or a patch for what I could get working of the attract mode. For now, this is just a list of some of the obstacles I ran into.
- The title screen with its event code managing the warps and stuff for the attract mode scenes is not actually loaded on boot
- The pendulum mode7 scene also displays the intro movie
- All the credits screens calls crash the game
- Attract mode battles don't load all the data necessary. The main part I know about is the party has 0 HP/MP, causing a game over.
- Some of the side-wipes in the overworld scenes don't work
The game has a routine that constantly checks the current location and probably some other stuff to determine when to play a movie.
When I tried using the edited-warp method (see "Game Notes" in Geiger's Chrono Trigger Database) to view endings, the credits didn't display.
60
News Submissions / Re: The Chrono Memorial edition
« on: July 08, 2020, 08:00:13 pm »
There's an entry for this in the encyclopedia, under the merchandise section.
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chrono_Memorial.html
https://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chrono_Memorial.html