Dimedime-d
commented
8 months ago After some playtesting, all the English text/graphics work great. Any adjustments to the text/images should be able to be made easily using the Python formatting scripts.
Merged.
I did FULL Japanese text replacements of every magic trick.
First of all, the preview screens (red background) were simple image replacements, with both tilesets and tilemap replacements similar to the minigame splash screens. The Japanese glyphs were tiny, but discernible enough to translate.
Next, the magic trick instructions ("Learn" option). The original ROM showed the instructions as Japanese sprite text (1 glyph = 1 object), and made use of the D-pad to scroll up and down. This is quite intensive on the CPU and would not work for English glyphs - the 128 object limit would very quickly be reached with just a few lines of text.
I had some text welding ideas in the past, but instead, I opted to hack in each magic trick step as a separate "page" of a book, navigated using the L and R buttons. The logic behind this rendering is similar to drawing the overworld map in adventure/practice mode: decompress the entire map into IWRAM before first loading, then DMA only the relevant (visible) sections of the map to VRAM. When Kururin's position changes, a new section of the map is DMA'd.
Fortunately, the decompressed tilesets and tilemaps (per trick) do not reach the 256 KB limit in IWRAM. Using built-in subroutines to create buffers for these tilesets and tilemaps, they are properly cleared when exiting magic trick instructions. The various 88x88 images in the magic tricks instructions are also translated, and referenced using a custom-built table that tells which picture should appear on which page.
Lastly, there are some graphical data within the magic tricks themselves that contain Japanese text. Some of them use one background layer, others use object tiles, and one picture ("Imagine") has an 8-bit bitmap. Nothing grit can't handle, though.
The magic script translations (with the original Japanese text) are hosted here. The text is also formatted such that the new lines are appropriately placed using the built-in "screen maker" python GUI.
Various notes about magic trick graphics are here
Nearly 300 more binaries added to the game, magic tricks are finally done.