Ninpen Manmaru English Patch

Ninpen Manmaru English Patched? 2022-01-21

There is an old thread on these forums ( https://segaxtreme.net/threads/ninpen-manmaru.206/ )
It details a translation patch for the Saturn 3D platformer called Ninpen Manmaru but this is now 16 years old and the website is only accessible on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20020105004548/http://www16.brinkster.com/ninpen/PIY.html

It is also mentioned here: https://segaxtreme.net/threads/what-ever-happened-to-the-codeman.6053/

Unfortunately I could not get this patched and working and I'm here to look for some help with it from those who are more familiar with the patch and also the Saturn itself!

I have been trying to get this going for a few days now but I'm completely stuck. I've tried to follow the instructions on the website as closely as I can by replacing the "ipins" program that it refers to (I could never find it!) with INJIP which was found on this French SEGA fansite which says it is used as a 32-bit replacement for ipins: https://www.dreamagain.fr/outils

After this step... I can not get the ISO to boot properly again. It either fails to load entirely or it loads to the Saturn's menu and nothing further can be done. The original (untouched) ISO is loading fine and properly.



Does anyone here have any experience with this patching process?
 
IPINS.EXE is packed with Echelon Dreamcast Selfboot tools.

I built an image of this some time ago through use of Mkisofs and a Hex editor but never hardware tested. I'll do some digging for the files.
 
I've tested a few methods of inserting the patched files, all of which are working in emulation, but I'll leave this to VBT as he'll do it proper.
 
I have been trying to make this game work for weeks but it just does not, maybe I have been doing something wrong during the patching process and I have screwed up somewhere down the line... I was about to give up until I saw this topic, if somebody happens to have enough spare time will be so kind to share the working translated game?
 
Do somebody kept the "P.I.Y. file" used to patch the game ? It seems that archive.org didn't kept it.
It would be cool to keep theses files online, so that everybody could enjoy Alex Kid's work :)
 
I've just tried quickly, videos are translated.
things i did :
extract ip.bin with isobuster (on session,"extract from to", length 16, user data 2048)
name the file ip.bin
extract all files from the iso with isobuster into a folder called "cd"
paste and replace all files from ninpenb.zip to the folder "cd"
rebuild an iso :
mkisofs -quiet -sysid "SEGA SEGASATURN" -volid "NINPEN" -volset "NINPEN" -publisher "NINPEN" -preparer "VBT" -appid "NINPEN" -abstract "ABSTRACT.TXT" -copyright "CPYRIGHT.TXT" -biblio "BIBLIO.TXT" -generic-boot ip.bin -full-iso9660-filenames -o ninpen.iso cd
 
Ah OK, the patch files were archived (here), sorry for the lack of searching. It's nice from game developers to put game text in plain text files :)

Are there any problems (legal, or anything else) to re-host on my homepage the translation files + a batch script to automatize patching process ?
 
I downloaded the patch and noticed the README mentioned the graphics hadn't been done. It looks like they're pretty simple 8bpp tiles; I was thinking I might look into finishing everything that's untranslated in the current version.

sGNDOfZ.png
 
I did not know that the Tiles were not compressed, I would love to edit them, but my Japanese knowledge is non-existent sadly... BTW Ms.Tea... Aren't ya the lady who is working on Magical School Lunar for the Saturn?
 
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Translation page and simple translation patch utility (for windows platform only ... sorry) are more or less ready :)
Everything will be public after enough testing, so,
- please wait if you want to play, but can't patch the game by yourself.
- please contact me if you want to test the translation patch utility.

I downloaded the patch and noticed the README mentioned the graphics hadn't been done. It looks like they're pretty simple 8bpp tiles; I was thinking I might look into finishing everything that's untranslated in the current version.

File size of .GRP files is "one pattern", and hex contents looked like to be uncompressed image data, so yes, modifying theses graphics shouldn't be too difficult.
Please let me know if you can modify the image files, and want me to add them on my homepage with current (text) translation.
 
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It seems I could convert images in GRP format.
And ... except the "there's not enough memory blocks available" and "where to save" screens, theses are just images without nothing to translate :D
From the few I could play, messages in title screen need to be translated, but except that, did I missed other screen(s) requiring translation ?

WAIT2.PNG
 
It seems I could convert images in GRP format.
And ... except the "there's not enough memory blocks available" and "where to save" screens, theses are just images without nothing to translate :D
From the few I could play, messages in title screen need to be translated, but except that, did I missed other screen(s) requiring translation ?

Yup, I think you're right. It's just those, and the copyright info on the title screen!

simple translation patch utility (for windows platform only ... sorry)

I'd like to put together patching utilities for Linux and Mac! Before I knew you were doing this, I was working on an xdelta version of the patch; however your patch works, I'd like to contribute Linux and Mac scripts.
 
Yup, I think you're right. It's just those, and the copyright info on the title screen!

You're right, there's also the copyright page (visible in your post #12), but there's no reason to modify it.


I'd like to put together patching utilities for Linux and Mac! Before I knew you were doing this, I was working on an xdelta version of the patch; however your patch works, I'd like to contribute Linux and Mac scripts.

I initially thought about using xdelta too, but that's overkill for just overwriting few files :) So my way of patching just consists in extracting everything from iso file with 7-zip command line, overwriting files with translated ones, and rebuilding everything with mkisofs.
(The only problem was to keep game's IP, but that was just the matter of making a custom tool to dump it from game iso file)
 
(random memo for future myself)
- A proper translation would require to modify videos (at least the endings one), but it seems it's encoded in DUCK format, whose conversion tool only works on very old versions of Windows
- Save state for this game can be found in Pseudo Saturn Kai Save Data Manager, "Save Data Import" → DataLink folder → SaturnSave_5.dat . Special thanks to @gameofyou1 for save data contribution :)
 
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