Translating Dracula X / SOTN Beta V1.02 1.021

[TrekkiesUnite118]

The game runs in 320 wide mode. The logo looks squeezed because the PS1 game runs in 256 wide mode. Short of stretching it (which will look bad) there's not much you can do about it.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

I really love this project
Thank you so much for the hardwork, as a big fan of sotn I could never enjoy the saturn version since I dont speak japanese and this patch it's just perfect for me.
About richter's portrait, I tried to do one using official artwork from HoD
Also, not sure if this could be possible but, any chance of change his sotn alter sprites? I saw a couple of romhacks (portrait of ruin and playstation sotn) that use this sprite sheet by serio from castlevania fighter I think
Anyway, Thank you so much for this translate

If anybody wants to play with that Richter Portrait and make it sharper, it might be doable. When this project gets closer to actual release, I will throw up a poll with all of the options available people have made.

As for that sprite. I do not like that one at all. Many people I have discussed it with is in the same boat. It does not match any other graphic in the game, and makes Richter really stand out.


Here is a first draft of altering the evil Richter sprite to look more like his good portrait.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Hello, I've just registerd to this site, a huge fan of Sega always, and thank to KnightOfDragon for not only translating but improving this game I think the premise of this translation is not only the english language but something more like a new experience because of the new Richter's Portrait for Bloodlines stage and text translation choices, so these changes make me suggest the following:

a) Richter Belmont: This improvements could be applied to blue coat Richter for new experience and keep as is for young Richter for purists.

i) If possible consider give Richter backdash ability by using the sprites of the last frames of his running (sprites similar to Dawn of Sorrow Julius's)​

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ii)If possible drop weapon if picking the same weapon in order to use the special attack Flame Whip because once a weapon is picked is impossible to use the Flame Whip again.​

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iii) If possible switch weapons just like Dawn of Sorrow Julius.​

b) Remap controls to this to shorcut the map

i) Up + third hand button-->performs item selected to third hand​

It is familiar to Castlevania games to use weapons by pressing up + a button so consider the third hand as this.​

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ii) Third hand button -->displays the map​

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c) The game title screen is squeezed maybe the game is in 352x240 video mode instead of 320x240 so the tittle maybe was created for 320 horizontal pixels instead of 352.

d) And how about creating a new game mode called HARDMODE or something like buttons cheat in which the save points don't fullfill the HP bar because of there are plenty of heal items, potions for everything never used in order to balance the difficulty of the game.

I am maybe asking for hard to code improvements making this impossible without the source code besides the Sega Saturn is known as a hard to code system increasing the reverse engineering difficulty, just take these as suggestions, thanks again smart Knight.

A lot of this is just insane requests no offense lol. I am only 1 person, and I do not have the source code.

As for map, quick access to map is going to be Up + Start. I do not understand why YZB chose to do it any other way, the last thing you want to do is have a user misfire a map call for an item. Especially if that item is the library card, forcing the user to warp to the library.

Up + Start is a natural approach, since in Castlevania, Up + Button is seen as an alternative option to begin with, normally alternate attack of course.

Not sure what version you are playing, but the current title screen is not squeezed. It is an alternate image from a different source. The original PSX version uses a hi def resolution, so it requires photoshopping and scaling. I needed something that would fit in the 320 resolution. Switching to 352 pixels would require doing all of the title screen graphics and animation, which I am not going to do.

 

[Riggles]

The game runs in 320 wide mode. The logo looks squeezed because the PS1 game runs in 256 wide mode. Short of stretching it (which will look bad) there's not much you can do about it.

I'm sure it's way too much work or there's other technical hurdles. But hypothetically,
couldn't you run the game in 256 with black bars? For people with CRTs we'll just stretch the H size in the service menu (something I do often anyway depending on the game), people with modern displays who use a scaler can probably multiply the H scale back to ~4:3 that way, and for people who are using emulation they can adjust the video scaling setting to get rid of the bars.

Again, probably too much work converting all the graphics down to 256, but I don't think too many people would mind having to overscan the black bars or compensate in some other way.

 

[Ferculey]

A lot of this is just insane requests no offense lol. I am only 1 person, and I do not have the source code.

It's insane lol, well That's the reply I was expecting, at least the drop the same item one is doable? really miss the flame whip afterwards, though is said doesn't inflict more damage than a regular whip.

As for map, quick access to map is going to be Up + Start. I do not understand why YZB chose to do it any other way, the last thing you want to do is have a user misfire a map call for an item. Especially if that item is the library card, forcing the user to warp to the library.

Up + Start is a natural approach, since in Castlevania, Up + Button is seen as an alternative option to begin with, normally alternate attack of course.

That sounds neat to me, better than my appreciation.

Not sure what version you are playing, but the current title screen is not squeezed. It is an alternate image from a different source. The original PSX version uses a hi def resolution, so it requires photoshopping and scaling. I needed something that would fit in the 320 resolution. Switching to 352 pixels would require doing all of the title screen graphics and animation, which I am not going to do.

The PSX version displays the game in 256 video mode then strechted to 4:3 aspect ratio, the way was meant to be displayed to be played. It suggest to adapt to the 320 pixels by strecthing the title graphic to look 1:1 as PSX version and other, both titlescreens below just check that.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

It's insane lol, well That's the reply I was expecting, at least the drop the same item one is doable? really miss the flame whip afterwards, though is said doesn't inflict more damage than a regular whip.



That sounds neat to me, better than my appreciation.



The PSX version displays the game in 256 video mode then strechted to 4:3 aspect ratio, the way was meant to be displayed to be played. It suggest to adapt to the 320 pixels by strecthing the title graphic to look 1:1 as PSX version and other, both titlescreens below just check that.

The PSX mode is probably 512. I already attempted to extract the logo from the PSX disc directly and the resulting logo was something like 400ish wide

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

The PSX mode is probably 512. I already attempted to extract the logo from the PSX disc directly and the resulting logo was something like 400ish wide

Of all the odd things with this port, why didn't they use the high res 640 wide mode for the title screen in that case?

That said, since you have something bigger to work with you might be able to scale that down to something that's a little wider without losing quality then.

 

[Ferculey]

The PSX mode is probably 512. I already attempted to extract the logo from the PSX disc directly and the resulting logo was something like 400ish wide

Does something arcaic like an emulator screenshot be of use?, disabling backgrounds to edit then converting to the format of the Saturn, not familiar with graphics edit but nowadays emulators can do the the scaling quite good to square perfect pixels, It could work.

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Does something arcaic like an emulator screenshot be of use?, disabling backgrounds to edit then converting to the format of the Saturn, not familiar with graphics edit but nowadays emulators can do the the scaling quite good to square perfect pixels, It could work.

There's no need to do that if you can just extract it straight from the original game data. GIMP or Photoshop can probably do a far better job than an emulator.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Does something arcaic like an emulator screenshot be of use?, disabling backgrounds to edit then converting to the format of the Saturn, not familiar with graphics edit but nowadays emulators can do the the scaling quite good to square perfect pixels, It could work.

Of all the odd things with this port, why didn't they use the high res 640 wide mode for the title screen in that case?

That said, since you have something bigger to work with you might be able to scale that down to something that's a little wider without losing quality then.

Scaling does end up losing quality.

Non aspect scaling is even worse.

From the screen shots provided, it looks like the logo size is actually the same, so it is possible the source I got that logo from is using the same aspect ratio, but the wider resolution of the Saturn is throwing it off for you.

Attached is the title if you want to attempt a better image.

Do not mess with the text at the bottom. It is designed in a way to optimize the tiles.

 

[PanicOnFunkatron]

I've been lurking for a while, just wanted to post and thank you for the translation.
As Axel Stone mentioned, the game freezes on Mednafen/Beetle Saturn on certain spots.
The spot here on the bottom right where the white dot is, the game freeze up when I proceed to the right, happens with latest v1.021 patch posted above.

I have the same issue freezing in the same locations. I’m playing v1.02 on a JP VA0 Saturn with MODE (most recent firmware).
Love the translation

 

[Flupper]

Latest v1.021 patch (with Familiar fix) fixed that issue for me.
I completed the game at 211.2% with no issues at all.

 

[PanicOnFunkatron]

Latest v1.021 patch (with Familiar fix) fixed that issue for me.
I completed the game at 211.2% with no issues at all.

Updated to 1.021 and no more issues. Thank you

 

[henriquewicz]

Give this a try

Hey Knight, how you doing?

I,ve tried this patch in my 1.02 and this not works. So i´ve tried too in 2 japaneses isos (not patched) and not works. Any tip to use a specific iso to patch works?

 

[Zero1219]

Hey KoD, been playing your version 1.02 here and there. It's amazing. Still can't believe I'm playing this version in english. Just wanted to say thank for everything man. Hope all is well in life on your end in general.

 

[pudz]

Thanks so much for this Knight0fDragon! Incredibly easy to apply the patch and it works perfectly.

 

[Knight0fDragon]

Hey Knight, how you doing?

I,ve tried this patch in my 1.02 and this not works. So i´ve tried too in 2 japaneses isos (not patched) and not works. Any tip to use a specific iso to patch works?

I am going to need more info. As you can tell from everybody else., the process is simple.


Everybody else, thank you, I hope you are all enjoying the game.

 

[henriquewicz]

I am going to need more info. As you can tell from everybody else., the process is simple.


Everybody else, thank you, I hope you are all enjoying the game.

yes i know it is really quite simple, but all attempts over diversifying roms have failed.

I've tried on 2 different sources of original roms plus a version already patched with its 1.02. they were all making the same errors. i've tested using cues and ccds too.

today i've downloaded 4 more different roms and finally 2 worked (the versions i called jp2 and jp3).

I've printed the contents of all folders so you can see the names of the roms i used. the main folder with the patcher and the ssp and the internal folders with the roms identified as en102, jp1 jp2 and jp3. the error logs it's here identified by name too.

it worked with jp2 and 3 finally ... 🙂

I put everything there just for you to see but what i had asked you was only if you had any tips which rom to use as a base, because several around there do not work. the two that worked were CoolROM.com - Play Retro Games on Your Computer or Mobile Device and cdromance.com.au

i'm sending all in a zip to you. maybe its important to you.

regards

 

[Knight0fDragon]

All of those are tampered ISOs. The error reports the IPBin is not correct, and one of them reported 0.bin is not correct. I only support accurate rips. It is next to impossible for me to list invalid or bad rips, so that would be something you need to do your homework on. redump.org is a good place to get info on if you have an accurate rip or if it was tampered with.

 

[Iori Hakeshu]

I have a suggestion regarding the audio version of the PS1 versus the PSP. There is a program for modifying voices that can bring the lines of the PSP closer to make the voices very similar to those of the PS1. So it could be possible to put the lines that were missing in the PS1 version coming from the PSP. I see people doing this a lot at Mugen to invent new lines for their characters that the voices are practically identical to the original. Perhaps this trick would work for the PS1 version of the voices. With that, Saturn could have a whole cast of voices in an audio version of the PS1's English.