Famicom Mini: Dai-2-Ji Super Robot Taisen (English)

FAMICOM MINI - SUPER ROBOT WARS 2
ENGLISH TRANSLATION V0.99 BETA
Copyright 2013 by Aeon Genesis
http://agtp.romhack.net

ToC

0.FOR VBA USERS
1.About Super Robot Wars 2
1.5 About Famicom Mini Super Robot Wars 2
2.Patch History
3.Patch Credits and Contributors
4.Known issues
5.Application Instructions
6.Optional Patches


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0.FOR VBA USERS
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You'll need to add the following to your vba-over.ini file to get it
to play SRW2 if it isn't already present.

# SRW2
[FSRJ]
saveType=1
mirroringEnabled=1

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1.About SRW2
------------
SRW2 is a strategy game for the NES featuring licensed characters from
several Bandai mecha properties. It's the first game in the series to
have any real plot, the first game to introduce original characters,
and the first game in the original SRW canon. It's a little primitive
by some standards, but is nonetheless a reasonably fun entry in the
series.

The SRW2 translation was abandoned several years ago when it became
apparent that ROM space was at a premium. As it turns out I didn't
really know what I was talking about. ROM space *is* at a premium in
a few places - notably where the system information such as unit, weapon,
and pilot lists as well as the various interfaces are stored - but it's
abundant in other places. With a little low-level hacking the script
was fit back into the game with minimal fuss. That said, I did run into
a really nasty issue with the Units map option; the original developers
did not budget for more than 256 tiles to be printed to the screen at
any given time, and I needed ~270 to render everything properly. The
issue is fixed, but me-from-ten-years-ago probably would not have been
able to handle it. So it all worked out in the end I guess, if for
different reasons than initially stated.

In any case, I picked the game back up a few years backed. Dumped the
script, casually hunted around for someone to translated it. The duty
was picked up by TheMajinZenki (JoJo, Royal Stone, TwinBee) in March
or so, and he finished in about a month. It took a while before I was
able to reinsert the system text, but once that happened, things moved
forward quickly and the final patch is now in your hands.

---------------------------
1.5 About Famciom Mini SRW2
---------------------------
The Famicom Mini version of Super Robot Wars 2 was released as an
extremely limited-edition promotional tie-in to Super Robot Wars GC
in 2004. You had to register your copy of GC with Club Nintendo, and
if you were one of 2,000 lucky people, you got your hands on a copy.

It's essentially the same game as the NES version - hell, like all
Famicom Mini titles, it IS the NES version, emulated. There are some
small changes internal to the ROM to aid with emulation though which
means that dropping the hacked game into the GBA version wholesale
produced less-than-acceptable results. In the end, I had to extract
the Japanese game and patch it with the NES translation's IPS to
preserve as many of the changed code segments as possible. I then
had to go into the game's script and make several dozen minor changes
to control codes built into the text. I then copied the result back
into the ROM, tested it a bit, and it seems to work.

THAT SAID, THERE ARE A FEW CAVEATS:
1) THIS HAS NOT BEEN TESTED EXTENSIVELY. It was quite literally
thrown together in about three hours. There may very well be
issues with some of the attacks/units/interfaces later in the game
resulting from the decreased GBA resolution and the various changes
that had to be made. That said, it should be mostly stable, and
ought to be perfectly enjoyable as is.
2) I HAVE NOT HAD A CHANGE TO TRANSLATE THE FAMICOM MINI INTERFACE.
You can bring this up by pressing L and R at the same time. It's
almost not even worth having, to be honest; the menu is exactly the
same as in the US versions, and contains the following options:
--Resume (dismisses the menu)
--Reset (resets the game)
--Sleep (Puts the game in sleep mode. Wake it by pressing L+R+SELECT.)
  Note that this seems to crash emulators. YMMV.
The interface also pops up briefly when saving, telling you not to
turn off the system while it saves.

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2.Patch History
---------------
December 24, 2013 - Initial V1.00 Release

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3.Patch Credits
---------------
THE SRW2 TEAM
Main Team:
Gideon Zhi - Project leader, romhacker, text editor, assembly hacking
TheMajinZenki - Text translation
Ryusui - Title screen
optomon - "Gallant Char" music patch

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4.Known Issues
--------------
I HAVE NOT HAD A CHANGE TO TRANSLATE THE FAMICOM MINI INTERFACE.
You can bring this up by pressing L and R at the same time.
The interface also pops up briefly when saving, telling you not to
turn off the system while it saves.

Please report any bugs, spelling errors, and such
on The Pantheon (http://agtp.romhack.net/pantheon)
Screenshots are preferred, as are savestates.

--------------------------
5.Application Instructions
--------------------------
Quick ROM Info:
512KB (4mbit NES) (shelled inside 4MB a GBA game)

Simply use Lunar IPS (or an equivalent program for MacOS/linux) to apply
the patch to the ROM.

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6.Optional Patches
------------------
Included with the translation are two optional patches. Each comes with an
"undo" patch which will remove the patch's effects from your ROM should you
decide you don't like it. Each patch is entirely standalone from the others,
including the translation, so if for instance you decide you just want Music
Persistence in your Japanese copy of the game, you can apply that one patch
and be on your way.

MUSIC PERSISTENCE
Super Robot War titles are strategy games, characterized by units moving
around a map and attacking one another in special animated sequences, during
which music plays from the player's (or boss's/Elzam's) unit's TV show,
movie, OVA, etc. It's usually a theme song from the show's opening sequence;
in SRW2 it's *always* a theme song from the show's opening sequence, bosses
excepting.

In later SRW titles, the unit's theme music will continue to play
after the animated sequence ends and the game returns you to the map. This
tends to make the games feel more exciting, as the music is generally
designed to get the viewer invested in the show. Older SRW titles, however,
would stop the theme music as soon as the animated sequence ends, and would
start the map music over from the beginning. As a direct result, you never
heard much of the robot's themes OR the map music unless you deliberately
stuck around and waited to listen.

The Music Persistence patch changes the music behavior in SRW2 to be more
like the later games in the series. Once an attack sequence begins and a
theme song starts playing, the theme song will continue to play until either
the turn ends or a unit from a different series takes part in a battle
sequence.

GALLANT CHAR
SRW1 and SRW2 feature the uncomfortably awkward "Tobe! Gundam" theme music
for robots from the Universal Century MS Gundam timeline. It's bright, it's
peppy, it's muzak-y, and it really doesn't fit the frequently serious,
militaristic tone of the shows. Starting with SRW3, Tobe! Gundam was replaced
with "Gallant Char", an orchestral piece that played during combat operations
in the show. Starting with SRW4, different UC conflicts received music from
their respective shows - "The Winner" for 0083 Stardust Memory, "Mobile Suit
Battle" for Zeta, and "Silent Voice" for ZZ - but "Gallant Char" remained
the music of choice for the original Gundam series for quite some time.

This patch replaces "Tobe! Gundam" with "Gallant Char" and brings SRW2's
soundtrack closer in-line with the later entries in the series.