======================================================= ======================Shadow Brain===================== ========================V 1.0========================== Genre: RPG Source language: Japanese Platform: Famicom Patch language: English Author: aishsha/Pennywise E-mail: aishsha@gmail.com yojimbogarrett@gmail.com http://aishsha.blogspot.com http://yojimbo.eludevisibility.org/ ====================================================== Pennywise's comments ====================================================== This translation has been long talked and procrastinated about for years now. It was first suggested to me by an associate and then mulled by aishsha and I until we finally decided to work on it. He did most of the hacking and translation, then I took over for the final rendition with help from a few friends. aishsha did the lion's share as usual. He expanded the ROM, expanded the dialogue box, and a myriad of other hacks. Not to mention translating the game on top of everything. One thing that baffled him and myself was that the programmers treated the stack like normal RAM addresses with routines that r/w from the stack address range. Anyhow, I also contributed to some of the hacking. I didn't like how you could only have one screen of text for the BBS and town info terminals. So, I hacked the game to display multiple screens of text. With the hacking out of the way, I focused on my playthrough and edit of the text. Over many IRC sessions spanning several months, Ryusui and I poured over a ton of text. All the chats, BBS, and town info text were greatly thanks to no more limitations and a variety of misc and story text was made new by us. The game is noteworthy in that it came with a VHS tape that contained the backstory for the game. This video has been uploaded to Youtube, but it's very poor quality. We'd be interested in adding subtitles to the video, but we'd first want to make our own copy of the video. The only problem is that we don't have the means to do that and would welcome help in ripping the VHS. One last tidbit is that this game has some sort of JPOP connection with the band Alfee. There's maybe one or two references to the band in the script and at least one of the band members wrote/composed a song for the game and/or soundtrack. At first glance, the game looks like a blatant Megami Tensei clone. I absolutely hated that game, but actually found this game to be kinda fun. Naturally, the grinding nature of the game was a chore, but there were other aspects about the game I found cool. Most notably, I loved all the chats on the Network. It provided a lot of context and character to the game, that otherwise wouldn't have been there. The game might also be slightly unfinished. There are various locations in Playland that don't do anything. They are either there for show or were intended to be something that never panned out. ====================================================== aishsha's comments ====================================================== Well, this project started like ages ago for me when a person (I think it was ASchultz, one of my first editors) approached me with a suggestion about this game. I looked into, found it quite complicated back then and postponed the project till better times. Better times came in year 2014 when I was already confident enough in my skills. The point is that this is one of the hardest hacks I have ever done, and I've basically redone a good part of the game to make it run expanded and fit all the hacks back in, while testing everything to make sure the game wasn't broken. The game itself, as Pennywise already mentioned is a SMT-like false 3D crawler in a (surprise-surprise for poor ol' NES) totally sci-fi world. For those of you willing to know the whole plot I highly recommend reading the intro script and watching a video on YouTube (both are found in the same file attached to this very archive). Otherwise you'll be thrown out in a middle of nowhere - that's how this game actually starts. In any case, enjoy the game we've put so many efforts to, and BUY the game if you like it! ====================================================== Patching Instructions ====================================================== Due to changes made to the ROM, the patch is in BPS format. You either want to download a program called beat by byuu or Floating IPS, which can be found here: http://www.smwcentral.net/?p=section&a=details&id=11474 Apply either patch to the Japanese version of the game: Shadow Brain (J).nes We would be highly grateful, if you find some time to contact us with proposals or corrections. Information on found bugs or corrections would be highly appreciated. P.S. Support the game industry by buying used games! Even if the money doesn't go to the developers directly, as the games become rare and harder to find, the price goes up, and people become more inclined to buy new releases "while they can!" ====================================================== Credits go to: aishsha - hacking, translation, testing Pennywise - hacking, testing, editing Ryusui - translation harmony7 - misc spot translations cccmar - testing Hubz - testing Xanathis - testing All those who contributed into this process. ====================================================== Compiled by Pennywise. April 2016.