======================================================= ===================Metal Slader Glory================== ==========================V1.00======================== Genre: Visual Novel/Adventure Source language: Japanese Platform: Famicom Patch language: English Author: Pennywise/7Force E-mail: yojimbogarrett@gmail.com peterbarnard84@yahoo.co.jp http://yojimbo.eludevisibility.org/ ====================================================== About Metal Slader Glory ====================================================== Background: What can I possibly say about Metal Slader Glory? The project itself began about 10 years ago when I first got into fan translating and was something of a dream translation for me. I couldn't have done it without kartes, Peter, Eien Ni Hen and all the testers who spent a month going through every inch of the game to make sure it was perfect. Some time around 2007 I was hanging out in this super obscure message board of the Mega Drive hacker, M.I.J.E.T., along with this kartes fellow. kartes also went by guest, g8z et al etc... and was the person responsible for all those starter packs in RHDN's abandoned projects section. Anyhow, I had noticed he had done a starter pack for the SFC version of Slader and so I had asked him if he could do the same for the NES version. Being that he was a helpful guy, he obliged and gave me the tools necessary to get the translation off the ground. Metal Slader Glory is a fairly complex game technically. Not only does it have its own complex scripting system, but it also utilizes a rather large dictionary to compress its text and said text was programmed to use 24 byte pointers so that the ROM bank for every string can be determined without any ASM hacks. You can essentially place the text anywhere in the ROM with virtually no effort. This makes translating a game very simple. Anyhow, kartes modified an older version of the generic script inserter program, Atlas, and I've been using the same program ever since. Despite being handed the keys to the kingdom, the game was still a little too much for me to handle and I put it aside as I polished my skills. It wasn't until perhaps 2011 or 12 that the project was ready to go places. Shortly after I posted a help wanted ad on RHDN, a kind Englishman named Peter translated the script for me over the course of a year. He did an excellent job, but he left out lots of punctuation etc., leaving the script in a sort of unpolished state. To expedite the process of editing, I enlisted the aid of my translator friend Eien Ni Hen to fix it up. Peter did an overall excellent job translating the script, so really no major edits had to be made. One final note is that I expanded the PRG-ROM from 512kb to 1MB to have room to put the translated script in. The game was developed for the MMC5 mapper which was designed to allow for PRG-ROM sizes up to 1MB, but no commercial game ever was that big. So, there currently is no board that supports this translation and since all the flashcarts on the market use a 512kb PRG-ROM, no flashcart currently supports this translation. Please don't bother us for requests to make the translation fit into 512kb. Pester the flashcart devs to make a flashcart that fully supports the MMC5 and ROM sizes up to 1MB. There have only been 2 prior translations that expanded a ROM to 1MB and those were both for Final Fantasy III, but the first expanded the MMC3 past its limitations and the second converted the game to MMC5 allowing for 1MB. I recommend anyone who wants to play this on an NES to contact the developers of flash carts to release a new flashcart that supports ROM sizes up to 1MB. Anyhow, do enjoy the translation. I can't tell you how many years and hours went into making it. ====================================================== Translator's Comments ====================================================== After helping Garrett out with a translation of one of the famicom dragon ball games I was looking for something a little more substantial and It just so happened that the translator he had working on Metal Slader at the time had gone AWOL and so I thought I’d give it a try. A quick google search will reveal a number of abandoned translations of the game and on opening the script it was easy to see why. The amount of text is formidable to say the least, but I set aside some time each day and slowly worked my way through it. The initial translation took around 5 months and once that was complete I started a second pass, tightening up the script and fixing the line breaks. Unfortunately I didn’t think to add the punctuation during this pass so I’m eternally grateful to Eien Ni Hen for stepping in and polishing the script further. I feel I should also mention the game’s creator Yoshimaru Hoshi. I contacted him several times during the project and while he was unable to comment on it in any official capacity, he happily answered all of my questions and it’s clear he still has a great deal of love for the characters and universe he created. I hope our translation has done justice to his original vision. ====================================================== Game Tips ====================================================== There is a special password that will let you access a debug mode. It is: LET'S DEBUG! You can access a secret test screen by pressing Select on the opening credits. ====================================================== Translation Notes ====================================================== Overall the translation stays faithful to the original in all but a couple of sections. The main change was made during the section on the moon where in the Japanese the characters mispronounce the name Vivace during their first visit to the restaurant. Once they find out the true pronunciation they realize the connection to Glory’s creator. This just wasn’t possible to reproduce in English but as luck would have it, only a single line needed to be changed. There are also a number of commands used in multiple places throughout the game that proved difficult because, while you can use the same word in Japanese, they don’t match up so well in English. This is the reason selecting CHECK on colony 3 will knock on the door for example. ====================================================== Patching Instructions ====================================================== The patch is in the BPS format and needs to be applied with byuu's patcher, beat. Or you can use Floating IPS which can be found here: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1040/ Apply the patch to the original Japanese version of the ROM: Metal Slader Glory (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: Pennywise - hacking 7Force - translation kartes - tools Eien ni Hen - script editing, testing rainponcho - misc hacking help cccmar - testing Xanathis - testing ====================================================== Compiled by Pennywise. February 2018.