DARK LAW ~ MEANING OF DEATH ENGLISH TRANSLATION V1.00 Copyright 2007 by Aeon Genesis http://agtp.romhack.net ToC 0. Before You Begin 1. About Dark Law 2. Patch History 3. Patch Credits and Contributors 4. Known issues 5. Application Instructions 6. Troubleshooting ------------------ 0.Before You Begin ------------------ Dark Law has evidenced a few issues with emulators. These include the corruption of sprites after a battle in the "King of the Abyss" scenario and the corruption of the palette during "The Search." These were duplicatable in the Japanese version, and as such are probably not caused by the patch. ---------------- 1.About Dark Law ---------------- Dark Law is a rather nontraditional RPG for the SNES. It focuses on exploration and storytelling over combat; some of the skills that the player's characters can learn are even useful for the adventure mode. It is told through a series of short vignettes ("Scenarios.") Some are interrelated, but most are essentially standalone. It is a very dark and macabre game, probably not good to play if you're depressed, but it does some very interesting things with the genre as a whole. It feels like Dark Law was trying to be a pencil & paper game, but was coated with a layer of J-RPG paint. It's quite good. --------------- 2.Patch History --------------- Dark Law was started... oh god, I don't even remember when. Years ago, certainly; it originally belonged to Haeleth, who passed it off to me last July, and I promptly sat on it and did nothing. I picked it up just after Christmas, spending much of the State of the Union address working on the first (of many) variable-width font routines that the game would receive. It currently stands at 15 font routine hacks: 3 8x16s, 2 8x8s, and TEN VWFs. In retrospect, the project was probably more trouble that it was worth, but hey, it's done and I'm not complaining. March 7, 2007 - Initial Version 1.00 release --------------- 3.Patch Credits --------------- THE DARK LAW TEAM Gideon Zhi - Project leader, romhacker, assembly hacker Haeleth - Script Translation SPECIAL THANKS Huge props to my betatesters for not only completing the game in such a timely fashion, but also for being so dilligent in reporting the numerous issues that remained in the beta patch. I can only hope we've squashed everything... -------------- 4.Known Issues -------------- --We encountered an issue during playtesting in which some NPC data ended up getting corrupted. Specifically, McStarr's and Antoniana's stats, name, and equipment got mucked up pretty badly... McStarr had 99/0 Aim and Antoniana's equipment would cause the game to crash. I BELIEVE this to be a side-effect of another issue we squashed in the meantime, but I can't be sure. If you encounter anything like this, PLEASE let us know. --Character sprites can get corrupted after a battle in the "King of the Abyss" scenario. This is an emulator issue and is not my responsibility. --The palette can get corrupted during the "The Search" scenario. This is an emulator issue and is not my responsibility. Please report any other bugs, spelling errors, and such on The Pantheon (http://donut.parodius.com/agtp) Screenshots are preferred, as are (ZSNES format) savestates. -------------------------- 6.Application Instructions -------------------------- If using ZSNES, make sure that the patch has the same name as your ROM. In other words, if your ROM is called "darklaw.smc" make sure the patch is "darklaw.ips" okay? If you're using a Mac, a Mac IPS patcher is available. Check the AGTP Links page. If you're using a copier, you probably already know how to patch the ROM :) Be sure to apply the patch to a clean copy of the ROM, and make sure your ROM DOES NOT HAVE A HEADER!. If you right-click the ROM and select Properties, it should read "Size: 4.00 MB (4,194,304 bytes)". SNESTool will remove all of your headers for you easily, and you can find it at http://www.romhacking.net In the Utilities section, simply search for snestool. An easy way to tell if the game has a header or not is that if you apply the patch and the game does not boot, your game very likely does not have a header. ----------------- 6.Troubleshooting ----------------- --If the game does not run at all, read the above section on application instructions (specifically on header removal.) Make sure your ROM is not read-only when you remove its header. --If McStarr or Antoniana are corrupted, LET ME KNOW. Thank you. --If the game crashes due to a sprite corruption after a battle in "King of the Abyss" it's probably an emulator issue. Sorry. --If the palette gets corrupted during "The Search" it's probably an emulator issue. Sorry.