Rent A Hero

[Zz Badnusty]

Wasnt the game updated with the Shenmue engine and released on Xbox in Japan, and I thought that it was also translated for North America but then never released?

Edit: oh duh, it was Rent-A-Hero No.1 on Dreamcast which was the remake of the Mega Drive version. And it apparently used the Spikeout engine. Then it was indeed later translated for the X-box.
I'd rather see a patch for an English Dreamcast version than a Genesis version.

[Benjamin]

You know what? It really sucks... The game? No.
It really sucks that several complete translations are released every year for the SNES and nothing for the Mega Drive.

I'd attribute that to the SNES being thought of as the RPG system of the two, and that RPG fans -- the kind of nerds who'd have the interest and time in learning and translating such Japanese games -- flock to the SNES over the Genesis. I've no proof to back this up, but it's what I believe given how many people are familar with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and only at best know the Genesis for Phantasy Star.

[Barone]

Agostinho, do you have the ASM skills to do a script dump of any of the untranslated games? I don't, but since you're a far more proficient hacker than I am, I thought you might know how to do it. That could get the ball rolling, and then if a translator is found...

(The Genesis game I'd most like to target is Ninja Burai Densetsu, but even translating a piddly game like Osomatsu-Kun would be something. Also I think NBD is being worked on, maybe.)

That's something that I plan to do in the near future. However, like you said, I need to find/pay/have sex/marry someone that knows both English and Japanese.
Usually, a good start would be a game that uses no compression for the text data; like Illusion City on Sega CD. 6 of 8 floppies of the original MSX version (AFAIK the dialogues are exactly the same in the Mega CD version; probably extra dialogues only in the exclusive cutscenes of this version) were already translated from Japanese to English.
I think that a good "start" could be try to put the English content, already available, in the Mega CD version.

I don't like the usual way that the groups use to manipulate those scripts, using command-line stuff. I would like to do something very simple with a very basic GUI, probably something in C# (I'm not exactly a Linux lover), that could use specific profiles/components for each game... That would probably help to have more people working on translations.
Also, you usually don't find any docs about the translation job that was done for some completed work, like for Nadia's translated rom. Chilly Willy and, in the past, Fonzie are the only guys in our scene, AFAIK, that care about documentation and like to share it with other people (Sik usually shares everything that he does with sources but I don't remember about docs).
We will go nowhere just making stuff hard programmed without trying to build some understandable docs and sharing them.

At this moment, I need to shut my mouth, finish the few stupid little hacks that I'm doing and then move on to something more interesting.

I'd attribute that to the SNES being thought of as the RPG system of the two, and that RPG fans -- the kind of nerds who'd have the interest and time in learning and translating such Japanese games -- flock to the SNES over the Genesis. I've no proof to back this up, but it's what I believe given how many people are familar with Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and only at best know the Genesis for Phantasy Star.

My true guess is exactly the same of yours.
I was just playing with my successive let downs after seeing so many unfinished translations.

[Christuserloeser]

At this moment, I need to shut my mouth, finish the few stupid little hacks that I'm doing and then move on to something more interesting.

What are these hacks ? - I am really interested to learn more about what you are working on! (no matter how insignificant you think they might be in your opinion)

[Barone]

Sorry for the off topic...

Competent hackers usually don't talk about what they are doing and just release their work when completed.
As I am incompetent, I don't have problems to talk about this, ehehe.

Fastest 1 - This is the one that I'm working harder. It's an old and forgotten F1 sim. The gameplay is fantastic but the menus are awful (bad Engrish all the way) (you also can't return to the previous menu in most of the screens, which is pretty annoying) and all names (teams, drivers...) were not the real ones. I'm just fixing the issues and putting the real names. This one is like 70% done.

Super Hang-On (Rev00) - Recently, I managed to overclock my MD (it's a JP VA5/VA6 model, usually said the best for overclocking) to 12MHz (it works well for 95% of the game with no glitches or any sort of problems; boots perfectly in this clock as well) and so I'm enjoying the first revision since it has no frame limitation by the VInt like most of the other games or the Rev01. I managed to change the scrolling speed a bit (in the lower speed it goes faster than before 'cause i thought that it was way to slow until around 100-120Km/h) and push a tad further (@12MHz the limitation using the turbo for the scrolling speed was in software and not in processing anymore) but quickly I reach the processing limitation again (I think that I could push even faster scrolling speed if it was clocked at 15MHz, for an example).
But my main target, initially, was to discover how to disable/remove the frame limitation by VInt from other games, like Galaxy Force II, so I could enjoy them better using overclock (such games are totally limited by software, so you can't see noticeable gains using overclock at this moment). I'm still working on it.
The last, but not least, target is to add support for the analog controller XE-1AP (released in 1989). Only five MD games support this controller (aside from 2 for the 32X and another 3 for the Sega CD) but it's damn good for racing games and "3D" shooters. Fastest 1 and Galaxy Force II supports it and those game play a lot better (especially GFII) using it.
The controller had multi-platform support and works with PC88, PC98, X68000, FM Towns, PCE (using an very rare adapter; but I'm pretty sure that guys like Drakon could design one) (5 games supported by the PCE IIRC) and MD. Probably, X68000 is the platform with better support since Dempa (Dempa Micomsoft was the creator of the controller) developed several games for the platform. Super Hang-On on the X68000 supports the XE-1AP, so you have controls very close to the arcade ones (almost all this arcade games from 1985 on were already using analog controllers).
I want to add support in the MD version, so I could play the game much like in the arcade in terms of precision and reaction speed. My goal is to bring some of the MD ports closer to the arcades and their high-end platforms counterparts (like FM Towns and X68000).
I will also add an option in that A+Start menu to change the reaction speed of the steering in digital mode, since a lot of people complains about it (I think the developers target the precision rather than reaction speed and I would have done the same, but looks like that a lot of people prefer a quicker and more unrealistic steering mode).
I have the source code of the XE-1AJ driver (is another controller that uses exactly the same analog protocol; a version of this controller was manufactured by Sharp and is well known as CyberStick) and even without it doesn't seem to be all that difficult to hack the driver used in another MD games to reuse it. Eke Eke implemented support for this controller in his Genesis Plus emulator and the protocol is somewhat similar to the one used for the Sega Mouse, but with much more triggers (buttons) and with a bit different recognition routine.
RoadBlasters is another game that I would love to play with the analog controller...
Yes, I have two of these weird ass analog controllers, so it's a completely selfish job but I really don't care since I will enjoy it .

Marble Madness (Tengen version) - This one was just a little fix. I just increased the time amount that was given in the very easy difficulty since it was adjusted even harder than the arcade version. And I fixed the move scale that is used to play the game with the mouse flipped-down (as a trackball). Originally it had a max scale value of 3.00 and it was ridiculously slow (impossible to finish the game using the mouse IMO), so I set the default value as 9.99 now and the max value to 15.00; it's working very well with the mouse now. This one is a little fix;/improvement tha tis already done but I'm holding it until complete the other stuff.

Dahna: Megami Tanjō - I'm just making a very little editing (Game Genie level) to increase the initial hp amount and the number of continues, thus making the game less difficult and frustrating.

Paddle games (SMS) - This is stupid, really. There was a thread in SMS Power showing how to force the JP mode (to use the analog paddle controller the games HAVE to be booted in JP mode, other wise the controls will be screwed up) of three Paddle controller games by writing "0" in some Hex values (like replacing 4 Hex values). However, it can vary a bit from game to game and nobody had pointed the addresses that should be edited in the other paddle games. I just wasted 30 min and now all games are patched.

There's more stuff going on, but the rest I still don't know if I will be able to do so I will not talk about.
I don't pretend to produce hacks like UMKT or something, adding tons of content... My goal is to improve what we already have and mainly what is already OK/good but has some problems that detract a lot from the game. I think that this way I can make more contributions than if I would go for new games or big hacks; since they take muuuch more time to be completed.
Another goal, like I said above, is to bring the MD arcade ports closer to their high-end versions. I really don't plain to spent a ton of money with FM Towns or X68000, so I just want to have a good poor men's option, ehehhe, and since the MD is good for overclocking, has a compatible analog controller and a CD add-on... This seems to be the perfect platform to do it.

[Genesis Knight]

Dang, what the hell? I would rep you, but I guess I did too recently. Oh well! Suffice it to say that I tried; those are some sweet projects you've got going on.

[Melf]

Damn, those are sweet! Don't worry GK, I repped him for you!

[Genesis Knight]

Damn, those are sweet! Don't worry GK, I repped him for you!

Thanks, you got my back!

[goldenband]

Agostinho, all that sounds great! I'm especially interested in whether you're able to increase the framerate in Galaxy Force II since I've been playing that recently. The Fastest 1 fixes/restorations will also be very well-received, I'm sure.

[Barone]

Thanks a lot for the support, guys... It was a great incentive.

I'll keep praying for someone to finish the Rent A Hero translation; the game looks really cool.