User blog:RottenBlock/System 3.0 Compilation, Part 1

So, we begin the next wave.

System 1 has some good older games in it, but as some of my follow-up posts should show, it was kind of dodgy and super-inconsistent. Now we hop ahead to System 3.0, Alicesoft's first attempt to standardize. If everything goes well (and it won't), prepping for System 3.0 should unlock every single game on the platform for localization in one sweep, from Prostudent G to Ayumi-chan's Story Live Action.

And then I guess I'll go back and add some peripheral support for a few System 2 hint disks that only I care about, you know, whatever.

This update to Sys0Decompiler provides "first draft" support for System 3.0 decompilation and compilation, as well as a change to how we handle $ statements to make processing System 3.0's version easier, and also to put it in line with Sys3Decompiler. But like with Little Vampire, I'll want to test System 3.0 support on a full project. Thankfully, we have an option in front of us that's both quick and thorough: transfer the existing Rance 4.1 and 4.2 translations into a native 32-bit app so that Windows users can play them without emulation. As one of the last games produced for System 3.0, it should cover nearly if not all the platform's features.

For those who haven't poked around with it, the original 4.1 and 4.2 translations were programmed by SomeLoliCatgirl to work in the following fashion: an injector program runs alongside the original 16-bit apps and corrects the text on the fly rather than directly editing it in data. It does by searching for Japanese text in a data file included with the translation, and replacing it with the corresponding English text in that same file. Unfortunately, it doesn't work if you try a 32-bit variant (or on any other 16-bit System 3.0 games, for that matter), thus the need for a port.

If all else fails, I could copy and paste this translation, but it shouldn't even be that hard: because the translation file is meant to be software-readable, I should be able to create a script that will do the fixes automatically, transferring the translation in an afternoon or two. And then something will inevitably go wrong! But it's a nice thought up to that point!

Once the translation is in place, it'll only be a matter of thorough testing to ironing out any errors on Sys0Decompiler and SysEng's side, as well as hopefully tracking down the few errors I found in the game itself. Famous last words: could be done inside of a month!

It won't, but it'd be nice!

Sys0Decomopiler 0.6: MediaFire