-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PSMC-ReadMe.txt

This file should be viewed using a mono-spaced font like "Courier".
Use a font size where 79 columns are visible.

Please don't distribute the ROM file in patched form.

Please don't distribute the "PSMCrevB.IPS" file without:
- this file, "ReadMe-DvD_Translations-The_Portopia_Serial_Murder_Case-revB2.txt"
- the "ROM Expander Pro.txt" file
- the "Manual.html" file,
- the "manual" folder with pictures for the Manual.html file
and
- the "PSMC-Map.jpg"

Thanks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        The Portopia Serial Murder Case

                                      AKA

                        PORTOPIA Renzoku Satsujin Jiken
                            Suspense Adventure Game

                      Original Game Copyright 1985 by Enix
             English Translation Copyright 2010 by DvD Translations
             Patch Version: Rev B    Release Date: October 31, 2010
            Manual Version: Rev B2   Release Date: November 12, 2011

                                DvD Translations
                      dvdtranslations.eludevisibility.org

                Rev B Text Translation by: harmony7
                Rev A Text Translation by: shiroi
              Text Dumping and Context by: DvD
                    Manual Translation by: harmony7
   Game, Manual, & ReadMe Text Editing by: DvD, harmony7, & KlD

                   Code Deconstruction 
                      & Re-Programming by: DvD
                          Tile Editing by: DvD

                     NES File Expander by: DvD
                     Secret Word Entry by: harmony7 

                         Alpha testing by: harmony7 & DvD
                          Beta testing by: Radical R, KlD, & Agent Baron

                                ReadMe by: DvD
                                   Map by: DvD & Mika Takamura

                   Old Character Table by: Neil_
        Translation of 1st Two Phrases by: Maht

----------------------------------- CONTENTS ----------------------------------

HINTS & INFO

(1)  Secret Page
(2)  Tips for English speaking players in 2010 and beyond
(3)  Helpful Hints

USING THE PATCH

(4)  Expanding & Patching the ROM file
(5)  Playing the game on an emulator

TRANSLATION DETAILS

(6)  Why It Was Never Relaeased on the NES
(7)  Why DvD chose to translate THIS game
      &
     Why YOU should bother playing THIS game
(8)  DvD's Hacking Comments
(9)  harmony7's Translation Comments - Rev B
(10) shiroi's Translation Comments - Rev A
(11) Radical R's Beta Testing Comments
(12) KlD's Beta Testing Comments
(13) Project Timeline Highlights
(14) Software Used In This Translation

--------------------------------- HINTS & INFO --------------------------------

(1)------------------------------ Secret Page ---------------------------------

  If you manage to complete the game, you will be given a secret code to enter
  in the box at dvdtranslations.eludevisibility.org/portopia.html to view a
  secret page.  The code is case sensitive and doesn't stay on the screen for
  very long, so be ready for it.  This page will show you the 1 line of hidden
  text, the 1 image that you never get to see in the game, and many more
  things that were changed from the original version of the game.  This page
  will continue to be updated whenever we learn anything else about the
  original game.

(2)---------- Tips for English speaking players in 2010 and beyond ------------

* Telephones in Japan:

  Remember this game was made in 1982, so there are no cell phones.  You can
  only call from places that have a phone.

  Phone numbers in Japan are different than U.S. numbers.  Unlike in the U.S.,
  they can have a varying number of digits.  Area codes always begin with a 0
  and can be 2 to 4 digits long.  The rest of the phone number can be between
  6 and 8 digits long, and cannot begin with a 0.  Since only area codes begin
  with a 0, by beginning your dialing with a 0 you are indicating that the
  number you are dialing includes the area code.  Of course, dialing the area
  code is optional if you are calling within the same area code.  A phone
  number may begin with 1, unlike in the U.S., because a 1 isn't a special
  number in Japan.

  Some important numbers that may or may not be useful:

  USA     Japan
  411      104      Phone directory service 
  911      110      Emergency (Police)
  911      119      Emergency (Fire & Medical)

 * Geography: The locations used in this game are real locations in Japan.
   The following is a list of some places you might go to in this game:

  Kobe City:         A city on the coast of Japan, Area Code 078
  Hanakuma:          A part of Kobe City
  Port Island:       A man-made island in Kobe harbor
  Shinkaichi:        Another part of Kobe, a place where American military 
                      people hang out...
  Awajishima Island: Off the coast of Kobe
  Sumoto:            On Awajishima Island
  Hanchou:           The shopping district of Sumoto
  Kyoto:             A city far inland of Kobe

  See "PSMC-Map.jpg" included in the .zip or from the link on the website to
  see these places on a map.

(3)----------------------------- Helpful Hints --------------------------------

* Try every menu command at every location.
  You'll soon start to see which things are always the same and which change
  based on your location and which people happen to be there.
  Sometimes you need to do the same command more than once.  Remember that
  once you have accomplished something in the game, other things you did before
  may have different outcomes if you do them again.

* Remember that the magnifying glass and hammer have to be moved to a specific
  location on the screen.  All the unique screens have at least one important
  location and many screens have more than one.  It is important to make sure
  you use the magnifying glass in the exact location you wish to investigate.
  It may not always be in the center of an object, try looking at different
  areas of an object.  And if you are really stuck, remember to especially
  investigate at and near the scene of a crime with your magnifying glass.
  That's what a good detective would do.

* Don't be afraid to use the hammer to hit things your mother told you not to.

* You cannot ever get stuck in this game.  So feel safe to try everything,
  even if you think it is wrong.  You may get a funny response or look like an
  idiot, but you can never do anything that will get you fired (and prevent
  you from winning the game).

* You are not going to pass the game in one setting.  So, keep detailed notes.
  Write down which actions:
  - added new people to your suspect list
  - allowed you to go to new locations
  - found pieces of evidence
  You'll need this to quickly get back to where you were when you reset or
  turn off your NES before passing the game.

* Sometimes there is more than one way to do something.  So, don't be afraid
  to turn off your NES and start again from the beginning.  If you do things
  in a different order, you may hear information that you weren't able to hear
  the first time around.

* Make a map.

* If you want a general hint as to what to do at any time, just keep hitting
  the 0 key on a phone...

* While playing the game, whenever you are stuck, re-read this section and
  and the hints section in the manual.  Many hints and necessary pieces of
  information are given in both places.

  Good luck!

------------------------------- USING THE PATCH -------------------------------

(4)------------------- Expanding & Patching the ROM file ----------------------

For this translation, before patching the ROM file, you'll need to expand the
ROM file first using a ROM expander.

How to expand and patch the ROM file:

You need:

1) A ROM file.  The file may or may not include the standard 16 byte iNES
   header followed by the program ROM.  With header, the ROM file is 40976
   Bytes in size.

   I'm not telling you how to get the ROM file, but once you do, call
   it "Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken.nes".

2) "ROM Expander Pro.txt" which is included with this patch.

3) For PC users, use ROM Expander Pro.exe, which you can get from the
   DvD Translations website.  It's pretty self explanatory.

   Just make sure your ROM file, called
   "Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken.nes"
   "ROM Expander Pro.txt", and
   "ROM Expander Pro.exe" are all in the same directory and then run
   ROM Expander Pro.

   Regarless of whether your ROM has a header or not, always choose
   "Expand and Add/Replace Header".

   ROM Expander Pro will not modify your original ROM file.  It will
   instead make a copy of the file and modify it calling it
   "The Portopia Serial Murder Case.nes".

   If you don't own a PC, a perl version of ROM Expander Pro is currently
   in development.

   In the mean time you'll have to expand the ROM file on your own using
   a hex editor...

   Expanding using a Hex Editor:

   First, if your ROM file has a header, remove the 16 byte header, the first
   16 bytes of the ROM file.  In other words, remove bytes 0000 through 000F.
   Then triple the first 16 kBytes of the ROM file.   In other words copy bytes
   0000 through 3999 (hex) and then insert them TWICE at the beginning of the
   ROM file.  Finally, insert the following 16 byte header at the beginning of
   the ROM file.

   4E 45 53 1A 04 01 40 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

   Don't worry if you make a mistake on the header, the IPS patch always
   replaces your header with the correct header, but you must make sure you
   have a 16 byte header before using the IPS or it won't work.

4) Patch File: PSMCrevB.IPS

5) An IPS patching program
   Remember to patch the file only after it has been expanded.

   Recommended patching program for IBM PC:

    Snes-Tool.exe by The M.C.A./Elite

   Recommended patching program for Mac:

    UIPS

   Using SNES Tool:

   a) If you haven't already, make a copy of the un-patched ROM.
      You always want to keep the un-patched ROM around for later
      revisions of the patch.
   b) Place an un-patched but expanded ROM file
      (I'll call it PSMC.nes), PSMCrevB.IPS, and
      Snes-Tool.exe in the same directory.
   c) Run Snes-Tool.exe
   d) Type 'U' for "Use IPS"
   e) Press the down arrow key until PSMCREVA.IPS
      is highlighted.
   f) Hit Enter.
   g) Press the down arrow key until PSMC.NES is highlighted.
   h) Hit Enter.
   i) Hit 'Q' to quit.

(5)-------------------- Playing the game on an emulator -----------------------

Original game ROM size: 2 16k program ROM banks
                          &
                        1  8k character ROM bank
                      = 40 kBytes
                      = 40960 Bytes

Games designed for the original Famicom/NES hardware could be 1 or 2 16k
program banks and 1 8k character bank.  Later, all games made for the NES used
special mapper chips to expand the size of the addressable ROM beyond these
limitations.  As this game only uses 2 program banks, it is the largest a game
for the NES could be WITHOUT using any mapper chips.  So, almost all emulators
can play the original ROM file, since it doesn't use a mapper, but unlike the
emulators I list below, most can't handle the sound and many get the colors
wrong.  If an emulator can't play the original, it won't play the translation,
but also be aware that since we are changing the mapper some emulators that
can play the original can't play the translation.

For the PC, I recommend one of the FCE Ultra/FCEUXD/FCEUx emulators or
Nestopia.  They support Mapper 68 and get the sound and colors correct.
NEStopia also works great for the Mac.  Any emulator that can run "After
Burner 2" by Sunsoft should work with the translated ROM.  If you try to run
the translated ROM in an emulator that can't handle the mapper, and the
emulator still tries to run the game, the game will technically run fine, but
2/3 of the text will be really messed up, so don't bother.

Don't try to use Nesticle, iNES, or LoopyNES; they don't work.  If you've got
a Mac, you'll need OS X, as all the Classic emulators don't work.

The game came out way before NES games had batteries and it doesn't have a
password save like Hydlide.  Using an emulator, you can use save-states to save
your game, and I recommend it.  Just remember, if you get stuck, you might see
different clues when you play the game from the beginning if you do things in
a different order, so don't hesitate to do this.  The game is short enough for
this to not be too painful, and that is what all the Japanese kids had to do
when they played the game.  In fact, the Famicom version made at least one part
of the game easier/shorter than the original PC version, probably to make it
easier to restart the game and quickly get to the same point where you left
off.

----------------------------- TRANSLATION DETAILS -----------------------------

(6)----------------- Why It Was Never Relaeased on the NES --------------------

Because the game ROM is so small and it doesn't use any mapper chips, this 
game was relatively cheap to produce, but tough for the designers to fit
everything in.  Not counting the unused text and graphics, there were literally
2 bytes of unused space in this ROM.  Because English text uses roughly twice
as many characters to say the same thing in Japanese, and the original game
used MTE compression on the Japanese text, we needed to expand the size of the
ROM file to fit in the text.  Although I can think of a lot of other reasons
this wasn't ported to the NES, (graphic violence, adult themes, etc.), the fact
that it needed to be expanded was a big factor.

(7)------------------ Why DvD chose to translate THIS game --------------------
                                       &
------------------- Why YOU should bother playing THIS game -------------------

Since the Famicom version of Door Door is completely in English (I know for
sure because I made myself play all 50 levels of the game), and Bongo & Shih 
Tzu have graced us with an excellent full translation of Just Breed, Portopia 
was the only remaining game that Enix produced for the NES that had not been
translated, professionally or by one of us crazy people who do it for free.
That alone got me interested in the game.  But, as I learned more about it,
I realized how important a role this game had played in the history of console
gaming.

You may already know this, but the people behind early Enix are as follows.

Enix          = Yukinobu Chida  - Producer
CHUNSoft      = Koichi Nakamura - Programmer
Armor Project = Yuji Horii      - Designer
Bird Studio   = Akira Toriyama  - Artist (DragonBall Z)
                Koichi Sugiyama - Professional Musician

The chronology of games that Enix produced for the Famicom/NES is:

1) Door Door         -                CHUNSoft
2) PORTOPIA Renzoku 
   Satsujin Jiken    - Armor Project, CHUNSoft
3) Dragon Quest*     - Armor Project, CHUNSoft, Bird Studio, Koichi Sugiyama
4) Dragon Quest II*  - Armor Project, CHUNSoft, Bird Studio, Koichi Sugiyama
5) Dragon Quest III* - Armor Project, CHUNSoft, Bird Studio, Koichi Sugiyama
6) Dragon Quest IV*  - Armor Project, CHUNSoft, Bird Studio, Koichi Sugiyama
7) Just Breed        - Quintet

*Called "Dragon Warrior" in North America.

Some more stuff about this game:

(Much of the information in the following paragraphs I directly quote from
 the Atari HQ review of Manga Dragon Quest e no Michi
  www.atarihq.com/tsr/books/fc/dqm.html
 and what CHAZumaru posted on
  www.mmcafe.com/cgi-bin/forums/bbs/messages/11480.shtml.)

In 1982, the fledgling game company Enix, founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima,
decided that instead of hiring programmers and then having them make games,
they would sponsor a national game programming contest to recruit all of
their programmers.

Yuji Horii was a journalist for Jump Comics when he covered the game
design contest, and while covering the contest he decided to participate.
Koichi Nakamura placed with his game, Door Door, and Horii placed with Love
Match Tennis; both were hired by Enix.  Together, the winners all used their
prizes, trips to America, and went to AppleFest '83 in San Francisco.  There
they got to play the RPG, Wizardry, for the first time.  Once he returned home,
Horii bought an Apple to play the Wizardry on.  He continued worked part-time
for Jump.

Enix started out by releasing the 13 winners of the contest in February of
1983.  They were originally programmed for NEC PC-8801, PC-8001, NEC PC-6001, 
Sharp X1, MZ-80K, MZ-80B, and Fujitsu Micro FM-7 and FM-8, all Japanese personal
computers.  Later that same year, Horii wrote and directed PORTOPIA Renzoku
Satsujin Jiken for the NEC PC-8801.  Along with 7 other games it was released
in June.  This version of the game, and those versions ported all of the
other PC platforms, did not have the Wizardry style dungeon crawler portion
that exists in the Famicom version.  The game had a crude text parser that
required you to type two words like "get" "book" to do all of your actions.
Also, screens had to be drawn with lines and fills which actually took some
time.  Still, the game was a huge hit and the inspiration for all future
Japanese visual novels, much like how DQ is the source of all modern Japanese
RPGs.  For instance, one could argue Snatcher was to PORTOPIA what Final
Fantasy I was to Dragon Quest I.

It was quickly ported to other NEC systems such as the NEC PC-6001,
PC-6001mkII, and PC-6601.  Eventually ports of the game for other PCs such as
the Sharp X1, the FM-7/8, and MSX were done by others and released by Enix.
Enix continued to make games for the NEC line of PCs and other PCs.  Many were
similar in style to PORTOPIA.

When the Famicom was released, Enix first ported Door Door to it on July 18,
1985.  It did well enough that Horii wanted to work on Dragon Quest next, but
Nakamura and Chida agreed that, although they'd love to release an RPG for the
FC, the time wasn't right yet as the console was still fully an action game
platform.

So it was decided to first port PORTOPIA Renzoku Satsujin Jiken on the console
to test how well an adventure game would do on the Famicom.  To move the game
over to a system that didn't have a keyboard, a system using menus and cursors
to enter commands had to be devised.  And the graphics, although crude, due to 
the limited graphics capabilites of the Famicom when mapper chips are not used,
were drawn very quickly when moving from one room to another.  These two
changes made the game go much faster.  To counter this out, the Famicom
version was much bigger with multiple added locations and one major character
added.  Most agree that even though you couldn't save the game on the Famicom,
it was the superior version.  Again, unlike Dragon Quest, PORTOPIA was small
enough that it didn't require a mapper chip for expanding the ROM beyond the
addressable space of the Famicom, which kept the costs down.  Plus, porting the
successful PORTOPIA was much less work than creating a new game from scratch.
Still, I can tell you that it did require some fancy programming to get all of
the text and decision making aspects to fit in such a small space.  And, as I
said before, the whole dungeon crawler element was added, which the time they
spent developing was useful for testing the ablities of the Famicom to handle
an RPG in the style of Wizardry.

As it turns out, PORTOPIA sold rather well.  The console gamers in the
Japanese market showed interest in a game that required thinking instead of
just button-mashing.  Chida and Enix were now convinced that a console RPG
was the best next step.  Work on Dragon Quest began.  The general scenario was
done by Horii, and Nakamura made the game system.  He and Chida decided on a
combination of the overworld from Ultima and the battle and stats screens from
Wizardry.  For some reason, possibly to save space in the ROM, unlike PORTOPIA,
they decided to do the dungeons in a new style, that of the Ultima overworld. 
For DQ, Enix hired professionals in the areas of graphics and music, to improve
the two things that PORTOPIA really could have used some help with!  Sugiyama,
sent in a consumer response card from one of Enix's other original 13 games,
Morita Kazurou no Shogi, a japanese chess game.  The crew decided to meet him
after seeing this card and he was contracted to make the DQ music.  The plan
to include Sugiyama was originally met by Nakamura's protest, but only until
meeting with Sugiyama and learning of his love for gaming.  Toriyama, of
Dragon Ball fame, whom Horii had met in the days of their both doing work for
Shonen Jump Comics, was contracted to make the monster graphics.  And the rest
is history!

In case you didn't know, Yuji Horii made a sequel to PORTOPIA in 1984 for a
company named LoginSoft called:

  Hokkaidou Rensa Satsujin
      Okhotsk ni Kiyu

If was ported to the Famicom on June 27, 1987, between Dragon Quest II and
III, by LoginSoft.

And... no, I am not planning on translating it...  But, if anyone else is,
contact us, as both harmony7 and I would be interested in contributing to
the project.

A third game, in the loosely related trilogy, this time published by Enix, is:

  Karuizawa Yukai Annai    

written in May 1985, originally for the NEC PC-8801.  It was never ported to
any console.

"Itadaki Street" for the Famicom was also designed by Horii.  It was created
by LoginSoft and published by ASCII.  One of the newer versions of this game
was released by Square-Enix for the PS2 contains characters from both Dragon
Quest and Final Fantasy.

So, let's recount what makes The POPTOPIA Serial Murder Case special:

1) According to multiple sources, PORTOPIA was THE FIRST ADVENTURE GAME MADE
for the a Japanese PC AND the first adventure game made for the Famicom.  So,
whereas Dragon Quest is the granddad of all console RPGs, this is, in many
respects, the great-granddad.

2) The ONLY Adventure, RPG, or Action RPG titles ever made for the Famicom that
used the original Famicom hardware only (no mapper chips to extend the games
ROM size) are: PORTOPIA and Hydlide.  Other games of this size, like Namco's
"The Tower of Druaga" and Game Arts/Square's first release "Thexder", that have
some elements of adventure, are not what I would call Action RPGs.  Hydlide and
PORTOPIA were ported from and to multiple Japanese PCs along with the Famicom.
But only PORTOPIA was really improved for the Famicom release.

3) When asked for the first time a story in a game really struck him, Hideo
Kojima, the man behind Konami's Metal Gear series, was quoted as saying:
"It was when I played Portopia Murder Case (Famicom) by Yuji Horii
(Dragon Quest).  Along with my encountering Super Mario Bros., experiencing
this game led to my working in this industry... There's mystery, a 3D dungeon,
humor, and a proper background and explanation of why the murderer committed
the crime.  That is why there was drama in this game.  My encountering this
game expanded the potential of video games in my mind."
(from Greg Kasavin's article for Game Stop)

4) Lastly, the game is not simply a choose-your-own-adventure with screens and
objects, like it may seem at first.  Incredibly they were even able to fit in
a dungeon crawler portion to the game!... the part of Wizardry that didn't make
it into Dragon Quest!

5) This game is so good, Square-Enix recently ported it again, with renewed
graphics and even music!  Now if you live in Japan and can read Japanese you
can play it on your docomo/au/SoftBank mobile phone.  See it for yourself, at:
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/mobile/game/mysteries/portopia/

(8)------------------------- DvD's Hacking Comments ---------------------------

Rev B:

For Rev. B of the traslation, I changed the mapper to Sunsoft 68.  It is a much
more common mapper and essentially just as easy to use as 78.  For the newest
versions of FCEUx I had to make an addition that loaded in the graphics tables
at the start, as the emulator didn't preload the first two tables of graphics.
I also had to make some change for the ending to work right... but I can't
really remember exactly what I did...  I removed the unused sprite graphics and
code dealing with them, moved some background tiles to sprites, and now made
placed new code to write the new sprites.  This freed up some more tiles for:
- more squishy tiles so that the menu text looks much better,
  finally we can see the words "Investigate" and "Magnifying"
- we use differently colored brackets to highlight key words
- we added a (R) character
- other things
Lastly, I made a change to be able to display the border tiles around the phone
buttons in the body of the text which we use for effect in one special place...

As far as the text, harmony7 and I edited the whole thing together with a
special program he wrote so we could keep track of what we agreed on and what
we changed.  It took an extremely long time to do this, but everyone beta
testing it really likes the results.

Rev A:

Anyway, since the game is so small, I thought it would be relatively easy to
work on.  Boy, was I wrong!  Because the game ROM is so small, there is
literally no unused space in the ROM.  Not only are the text and graphics
compressed, but Nakamura even had to compress the rest with something I call
PseudoCode just to make it all fit.

Unlike a simple table, PseudoCode is like a whole different language that the
game reads with a custom interpreter.  The main type of PseudoCode is used for
displaying all the 496 pieces of text below the window.  Along with displaying
this text, and performing if-then statements, this code can jump to other
pieces of PseudoCode or call portions of the normal code; that is really what
makes it different from just a complex compression table.  2 other types of
PseudoCode are used for the handling the menus and the magnifying glass/hammer
location checking. I wrote custom disassemblers for the main PseudoCode and
for the menus.  You can see the output of them for yourself using Table Dumper
Pro from the DvD Translations website.  The last PseudoCode I just disassembled
by hand.

Because all this compression was already in place, there was nothing left
for me to compress.  I had to expand the ROM with a mapper chip to fit in the
English text.  But, I only needed a really basic chip that simply doubles the
lower bank of program ROM as this is where all the 496 blocks of text are
stored.  I would simply swap it based on which of the pieces of text need to
be displayed at any moment.

It turned out that Mapper 78, the Irem 74HC161/32 chip was perfect.  With it
you could have any number of program banks replace the first program bank, but
not change the second program bank--exactly what I needed.  You can switch
character banks with it too, but I didn't need that.  Supposedly, "several
Japanese Irem titles use this mapper", but I could only find two.

* Uchuusen - Cosmo Carrier  by Jaleco
* Holy Diver                by irem

And they switch banks quite differently, so in reality they are actually two
completely different mapper chips.  Holy Diver's mapper needed a special 256
byte table to work... yuck, I didn't have that kind of room to waste.  But
with Uchuusen's mapper, you simply load the bank number you want into register
A and then execute this 4-byte piece of code.  Easy and efficient.

tay            ;A8
sta $d548,y    ;99 48 D5

Of course, not all emulators support Mapper 78, but FCE Ultra does, and it
gets the sound and colors right too.  One thing, FCE Ultra didn't like it
when I simply doubled the lower bank, I had to triple it as it only likes an
even number of total program banks with Mapper 78, something Uchuusen and Holy
Diver both have, so I guess that's fair; although RockNES was okay with it
either way.  Looking at how much space we use, I could have fit the text in
if I had only doubled the first bank, but I would have had to actually use
the text compression table for more than just the people who are speaking and
character names.  By tripling the first bank, I had to get lucky on fitting
in my more complicated bank switching code.  After writing it as efficiently
as I could, I still needed 1 byte.  Arrgh!  So, I modified the code that
calls it to do things in a more efficient way and put two bytes of it there.
And thus I didn't have to utilize the text compression table for
anything but names and I didn't have to cut out ANY of shiroi's text.

But, the bigger issue is that this game relies heavily on the text being
correct to be interesting.  The script was initially translated without any
context.  In that state, I was able to alpha test the game, but aspects of the
story didn't really make sense.  So extensive analysis of the code had to be
done to determine when pieces of text are displayed in the game.  Every piece
of text was edited to not only have the individual sentences make sense, but to
make the whole story make sense.  It was a VERY time consuming process.

There were 2 pieces of text in the game that you couldn't see.
One was due to an obvious coding typo.  I fixed it so you can see it.
Enix may not have noticed this one, as it doesn't affect the game,

There is one picture drawn with some sprite graphics that you can't see.
Pass the game and I'll give you a link to a page that shows you both the text
and graphics you can't see.

There are many items/events that seem important but are not actually
necessary to pass the game.

The game has one true bug.
The bug would not prevent you from passing the game but would make you re-do
something you had already done.  I felt it was okay to remove this bug and
still be a faithful translation because:
1) I'm sure it is a bug.
2) I'm sure Enix was soon aware of this bug after releasing the game in Japan
   and would have removed it before a North American release, had there been
   one.
3) The bug was common enough for Radical R to actually stumble upon it in his
   initial beta testing.
4) I had done so much work analyzing the ROM that fixing it was easy.

Since the game is port, the graphics that are not used in the final game are
from a scene in the original game but weren't used possibly because there
wasn't enough room for code to display them in this version of the game.

The text you can't see, and a new optional area in the game where you can do
somthing that seems really important, but in reality has no affect on the game,
are closely related.  I believe this part of the game may have been
changed over in the port because it was not possible to save the game in the
Famicom version, and making the player do this part over and over every time
the game was restarted would have been really annoying.

Once again, shiroi worked with me on this as a translator.  I dumped the menus
and game speech in January 2004 and shiroi quickly finished an initial
translation of the menus.  But, the whole project took practically two years!
Essentially, the last year and half was spent finding all the context for the
496 phrases used in the game, editing the text and testing the game.  I saw no
point in releasing this translation until I felt it both complete and polished,
unlike some other translations I've seen come out in these last two years...

Anyway, many thanks to shiroi for hanging in with me until we finished this
thing.  You know I can be a little anal.  Thanks to KlD, my wife, for helping
me out with testing and editing.  Thanks to all our beta testers, we now know
where people would have gotten stuck.  Thanks especially to Radical R, for
passing the game so quickly and getting stuck so few times, and for helping to
proofread not only the game but this document too.  I hope to work with you
again in the future.

(9)---------------- harmony7's Translation Comments - Rev B -------------------

So here I sit at Starbucks Coffee one day in late October, 2010, trying to
recall all that we've put into the project.  I've actually been a part of this
project since 4 years ago.

I'm harmony7, and there actually may be a few of you out there who remember me
as the translator for Final Fantasy V, back when I was part of a group called
RPGe.  I am Japanese, and though at that time I lived in California, I have
moved back to Japan since then.

One day in 2006, I happened to come across a notice at romhacking.net that
someone named DvD had just released a translation for Portopia.  I was excited
since it was a game I'd known since I was very young.

Upon trying out this translation, I noticed that the language could use some
help.  The original Japanese game having been one of my favorites, I felt it
would be great if the project could be improved.  I contacted DvD and intro-
duced myself, and we decided to work on a revision B.

It had been years since I'd involved myself with a localization project, and
I'd forgotten the amount of work that goes into one.

Granted that the actual time we've spent on the game was just a fraction of the
4 years, and that both DvD and I have been tremendously busy with work and
family, we are glad to finally be able to release this project.  We have made
improvements to most of the text in the game, and we now believe that it flows
better, and that some of the mistranslations have been fixed.  Our beta testers
seemed to like the new text, and we hope you do too.

It's not an easy game, but we hope you will do your best to complete it on your
own.  It's the most rewarding when you do.  Good luck.

(10)---------------- shiroi's Translation Comments - Rev A --------------------

wow, two years on this one game. without any kanji, it was sometimes a little
tricky, but we muddled through i guess. i ended up really liking this game.
poor little yasu-kun! anyway, i don't really have that much to add here,
just to say thanks to DvD and KlD for putting up with me. I hope everybody has
fun with the game!

(11)------------------ Radical R's Beta Testing Comments ----------------------

Rev B:

Sorry it took so long.  Real Life is a drag.  But I managed to find the time to
get this done! I hope you'll enjoy this as much as I did.  Don't get lost in
the maze!

Rev A:

Well, what is there to say? I saw the post from King Mike on romhacking.net and
figured since my translator had disappeared for a while (Real life is such a
burden) that I could do some beta-testing, since I have had some experience
with Rom-hacking - Yes, I'm THAT Radical R.. So I emailed DvD and after a few
emails, I was set. The part I hated the most was the dungeon crawler. I always
seem to get lost in those. But I completed the game and I can honestly say that
it wasn't who I expected. Who was it? Play the game yourself; it's worth it.
Thanks to DvD for putting up with me when I got lost. Also, thanks to KlD for
giving me hints even though she wasn't supposed to (just kidding :P). I look
toward to the next project I get.

(12)--------------------- KLD's Beta Testing Comments -------------------------

Rev B:

This one is a SO much better translation!  The humor really comes through and
the story truly makes sense now.  I totally loved re-playing Rev B.  I even
re-mapped the dungeon during beta testing, even though I didn't have to.
I thought that playing to make sure I checked every line of text would be a
little monotonous, but it turned out to be cool to see all the funny text you
have to work a little (or time it just right) to see.

Rev A:

I was nearby, so I initially got roped into working on this.  Once I started
playing it, I really liked it, though.  I know we spent a TON of time trying to
make the story actually make sense.  I thought we did finally make it work,
just barely.  

(13)--------------------- Project Timeline Highlights -------------------------

Jan  9 2004 - Text Dumped
Feb  2 2004 - Text indexes added, 000 through 1EF
              Character Name Table Dump Added
Feb  4 2004 - Main Speech PseudoCode disassembler written
Feb 15 2004 - Phone Number Dialing Text Dump Added
Feb 17 2004 - Sound Effects Played Before Text Added
Feb 20 2004 - Bank Switching Code Completed
Feb 23 2004 - Script Inserter Finished, Script sent to shiroi
 [shiroi busy with real life, time passes...]
Aug  7 2004 - Complete Translated Script File sent back to DvD
Aug 12 2004 - 1st Script Inserted DvD
Sep 17 2004 - Hacking done!! (Name) extra space problem fixed!!
Early  2005 - Finally finished determining when every Speech PC gets called
              from Main Code, Menu PC, or from other Speech PC
Feb  9 2005 - Finished analysis of in game variables not related to text,
              started matching up all speech to speech PC to define context
Feb 22 2005 - 25% of context is 100% done.
 [DvD busy with real life, time passes...]
June 9 2005 - Context is 100% done, Version 0.5 script inserted,
              this Manual written, DvD can finally alpha test the game!
              shiroi & DvD speak for the first time and edit some of the
              more key pieces of text together
Jun 14 2005 - DvD passed the game, Walkthrough finished,
              Script sent to shiroi for polishing now that she actually
              has the context of all of these phrases
Jul 28 2005 - DvD sends State of Completion doc to shiroi, Editing is 78% done
 [shiroi busy with real life, time passes...]
Nov 24 2005 - shiroi sends back here edits, Editing is 94% done
Dec 14 2005 - Editing is 100% done, Beta script inserted, ready for testing
?    ? 2005 - Version 1.0 script inserted, ready for release
 [various beta testers are unable to get the job done]
Apr  5 2006 - Radical R started beta testing the game
Apr 25 2006 - Radical R passed the game
May  6 2006 - Final Patch Made, Final Testing of Final Patch Begins, new map
              created by DvD
May 19 2006 - Game name changed to PORTOPIA, history of game greatly edited
              in the manual
Jun 16 2006 - History editing done, game released
-------------------------------------------------
Jul  1 2006 - harmony7 contacts DvD
Jul  2 2006 - harmony7 finds html version of manual
Jul  3 2006 - harmony7 starts to retranslate game
Jul  5 2006 - harmony7 sends first tranlsation of the manual
Jul 10 2006 - hap suggests to use mapper 68 for Rev B
Mar 11 2007 - harmony7 script editor
May 10 2009 - harmony7 script editor finalized
Dec 12 2009 - harmony7 finishes script
Mar 28 2010 - Radical R Beta Test Starts
Aug 20 2010 - Radical R Beta Test End
Sep 25 2010 - KlD Beta Test Starts
Sep 28 2010 - KlD Beta Test Starts
Oct  2 2010 - Rev B patch made, just need to finish the ReadMe...
              Radical R comment added
Oct 29 2010 - harmony7 proofread this file, game history edited, harmony7 and
              KlD comments added

(15)------------------ Software Used In This Translation ----------------------

* Emulators

  PC
   - FCEUx     2.1.2
   - FCE Ultra 0.94 (still my favorite version of the orginal FCE Ultra)
      by Bero & xodnizel
   - Nestopia  1.3.7
   - FCEUx     2.0.3
   - RockNES 1.952

  Mac OS X
   - NEStopia 1.2.3
   - RockNES 4.0

* Disassembler

  NES Disassembler v1.0 beta4 - Buggy, the reason I made Table Dumper!
   by Morgan Johansson 

* Table Dumper, PseudoCode Disassembler, Script Inserter

  Table Dumper (many versions!)
   by DvD

* Hex Editors, Script Dumper

  - WindHex 2005.4.20        - Rev B Only
     by Genesyst East Software
  - Thingy Version 0.98      - Rev A Only
     by necrosaro
  - frhed 1.0.156 beta 1
     by Raihan Kibria

* Script Dumper

  Thingy

* Script Editing

  JWPce 1.42
   by Glenn Rosenthal
  Whatever shiroi used!

* Disassembled Code And Table Analysis

  WordPad
   by Microsoft

* Manual Creation

  Notepad
   by Microsoft

* Tile Editor
  
  Tile Layer Pro 1.0
   by Kent Hansen

* Mapper 78 Info

  Mappers.exe
   by ?

* ROM file expander

  NES ROM Expander
   by DvD

* IPS Patch File Creator

  Snes-Tool Version 1.2
   by The M.C.A./Elite

Are you still reading this?  Geesh, this file is bigger than the game...
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