SHERLOCK HOLMES - HAKUSHAKU REIJOU YUUKAI JIKEN
Translation by Filler & Psyklax
v1.1 (20181209)

CONTENTS
1. Intro
2. Version 1.1 Changes
3. ROM Information
4. Background
5. Gameplay
6. Final Thoughts

INTRO
This is a 100% English translation of Sherlock Holmes -
Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken for the Famicom (NES). All
Japanese text has been translated into English, including
passwords. As such, passwords found in walkthroughs will not
work on this translation.

VERSION 1.1 CHANGES
The clue given when inputting the correct password in
Edinburgh had been mistranslated, missing a vital '0'.
Without this correct clue, the final password is almost
impossible to figure out without the spoiler at the bottom
of this file. Therefore, the line was replaced by the
correct one.

ROM INFORMATION
GoodNES name:
Sherlock Holmes - Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken (J) [!].nes
CRC32: 18BF73CC

BACKGROUND
Released on 11 December 1986, Sherlock Holmes is an arcade-
style action game with puzzle elements. It was Towa Chiki's
first Famicom game, but they would go on to release two more
Sherlock Holmes-based games on the Famicom. Unlike those,
which play more like adventure games, this is more like a
platform game. It is not very highly regarded amongst
Japanese players, known as a 'kusoge'.

GAMEPLAY
The game doesn't play like one would assume a Sherlock
Holmes game would play. The object of the game is to defeat
seven bosses in different cities, and input a final password
to access the last level. You also need to get your rating
to 100% before you can complete the game. To find the
bosses, you need to get information from NPCs by attacking
them. The way to get the final password is by finding clues
for your notebook and interpreting them based on information
you receive: the sixteen clues are found by using your
magnifying glass on certain objects. The magnifying glass
and notebook also much be found, along with other items that
are necessary to complete the game.

To travel around the eight cities, Holmes uses the train,
which requires money. Buying medicine, weapon ammunition and
information from the informant also requires money, and the
only way to earn money is by attacking people on the main
map screen. Attacking people in the other sections (park,
sewer, house) adds to your rating, which affects two things:
the information you receive from the informant (every 10%
you increase changes the information), and whether you can
access the final boss.

In order to reach Brandy Castle - the final level - three
conditions must be met: the password must be entered in a
particular city; you must have defeated all seven bosses
(using the passwords they give you is not required to
complete the game); and you must have found all sixteen
clues for your notebook. If all three conditions are met,
and you get the password right, you are sent to Brandy
Castle for the final showdown. Your rating must be at 100%
before you can face the final boss.

FINAL THOUGHTS
 Filler
Sometime around early summer of 2017, Spinner 8 expressed an
interest in working on an English language translation patch
for Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken for the
Famicom. The game happens to be one that falls under
Psyklax's list of early Famicom games in need of
translation, more on that later.

Sherlock Holmes: Hakushaku Reijou Yuukai Jiken, hereafter
referred to as "Sherlock Holmes: the Kidnapped Countess", is
notorious for being a "bad" game due to its unforgiving
difficulty. It ranks as the 4th hardest game, out of the
1560 games on the NES according to GameFAQs rankings.

The script is completely in katakana, which I asked to be
dumped as hiragana. Spinner 8 provided me the all hiragana
script, which I finished on July 20th of 2017, calling it at
the time a "silly project" and mentioned that it was "done
on a whim". I of course approached the script as seriously
as any other project, and relied on a little translation
assistance from DarknessSavior and Eien ni Hen on RHDN's
message board to complete the script.

Spinner 8 contacted me on February 8th of 2018 graciously
admitting that he probably wouldn't finish the project as
things stood and offering to share his work on it. We
released his notes, and the translated script on February
26th in hopes that they would be used by another hacker to
make a translation patch. I decided to post a help wanted ad
on RHDN's forum.

Psyklax noticed the ad and offered to take a look at the
game, and the rest is history. :) I'm happy to say we are
able to offer an English language translation patch for this
frustrating early Famicom title for the first time. Perhaps
with this patch, and maybe a cheat or two, more people will
find a bit of enjoyment in this title which was never
localized in the west. Many thanks to Spinner 8 for his
initial work on this, DarknessSavior and Eien ni Hen for
translation assistance, and Psyklax for completing the
project.

 Psyklax
It's my first ever translation where I didn't do the actual
translating! That certainly saved me a lot of time. It took
me just over a week to get Filler's text into the game, as
well as playtesting to make sure all was well. I did get
into the way the game worked, so that I could write that
section above. It's very reminiscent of Aighina's Prophecy,
which I already translated, because they both involve doing
particular actions in particular places to progress, while
getting information from people about what to do. However,
that game has very helpful clues which tell you exactly what
to do on all but the last level (and it's a fun game),
whereas this is ridiculously vague (and isn't much fun,
either).

Getting inside the code, it's clearly rather poorly
programmed. The speed of the game is dictated entirely by
what NPCs are on-screen, and when you beat a boss, Sherlock
flies along since there's no code to calculate where the
NPCs are. I even found - and fixed - a bug with the
informant: when you pay them, they'll give you some
information depending on your level. You're supposed to have
ten levels, as there are ten sets of dialogues and the
pointer table has ten items - so 0% is level 1, 10% is level
2 and so on. But if you reach 100%, obviously you go to
level 11, so when the game looks for dialogue, it goes past
the end of the pointer table, loading a random bit of text
from somewhere else in the game (in the middle of the
sentence). Naturally I couldn't leave this, so I added a
routine to use the level 10 dialogues if your level is too
high. Of course, if you've reached 100%, you probably won't
be talking to the informant, but whatever, it was an easy
fix.

Despite the game being a bit notorious, I always take
positive things from every hack. In this case, it was the
first time I expanded an NES ROM from 128KB to 256KB, which
on this mapper was amazingly easy. I'd tried to squeeze
Filler's script into the original space with some DTE
compression, but it just was too big, so expansion game me a
lot of freedom. It's certainly something I might consider in
future, if necessary.

All in all, a fun little thing to try, and another early
Famicom title ticked off the list! Happy sleuthing!

Tools I used for this translation:
FCEUX (best NES emulator for debugging and hacking)
HxD (general hex editing)
Tile Molester (graphics)
WindHex32 EX (checking/touching up text)
Pointer Tables (dumping/inserting text)

Filler
http://projects.mattsmessyroom.com/
Psyklax
http://s346165667.websitehome.co.uk/psyktrans/

***** SPOILER *****
Boss Passwords (reversed)
piluT tnuoM spsaW tsurC mrotS sratS enotS
Final Password (initials)
Don't Miss Dancing Little Ducks
